Chapter 31
Thirty-One
Eliza looked at August’s outstretched hand.
The gesture was simple, almost ordinary, but her heart responded as though he had offered her something far more precious.
“I would like that,” she said, the words emerging softer than she intended.
She meant it. The realization surprised her, settling somewhere deep in her chest where the hurt still lingered but no longer consumed everything else.
August’s head came up sharply. Something passed across his features—surprise, unmistakable and unguarded—before transforming into a smile that reached his eyes.
She had forgotten what that looked like.
Since his father’s death, his smiles had been careful things, constructed for the benefit of others, never quite touching the shadows that had taken up residence in his gaze.
This smile was different. Real.
She placed her hand in his. His palm was warm against hers, and the contact sent heat traveling up her arm and spreading through her chest. He closed his fingers around hers, gentle but secure, and drew her toward the door.
The hallway outside his study was mercifully empty. No lingering servants, no well-meaning sisters appearing at inopportune moments. Just the two of them and the late afternoon light slanting through the windows, painting everything gold.
They walked in silence to the terrace doors. August pushed them open with his free hand, never releasing her, and the garden air rushed in to meet them. It carried the scent of roses and fresh-cut grass and something green and alive that made her lungs expand more fully than they had in days.
She watched his shoulders drop as they stepped outside. Not dramatically—August was too controlled for that—but enough that she noticed. The rigid set of his spine eased. The tension that had been pulling him tight as a bowstring since the argument seemed to loosen its grip, if only slightly.
The garden does this to him. Or perhaps it is simply being away from the walls and expectations and endless responsibilities.
They descended the terrace steps together.
The gravel path crunched beneath their feet, and she became acutely aware of every small point of contact between them.
His thumb rested against the side of her hand.
His arm brushed hers as they walked. He matched his stride to hers without seeming to think about it, the way one might adjust to a dance partner.
The silence stretched, but it was not uncomfortable. It felt as though they were both testing whether they could exist together in this space without words to fill the gaps or smooth the rough edges.
“You visited the orphanage this morning,” August said finally.
She glanced at him. His tone was careful, interested but not pressing. As though he genuinely wished to know rather than simply making conversation.
“I did. Mrs. Everett was grateful for the new supplies. The children have been using the slates constantly.”
“I am glad to hear it.” He paused, then added, “Was it a good visit?”
The question was simple, but something about the way he asked it—tentative, almost shy—made her chest tighten.
“It was,” she said. “Though I nearly did not make it out the door. One of the younger boys, Timothy, decided I could not possibly leave without hearing about the frog he had found in the garden. He provided a very thorough description. I now know more about amphibian anatomy than I ever thought necessary.”
August’s mouth curved. “Did he attempt to show you the actual frog?”
“He did. Mrs. Everett intervened before it could be produced from his pocket, thank heavens.”
“A wise woman.”
They turned onto the path that led toward the formal gardens. The hedges rose on either side, perfectly trimmed, and ahead she could see the entrance to the rose garden with its climbing blooms.
“There was another boy,” she said. “William. He is seven and has only recently arrived at the orphanage. His mother died last month.”
August’s hand tightened around hers. “Poor child.”
“He has been struggling with his letters. The other children pick up their lessons quickly, but William stares at the page as though the words are hiding from him.” She smiled at the memory.
“Today, he managed to read an entire sentence without assistance. Just one sentence, but he was so proud. When I praised him, he reached into his pocket and produced a sweet. A peppermint, slightly sticky and covered in lint.”
“Did you accept it?”
“How could I not? He held it out with such solemnity, as though he were offering me the Crown Jewels. He said—” Her throat went tight, and she had to swallow before continuing. “He said it was payment for the lesson. That his mother always told him to pay his debts.”
She had not expected August to laugh. The sound burst out of him, warm and genuine and so unexpected that she stopped walking and turned to stare.
He was grinning. Not the polite smile he wore for drawing rooms, not the careful expression he maintained for his steward or the solicitor. This was unguarded delight, crinkling the corners of his eyes and softening every line of his face.
He looks years younger, she thought. He looks like himself.
“I hope you ate the peppermint,” he said.
“I did. In front of him, so he would know I valued his payment. It was possibly the worst peppermint I have ever consumed, but I made appropriate noises of appreciation.”
“You are extraordinary.”
