Chapter Twelve
“You’re doing it again, Miss Weston.”
Lorraine started, nearly dropping the book she had been pretending to read. Lord Julian Pierce stood in the library doorway, leaning against the frame with his arms crossed and a knowing smile that suggested he had been observing her for some time.
“Doing what, my lord?”
“Staring at that page without turning it. You’ve been fixed on the same passage for a quarter of an hour.
Either the prose is remarkably engaging, or your thoughts are elsewhere.
” He pushed away from the doorframe and strolled into the room with the easy assurance of a man who had never encountered a space he could not make his own. “I suspect the latter.”
Lorraine closed the book with as much composure as she could muster.
Julian had been at Rovewood for three days, and in that short time, he had overturned the household’s careful equilibrium with the efficiency of a cheerful hurricane.
The servants adored him. Thomas followed him about with unflagging devotion.
Even Mrs Potter, who guarded routine like a general defending a fortress, had been seen smiling as Julian made himself at home in her domain.
And Dominic—
Dominic had withdrawn.
Since the dinner—since his abrupt departure and whatever had passed between him and Julian afterward—he had retreated into a coldness that made his earlier reserve seem almost mild.
He appeared at meals, but spoke little, and only to Thomas or Julian.
He visited the nursery, but only when Lorraine was otherwise engaged.
He walked the grounds, but at altered hours, along altered paths, as though carefully avoiding the possibility of encountering her.
It was, Lorraine recognised with a dull ache, a pattern she understood too well. The retreat. The walls rebuilt. The ice restored over what had briefly begun to thaw.
And she could not wholly blame him, for she understood the impulse. The terror of wanting what one could not have. The instinct to withdraw before the wanting became unbearable. She had spent the last few years perfecting that very defence.
It did not lessen the hurt.
“Miss Weston.” Julian had taken the chair opposite—Dominic’s chair, she thought, with an unwelcome flicker of possessiveness—and was watching her with mild amusement. “May I speak plainly?”
“You strike me, my lord, as a man who does so whether permitted or not.”
“Well struck. I begin to understand why Dom finds you formidable.” He smiled, though something keener lay beneath it. “I wished to speak to you about our mutual friend.”
“His Grace is your friend, my lord. To me, he is my employer.”
“And I am the Prince Regent.” Julian crossed one ankle over the other and regarded her steadily.
“Miss Weston, I have known Dominic Vane since we were thirteen. I have seen him through school, through war, and through four years of what can only be described as self-imposed exile. And in all that time, I have never seen him look at anyone as he looks at you.”
Lorraine kept her expression still, though her breath caught.
“He watches you,” Julian continued more quietly. “When you are unaware of it. When you read to the boy, when you cross a room, when you speak to Mrs Potter about the dinner. He watches you as a man watches something he believes himself denied—with longing enough to do him harm.”
“My lord—”
“I do not say this to embarrass you. Nor merely to meddle—though I confess I have a taste for it.” He leaned forward, the lightness falling away.
“I say it because he will not. He will stand at a window and convince himself he does not deserve you—and be entirely wrong. And he will suffer for it. As, I think, will you.”
Lorraine pressed her hands flat against her skirts. “You do not know my circumstances, my lord. You do not know what—”
“I know enough. I know you are intelligent, capable, and have given that boy something no one else could. I know you have reached a man the physicians were content to leave to time and endurance. And whatever brought you here has not diminished you in the least.” He paused, then added lightly, “I also know you are in love with him, because you have been studying the same page for fifteen minutes—and the book is upside down.”
Lorraine glanced down.
It was.
“Oh—” she began, then stopped herself, colour rising.
Julian laughed—a warm, unrestrained sound. “Yes. Precisely.”
“Lord Julian.” She set the book aside and met his gaze. “I appreciate your concern. Truly. But the situation between His Grace and myself is… not simple. He is a duke. I am a governess. The difference between us—”
“Is not so insurmountable as the world would have you believe.”
“It is insurmountable enough. Society would not see it otherwise. Nor would it spare him for disregarding it.”
“He would not be diminished by choosing happiness.” Julian’s tone sharpened.
“Miss Weston, I watched Dominic come back from Spain a ghost. I watched him shut himself away from every friend he possessed. I wrote to him and received no answer. I came here and was turned away at the door more often than not. For four years, I waited for some sign that he had not vanished entirely.”
