Chapter 6
“Why do you insist on playing games with me?” Adelaide questioned the smirking man before her. “Why do you insist on being so good at them?” he shot back, now standing so much closer to her than before, close enough that he reached out a hand to touch her; but she wasn’t cowed, she was encouraged.”
Adelaide, Chapter 8
“Fortunately for me, you dance better than you fence, Pomfrey,” Lawrence chided.
Fitz caught the linen toweling Lawrence threw at him with one hand and wiped the sweat from his brow and his neck.
He rotated his shoulders. He’d been sparring with Lawrence in the converted ballroom.
Although he’d had a fencing instructor and practiced for years, his skill never rivaled Lawrence’s.
It was probably because he didn’t enjoy it and had never had the wildly competitive streak that Lawrence was known for.
Fitz rolled his eyes. “That’s by design. The ladies are more enthralled by dancing anyway,” He said with a shrug.
“That why you’re helping my sister, then?”
Fitz raised a brow. “Are we really doing this?”
Lawrence scoffed. “The dancing lessons? It’s just…” he shook his head, “Another flirtation for you.”
Libertine. Rake. Shameless flirt. Scoundrel.
Fitz had been called it all. Hell, Lawrence had probably been called worse.
Lawrence, on the other hand, had an education, a family that cared for him.
Fitz had decided a long time ago that people saw what they wanted to see and it was easier to give them what they wanted than to try to change their minds or tell the truth.
But why did he want to be something different now?
Perhaps it bothered him so much that his oldest friend saw him with their younger sister and only assumed the worst rather than assigning some positive intent?
Because my intentions aren’t purely of a friendly or benign nature.
Fitz stood and turned his back to his friend. “I don’t expect you’d understand.”
Lawrence stepped around him and stood in front of him. Fitz was a head taller, Lawrence looked up at him as he said, “Then help me understand.”
“It’s obvious even without you spelling it out in your letters that you’re eager to get back to London…and all the things we did before. But you are lucky, you know? To have a family that cares whether you participate in dance lessons or aren’t dressed in time for dinner?
Not just for what other people think; but because they genuinely care about you, Lawrence. They want you present and when you don’t show up they miss you enough to pry. Maybe it does seem trivial to you,” Fitz shook his head, “But it’s everything I never had.”
The way Lawrence’s face fell, reaching a hand for Fitz’s shoulder, calling after him, felt a little like pity, maybe a little regret (on whose part, Fitz couldn’t say). He was not in the mood to look either emotion in the eyes, so he started walking.
He’d walked outside, to the gardens, to the stables, gone to his rooms. All of that had only taken an hour until he felt stifled, the way he always did in the country. Too much open space and too many unslotted minutes made him feel like the sand in the hourglass marking time was more like molasses.
Walking through the manor house, the housekeeper had paused to ask if he had any requests.
He’d taken a moment to think about what it was that he wanted.
He could make any number of outlandish requests just to be churlish over the way Lady Noelle was expected to endure their teasing without complaint.
Lady Noelle’s earth-colored eyes had glimmered when he’d stood up for her.
Had she had such a champion since the loss of her parents?
He’d happily do it again to see that look in her eyes.
Fitz met the housekeeper’s wrinkled, patient gaze, and shook his head to dismiss her. Any scheme or request he’d come up with went against the familiarity and trust they’d brought him into.
There were other things that went against that familiarity and trust.
The letters he’d written to her. Under a friendly guise, but still.
The way a certain pair of eyes felt like a caress, the way his body responded.
The way her body, the rustle of her skirts, which he’d noticed with satisfaction were blue and no longer mourning black or gray, brushed against his own to the music while he’d danced with her.
The way her words, which were meant to scald or scold him, drew him in instead. Perhaps he should have just written to her himself and she wouldn’t be so angry with him…but he’d done what he’d done and he had to own it.
He looked up and found that he was standing in the doorway to the library.
He did that sometimes, his body deciding where he needed to be without his head forming any sort of protest.
He stood in the doorway for a moment, watching her sitting at a desk in the dimly lit library, angrily scratching out a word with her pen as though it had caused her some irredeemable offense.
A small, appreciative laugh bubbled out of him.
