Chapter Twenty-Nine
Lila’s hands still trembled long after she had told herself to be calm.
She sat in the narrow common room of Rosehaven House, mending a hem she could barely see.
The needle slipped twice before she forced herself to steady it.
Around her, the familiar sounds filled the space.
Mrs. Denning pinned sleeves on a dress form.
Miss Partridge read aloud from the Gazette.
The kettle began its soft rumble on the hob.
Normal sounds. Safe sounds.
She could not settle into any of them.
Her eyes drifted again toward the window overlooking the street. She knew better than to sit in full view, so she kept to the side, where she could see without being seen.
Fenwick was not there. Not today. Not tonight. Not where she could see him.
The absence did not soothe her. It unsettled her more.
“Miss Edgewood,” Mrs. Denning said, without lifting her gaze from the pins, “you are sewing the same inch of that skirt for the fourth time.”
Lila blinked and looked down. The needle had left a small constellation of holes where she had stitched, unpicked, and stitched again.
“I am distracted,” she said quietly.
“You don’t say,” Mrs. Denning replied, dry as chalk. “You’ve been listening for footsteps on the pavement since the noon post.”
Lila lowered her gaze to the cloth and forced herself to breathe evenly.
“I walked home quickly,” she said. “Perhaps too quickly.”
“Because of the man who stands across the street,” Mrs. Denning said. “Yes. We’ve all noticed.”
Heat crept into Lila’s cheeks. “I didn’t wish to cause concern.”
“You live in a house full of women who look out for their own,” Mrs. Denning said. “If you wished to avoid concern, you chose the wrong residence.”
That drew a small laugh from Lila, thin but real.
Mrs. Denning paused her pinning and studied her for a moment.
“He didn’t speak to you again?” she asked.
“No.”
“And Lord Wolfton walked you home last night.”
Lila’s breath caught. “You saw.”
“Child,” Mrs. Denning said, “all of London saw the way he looked at you in the hall. Or they would have, if any of them had eyes worth the name.”
Lila swallowed.
She had tried all afternoon to set Marcus aside long enough to think clearly. It had not worked.
Each time she closed her eyes, she saw the quiet fury in his posture when he realized Fenwick had followed her. The gentleness when he told her she was not a burden. The careful way he touched her cheek, so light she had questioned afterward whether she had imagined it.
He had not returned to the Lyon’s Den today. That troubled her more than Fenwick’s absence. She knew Marcus had not gone home to idle. She had felt it in the way he left the hall last night, in the steadiness of his voice, in the dangerous composure of a man who had reached a decision.
“Mrs. Denning,” Lila said softly, “have you ever known a man who walked into trouble on purpose?”
Mrs. Denning raised a brow. “I’ve known many men who wandered into trouble by accident and later claimed it was for a noble purpose.”
“That’s not what I mean.”
Mrs. Denning set down her pincushion.
“No,” she said after a moment. “I don’t believe I’ve known a man who chose danger willingly… unless he cared for the person in danger more than he cared for peace.”
Lila knew then that Marcus Wolfton had already chosen his path. The knowledge should have frightened her. Instead, it warmed something in her she had spent years learning not to trust.
The thread slipped from Lila’s fingers.
She could not look up.
“Miss Edgewood,” Mrs. Denning said gently, “do you wish to tell me something?”
Lila shook her head. “I’m not certain I can.”
Mrs. Denning did not press. She returned to her pins, humming under her breath in the tuneless way she used when she meant to give someone room to think.
Lila set her sewing aside and crossed quietly to the small window above the stairwell, where the angle allowed a better view of the street.
Still no Fenwick.
Still no Marcus.
Her chest tightened. She braced her fingertips against the sill to steady herself.
Think, Lila.
Fenwick was unpredictable, but he was not subtle. If he meant to approach her again, he would do so brazenly. He enjoyed being seen. He enjoyed the power of making her step backward.
Marcus moved differently, deliberately, quietly. Like a man trained to sense danger before it reached him.
She did not know what he was doing today. But she knew this. He was doing it because of her. And because of Henry.
She thought of Henry’s small voice the night before. Will you listen? She thought of Marcus’s expression when she whispered his name. She thought of the warmth of his hand at her cheek and the tremor it left behind.
Her heart beat unevenly.
She whispered to the empty stairwell.
“Please… be careful.”
A carriage rattled past. Voices drifted up from the street below. Shadows lengthened along the narrow hall.
She remained at the window as the light faded, waiting for two things she could not name aloud, the danger to show itself and the man who willingly stepped toward it.