Chapter Eight #4
She was going to have to sit across from him at breakfast. She was going to have to watch those elegant, capable hands butter toast and stir tea and turn the pages of his correspondence, and she was going to remember with excruciating clarity exactly where her imagination had placed them.
And Henry would be there, chattering about Perseus with his innocent grey eyes, blissfully unaware that his beloved governess had just done unspeakable things to herself while picturing his brother’s fingers inside her.
Henry, who had shouted about an illustrated horse at the single worst moment in the recorded history of human interruptions.
She loved that boy with every fibre of her being, and she truly did.
But tomorrow morning, she was hiding every single picture book in the house.
Every last one of them.
The clock in the hallway chimed midnight. Eliza counted the strokes and tried to calculate how many hours remained until dawn, until she could lose herself in work and Henry and all the safe, ordinary things that didn't make her feel like she was standing on the edge of a cliff.
A soft knock at her door made her sit up, heart pounding.
No one knocked at her door at this hour. No one should even know she was awake. Had something happened to Henry? Was there an emergency? Had the house caught fire?
She pulled on her wrapper with trembling hands and crossed to the door, opening it a crack.
Alistair stood in the hallway.
He was still dressed in his evening clothes, though he'd removed his cravat, and his collar was open at the throat.
His hair was disheveled, as if he'd been running his hands through it; that nervous gesture she'd seen him make when he was struggling with something, fighting against his own control.
His face was pale in the dim light of the single candle he carried, his eyes shadowed, and his expression raw in a way she had never seen it.
"Your Grace." She was acutely aware of her state of undress and the heat still lingering in her whole body, but she did not close the door. "Is something wrong? Is Henry…"
"Henry is fine. He's sleeping." His voice was low, rough, scraped raw by something she couldn't name. "I came to... I needed to..."
He stopped, and his free hand clenched at his side.
"I couldn't sleep," he said finally. "I kept thinking about this afternoon. About the library. About…"
"You shouldn't be here." The words came out breathless, without any of the firmness she'd intended. "If someone sees…"
"I know. I know I shouldn't be here." He took a step closer, then stopped himself, his body rigid with the effort of restraint. The candle flickered, casting dancing shadows across his face, illuminating the tension in his jaw, and the hunger in his eyes. "But I had to tell you. I had to say…"
"Say what?"
He looked at her, and she watched him wage a war with himself.
"I can't stop thinking about you." The words came out rough, almost pained, as if each one had to be torn from somewhere deep inside him.
"I try… Heaven knows I try, but you're always there.
In my thoughts. In my dreams. Every time I close my eyes, I see your hair in the firelight.
Every time I hear laughter, I think it's yours.
You've invaded every corner of my mind, and I don't know how to… "
He stopped and pressed his hand against his eyes. When he spoke again, his voice was barely a whisper.
"I don't know what to do. I don't know how to feel this much and still function. I've spent so long not feeling anything, and now it's like a dam has broken, and everything is flooding in at once, and I'm drowning in it."
Eliza's heart was pounding so hard she thought he would be able to hear it. She wanted to reach out, touch his face, smooth the anguish from his brow, and tell him that she understood because she was drowning too.
But they were standing in a hallway in the middle of the night, separated by propriety and position and everything they stood to lose. One touch, and they would both be ruined. One kiss, and there would be no going back.
"You should go," she said softly. The words felt like broken glass in her throat. "Before someone sees."
"I know." He didn't move. His eyes held hers, dark and desperate. "I know I should go. I know this is…" He laughed, but there was no humor in it. "I know this is impossible. I know you're…I know I shouldn't…"
"Alistair…"
"Don't." His voice cracked on the word. "Don't say my name like that. Not when I can't…When we can't…"
"I know." She reached out, just for a moment, and let her fingers brush his sleeve. The lightest touch, the smallest comfort, but she could feel the heat of him, the tension vibrating through his muscles. "I know."
He looked at her hand on his arm as if it were the most precious thing he had ever seen, and for a long moment, neither of them breathed.
Then, slowly, painfully, he stepped back.
"Good night, Miss Harrow."
"Good night, Your Grace."
He turned and walked away, his footsteps echoing in the empty hallway, the candle casting long shadows on the walls. Eliza watched him go, her heart aching, her body trembling with want, frustration and the impossible weight of everything they couldn't have.
She closed her door and leaned against it, pressing her hand to her chest where her heart was threatening to beat its way out.
This was getting dangerous.
And she had no idea how to stop it.