Page 100

Those words brought a smile to Juliet’s lips. “Yes,” She said. “I am.”

Eloise examined her face for another moment, apparently satisfied with what she found, because she turned and went inside.

Juliet sat on the edge of the bed while the girl settled, smoothed the coverlet, and pressed her lips to the top of Eloise’s head without rushing it. She sat a while longer with her hand resting lightly on the coverlet, watching the even rise and fall of the child’s breathing, until she was entirely certain the child had fallen completely asleep.

Then she leaned down and pressed a kiss to her forehead, thanking the heavens she’d come back safe and sound.

She came out to find Adam already in the corridor, coat off, his hands cleaned of the blood from his knuckles. He moved past her to the doorway and looked in. She watched his face go from the carefully held blankness he wore in company to what lived underneath: exhausted, and very open.

He leaned in and pressed his mouth to Eloise’s forehead, staying far longer than he usually would…but Juliet knew he, too, had been shaken by the events of the last few hours.

After a while, he finally came out, drawing the door closed with both hands so that it didn’t make a sound.

Miss Green was waiting at the end of the corridor. She had been there for some time, looking rather disheveled, the skin around her eyes red at the edges, her hands folded in front of her skirt. She looked from Adam to Juliet and drew breath to speak, but nothing came out.

“Miss Green.” Adam’s voice was quiet, but it held no accusation. “What happened tonight was arranged long before this evening. Penhurst had planned it for weeks. Nothing you did, or did not do, would have changed his intentions.”

The governess’s breath caught audibly.

“Go to bed,” he said. “Sleep in tomorrow. Eloise will have her lessons in the afternoon, if she wants them, which I suspect she won’t.”

Juliet touched the woman’s arm as she passed. Miss Green placed her hand over Juliet’s and held it, the gesture saying all that her voice could not.

Soon, they were standing alone in the corridor, and the awkwardness descended without warning, enveloping them both. Well, the awkwardness and tiredness to boot, so Juliet drew up.

“Well…good night, Your Grace…” she started to say, but Adam lurched forward, as if to stop her from moving an inch.

“I—I need to speak with you,” Adam said. “Please.”

The plea in his voice made her pause. Was he ready to talk now? Because she’d been nearly killed? Well, she supposed surviving such a harrowing ordeal would do that to anybody.

Juliet sighed and nodded. “Come in, then.” She opened her bedroom door.

She saw him swallow hard before stepping through the doorway. Juliet didn’t know if she was doing the right thing, allowing him back inside her room…the very place where he’d made love to her, and revealed his deepest secrets, only to wake up one day and decide that it was too much. But…he had saved her life. So, she could at least hear him out.

Her heart beat steadily against her breast as Juliet sat in the chair near the fire, her hands in her lap, and waited. That was when Adam turned.

“I was wrong,” he said, not bothering to beat about the bush. He came away from the window and stopped in the center of the room, his hands at his sides. “About you.”

When she looked at him, she saw his stricken expression, and he did not look away from her, either.

“I—I told you we had become too comfortable. I told you to remember why we married.” He paused, sucking in a sharp breath. “But I…I said it because I was afraid, and I dressed that fear up as good sense, and it wasn’t.”

Juliet looked directly at him. “Of what?”

“After Charlotte died,” he said, “I took everything I had left, and I put it into Eloise. I told myself that was what a father did. That it was responsible.” He let out a slow breath. “I also told myself that keeping people at a distance was the reasonable position. That it was the only way to avoid making the same mistake twice.”

“What mistake?” she asked, crossing her arms over her chest.

Chapter Twenty-Five

“Letting someone in and then not knowing how to hold them,” Adam answered. “Charlotte and I were never close. I accepted that. I told myself the failure of our marriage was circumstantial, just two people who had never chosen each other, doing their best in the wrong arrangement. And I still believed it when you came to my door.” He stopped. “I stopped believing it at some point…but I cannot tell you exactly when.”

Juliet looked at her hands.

“I was afraid,” he said. “That is the honest account of it. Not of you, specifically. Of losing you. Of being what I am: closed off and blunt and more comfortable in an account ledger than a conversation, and watching you eventually realize it wasn’t enough.” He moved to her, stopping in front of the chair, and she had to tilt her head back to hold his gaze. “So I pushed you away, thinking I could control when I lost you rather than let it happen on its own terms. Which was not sense. It was⁠—”

“Cowardice,” she said, and Adam’s eyes snapped to hers, wonder shining in them.