Chapter One
The rain spattered against the windows of the London townhouse, tapping like fingernails against the glass. Lady Beatrice Hensley spared it a quick glance, eyeing the glow from the gas lamps outside as it blurred through the raindrops.
“Terrible weather,” she muttered to herself.
Terrible weather to be out in.
Just as her husband was.
She snorted to herself and returned her attention to her sketchpad.
Her fingers were smudged with charcoal, a darkness that crept beneath her nails and into the fine lines of her skin.
She preferred it that way—the evidence of her work marking her physically.
The fireplace crackled and hissed as a log shifted, sending a shower of sparks upward.
Beatrice didn’t flinch. She’d grown all too accustomed to lonely nights curled up on an armchair recently.
The grandfather clock in the corner chimed nine times. Beatrice paused, hand hovering above the paper. Nine o’clock. Edward had been gone since early afternoon, with only a murmured excuse about business matters and he’d yet to return home.
She snorted again. It was always business matters but he would never tell her what these business matters actually were. In fact, her husband rarely told her anything of import.
The debate as to his whereabouts slithered through her mind. Her charcoal snapped between her fingers, and she stared down at the broken piece.
“Blast.”
Her husband, Lord Edward Hensley, Viscount Newham, was a man of habits and routines—breakfast at seven, correspondence until nine, business matters until noon, estate issues after lunch.
But these afternoon disappearances were becoming a pattern of their own.
Three times last week, twice the week before.
Always returning with collar slightly askew, always with that particular smile that didn’t quite reach his eyes.
She had seen that smile before—on another man’s face.
Her father’s.
Beatrice closed her eyes, memories rising unbidden.
Her father returning home late, kissing her mother’s cheek with practiced affection.
The scent of unfamiliar perfume clinging to his coat, which he always removed quickly and handed to the butler.
The way her mother’s eyes would dim, just for a moment, before she composed herself.
It had always followed a pattern. First came the lavish gifts—a new necklace for her mother, a porcelain doll for Beatrice.
Next, the unexplained absences, sometimes for months on end.
And finally, the inevitable return to the family fold, as if nothing had happened all the while declaring how much he loved her mother.
Even as a young girl, Beatrice recognized that the behavior wasn’t right. Now, as a woman, she understood exactly what her father had been doing.
“Never marry a charming man, Beatrice,” her mother had told her once, when she thought Beatrice was asleep. She had been standing at the window, watching the rain—much like tonight—waiting for her husband to return. “They save their best performances for strangers.”
Beatrice had remembered those words on her wedding day, as she looked up at Edward’s solemn face. He wasn’t charming, not in the way her father had been. Edward was serious, thoughtful, his smiles rare but genuine. Or so she had thought.
Six months into their marriage, and the afternoon absences had begun.
And the distance between them had grown. Instead of creating the sort of useful companionship she’d hoped for, they were moving further and further apart. Becoming strangers rather than friends.
She didn’t expect a great love. She’d seen what great love could do.
But she’d expected more than this. When they had met, she thought him handsome. Kind too. There was even a certain spark between them. They danced several times during their courtship and she remembered her stomach swooping when he held her close. But it wasn’t love. Not quite.
The sound of the front door opening cut through her thoughts, followed by the murmur of voices—Edward speaking to their butler. Beatrice’s hand stilled on the paper. She hadn’t expected him so early. These excursions usually kept him out until well past ten.
She quickly set aside her sketch, not wanting him to see what she had drawn. It felt too revealing. Instead, she picked up a book from the side table and opened it to a random page, affecting an air of indifference.
She heard his footsteps in the hallway, then the drawing room door swung open.
Edward stood there, his dark hair slightly disheveled.
Beatrice’s body responded to his presence before her mind could intervene—her pulse quickening, her skin suddenly warm.
She was acutely aware of every detail—the way his white shirt clung to his chest where the rain had seeped past his coat collar, the slight flush on his cheeks from the cold, the intensity of his blue gaze as it found her.
“You’re still awake.”
Beatrice kept her gaze on her book, though the words blurred before her. “It is not so late,” she replied, wishing her throat wasn’t so tight.
Edward removed his coat and handed it to the butler who had followed him in. The older man took it with a bow and retreated, closing the door behind him with a soft click.
“It’s coming down rather heavily,” Edward commented, moving closer to the fire and holding out his hands to the warmth. The flames illuminated his profile, casting half his face in shadow. “I was fortunate to find a hack when I did.”
Beatrice turned a page she hadn’t read. “Fortune favors the prepared, or so they say. Though I imagine being caught in the rain is a small inconvenience compared to the pleasures of the afternoon.”
She hadn’t meant to say it—not like that, with the edge of accusation in her voice.
“Beatrice,” he said, just her name.
She looked up, meeting his gaze with a coolness that belied the traitorous warmth spreading through her chest.
“Yes?” she asked, arching one eyebrow.
Why did he have to be so handsome? Why hadn’t she realized when she married such a man that he would never be solely hers?
Edward was sensible, kind, and cautious. At least so she had thought. Never did she believe she’d be following in her mother’s footsteps of pining for a man who would never be wholly hers.
Yet here she was.
Edward took a step toward her, then another, until he stood beside her chair. A drop of rain fell from his hair onto the open book in her lap, spreading across the page like a tear.
“You’ve been sketching,” he said softly, noticing the charcoal smudges on her fingers.
Beatrice snapped the book shut. “Yes.” She tried to grab the sketchbook but it was too late. He picked it up and flicked it open to the drawing of a young woman.
