Chapter 12
“You look like a man who has been dragged through the mud by his own thoughts.”
Wilhelm did not turn his head as Henry lowered himself into the chair opposite, though the familiar weight of his presence was impossible to ignore.
The tavern was low-ceilinged and warm; the sort of place men came to forget themselves.
Wilhelm had come because he could not afford to do so anywhere else.
“I have been dragged through the day,” Wilhelm replied, voice even, his hand still curled around the glass as though the cold rim might keep him anchored.
Henry leaned forward, forearms braced on the table. His gaze was unrestrained with the unembarrassed intimacy of a long friendship. “You’ve always had days, Wilhelm. But you do not always look as though you would like to throw someone through a wall.”
Wilhelm’s jaw tightened. He lifted the glass and took a measured sip, letting the burn settle in his chest. It did not loosen the tension lodged there, but it gave his body something simple to focus upon.
“You exaggerate,” Wilhelm countered, setting the glass down with more care than necessary.
Henry’s mouth curved. “Do I?” He watched him a moment longer, then added, quieter, “It has been years since you came here without a reason you could name. So, tell me, what is it?”
Wilhelm traced one shallow groove with the pad of his thumb without thinking, a small act of control in a place that made him feel too exposed. “My daughter was outside today.”
Henry blinked, his brows lifting as he leaned back a fraction. “Outside?”
“Yes.” Wilhelm did not look at him as he answered, his gaze fixed instead on the dark rim of his glass.
Henry huffed softly, one corner of his mouth twitching as he shifted his weight. “That does not sound like a crisis.”
“It should not be,” Wilhelm replied, keeping his voice carefully even.
He had enjoyed the afternoon more than he cared to admit, and that was precisely the problem.
His shoulders had gone rigid without his consent, his jaw tightening as he hesitated, weighing his words. Henry did not need encouragement. He needed restraint.
“She was outside with the governess,” Wilhelm continued at last, exhaling slowly, as though conceding something he would rather have kept guarded.
Henry’s expression changed at once. The idle amusement drained from his face, replaced by something sharper, more alert. He straightened, eyes flicking briefly to Wilhelm’s hand where it gripped the glass too firmly, then back to his face. Understanding sparked there, quick and unmistakable.
“Ah,” Henry said, softly.
Wilhelm’s gaze snapped up. His eyes narrowed, heat flaring beneath the restraint he wore like armor. “Do not say it like that.”
“Like what?” Henry asked, all innocence, and yet the amusement in his eyes betrayed him. “Like I know what this means?”
“You do not,” Wilhelm said flatly.
Henry tilted his head. “Then why are you drinking as though you are bracing yourself for punishment?”
Wilhelm’s fingers curled around the glass again.
He could still see the snow, bright and thick over the grounds, the way it had softened the world into something almost gentle.
He could still hear Tessa’s laughter, full-bodied and heedless, and he could still feel the shock in his own chest, as though sound itself had reached inside him and pulled at something that had been locked away.
“She makes Tessa happy,” he admitted, voice low.
Henry’s gaze softened for a fraction. “That is good.”
He fell silent for a moment, his eyes fixed somewhere beyond the room. “I should not have let the day go as it did,” he added at last.
Henry studied him. “Because of Tessa?”
Wilhelm shook his head once, drawing a slow breath. “Because of me.”
He had not intended to speak of Madeline tonight.
He had come for distance, for a moment in which he was not surrounded by servants who watched his moods like weather and a child who deserved more than his stiffness.
Yet Henry sat opposite him with the ease of a man who had never been afraid of truth, and Wilhelm found his restraint thinning beneath the weight of his own thoughts.
“She has no guile,” Wilhelm said finally. “She has no fear of appearing… warm. She laughs with Tessa so easily. She speaks to her as though she is a person worth listening to, not a problem to be managed.”
Henry’s mouth tightened, thoughtful. “You are a man who has spent so long denying yourself every small thing that you no longer recognize what you want until it is already lodged beneath your skin.”
Wilhelm’s nostrils flared. He hated how precise that sounded, how neatly Henry’s words pressed against a place he had spent years fortifying.
“You were flirting with her,” Wilhelm said flatly.
Henry blinked, then smiled faintly. “I was being agreeable.”
“You were praising her,” Wilhelm replied, his tone clipped now. “Lingering. Making sport of it.”
