Chapter 24
The drive back to Ashford Hall felt different in a way neither of them dared to examine.
Anne sat opposite him, as usual, yet neither of them spoke, for both were aware that one careless word might disturb whatever fragile thing had budded between them.
Dorian kept looking at her when he thought she would not notice, though she noticed each time and said nothing at first, partly because she was still trying to understand what had happened and partly because she was not entirely certain she wanted to interrupt it.
Eventually, she broke the silence, unable to ignore it any longer.
“You are staring at me again.”
“I am not.”
Anne studied him for a moment longer before leaning back slightly in her seat, caught between amusement and suspicion.
“You rode through a storm because of a mild fever,” she said. “And now you are sitting there as though I might disappear if you look away for too long.”
Dorian exhaled slowly, as though weighing whether honesty would make things better or worse, before deciding it did not particularly matter. A faint smile tugged at his mouth, though his eyes did not fully leave her this time.
“I suppose I have behaved somewhat unreasonably.”
“Somewhat,” Anne repeated, as if testing out the word.
The carriage trundled on in a steady rhythm, the thud of hooves against wet ground filling the space between them, but even that familiar noise could not return things to how they had been before.
By the time they reached Ashford Hall, servants were already waiting at the entrance. Dorian stepped down first before turning around to offer her his hand. She took it, and his fingers lingered around hers for a fraction longer than was necessary before he released her.
Inside the house, the day unfolded in its usual pattern of movement and responsibility, with breakfast served, reports delivered, and stable matters already demanding attention.
Yet Dorian did not remain in his study as he normally would have.
Instead, Anne found him in the stables long before anyone else arrived.
“You are not usually here when I arrive,” she remarked, approaching him.
“I know,” he replied.
“And yet you are here now.”
“I decided I was needed here.”
Anne raised an eyebrow. “In the stables?”
“In your vicinity,” he corrected.
She shot him a look, but he remained focused on Tempest as he spoke, one hand resting briefly against the horse’s neck with an ease that had become increasingly natural.
“You are safe,” he said. “And I owe that gratitude to Tempest. I owe him a lot, actually.”
“I was safe before.”
“Yes,” he agreed after a moment. “I know that now, but at the time, I was unsettled by it all.”
The admission lingered between them longer than either acknowledged.
Dorian found Anne watching him more closely than usual, as if she were trying to understand what exactly had shifted so much in such a short time.
“You are still unsettled,” she noted.
“I am fine. I am adjusting; that is all.”
“To what?”
His gaze flicked toward her briefly before returning to the horse. “To the idea that I may not want things to stay as they were before.”
The answer was quiet but absolute, and it left a different silence in its wake.
Anne looked down for a moment before speaking again, more softly than before. “That is not a bad thing. In fact, I would be inclined to agree.”
Dorian’s expression shifted slightly, something guarded passing behind his eyes before he smoothed it away.
He left his work more often than usual, appearing in rooms where Anne was without any clear reason beyond being there, and she found herself less surprised each time he did.
In the corridors, his hand would brush briefly against her back as she passed, not enough to stop her but enough to register, and when he handed her papers or documents, his fingers would linger slightly longer than necessary before withdrawing.
Anne did not pull away. If anything, she adjusted to it, as though testing whether the new closeness would hold or disappear the moment she acknowledged it directly.
Later, when the house finally settled and they retired to their rooms, Dorian remained standing near the door to her chamber longer than necessary.
Anne stopped just inside, turning back to look at him. “Are you not coming in?” she asked.
“I should not,” he replied after a pause.
“You have not stopped following me all day,” she pointed out. “I do not see why that would change now.”
“That was not intentional.”
“Was it not?”
He could not help but smile at that.
“I will fix it,” he said.
Anne stepped slightly closer, lowering her voice as though the rest of the house might overhear something neither of them was ready to explain. “I do not want you to, and I know you do not want to either.”
That made him pause longer, the answer not coming as quickly as it should have.
“That is the problem.”
He did not elaborate, and Anne did not press him, because the truth of it was already becoming clear in the space between them.
