Page 59

“I know.”

“People are watching.”

“Let them.”

She did not answer. She did not hold herself apart again either, and when he took her back to her chair, her hand stayed in his a moment longer than it needed to, and her fingers pressed his once before she let go.

For the rest of the evening he remained aware of her wherever she was. Near the pianoforte she turned toward him of her own accord, and he went to her without inventing a reason, and when the music ended, she suggested they go home.

Rain had started falling while they were inside. It drummed on the carriage roof and ran down the windows, and the lamps outside threw a dim, shifting gold through the glass. Lydia sat beside him with her cloak drawn close. At the first bend her shoulder came against his, and she stayed where she was.

Neither of them spoke. Since the wedding he had found one reason after another to leave her. Now, with the house drawing nearer at every turn of the wheels, he could not bear the thought of saying good night at separate doors.

Halfway home, her hand moved on the seat between them and found his. She laid her fingers against the back of his hand, lightly, and left them there.

He turned his hand over and laced his fingers through hers and held on, and neither of them said a word for the last four miles.

At Ashcombe a sleepy footman took their wraps, and Tristan sent him to bed. Whitmore had left a single lamp on the hall table. Every door stood shut, and the staircase climbed away into darkness.

Lydia drew off one glove. Its buttons took longer than they ought to have. Tristan put his hat down beside her fan and made no move toward the stairs.

“You have broken the second rule,” she said without looking up.

“I know.”

“Several times.”

“I know.”

She set the glove down. “I do not wish to discover tomorrow that it was all a performance for Lady Ellsworth.”

“It was not.”

She raised her eyes then. In the lamplight her face was pale and set, braced for a blow. “Then what was it?”

He had given charming answers to a great many women. He looked at his wife with one glove off and her chin up and the loose stitch at her wrist, and every one of them left his head.

“I could not stay away from you,” he said. “I have tried for ten days. I cannot do it.”

Her breath went out of her. He saw her throat move.

“You said you did not want this.”

“I said a great many things.” He took a step toward her. “I went to the greenhouse to see you. I went to the study every night so I would not go to your door. I have lain awake listening to you move on the other side of the wall.” He stopped. “Tell me to go to my own room, Lydia, and I will.”

She held his gaze a long moment. Then she stepped nearer and laid her hand flat against his chest, over his heart.

“No,” she said.

He bent to her slowly enough that she could change her mind. She raised her face to meet him.

He touched her cheek and bent to kiss her. She caught the front of his coat, drawing him closer, and the last of his careful composure gave way. Nothing ceremonial remained. Her mouth opened under his, warm and willing, and a sound rose low in his throat. He pulled her against him by the waist, and the space he had guarded for ten days was gone, her body fitted to his from breast to knee as in the waltz, with no end of a turn to make him let her go.

Her fingers found the hair at the back of his neck. His hand moved up her back along the line of her bodice until his palm lay between her shoulder blades and he could feel the small knobs of her spine through the silk. He kissed the corner of her mouth, her jaw, the place below her ear where her pulse leapt under his lips. She made a small sound, and her fingers tightened in his hair.

“Tristan.” This time his name carried no warning.

He lifted his head. His hand had come around her side, the heel of his palm at her ribs, his thumb against the edge of her bodice, and the silk was thin enough that he felt the quick rise of her breath beneath it. He did not move again without looking at her.