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Reaching out before he could reconsider, he briefly cupped her chin, lifting her gaze to his. Her eyes caught the light, luminous and searching. He released her at once.

“I am sorry, mia bella,” he said quietly. “The … kiss was delightful, but it is inappropriate for me to take advantage of you so.”

“I enjoyed it very much,” she confessed in a husky voice.

“As did I. But I plan to return to Italy and you deserve a respectful courtship, which I cannot give you.”

“Why not?” she asked. “We care for one another, and … I could go to Italy.”

Marco shut his eyes, drawing in her cinnamon scent and seeking an answer that would not hurt her any further.

“You do not truly wish for this, Molly. I am only a tutor, a bear leader. You are a well-connected lady of this house. You must seek a man whose future is not so uncertain.”

“But I want you.”

“And I am greatly honored,” he said gravely. “But it does not make this right. I do not desire this title or these obligations, yet they are bound to me all the same. This is your home. Our … affinity … must end, and I regret my part in encouraging it.”

Molly stepped back, her composure faltering as she put distance between them. “The title cannot simply be set aside,” she said quietly. “Simon told you so. You may choose when to face it, but face it you must.”

“I do not yet know what I shall do,” Marco replied. “And until I do, it would be unjust to give you expectations I cannot fulfill. There is danger in this house still, and I have already behaved without sufficient care.” He winced. Once again, he had turned something precious into an apology.

What was he to do? A title he had never sought. A threat he could not yet name. And a woman whose courage and warmth unsettled him in ways he had not anticipated. It felt as though he had stumbled into a trial of the soul, unprepared and ill-equipped, and could see no clean path forward.

“You are a captivating young woman, but you must forget what has passed between us. It cannot be repeated.” With that, he withdrew from the room with what dignity he could summon after having wounded her by his own lack of care. He might have handled it with greater finesse, but his thoughts were in such disarray that he could not see a cleaner course. There was no straight path before him. Only a tangle of duty, danger, and conscience. And he had no clear notion of how to reconcile his obligations to the Blackwood title with the life he had intended to lead.

He had resisted coming to England from the outset, and now his instinct to remain away seemed justified.

Madeline’s advice had been terrible! Encouraging her to speak from her heart? All she had done was ruin the enjoyable understanding between them by rushing to talk of commitment. They had only met the day before. What had she been thinking? That a single glorious kiss, the first she had ever received, was going to make a sophisticated gentleman of Florence fall head over heels with a gently bred, almost-spinster from the English countryside?

There was no doubt she was an idiot of magnificent proportions!

Stuff, stuff, stuff, stuff!

She wished to howl her frustration at the heavens, but that would hardly help. Instead, she kicked a doorframe with her slippered foot so she could vent her frustration without drawing any curious ears from servants who might be on duty, then hissed softly at the resulting pain. Pain which proved she truly was an idiot!

If she were honest, Madeline’s advice had been to spend time with her gentleman and allow things to take their course. But they had both been surprised when he had entered the library, so the discussion had been anything but natural.

She had promised herself not to get her hopes up about a match, knowing from their meeting with Simon that Marco had no intention of remaining in England, so she should have enjoyed their flirtation as a welcome respite from her mourning and boredom. Instead, she had spoken to her friend this morning about contriving a courtship. What had she thought? That she would provide the enticement the gentleman needed to decide his place was here as the future heir to the Blackwood title? Apparently, she had exaggerated notions of her personal charms. It was mortifying to discover she was more like her irritating chaperon than she would care to admit.

Walking back over to the chair where she had been reading, Molly flopped down to stare at the ceiling. Their kiss had been sublime. She could still recall the firm warmth of him, the way his nearness had stolen her breath, and the faint trace of his shaving soap that seemed to linger in the room. Following him across the room had been a bid to solicit a second kiss.

Like a clinging wallflower.

She had lost all semblance of common sense to pursue him so. A woman was meant to be alluring. To allow the man to chase her. Her only justification was that she could feel the magnetic pull between them, and she wished to prod it along, but her efforts were clumsy at best.

“But I am not willing to give up,” she whispered into the night. Despite his reservations, Marco made her feel beautiful, and his interest in her was obvious. And some of her efforts had worked out, after all. She had contrived to get them alone and been rewarded with a memorable kiss. And their botched interaction here in the library had caught them both off guard. Perhaps patience was in order. Marco had declared he was struggling with the unanticipated demands, and being stalked by a killer had to be unsettling. She had had time to assimilate all the violent events in this house, while he had just arrived to be greeted by not one, but two potentially lethal incidents, and he had been in England less than two days!

Her optimism trickled back. There was still a possibility that Marco could remain in England, and all signs were that he did find her appealing. Perhaps the kiss had set them off balance, and she merely needed to return to her plan to learn more about him. To allow familiarity, and trust, to grow at its own pace.

Soothed, she rose to her feet, taking up her oil lamp and her book to return to her chambers.

She grimaced. Her and Miss Dubois’s chambers now. Her chaperon had had her own room in the servants’ quarters, but since her promotion a few days earlier, she had moved in to Molly’s drawing room.

Which made Molly feel like a child with a nursemaid. A nasty, niggling nursemaid who compared her unfavorably to a violent murderess at every opportunity.

To be fair, Miss Dubois does not know the baroness was a killer. At least, I do not think she knows that.

Molly reached her rooms, turning the handle to Miss Dubois’s room as quietly as she could to swing the door open, only to find the French poodle sitting up in her bed. Her companion pushed the curling hair from her face, rubbing bleary eyes. “Where ’ave you been?”

“I could not sleep, so I went to fetch a book.” One advantage she had ferreted out from this unwanted partnership was that Claudette Dubois was a heavy sleeper. It was unusual for her to awaken in the middle of the night.

“You must ah-waken me to … accompagne?”

“Accompany.”

The poodle nodded. “Oui, I must accompany you. Lady Blackwood was a weedow, so zis sort of zing was not necessary.” Miss Dubois waved at her new bedroom with disdain, making her feelings about the arrangement clear.

“Ah, but as a widow, she did not require a companion. Are you not pleased with your promotion to paid companion?”

Miss Dubois’s distaste was palpable at the question. “But a lady’z maid to a baronezz!”

“That is true,” Molly replied in a sympathetic tone that she did not feel in the least. Poor Miss Dubois! The horrors of her descent, from serving an elegant viper like Lady Blackwood to being promoted to serve unfashionable Molly from the country. The sheer tragedy of it all!

Molly decided she had had enough. Smiling pleasantly, she bade her chaperon to return to sleep with an assurance she would remain in her bedchamber. Fortunately, she had the book to keep her company or she would toss all night thinking about the memory of that kiss she had shared with Marco earlier that day, and how thoroughly it had unsettled her composure. If only she could ignore the noise emitted by her sleeping watchdog in the next room.