Chapter 17 #2
He walked Harrison down the long corridor, paid the man his gold sovereigns from the bureau in his study, and exchanged the necessary formal pleasantries about the state of the local roads. He did it all on autopilot, his mind entirely occupied by three words.
It worked before.
He told himself there was an explanation.
There was always an explanation in the neat, orderly world he had spent his life maintaining.
Perhaps she had helped a sister; perhaps the Surrey position had been more complicated than her papers suggested.
He filed the anomaly away in that dark, locked drawer of his mind where he kept all the pieces of her that did not quite fit, the intellectual sharpness, the knowledge of estate drainage, the way her hands looked when she thought no one was watching.
He wasn't ready to ask for the truth tonight.
He wasn't ready for the answer because, deep down in the dark, silent corners of his own heart, he knew that whatever she confessed might change what he had started to feel.
And he was already too far down the river to turn the boat back toward the shore.
When he returned to the nursery, the doctor’s advice had been discarded in favor of her own.
Miss Hartley had fetched a basin of spring water from the scullery, the surface of the liquid skin-filmed with a faint, sharp scent of white vinegar.
She was sitting on the edge of the low cot, a strip of linen cloth in her hand, her movements slow and deliberate as she bathed the baby’s small, twitching wrists.
Roman closed the door softly behind him. He did not return to his own chamber. Instead, he pulled the low wooden stool from the corner of the hearth and sat down opposite her, his long legs nearly brushing against the hem of her petticoats.
The night dragged its heels, the hours marked only by the steady, rhythmic tick of the bracket clock on the wall and the low, bubbling sighs of the baby.
They did not speak. There was no room for words in the narrow space between them, not when the air was so thick with the unspoken weight of her slip-of-the-tongue and the sudden, heavy intimacy of the dark.
When Liliana became restless, her whimpering turning into sharp, desperate cries that threatened to tear her throat, Roman rose from his stool.
"Give her to me," he said.
Miss Hartley looked up, her fingers pausing against the damp linen cloth. "You should sleep, Your Grace. You have the bailiff in the morning, and Lady Daphne…"
"Give her to me, Miss Hartley."
She did not argue further. She stood up, lifting the small, damp bundle of the child from her lap. In the handoff, the space between them vanished entirely. Roman stepped into her circle, his large hands reaching out to take the baby’s weight.
For one long, agonizing second, his palms were flat against the curve of Liliana’s back, and Miss Hartley’s hands were right beneath his, her slim, warm fingers pressed flat against his wrists to steady the transfer.
They were both holding her at once, their bodies joined by the fragile, burning bridge of the child. \
Roman did not pull away. He stood perfectly still, his chest close enough to hers that he could feel the heat radiating from her skin, could hear the small, ragged catch in her breathing.
Her eyes were fixed on the top button of his shirt, her face flushed, her lips slightly parted as if she were about to speak or to weep. The proximity was intoxicating, a slow, heavy pressure that seemed to pull them toward each other like two bodies falling through space.
He tilted his chin down, his breath brushing the wild, loose curls near her temple. "She is cooler," he murmured, his voice a low vibration she must have felt rather than heard.
"A little," she whispered, her fingers tightening for one brief, unconscious second around his wrists before she slowly, reluctantly pulled her hands away, leaving his skin cold where her touch had been.
Roman turned and began to walk the floor. He paced the narrow length of the nursery, the floorboards groaning beneath his weight as he cradled Liliana against his shoulder, his large hand patting her back in a slow, hypnotic rhythm.
When his arms grew stiff, he passed her back to Miss Hartley, their skin brushing once more in the dark, a repeated, deliberate friction that felt less like an accident each time it occurred.
By three in the morning, the child’s cries had vanished into a deep, exhausted slumber, her breathing leveling out into a steady, rhythmic sigh that filled the quiet room.
Miss Hartley slid down onto the floor, her back propped against the sturdy oak of the cradle, her skirts spreading around her like a dark pool.
Roman watched her for a moment before dropping down beside her, his long legs stretched out toward the dying hearth, his shoulder pressing firmly against hers.
The contact was a deliberate choice this time. Neither of them moved away. They sat in the half-dark, the silence between them thick with the unresolved tension of the last few hours.
"How did you know?" Roman asked quietly. He did not look at her; his gaze was fixed on the tiny, pale hand of the baby protruding from the bars of the cradle above them. "About the cold compresses. Harrison looked as though you had suggested we consult a witch."
Miss Hartley hesitated, her body stiffening against his shoulder. He felt the sudden, sharp intake of her breath, the way her muscles coiled as she prepared her defense.
"It... it is a common enough remedy in the south," she said, her voice small and carefully modulated. "My mother used it when we were children."