The words were quiet, almost throwaway, but they struck something deep inside her chest. She looked down at the path, at their joined hands, at anywhere except his face because if she looked at him now, she might do something foolish like cry or kiss him or demand to know why he had ever doubted her in the first place.
They resumed walking. The rose garden loomed ahead, and as they passed beneath the archway of climbing white blooms, the scent wrapped around them. Sweet and heady and almost overwhelming in its intensity.
August stopped. She stopped with him, and for a moment they simply stood there, surrounded by roses and afternoon light and the distant sound of birds in the trees beyond the garden wall.
He turned to face her fully. With his free hand, he reached for her other hand so that he held both of hers between them.
His thumb brushed across her knuckles. Back and forth, a gentle rhythm that sent warmth spreading up her arms and into her chest. She could feel her pulse jumping beneath her skin, could feel the way her breathing had gone shallow.
“I should have trusted you,” he said.
His voice was low, pitched for her alone, and the sincerity in it made her throat ache.
“August—”
“No, please. Let me say this.” His thumb continued its path across her knuckles.
“I know what kind of woman you are. I have always known. You are honest even when honesty costs you. You are kind without expecting anything in return. You give your time and resources to children who have no claim on you simply because they need help and you are capable of providing it.”
She wanted to look away, but his eyes held hers, dark and intent.
“You have never been anything but truthful with me. And I repaid that by believing the worst. By allowing my own fears and insecurities to poison what was growing between us.” He drew a breath.
“I am sorry. Truly, deeply sorry. And I will spend however long it takes proving to you that you can trust me. That I am worthy of you.”
The words settled over her like a weight. She had wanted an apology, had needed one, but now that she had it, she did not know what to do with the feelings rising in her chest. Relief and warmth and something that felt dangerously close to hope.
“You are worthy,” she said.
“I have not felt that way. Not in a very long time.” His hands tightened around hers. “But when I am with you, I begin to believe I might be.”
Before she could formulate a response, he raised her hand to his lips.
The kiss he pressed there was gentle, reverent, his mouth warm against her skin.
The contact lasted only a moment, but it branded itself into her memory with startling clarity.
The softness of his lips. The way his breath ghosted across her knuckles.
The look in his eyes when he lowered her hand but did not release it.
The moment stretched between them, thick with possibility. Her heart was doing complicated things in her chest, racing and stumbling and threatening to break free entirely. She searched his face, looking for answers to questions she did not dare voice.
How many times will we do this? How many times will we come so close to something real, only to have it slip away?
His gaze dropped to her mouth. She watched him watching her, saw the want written plainly across his features. He was going to kiss her. She knew it with the same certainty she knew her own name.
She wanted him to. Wanted it with an intensity that frightened her.
“Your Grace!”
The voice shattered the moment as effectively as a stone through glass. August’s head snapped toward the sound, his body going rigid.
A steward hurried across the lawn, his stride announcing trouble before he had even opened his mouth. His face was flushed, and he clutched a leather folder against his chest.
“Your Grace,” he called again as he approached. “Forgive the interruption, but the solicitor has arrived. He says it is urgent. Papers regarding the northern properties that require your immediate attention.”
August’s expression clouded. The warmth that had softened his features moments before hardened back into something more controlled, more ducal. She watched the transformation with a sinking feeling in her stomach.
Of course. Of course, something would interrupt.
He squeezed her hand once, hard enough that she felt the pressure of his signet ring against her fingers. Then he released her, and the loss of contact felt like a physical thing.
“I must attend to this,” he said, already turning toward the steward. He looked back at her, and something in his expression made her chest ache. Regret, frustration, resignation—all of it written plainly across his face. “Perhaps we could continue our walk tomorrow?”
She nodded. What else could she do? He was a duke. He had responsibilities that could not wait simply because his wife wished to spend more time standing in a rose garden.
“Tomorrow,” she managed.
He held her gaze for another heartbeat then strode away across the lawn.
The steward fell into step beside him, already launching into an explanation she could not hear.
She watched August’s shoulders straighten, watched him become the Duke of Wildmoore again rather than simply August, the man who had kissed her hand and looked at her as though she were something precious.
Eliza looked down at her hand. The one he had kissed. She could still feel the ghost of his lips against her skin, could still see the expression on his face when he had raised her hand to his mouth.
How many times would they find each other, only to be pulled apart by duty or obligation or the hundred small demands that came with being a duke and duchess? How many moments would be interrupted, how many conversations left unfinished, how many kisses never quite given?