She closed her eyes briefly and willed him not to look too closely. If he did, he might recognize elements of her in there.
Elements she tried so hard to hide from him.
After a few moments of listening to her own heavy heartbeat, he placed the sketchbook carefully on the side table.
“Miserable evening,” he murmured, moving to the window.
“Indeed.”
Sweet Mary, how she hated this. The stilted words. The polite exchanges that meant nothing. How she longed to scream and rage and bash her fists against his chest and demand to know what he had been doing.
But to do so would give her away. It would let him see her weakness. He’d know then.
He’d know she cared.
“Good evening?” she asked, despite herself.
“Acceptable.” He gestured toward the window. “Would have been better if it wasn’t so grim.”
“Even a torrent of rain cannot stop you from your evening excursions it seems.” She said it with a tight smile.
Edward pivoted and eyed her. She swallowed hard. Whoops. So much for not giving herself away.
“I don’t have much choice, Beatrice. There are many matters to be dealt with.”
“Oh, yes, matters. So many important matters that one must be out at all hours.”
“What are you implying?”
Beatrice couldn’t help herself. She fixed him with a look. “Only that even a woman of limited understanding knows that any business conducted at night cannot be savory.”
“You’re suspicious.”
“For obvious reason.”
Edward stared at her for a few moments as though he truly couldn’t believe she’d uttered such a thing. Such a reaction almost had her believing he was innocent.
“Is that what you believe? That I’ve given you cause for suspicion?”
“Haven’t you?” She set her book firmly on top of the sketchbook. “The unexplained absences, the vague excuses, returning with your clothing askew—”
“My clothing is askew because of the rain and wind,” he interrupted, gesturing toward the window where the storm continued unabated.
“The ‘unexplained absences’ are time spent at my solicitor’s office, dealing with matters that I deemed too tedious to burden you with.
” He ran a hand through his damp hair. “God forbid I should wish to spare you the mundane details of property management.”
Beatrice felt a flicker of doubt but she pushed it down. She’d seen how her father made her mother doubt herself.
She wouldn’t let it happen to her.
“How considerate of you to protect me from such tedium. And yet, I find it curious that these matters can only be addressed in the afternoons and evenings, never the mornings.”
Edward’s jaw tightened as he moved closer. “Whatever I do, whatever I say, you’re determined to find fault.”
“So I am wrong to find fault in your distance?”
“You’re the one who established that distance,” Edward countered, taking another step toward her. “From the moment we exchanged vows, you made it clear that your independence was paramount. That my presence in your life was a necessity to be tolerated, not a partnership to be embraced.”
The accusation stung with its kernel of truth. She hadn’t meant for it to be that way but she couldn’t let him fully in. She’d seen what it did to her mother.
“How convenient to blame me for the failures of our marriage,” she said instead, rising to her feet. “As if your behavior has been beyond reproach.”
“And what exactly is it about my behavior that so offends you?” Edward demanded, his frustration evident in the tightness around his mouth.
“That I leave you in peace during the day, knowing how you value your solitude? That I don’t press you for confidences you clearly have no wish to share?
That I respect the boundaries you’ve established with such determination? ”
“That you treat me like a stranger,” Beatrice burst out, the words escaping before she could contain them. “That you vanish, with no explanation, that you—” She stopped herself before it went too far and she inhaled. “That you do not even know me.”
“I’ve tried to know you, Beatrice. God knows, I have.”
“And now you have given up.”
And likely gone off to get to know someone else. Just the thought made her eyes sting.
“What do you want from me?” Edward asked, now so close she would scarcely need to stretch out her hand to touch him.
His gaze traveled over her face, lingering too low and making her breath catch.
“Nothing at all.”
“I do not believe you. I think you want something more.”
“What is there to be had?”
“Something else perhaps.” His gaze dropped down to her lips again. “Something better. If we would but take the risk.”
“Risk is for those who have nothing to lose,” she replied.
“And what do you stand to lose, Beatrice?” he asked, his voice low and intense.
His proximity was overwhelming, his scent enveloping her, his gaze holding hers with an intensity that made it impossible to look away. Beatrice felt her defenses wavering, slowly crumbling to dust.
“You don’t understand,” she whispered, her voice catching.
“Then help me understand,” Edward replied, his hand rising to hover just above her cheek.
Their gazes locked, and for a moment, the room around them seemed to disappear. There was only Edward’s face, his carved jaw and tempting lips. Beatrice felt herself swaying toward him.
For a heartbeat, she allowed herself to imagine surrendering to this pull between them, letting down her guard, risking the vulnerability she had so carefully avoided.
Then, unbidden, her father’s face flashed in her memory—his charm, his promises, his inevitable betrayals. Fear surged through her like lightning, striking right at her heart. She jerked away before Edward’s fingers could make contact.
“No,” she said, the word escaping like a gasp. “I can’t—I won’t do this.”
Beatrice stumbled backward, her hip colliding with the small mahogany side table.
The porcelain figurine atop it—a shepherdess her mother had given her as a wedding present—wobbled precariously before toppling over.
The crash seemed deafening in the sudden silence, the delicate piece shattering on the hardwood floor, fragments scattering like the composure she was desperately trying to maintain.
“Beatrice—” Edward stepped forward, hand extended.
She recoiled from his outstretched fingers. “Don’t.”
Before he could say or do anything further, Beatrice escaped the room and shut the door firmly behind her. Edward didn’t follow, allowing her a moment to gather her breath.
She needed to escape. Needed to be anywhere other than near him. And she knew the perfect antidote to a moment with Edward.