Chapter 26
Victor had not meant to seek her out.
At least, that was what he told himself as he moved through the crowded drawing room with polite nods and detached conversation.
He had done the rounds, exchanged pleasantries, answered questions about crops and Parliament and the price of grain. Not once had he allowed his gaze to flicker to the doorway where new arrivals appeared.
He knew exactly when Gwen entered. The air shifted. The room sharpened. A murmur rippled through the nearby cluster of matrons, as if some shift in the atmosphere had unsettled their fans.
He did not look.
Gwen had been standing with Arabella and Eleanor, speaking in a hushed tone. Her gown was a soft lavender that made her skin appear luminous beneath the candles. Her hair had been arranged with care, yet a few curls had already escaped, as if refusing to obey.
He greeted them with cool politeness, addressed the group, and then moved on. It would not do to appear besotted. People would notice. People always did.
Now, an hour later, he excused himself from an insipid discussion about racing and slipped toward the rear of the house.
The veranda doors stood open to the night. A few couples had already drifted out into the cool air, voices floating back with laughter and the soft clink of glasses.
The note had instructed him to meet her there.
Come to the veranda at half past ten. I must speak with you alone.
It was not her hand. The script had been neat, careful, not the more fluid lines he had begun to recognize from her letters and the few notes she had placed in his possession. Yet the message had been clear, and he had accepted it as real because he wanted it to be.
He had reached the corridor leading toward the veranda when he saw her.
Gwen moved ahead of him, alone, her shoulders slightly hunched, her hand curled around something white that she held close to her skirts—a folded letter. She had not seen him. Her steps were quick, furtive, as if she wished to avoid notice.
She did not turn toward the veranda doors. She turned left, down the quieter passage that led toward his private rooms.
Victor slowed. There was no reason for her to be in that wing.
The family wing was usually closed during gatherings. The servants knew to redirect lost guests. Yet she walked with certainty, not hesitation, as if she knew exactly where she meant to go.
Curiosity pricked. So did a warning.
He followed.
Gwen did not look over her shoulder. She moved past the smaller morning room, then hesitated a fraction of a moment outside the door to his study. Her fingers tightened on the folded letter. Then she opened the door and slipped inside.
Victor stopped several paces away and considered.
She was not heading for the veranda then, which meant the summons could not have come from her. Either his assumption had been wrong, or someone else had pushed events toward a collision he had not anticipated.
He could have turned away. He did not. Instead, he crossed the remaining distance and opened the study door without knocking.
Gwen stood near his desk, half-bent, as if she had just straightened in panic. The candle on the side table cast a warm glow on her face and the letter she still held.
Her eyes went wide.
“Your Grace,” she breathed.
He closed the door behind him. The sound seemed to echo.
He took in every detail in a single sweep. The faint flush high on her cheekbones. The quick rise and fall of her chest. The way her hand trembled around the letter.
He raised an eyebrow. “Lady Gwendoline. What are you doing in my study?”
For a heartbeat, Gwen looked like a child caught stealing from a sweet shop. Then she straightened, her spine stiff, her chin lifting in that familiar stubborn way.
“I, ah, was looking for the veranda,” she replied. “I took a wrong turn.”
Victor stared at her. “You have been here several times. You know very well the veranda is not adjacent to my study.”
Color deepened in her cheeks. “It is a large house. Corridors confuse me.”
“That is not true,” he said quietly.
She flinched as if the words were a physical touch.
Silence fell between them, filled with all the things they had said and left unsaid over the past weeks. Her gaze skittered away from his, fixing instead on the lamp on his desk.
“You have no business being here,” he added. “Howard would have apoplexy if he knew you had wandered into my private rooms.”
“Howard would have apoplexy if I breathed too loudly,” she muttered. “He cannot control the air in my lungs, no matter how he tries.”
The wry bitterness in her voice cut him.
He stepped closer despite his better judgment. “Has he hurt you?”
Her hand tightened around the letter again. “Not in ways that concern you.”
“They concern me,” Victor insisted. “More than they should.”
She let out a low, mirthless laugh. “Do not say things like that. It is unkind. We both know you have been working very hard to put distance between us.”
He felt those words like a slap.
“Gwen,” he began.
She flinched at the intimacy of her name, then recovered. “It does not matter now. I only came to leave this.” She glanced down at the letter. “On your desk.”
He nodded toward it. “What is it?”
“Nothing important.”
“Then you will not mind if I see it?”
Her eyes flashed. “Don’t.”
He reached for the letter.
She turned away, clutching it behind her back like contraband. “Your Grace, I beg you, leave it be.”
The fear in her voice gave him pause. Not fear of him, but fear of exposure.
“What were you truly doing here?” he asked. “And why did you send me a note to meet you on the veranda if you meant to sneak into my study instead?”
Her eyebrows knitted together. “I did not send you any note.”
He went still. “You did not?”
“No. I wrote no such thing.”
His mind ticked rapidly. Someone had wanted him on the veranda. Someone had wanted her out of sight. Someone had moved pieces on a board he had only begun to understand.
“We will return to that,” he said. “For now, explain what you meant by saying that this will be the last time we see each other.”
Gwen looked as if she might break. Then she drew herself up, pride stiffening her shoulders.
“Howard has found a suitor for me,” she began calmly. Far too calmly. “He will visit to discuss the match. I am to be married before the month’s end.”
The words slammed into him, harder than any blow.
He had known there would be a suitor. He had known Howard would press. But hearing it confirmed still felt like standing on the edge of a cliff and feeling the ground behind him give way.