Henry’s amusement dimmed, curiosity sharpening in its place.
“She is under my protection,” Wilhelm continued. “And I do not care to hear my governess spoken to as though she were a diversion.”
Henry studied him for a moment. “Is that what troubled you?”
Wilhelm went still. He could have dismissed it with rank, with the cold authority that made men retreat. Instead, he found himself too tired for pretense.
“I did not like it,” he said simply.
Henry’s brows lifted, something like surprise flickering across his face. “You did not like me speaking to her.”
Wilhelm’s jaw tightened. “No.”
A beat passed.
Henry nodded slowly, as though humoring him. “I see. I apologize then. But please tell me you recognize this as jealousy.”
“What? No.”
“Yes, Wilhelm. And you look at her as though you would like to swallow her whole.”
Wilhelm went still. He could have lied, dismissed it with the cold authority that made men retreat. But Henry had known him too long, and Wilhelm was bone-deep tired, in the way that came from years of duty with no softness to temper it.
“I will not ruin her,” Wilhelm said, and the words came out rougher than he intended.
Henry’s amusement faded, replaced by something more serious. “You are already thinking in terms of ruination.”
Wilhelm’s jaw clenched. “Because it is the truth. She is not of my world. She is in my home because I hired her, not because society approves of her being near me. If I touch her as a man touches a woman he wants, she will pay the price, not I.”
Henry watched him a long moment, then said, “And do you want her?”
Wilhelm’s throat tightened. His mind flashed, traitorous, to Madeline in the snow, cheeks flushed, hair loosened by wind, her eyes bright when she looked at him, as though she forgot for one unguarded second that he was dangerous.
He remembered the feel of her gloved hands on his shoulders when she steadied him on the sled, light contact that had struck him like a brand.
He remembered her voice reading to Tessa by the fire, soft and expressive, the way her mouth shaped the words, the way her throat moved when she swallowed, the curve of her neck when she tilted her head to bring a character to life.
Desire settled low in him, not sudden but constant, a pressure he had been carrying since the first time he had seen her and realized that she was not timid. It waited, patient and relentless, like a tide.
“Yes,” Wilhelm admitted quietly.
Henry let out a slow breath. “Then listen to me. You have two choices, and neither of them is pretending you do not feel it.”
Wilhelm’s gaze hardened. “There is only one choice. I do nothing.”
Henry shook his head. “That is not a choice; it is torture. You either take her, or you find another solution.”
Wilhelm’s eyes narrowed. “Take her,” he repeated. “As though she is a bottle of wine one might uncork.”
Henry leaned forward again, his voice sharpening. “Do not twist my words. You are not a careless man, Wilhelm. If you chose her, you would not use her. You would marry her tomorrow if you believed you were permitted to want what you want.”
The statement struck too close. Wilhelm’s chest tightened, and for a moment he felt the shame of recognition, the weight of his own desire made visible.
Henry held up a hand. “But you will not do that. Fine. Then find a wife.”
Wilhelm’s mouth tightened. “I cannot.”
Henry blinked once. “You cannot?” he repeated, as though tasting the words with disbelief. “You can manage an entire duchy, you can face down the most vicious gossips in London when you must, and yet you cannot find yourself a wife.”
Wilhelm’s fingers curled against the table. “It is not that simple.”
“It is,” Henry said bluntly. “You have had no time, yes. You have told yourself for years that you cannot afford a wife because a wife brings complications and expectations.”
Wilhelm did not answer.
Henry’s gaze did not soften. “But you are already vulnerable,” he said. “Because you have let this governess into your home, and she has softened something in you, and now you are walking around like a man haunted.”
Wilhelm’s throat tightened. He wanted to deny it. Yet even now, in a tavern miles from his estate, he could not escape the memory of Madeline’s expression when she looked at him. She had simply held his gaze as though she could see the man beneath the title, and that was its own kind of seduction.
He had not known what to do with it, only that desire did not absolve him of responsibility, and he would not harm her for the sake of it.
“I cannot ruin her,” Wilhelm said again, quieter now, as though repetition might turn it into truth solid enough to stand upon.
Henry nodded once, conceding that point. “Then you must distract yourself.”
Wilhelm’s gaze flicked up, cold. “With a wife?”
“With a wife,” Henry confirmed. “Because you need something respectable to occupy you, that will stop you from looking at Madeline as though you are starving. And do not look at me like that.”