Chapter 10
Chapter
Ten
Confrontation in Belgravia
Our carriage ride passed in brittle, suffocating silence.
Rosalynd held herself with rigid elegance, her spine straight, hands folded neatly in her lap.
Her chin tilted the barest fraction higher every time I glanced her way.
I told myself the sight irritated me, not that it pulled at something deep and unruly inside my chest.
When she realized we were not bound for Grosvenor Square, she stiffened further. “Where are we going?” she asked, voice clipped. “This is not the way home.”
“Belgravia,” I said. “Where we supped only days ago.”
“But—”
“We need to talk, Rosalynd, and we cannot do it at your home or mine.”
Her mouth pressed into a thin line. She turned her face toward the window, where her reflection betrayed her—cheeks flushed, eyes bright with indignation…and hurt.
I looked away first.
The townhouse appeared ahead, discreet and quiet despite the sunlight. My father’s shadow lingered here—secrets, indulgences, sins he had never bothered to conceal. Bringing her to this place felt wrong. Strange, when it was the very same house I had brought her before.
But that had been different, I told myself. A pleasant supper with someone I cared for. We had spoken of my proposed legislation, of her responsibilities at Rosehaven, and laughed at the absurdities of life.
Today there would be no softness. No shared humor. But there was no help for it. We needed privacy for the argument that was bound to come. And this was the only refuge I could offer.
To keep from being seen, I ushered her through the rear entrance. As she brushed past me, her skirts whispered against my legs, and her perfume, that bewitching scent of hers, rose between us. My hands flexed uselessly at my sides.
As I showed her to the drawing room, the air was cool, undisturbed. No servants. No noise. Only the sharpened tension between us.
She took in the neatness, the lack of life. “We are alone.”
“Yes. Staff comes only when needed.”
Her gaze flicked to me again—suspicious, assessing. “Such as our supper?”
I nodded. “But the rest of the time, it sits vacant.”
She absorbed this quietly, her posture loosening the faintest degree. “Ah.” Then, with a flash of her usual wit, “I don’t suppose there are refreshments?”
“No. I didn’t anticipate—” I stopped. My voice sounded strained. “I apologize.”
She lifted a brow. “Well, then, I’ll just—”
“Explain yourself.”
“Any subject in particular?” she asked coolly. “I’ll need more than that.”
“Your behavior.”
“My…behavior.”
The repetition was dangerous. Deliberate.
“You went to Finch with a list of missing women and asked him to investigate—without once thinking of coming to me.”
“I did think of you. Briefly. But I had very little information. I wanted more before I approached you.”
“So after this mission worker told you women were vanishing, you sought out Finch.”
“That is correct.”
“And you traveled alone. In a hackney. To Hatton Garden.”
“Yes.”
“And when he had news, you returned alone again to a district known for thieves and worse.”
A flush rose along her throat. “I was never in any danger, Steele. Finch was but a few steps away, and he escorted me back to the hackney once our business was done.”
Her dismissal snapped something in me.
“You were in danger the entire time.” My voice cracked like a whip.
She flinched, barely a tiny movement. But I felt it.
“The city teems with criminals,” I went on, struggling to leash my temper.
“Men who would not hesitate to rob, abduct, or worse. Those vanished young women, the very ones whose disappearance you’re investigating, were taken from the streets.
Heaven knows where they are now or what has been done to them. ”
I stepped closer and softened my voice. “You are not invincible, Rosalynd.”
Her breath hitched, and, for the first time, her eyes fell. Her shoulders, so proudly set moments before, lowered by a fraction.
The sight gutted me.
I reached out—slowly, giving her time to recoil. She didn’t. My hand cupped her cheek, warm and soft under my palm. Her lashes fluttered. Her breath trembled.
“You cannot continue to put yourself in danger.”
She didn’t look up. Not at first. When she finally met my gaze, emotion shimmered behind her eyes. “It is hard for me to ask for help,” she whispered, her voice wavering. “I am used to doing everything myself. I’ve been that way since I was eighteen.”
I stood motionless, afraid to breathe lest I disrupt her courage.
She turned and put distance between us as if her admission was too painful to do it facing me. “When my parents died,” she continued, “I took on the responsibility of my younger brothers and sisters. There was no one else.”
The truth of it hit with brutal clarity.
“Cosmos should have shouldered that duty,” I said.