“I see,” he said slowly.
“So you can understand,” she continued, “why we must not speak privately again. Coming here tonight was a mistake. I know that. I needed to tell you something, but I have lost my courage. It changes nothing. Our agreement is over. It was over even before the seven nights were finished, whether either of us wished it or not.”
“We still have one night,” he reminded her.
She laughed again, the sound bitter and soft. “You make it sound like a debt on a ledger. I do not want that night. I will not come to you again. I cannot leave my mother. I cannot risk Howard’s rage. I cannot entangle myself deeper with a man who already regrets ever touching me.”
He took a step toward her. “Do not tell me what I regret.”
She stepped back. “You do. You told me yourself that you must draw a line. That you would not become your father. That you would not allow this to continue.”
Her hand moved as she spoke, and the letter slipped, its corner catching on the edge of the desk. Victor reached for it at the same time she did.
They collided.
His hand closed on the paper.
Her fingers closed on his wrist.
Her slipper caught on the edge of the carpet.
Balance fled.
For one breathless second, they teetered, a tangle of limbs and startled exclamations. Then they went down together.
Victor landed on his back with a sharp grunt, the rug mercifully thick beneath him. Gwen fell forward, her hands braced against his chest, her skirts spilling around them like a lavender cloud. The letter remained crushed between their bodies.
For a moment, neither of them moved.
Her hair brushed his cheek. He smelled lavender and starch and the faintest hint of something warm and feminine that he had learned to associate only with her.
His hands had found her waist on instinct. Her breath feathered across his throat.
Every thought fled his mind.
Except that he had missed her so fiercely it burned.
Gwen could not breathe.
Not because of the fall, though the shock of it still reverberated through her bones, but because of the way Victor’s body felt beneath hers—solid, warm, familiar in a way she had tried so desperately to forget.
His hands still rested on her waist. Her palms were splayed over his chest, feeling the rapid beat of his heart beneath fine linen and wool. The letter she had written was trapped between them, crumpled against his waistcoat.
Panic flared in her chest.
He must not see it. Not yet. Not while she was here, not while her cheeks were still hot and her heart was still foolish enough to hope. She had meant to slip the letter into one of his drawers and leave before he ever read it.
By the time he unfolded it, she would be gone. Safely away. Married, perhaps. Untouchable. He would read her confession alone, without her eyes on him, without the humiliation of seeing his reaction.
Now he might read it while she lay on top of him, a ridiculous picture of compromise and desperation.
She tried to rise, but his grip tightened, keeping her in place.
“Do not move,” he said softly.
Her eyes flew to his. “I must.”
“Not yet,” he replied. “Not until we have settled something.”
She could not look away from him. His gaze had gone dark, intent, searching her face as if he meant to memorize it.
“Why did you send me a letter instructing me to meet you on the veranda?” he asked.
She blinked. “I did not write such a thing.”
His eyebrows drew together. “You did not?”
“No,” she said. “I wrote only one letter tonight, and it is the one being crushed between us. I did not summon you anywhere.”
“Then someone else did,” he murmured. “Someone who wanted us both out of sight.”
A chill ran through her that had nothing to do with the floor.
She struggled again. “Let me up. Please.”
His grip loosened slightly, but he did not release her. “What is in the letter, Gwen?”
“Nothing you need to read,” she said swiftly. “It is mine.”
“If you did not wish me to read it, then you should not have brought it into my study,” he drawled. “What were you planning to do? Hide it in my desk and flee?”
“Yes,” she snapped. “Precisely that. It was a foolish idea, I know. You may mock me later if you like. For now, let me go.”
His eyes sharpened. “What does it say?”
She swallowed. Her throat felt painfully tight. “It says things I should not have written. Things you do not wish to hear. Things that will embarrass us both if you insist on knowing them while I am still present.”
His gaze flickered down to her mouth, then back to her eyes. Something raw flashed across his expression. “You wrote that you love me?”
She froze.
“How did you know?” she whispered.
“It is the only thing you would be this desperate to hide,” he said quietly. “And the only thing I have been trying not to think about every day since I put you back into that carriage.”
Her vision blurred. Tears burned. “Do not say it. Do not make fun of me. I know how ridiculous it is. A girl in love with a duke who has told her very firmly that he will never marry her.”
He flinched as if she had struck him.
Before he could speak, before she could gather herself, the door to the study flew open.
“Gwendoline,” Howard barked.
The sound of her name in that voice hit like a bucket of ice. She twisted in Victor’s hold, her heart plummeting.
Howard stood in the doorway, his face a mask of fury and triumph. Beside him hovered the Dowager Duchess, pale and grim, and behind them two other guests, a baronet and his wife, their eyes wide with horrified fascination.
All of them stared at the scene.
The Duke of Greystone on the floor of his study. Lady Gwendoline Reeves sprawled on top of him, her hair disheveled, her cheeks flushed, their bodies tangled in a way that admitted no innocent explanation.
For one suspended moment, no one spoke. Then the room exploded.
“What in God’s name?” Howard roared dramatically. “Get your hands off my daughter!”
The Dowager Duchess closed her eyes very briefly, as if in pain, then opened them again, already calculating.
The Baronet’s wife clapped a hand over her mouth. The Baronet himself muttered something that sounded very much like, “Good Lord.”
Gwen felt the world tilt beneath her.
They were caught.
Victor’s hands tightened on her waist, steadying her. He did not look at the others. He looked only at her.