Chapter 14
T he ride back to Huxley Manor felt shorter than the ride out and far more difficult to bear.
Theodore sat in sullen silence between them, muddy at the hem and stiff, all while trying his best to pretend like he had not frightened half the household.
Emily kept close on his other side, while Adam said little.
There was enough relief in the very fact of the boy’s presence to make speech unnecessary for a time.
By the time they reached the house, lamps had been lit in the hall, and the servants were waiting in a state of strained composure that vanished the instant Theodore stepped through the door.
Mrs. Fenwick pressed a hand to her chest, while a footman exhaled as if he had been holding in his breath for an hour. Somewhere further back, Harriet’s voice rose in bright alarm and relief before another servant caught her and kept her from launching herself at her brother.
Adam took Theodore by the shoulder and turned him toward the stairs before the moment could become either chaos or shame.
“You will go up now,” he said. “You will change, wash, and get into bed. We will speak in the morning.”
Theodore’s jaw tightened. “I know.”
“I imagine you do.”
The boy glanced once toward Harriet, who was struggling against the maid holding her, then toward Emily, and finally up at Adam. There was apology in his eyes, and embarrassment, and something else Adam was too tired and overwhelmed to decipher. He kept his hand where it was anyway.
“You are home, Brother,” he murmured. “For now, that is all that matters.”
That landed where he meant it to. Or at least where he hoped it did.
Theodore lowered his eyes first. “Yes.”
“Good. Then go upstairs before your sister starts wailing in earnest.”
That caused the smallest shift in the boy’s expression. He gave one brief nod and left. Only when he had disappeared from sight did Adam let himself look elsewhere.
Emily stood near the foot of the stairs with her hair still loose and the night’s strain visible in the tired set of her shoulders.
She had come back with him through dark streets, through danger, through a room full of drunk men and rough laughter, and she had done what he had not.
She had found Theodore where he was most frightened and reached him without making him feel small.
Adam had watched it happen.
That knowledge sat in him too deeply to be mistaken for mere appreciation. Gratitude was there, yes, but so was admiration. Emily had not only helped him. She had also stepped into the life of his house and filled the space as the Duchess, just as she was supposed to.
Harriet tore free of the maid at last and hurled herself at Emily. “You found him!”
Emily bent at once, gathering the child with tired laughter and a gentleness that made something in Adam’s chest tighten for reasons he did not care to examine at the moment.
Mrs. Fenwick began murmuring about warm milk, bed, and all the other ordinary remedies by which houses reassured themselves after fear. The servants moved, and soon enough, Harriet was led off, still talking.
The disorder of the night faded slowly and with practical degrees.
Emily looked up then, as if the movement reminded her that she did not need to remain in the hall forever. She took one small step back.
Adam heard himself before he had fully formed the thought. “Why don’t you join me in the ballroom, Duchess ?”
The words stopped her.
They stopped him too, though he kept his face still enough that no one around them would have noticed.
Emily’s eyes bored into his. The hall, already thinning into servants and silence, seemed to narrow around that look. She did not question him. She only raised her head once, very slightly, and then lowered it.
“As you wish.”
Adam turned before he could reconsider the invitation and led the way through the quieter part of the house. The hallways were dimmer now as the fires had burned lower. The whole house felt steeped in the strange stillness that had followed Theodore’s disappearance.
Emily’s footfalls followed behind him, light and steady. She was so close behind that he grew too aware of her.
By the time he pushed open the ballroom doors, the room stood in pale and exhausted grandeur. The candles burned halfway down in the sconces, and the polished floor reflected the last of the light.
The great space had been emptied of music and company, and therefore looked far more intimate than it had any right to be. Adam briefly remembered when it had once held a wedding breakfast, dancers, witnesses—the whole ton . Now, it held only him and his wife.
Emily came in and stopped a few feet away.
Adam turned to face her.
For a moment, he simply looked. There was no public excuse to hide behind now. She looked tired from the ride, from the fear, from the whole impossible night. She also looked alive in a way that made the ballroom and its silence feel dangerous.