He paused, his voice roughening. “And then I arrived and saw it. Not much—a crack, perhaps—but it was there. Because of you. Because of what you have done for that boy. Because of whatever stands between you that neither of you will name. And I will not see the first good thing in four years undone by caution or fear.”
Lorraine swallowed. “He has drawn away. Since you came. He scarcely looks at me.”
“Because he is jealous.”
She stared. “Of you?”
“Of me. Of anyone who can make you laugh without effort.” Julian shrugged. “It is a most inconvenient trait, jealousy. It rarely troubles itself with logic.”
“That is absurd.”
“On the contrary. It is proof that he cares.” Julian rose. “Give him time. And do not allow him to retreat entirely. He requires someone who will not permit it.”
He offered his arm with a slight bow. “Now—shall we walk? I have promised Thomas a lesson in foxes, and I should hate to disappoint him.”
Lorraine hesitated. She should refuse—should maintain the professional distance that was already stretched gossamer-thin.
But Julian’s smile was uncomplicated and kind, and she was tired—so tired—of being careful.
“Very well, my lord. Though if we encounter one, I reserve the right to flee.”
***
They found Thomas in the garden with Jenny, already bundled into coat and hat and fairly vibrating with anticipation. The four of them set out along the path toward the old stone wall, Julian and Thomas leading, Lorraine and Jenny following at a more measured pace.
It was, at first, a pleasant walk. Julian described the foxes on his Derbyshire estate—sleek red creatures with brush-tails and bright, watchful eyes—and Thomas plied him with questions, earnest and intent as any young natural philosopher.
Jenny listened with open admiration, directed as much at Lord Julian himself as at his stories.
They were nearing the wall—Julian crouched beside a gap in the stones he declared a fox’s entrance—when Lorraine felt it.
That prickle at the nape of her neck. That shift in the air.
She turned, slowly, and looked back toward the house.
He was there.
At the study window, outlined against lamplight, utterly still. Watching.
Even at this distance, she felt the force of it—his attention like heat against her skin, like pressure she could neither escape nor ignore. One hand braced against the frame, he did not move, and she knew—with the quiet certainty born of long observation—that he was not merely watching.
He was fighting himself.
Her pulse faltered. She turned back at once.
Julian caught her glance and followed it toward the house. Something flickered across his expression—recognition, swiftly concealed.
“Thomas,” he called lightly, “come and look—there are tracks here, I think.”
While the boy scrambled to his side, Julian rose and stepped nearer to Lorraine, his hand settling, unremarkably, at her elbow.
“Trust me,” he murmured. “Watch the window.”
Before she could answer, a door struck open at the side of the house.
Dominic crossed the lawn with long, purposeful strides, his coat unfastened, his cravat imperfectly set—like a man who had come out in haste and had not troubled to conceal it. His face was set, his expression carved hard; his eyes, when they reached them, were the colour of a winter storm.
“Lord Julian.” His voice was cold. “I was not aware you intended an excursion.”
Julian withdrew his hand from Lorraine’s arm with deliberate ease. “An impulse only. The weather allowed for it, and Thomas wished to see the foxes. Miss Weston was good enough to accompany us.”
Dominic’s gaze moved—from Julian, to Lorraine, to the space between them—measuring, noting, concluding. When his eyes fell upon the place Julian’s hand had rested, something dark flashed there, quick as lightning.
“Miss Weston.” His voice had dropped, lower now, rough-edged. “I should like a word with you regarding Thomas’s lessons. At your convenience.”
“Of course, Your Grace.” Her tone remained steady, though her heart beat fast. “I may attend you directly, if—”
“After your walk.” Each word was precise. “There is no urgency.”
He held her gaze a moment too long. Then turned and strode back toward the house, rigid with restraint.
Lorraine watched him go, breath caught somewhere beneath her ribs.
Julian came to stand beside her, his tone low, faintly amused. “There, Miss Weston—that is jealousy, in its natural habitat.”
“That was unkind,” she said under her breath, though she was not certain whether she addressed him or herself.
“Unkind would be leaving him to freeze where he stands.” Julian’s voice softened. “I have merely reminded him he is capable of feeling. What he does with it is his affair.”
He gave her shoulder a brief, companionable pressure before turning back to Thomas. “Now then—let us see whether we may indeed discover our fox.”