For the first time since Lily’s death, Dorian had something in his life that mattered enough to lose, and now that he had it, every instinct he had built to survive without attachment was beginning to turn against the very thing that made him feel alive again.
Lady Vivian arrived at Ashford Hall two days later with her father under the guise of a polite visit and continued interest in the estate’s racing prospects, though it became clear that she planned to spend the few days she was there trying to learn more about Dorian.
She noticed the change in him within minutes. It was subtle, he thought, but seemingly not to her. He would have been firm with her if not for the fact that he needed her father’s investment.
Later that afternoon, she found him alone in one of the drawing rooms, reviewing correspondence.
“You look different,” she said lightly as she entered without waiting for an invitation.
Dorian did not look up. “If this is about the reports, I have already sent—”
“It is not about the reports,” she interrupted smoothly, moving further into the room as though she belonged there.
A pause followed, then Dorian set the papers down. “Then what is it about?”
Lady Vivian smiled faintly, studying him.
“It is about her,” she said. “Your little wife.”
Dorian exhaled slowly. “Lady Vivian.”
But she continued as though he had not spoken. “You are not careful anymore. Not in the way you used to be. You are not distant toward her, not in the way you were with everyone else.”
“That is not a problem.”
“It will be.” The certainty in her voice gave him pause.
Dorian’s gaze sharpened slightly. “Explain.”
Lady Vivian stepped closer, stopping just out of reach, calm in a way that suggested she believed she was doing him a kindness.
“She is not like the women you are used to,” she said. “She is not like me or the others you can walk away from without consequence.”
Dorian’s jaw tightened slightly. “I am not walking away from anyone.”
“Not yet,” Lady Vivian emphasized softly. “But you will, or something will happen that makes you think you have to.”
“You are overstepping.”
“And you are underestimating what you are doing to her.”
Dorian said nothing for a moment. Still, Lady Vivian continued as though she were speaking to someone who simply had not yet understood his own situation.
“She is too good for the life you lead. Too hopeful, too certain that people change because they want to, not because they must.” A faint, almost sympathetic smile touched her mouth.
“You and I both know what you are. Scandal follows you. Recklessness follows you. Even when you try to change, it is still there beneath everything.”
Dorian’s eyes narrowed slightly. “You are speaking as though you know me.”
“I do,” she said simply. “Better than she does, at least.”
The words hung in the air longer than either of them acknowledged.
Lady Vivian’s voice softened further. “Women like me understand men like you. We do not expect permanence, we do not expect stability, and we do not build ourselves around something that will inevitably fall apart. But women like her do, and when that happens, they break.”
Dorian looked away briefly, a controlled movement that gave away more than he likely intended.
“I have not given her reason to believe anything false,” he said.
Lady Vivian gave a small, almost pitying laugh. “You do not have to. You only have to exist as you are.”
Silence followed.
Dorian picked up the papers again, though he was no longer reading them. “I think you are attempting to manufacture concern where there is none,” he said.
Lady Vivian watched him for a long moment. “And I think you are afraid of how easily she has become important to you.”
“I am not interested in this conversation,” he grunted.
“And yet you are listening,” she pointed out calmly.
He did not answer.
When she eventually left, she did so without further argument, leaving behind only the words he would have preferred not to hear.
He remained where he was for several minutes after, the papers still clutched in his hand.
But his attention was no longer on them because what Lady Vivian had done, whether intentionally or not, did not introduce a new fear.
She had only given shape to one that had already begun forming inside him—that Anne might one day look at him and realize she had chosen something that would hurt her more than it could ever protect her.
For the first time since he had begun allowing himself to want her, the thought did not leave easily.
Unfortunately, that would not be the last argument he had that day. An old investor decided to call, undoubtedly because Lady Vivian and her father were present. It was the last thing Dorian wished to handle, but he could not escape his responsibilities.
“You have done well enough lately,” the man said, though his smile suggested otherwise. “But reputations are not easy to maintain, Your Grace. One scandal, one misstep, and the old doubts return faster than you can banish them.”