The defensive tilt of her brow shot in his direction. Cool disdain dripped from Lady Noelle’s voice as she spoke. “Why do you enjoy tormenting me with your unsolicited entrances?”
He fought the urge to say that she was tormenting him in even worse ways, ways he enjoyed; but instead, he smiled at her, noting how it caused her cheeks to turn crimson.
“Why do you never seem to hear me approaching?” He said, pushing off the door frame to make his way over to her.
“That wasn’t an invitation to join me, my lord,” She said, removing her gaze from him and turning back to the manuscript before her.
He stood directly behind her, peering over her thin, shawl-clad shoulder.
Ink-stained and yet somehow entirely too lovely hands took a fountain pen to parchment.
He’d memorized the confident and scrawling tilt of her penmanship, cursing himself for a fool every time he studied it in her letters. Not that she had any idea.
Noelle let out a sigh before saying: “Did you need something, my lord? In case you haven’t noticed, we are…unchaperoned.”
Oh, he’d noticed. He stuffed his hands in his pockets, fighting the overwhelming urge to tug at the braid that hung down her back.
Not quite blonde, not quite brown, with pieces of auburn and bronze woven throughout.
It suited her, a woman of complimenting contrasts.
The braid, however, did not. He wanted to untie it, to have the unvarnished luxury of seeing her curls on full, feral display.
“I remembered something earlier,” He said, taking a seat at the table next to her.
“How terrible you are at flirting?” She posed, not looking up from the papers in front of her.
A smile tugged at one corner of his mouth. “You asked me to read your writing many months ago…I handled myself abominably. I was an arsehole. I hope you’ll forgive me.”
His entire body went rigid as her hazel eyes lifted from the page in front of her by degrees, slowly traveling up his body to meet his eyes, appearing entirely shocked by his honesty.
“I accept your apology, Fitz.” The words were neutral, as though she were holding back her true feelings on the matter.
His eyes never wavered from her face as he said, “I should not have left, or I should have explained myself. I only hope that I didn’t hurt you. That was never my intent. It had nothing to do with you, and everything to do with me.”
He’d offered the words up to her on a platter for her to inspect, to question, to accept or reject.
She sat up straighter in her seat in response, folding her hands in her lap as she said, “I accepted before you even asked, that something about the way you left and refused my request, had more to do with you than it did with me.”
The words were neither compliment nor insult; they rang with direct honesty.
Her face, both delicate and strong, was painted with the same direct honesty that called to him.
He was alone with her. He could touch her, he could kiss her.
Right here. But if someone were to walk by and see…
no. He couldn’t take her options from her before she’d even had a chance to sample them for herself.
To make her own choices. Even then, he doubted she’d choose him.
If she knew all the secrets he was keeping.
“I’m glad to hear it. I shamed myself for making you feel othered…unseen…unappreciated.”
He laced his fingers together behind his head and noticed how her gaze left his face and followed the movement of his arms. “I do see you; I do appreciate you, Noelle. I want you to have the things that you want, if my opinion matters at all.”
Her claws were out when she answered: “Your opinion does matter to me. Except when you’re wrong, which you usually are,” but he’d let her sink those claws into him anytime she wanted.
“I’m not the person to critique a literary masterpiece; but if that’s something you’re after, you can send it to the publishing house. I’ll have someone give it a read.”
Her nostrils flared. “How gracious of you to assuage your guilt by having someone else do your grunt work.”
His face fell. He reached out a hand to her, but she was already standing.
A few papers fell to the floor. She let out a low curse.
He stooped to pick them up, his hands brushing with hers.
Surprisingly, she didn’t immediately pull her hand back.
Instead, she stared, wide-eyed and lips parted, at the space where their hands met.
“I didn’t mean it like that, Noelle.” He had urged his voice to sound gentle, not defensive.
“It isn’t your connections that I want, Fitz. That’s not the only thing you have to offer.”
He’d been expecting a cold set down, not this brand of honesty. Not from her. Not now. He wasn’t on familiar terms with honesty that wasn’t of the brutal variety.
“Are you sure about that?” He shot back, one hand in his pockets, his blue eyes narrowing on her.
“I suppose you’re right,” She said with a rustle of skirts and swinging hips as she strode from the room, leaving him behind in a room full of stories when she’d taken with her the only one he suddenly very much wanted to read.