She turned back toward me. “My brother was twenty-two, Steele. He’d just inherited a title, an estate, a fortune.
He was drowning in it. And Grandmother…” Her breath shuddered.
“She’d lost her only son. When she disappeared into grief, I handled everything—lessons, meals, nightmares, broken hearts.
” Her voice thinned. “I had no time for my own sorrow. I feared everything would fall apart unless I was in total control. So I learned never to let go. Never to give in to grief.” Her shoulders curled in the slightest, most fragile way.
I could not bear her pain. Without thinking, I pulled her against me.
She gasped softly before her hands lifted instinctively and gripped the front of my coat. Her forehead fell against my chest, and her breath eased. And ever so slowly, the tension in her melted away.
“You can depend on me, you know,” I whispered into her hair. “You must know that.”
She leaned back just enough to look up at me. Her eyes were luminous. Searching. Bare.
I brushed my thumb across her lower lip. The soft give of it, the way her breath hitched, the way her eyes darkened—
Something inside me snapped.
My mouth found hers with the weight of everything I had held back—every fear I’d swallowed, every moment I’d wanted her, every sleepless night spent pretending I did not.
She drew in a quiet breath against me, then rose to meet me, returning the kiss with a softness that undid me.
Her hands slid up my chest, over my shoulders, and came to rest at the back of my neck, not pulling, only holding—as though she feared I might vanish. I breathed out against her lips, a helpless sound caught somewhere between relief and want.
She opened to me at once, trusting, and it nearly brought me to my knees.
She fit against me, warm and unmistakably real, and I lifted a hand to the back of her head, fingers threading gently into her curls as I deepened the kiss—not in urgency, but in awe.
I wanted to gather her close and keep her safe.
I wanted to be worthy of the look in her eyes.
I wanted…far too much.
And the madness of it was, she wanted me too.
When breath finally forced us apart, she didn’t step away. She remained exactly where she was, her fingers still curled into my coat, as though letting go was unthinkable.
“All I ask,” I managed, voice ragged, “is that you take care. If you must go out, take a footman. Or send word. I’ll go with you.”
She glanced up at me. Her lips bruised from our kiss. Her cheeks flushed with her passion. She had never looked more beautiful.
“You’re so busy, Steele — with Parliament, the Lords—”
“None of which matters more than you.” I took her hand, brought it to my lips. Her pulse fluttered wildly beneath my mouth, betraying everything she would not say aloud. “I care for you, Rosalynd, deeply. It would devastate me if anything happened to you.”
Her breath caught audibly. She looked as if she were standing on the edge of something vast and frightening.
“Very well,” she finally whispered. “I promise I will not go out alone. I will take a footman. And I will keep you informed.” Her gaze flicked to my mouth. “Anything else you want of me?”
For a single, reckless heartbeat, the truth rose with brutal clarity.
Give yourself to me.
Not in that room, not in that moment, not in any way that could be spoken aloud—but wholly, willingly, without reservation.
It was the one thing I could never ask of her.
If I did…I would be lost.
“Yes,” I said, common sense asserting itself. “We move forward together. As partners. In every part of this investigation.” It was the only thing I could allow myself to offer her, not the burning need I kept buried.
She held my gaze—brave, wary, stunningly resolute. Then she nodded. “Very well. Together.”
Relief swept through me so sharply it nearly drove me to my knees.
I stepped back, forcing my voice into something that resembled composure.
“I’ll press forward with what I can concerning Lady Honora’s disappearance.
But for the rest, we must wait for Finch.
As soon as he sends word, we’ll follow his leads. ”
“Yes.” She gathered her gloves, though her fingers trembled slightly. But then, with a soft, almost mischievous smile, she said, “Now, please escort me home. I’d like to have my luncheon before my stomach begins to lodge a formal complaint.”
A faint laugh escaped me—the first in what felt like days. I brushed my thumb gently across her cheek. “We would not want that,” I murmured, the tone of my voice huskier than it should be.
As I climbed beside her in the carriage, neither of us spoke. But the silence between us no longer pressed or strained. It was imbued with understanding, with purpose, and with something quieter still—an intimacy neither of us was ready to give a name.
At Rosehaven House, I helped her down. She did not look back as she mounted the steps, but she paused once at the top, her hand tightening on the railing as she gazed back at me.
As she disappeared inside, a thought struck me with merciless clarity.
Rosalynd Rosehaven could easily be the ruin of me.