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She set her hand down. “She is going to encounter a frog at some point,” she said.

“Of course she is.” He reached for the syllabub. “In three weeks, when she has read everything available on European freshwater amphibians, she will want to go back and identify every species in the reeds by sight. I will be expected to stand in the water with her and confirm them.”

“I’ll come,” Juliet said, without thinking, and he blinked back at her, his head tilting slightly in askance. “To the reeds,” she said. “For the frog identification. If you’ll have me.”

He held her gaze across the low lamplight and the small dish of syllabub between them. “Yes,” he said. “I’ll have you.”

Neither of them acknowledged the innuendo that sat between them at his words, even though both their faces were cherry red.

He had known the evening was going to cost him something before she came down the stairs.

He had known it standing at the lake, watching her hold Eloise’s head up as the girl worked out the relationship between her lungs and the water, Juliet’s arms steady and her voice entirely patient, her shirt going translucent across her back where she’d misjudged a wave of his making.

He had known it when she’d gathered Eloise’s shoes from the bank and followed them up to the house without being asked, as though the question of what came next had been settled between them at some point he hadn’t noticed.

He was in the habit of noticing things, but he had apparently missed this one.

Now, he watched her eat, and she did so without concern for how she appeared, which for some reason, made him want to pull her to himself and kiss her senseless. Adam was certain he had long since lost his mind when it came to his wife. He failed to see how watching her break bread with her hand and swallow soup incited his beastly desires…

Well, that was rather untrue. He did see how that came to be, considering how intently he was watching her mouth. He realized he was envious of some piece of cutlery for how easily she assailed it with her tongue.

Goodness, man, you’ve lost your marbles!

He had expected, when he had agreed to this marriage, to manage someone the way one manages a household, an arrangement, or anything entered with clear terms and good faith on both sides.

He had not expected her to sit in rooms the way she sat when no one was watching, or to know instinctively how to stand beside him at the bank of a lake and say nothing useful while he did something he was not certain he could do.

He was not managing her, but…he did not know what he was doing.

And there was the other part of it: Eloise. Now, with how close she was to his daughter, Adam feared that should anything go wrong, Eloise would lose two mothers.

He told her about the Lincolnshire lane. When he finished, neither of them spoke immediately, and the fire put its warmth across the room between them, and then he said:

“I don’t generally speak like this.” He turned his glass. “Not to anyone.”

She set her claret down, and waited.

“I find it…” He trailed off, then started again. “It comes more easily here. With you. The fact of that is…” He looked at the fire, and swallowed hard. “Alarming is the word.”

Juliet’s lips curved, but her smile was not amused or content. He did not know what to make of it, truly. “I hope you mean that…positively.” She said, and he blinked.

Did he? Well…there was a positive to the alarm, that was certain. It made him want to be with her more, to seek her out more…but it also reminded him of how much more he had to lose.

“I do. I do, but…” He trailed off again, unsure of how to put it into words. If it even deserved to be spoken at all. What was he doing, saying these things to her like this? What exactly was this even accomplishing right now?

And Juliet was still watching him.

“You said you would come,” he said, deciding to pivot. “For the frog identification next month. As though there was no question of where you would be.”

Or was he really pivoting? Even now, he didn’t know anymore.

Juliet’s head tilted, confusion marring her brows. “I will,” she said. “Is there anywhere you would rather I’d be?”

No. He wanted her to stay right by his side.

And that was it. He was afraid of losing precisely this…afraid he would do it himself.

Charlotte had told him they never truly belonged together, and she had been right. He was a man who did not belong with people in the ordinary way. He had told his new wife on their wedding night that they would lead separate lives, and he had meant it; then he no longer meant it, and the distance between those two positions measured how much trouble he was in.