Chapter 14 #2
His breath left him in a rush that might have been relief. She felt it more than heard it.
They remained like that, curled together on the chaise, the world outside the lodge falling away. Gwen nestled closer almost without thinking, fitting against him as if he had been made to protect her. His arm tightened around her, his fingers splayed over her ribs in an absent, protective gesture.
“You were very gentle,” she added after a while, needing the sound of her voice to steady her.
“I had reason to be,” he answered. “You are not made for rough handling.”
She gave a faint huff. “I am tougher than you think. But I thank you for believing I warranted care.”
He shifted, and when she tipped her head back to look at him, she saw something unguarded on his face. Honesty, restless on his tongue.
“I was not gentle out of mercy,” he admitted. “I wished to know what pleased you.”
Her cheeks warmed anew. “You discovered rather a lot.”
“One cannot learn a ledger without studying its entries,” he said.
She made a small sound that hovered oddly between a laugh and a sigh. “You would compare me to a book of accounts?”
“Never,” he replied. “Ledgers bore me less than most things. You do not bore me at all.”
That sent a little flare of heat and something dangerously like joy through her.
“You are not bored,” she repeated quietly, incredulous.
“No,” he affirmed. “Though I ought to think of timber and roads and foolish lords who mismeasure their own fields more.”
“That paints me as very inconvenient,” she said, unable to keep her voice from softening.
“It does,” he agreed. “And yet here we sit.”
She nestled closer, resting her head fully on his shoulder. The trust in the movement frightened her, but she did not pull back.
For a moment, it felt as if the sharp corners of her life had been padded just here, just with him.
“Tell me something about you,” she said quietly. “Not about Greystone or your tenants or the numbers. But about you.”
Victor hesitated. She felt it in the way his chest rose and paused beneath her cheek. He seemed to stand at some unseen threshold.
At last, he stepped through.
“My father,” he began slowly, “was not a kind man.”
She had known that in some instinctive way. Hearing it aloud made her hand curl more tightly in the fabric of his coat, as if she could anchor him. “I had guessed.”
“He believed that a duke’s first duty was mastery,” he continued. “Of himself. Of his household. Of his land. He admired hardness. He considered sentiment a disease.”
“Did he show you any affection?” she asked softly.
“Once,” he replied. “When I was ten, I broke my collarbone falling from a horse I should not have been riding. He told me I had ridden well. Then he left the room and did not speak to me for three days.”
Her breath caught. “That was his idea of praise?”
“Yes,” he muttered. “I learned that approval was silence and disapproval was sound. I adapted accordingly.”
“And your mother?”
“She survived. That was her talent. She filled her days with small civilities. Charities. She played the pianoforte beautifully. But he never listened.”
“You did,” Gwen guessed.
“Yes,” he murmured. “I did.”
He had given her a piece of himself he did not offer lightly. She could feel it. It made her chest ache in a way that had nothing to do with pleasure and everything to do with the boy he had been.
“I am sorry,” she offered.
“You need not be,” he assured her. “I am well enough.”
“You are functional,” she corrected gently. “That is not the same thing.”
He almost smiled. “You have a talent for speaking unwelcome truths.”
“And you for building walls,” she returned.
The spell between them shifted. She felt it, like a draft from an open door. Time intruded again, tapping at the edges of the curtains.
“I should go,” she said reluctantly. “It must be very late.”
She began to push herself upright, slow and careful. The motion seemed to jar him. The arm around her dropped away as if he had been burnt.
“You are right.” The curtness of his tone cut through the softness like a knife. “You should go. It is late.”
She blinked, stung. “I did not mean that I wished to flee. Only that I must be sensible.”
“Sensibility is overdue,” he said, turning away and fussing with his cuff as if it required his whole attention. “We have already exceeded what is wise.”
Cold slid into the space where warmth had just been. Gwen heard it in his voice. She felt it in the way he refused to look at her.
“I see,” she mumbled.
“I will have the carriage brought round,” he continued, still to the empty air. “The footman will see you home through the back streets. There will be no difficulty.”
“No,” she said softly. “None at all.”
The disappointment in her voice surprised her. She drew herself up, spine straightening, pride scrambling to cover what her heart betrayed.
“This is an arrangement, Gwendoline,” Victor added, almost sharply. “Do not forget it.”
The words landed like a slap. She went very still.
“I have not,” she answered. “Thank you for the reminder, Your Grace.”
If he regretted it, he did not show it. He only inclined his head with cold politeness, as if they had discussed nothing more intimate than the weather.
She gathered her cloak with hands that wished to tremble but were not allowed to. She crossed the small room on unsteady legs, forcing each step to appear measured.
She paused at the threshold, a foolish part of her hoping that Victor would speak, that he would soften what he had just hardened.
He did not.
She opened the door and left him there with his fire and his ledgers and his walls. The latch clicked softly behind her.
As she walked toward the waiting carriage, the night air struck her heated skin like a rebuke. She pulled her cloak tighter around her, as much to hold herself together as to ward off the chill.
It was an arrangement. She had known that from the beginning.
Seven nights. Money. Escape.
And yet, foolish, treacherous thing that it was, her heart had hoped for something that could not be written in any ledger.
She would remember his hands on her, his arms around her, his soft voice in the dark. He, she told herself fiercely as she climbed into the carriage, would remember only the terms.