“I wanted to thank you,” he began.
Emily’s expression changed just a little, slightly less guarded now. “For Theodore?”
“Yes.” He moved one step closer. “Whatever you said to him mattered.”
The room seemed to draw itself around the admission.
As he said it, Adam heard what it contained.
It was not merely gratitude. It held recognition as well and acknowledgment that she had reached the boy where he had not.
Acknowledgment that she had become part of his household in something that mere ceremony or title could not explain.
Emily held his gaze. “How?”
The word struck him with such absurd force that he blinked in response. “What?”
She narrowed her eyes at him. “How exactly do you wish to thank me?”
“Emily—”
“I mean, you bring me to this part of the house at this hour. You must forgive my curiosity.”
Adam swallowed and realized at that moment that he was just as lost as she was.
On its face, her question was simple. How did he mean to thank her?
How had her words mattered? What exactly was he offering in this room, at this hour, after Whitechapel and the kiss and all the retreat that had followed every previous moment of closeness?
Adam heard all of that in her question.
He crossed the remaining distance between them, realizing he no longer had an excuse. “How about a dance?”
The hesitation on her face was clearer than anything.“Adam?—”
“Come on. Dance with me.”
She did not answer at once, and he saw her pulse flutter in her throat. Then, very slowly, she placed her hand in his. The contact alone was enough to turn the room—turn him into something unstable.
He drew her to the center of the floor and put one hand on her waist. The gesture might have passed for civility in public, but here, he knew it felt more intimate, especially between them. There was no music, but they moved anyway.
The silence made things worse.There was no orchestra to hide his heavy breathing or a crowd to divide his attention. There was only the sweep of the empty ballroom, the soft whisper of fabric, and the fact that Emily was in his arms.
Adam drew her further into the empty ballroom and felt the mistake of doing so almost at once.
The room was somehow too large and too private at the same time.
Whitechapel still clung to him, the ride back, Theodore’s face, Emily’s hand on the boy’s arm, the way she had brought him home without stripping him of what little pride he still possessed.
Now, they stood alone in a space built for polished spectacle, and Adam could no longer pretend the two things were separate.
Emily moved with him without resistance.
There was no music. All that could be heard was the faint scrape of their shoes across the floor and the silence that surrounded them.
The house had settled for the night, though a bit later than usual today.
His hand rested on her waist, and hers rested on his shoulder.
The position ought to have felt formal. It did not. Her body was too near and her face too familiar.
Tonight had tied her to his household in a way he could not dismiss. She was not only the woman he wanted. She was the woman who had gone after his brother, found him, and brought him safely back to the house.
Somehow, someway, that made wanting her worse.
“Lovely evening, don’t you think?”
Emily looked up at him. “No.”
Adam raised an eyebrow. “I imagined you would enjoy something this fascinating.”
Emily scoffed. “You did not call me here to talk about the evening.”
Adam released her and watched her twirl before she returned to him. “Oh? And what, pray tell, do you think I called you to talk about?”
Emily laughed, the color in her face loosening the last shred of his self-control. “You tell me, Duke .”
He didn’t know when he lowered his head and kissed her. All he knew was that his lips were on hers and that he was too helpless to stop. He had meant to keep it brief, almost to pass it for gratitude, but the moment her mouth opened under his, that intention was gone.
She kissed him back with no sign of shyness, only recognition and the same dangerous honesty that had made the kiss in the pub unbearable. His hand tightened on her waist as the kiss deepened. Nothing in him was built to stop it once it began.
Emily made a soft sound that surged through him like heat, and he turned with her instinctively, pressing her back toward the edge of the ballroom where the candlelight grew dim and the emptiness felt less exposed.
Her hands rose, one to his shoulder and one briefly to the back of his neck. He kissed her again, slower once, then harder when she responded to him with the same hunger.
His palm slid down the line of her back and then lower, and he felt the shiver that ran through her and knew he could stop.
He should stop.
Instead, he bent his head and kissed the spot beneath her ear, then the column of her throat, then returned to her mouth when her fingers curled against him.