Chapter Thirty
Lila heard the knock before she reached the bottom of the stairs. Three measured raps. Not hurried. Not harsh. Controlled. Too controlled to belong to any boarder she knew.
Mrs. Denning opened the door only a finger’s width, her usual caution after dusk, then widened it at once.
“My lord,” she said quietly.
Lila did not remember crossing the hall. One moment she was on the stairs, the next she stood in the entryway, breath caught, her hands still tangled in the hem she had tried to mend for the third time.
Marcus stood on the threshold.
His coat carried the chill of the evening and the faint trace of smoke from wherever he had been earlier. His hair was mussed. Not untidy, simply unguarded in a way she had never seen. Not Wolfton Hall. Not the Lyon’s Den. Something else. Something that made her pulse falter.
“Miss Edgewood,” he said.
She stepped forward because her body demanded it.
“You’re all right.” The words slipped out in a whisper, stripped of decorum.
He let out a quiet breath. Relief, perhaps. Or gratitude. Or something she did not yet know how to name.
“I am,” he said. “I did not intend to cause you worry.”
“Too late for that,” Mrs. Denning muttered, already retreating toward her needlework with suspicious speed.
Marcus’s gaze remained on Lila.
She hesitated only a moment, then stepped back and opened the door wider.
He crossed the threshold, and the house drew in around him—not closing, but alert. He paused, waiting for the old instinct to settle. It did not come. Something steadier held its ground.
Lila closed the door and folded her hands to steady herself.
“You were gone all day,” she said.
“Yes.”
“You said you would be careful.”
“I was.”
“That is not the same thing.”
His mouth curved, not quite a smile. A shadow of one she had not seen since the lesson the day before.
“You are correct,” he said. “It is not.”
She wanted to step closer. To demand answers. To touch the place where a bruise might be forming beneath his coat. Instead, she held herself still, the way she had learned to do when wanting something felt dangerous.
“Did you confront him?”
“No,” Marcus said. “Not yet.”
“Then what—”
“I spoke to the men who allow him to operate unnoticed.” His voice remained calm. Too calm. “I reminded them what their silence will cost if they continue it.”
Her breath tightened. “Marcus,” she whispered, “you cannot put yourself between him and—”
“I already am between him and you.”
The house went still. Mrs. Denning’s hands paused over her pins. A kettle hissed faintly in the back kitchen, even that sound seeming to wait.
Lila swallowed. “You cannot say things like that.”
“I can,” he said. “And I will.”
“Marcus—”
He stepped closer. Not enough to touch her. Enough that she felt the warmth of him, the steadiness, the quiet certainty she had leaned toward without realizing.
“Lila,” he said, her name low and deliberate, as if testing how it belonged to him.
Her breath lifted, caught, trembled.
“I told you last night,” he continued, “that you are no burden to me.”
Her breath slipped free, uneven.
“And today,” he added, “I learned I am capable of more than I believed. That is not coincidence. That is you.”
Her hands shook. She curled her fingers into her palms.
“That is dangerous to say,” she whispered.
“Not if it is true.”
She looked up into his steady, intent gaze and felt the space between them narrow, as though a door had closed on the rest of the world.
“My lord,” Mrs. Denning said loudly from her chair, “if you intend to stand in my hallway making declarations, do close the front curtain. Half the street will invent a story.”
Marcus cleared his throat once.
“Forgive me,” he said, though he did not move away.
Something in Lila’s chest tightened, too tender to name.
“I came for Henry,” Marcus said more quietly. “He insisted I return before he slept. He wished to play the tune he has been keeping.”
A small smile touched her mouth. “Of course he did.”
“He also asked,” Marcus added, “whether you might come earlier tomorrow. He says the music is ‘jangling in his head’ and must be set down before it shakes loose.”
She pressed a hand lightly to her cheek. “I will come whenever he needs.”
Marcus nodded.
But he did not leave.
The air remained full. Of what he had risked today. Of what tomorrow might demand. Of all they had not said.
“Did Fenwick follow you?” she asked.
“No. He will not tonight.”
“Because of something you said.”
“Because of something I arranged,” he corrected.
Fear stirred. Not of him, but for him.
“You must not push him too far,” she said. “Men like Fenwick do not bend. They snap. And when they do, they strike whatever is closest.”
“Then I will make certain I am closest,” Marcus said.
A soft, frightened sound escaped her before she could stop it.
“Marcus…”
He did not touch her.
But he held her gaze with a quiet intensity that felt like the beginning of something neither of them could pretend away.
“Let me walk you to the Lyon’s Den tomorrow,” he said softly. “Do not argue.”
She opened her mouth to protest. The look in his eyes stilled her.
“I will,” she whispered.
He nodded, as if that single promise mattered more than he would admit.
The hall clock struck the hour. Soft. Steady. The sound loosened the moment between them.
Marcus exhaled and stepped back, reluctantly. “I will see you in the morning.”
“You will.”
He turned. Paused. Looked at her over his shoulder.
Something warm and alive crossed his expression before he masked it. Then he left.
Lila remained in the hallway long after the door closed.
Only when Mrs. Denning cleared her throat pointedly did she realize her hand was pressed over her heart, as if to keep it from breaking free.
“Miss Edgewood,” Mrs. Denning said, “I am too old to pretend I did not witness what I just witnessed.”
Lila turned, her breath unsteady. “I do not know what you witnessed.”
“You will,” Mrs. Denning said. “Soon.”
Lila looked at the closed door and whispered, barely audible,
“So will he.”