Chapter Twelve #2
Lorraine lingered a moment longer, her gaze drawn back toward the house.
Her skin still tingled where Julian’s hand had rested—not from the touch itself, but from what it had stirred. The flash in Dominic’s eyes. The tension in his voice. The effort—visible, palpable—with which he had contained himself.
His jealousy shouldn’t thrill me, she thought. It shouldn’t make my pulse race and my skin flush and my entire body feel as though it’s been set alight.
It did.
Because it meant he felt something—something strong enough to draw him from the house, across the lawn, into the open air without care for propriety or composure.
I want him to want me, she realised, with a clarity that was almost painful. I’ve wanted it for weeks. I’ve wanted him to look at me the way he looked at me just now—like I’m something precious, something worth fighting for. Like I belong to him.
The thought should have unsettled her. She was a governess, with little to recommend her but competence and necessity. She had no business wanting a duke’s regard—still less his desire.
And yet.
The wanting had taken root long since—on a storm-lit night in the library, in the quiet warmth of a hand against hers, in the brief, reverent touch of his forehead beneath her lips.
I want him, she thought. All of him. The ice and the fire beneath it. The broken parts and the parts that are healing. The man who holds crying children and watches kestrels and names dragons after terrifying aunts.
I want him. And he wants me.
She drew a breath against the cold air.
I do not know what is to come. Only that I cannot pretend otherwise.
***
She waited until evening before going to his study.
She had considered going at once—marching to his door and demanding he stop retreating, stop hiding, stop pretending the ice was anything other than fear.
But caution prevailed. Not for herself—she was well past that—but for him.
For the fragile progress they had made. For the boy upstairs who needed them both whole.
When she knocked, the answer came at once.
“Enter.”
He was at his desk. Not behind it, but seated on the edge, arms crossed, his expression controlled. The lamplight caught the sharp line of his cheekbones, the scar at his brow, the tension held tight in his jaw. He looked, Lorraine thought, like a man braced for impact.
“You wished to discuss the lesson schedule, Your Grace.”
“No.” His voice was rough. “I wished to apologise.”
She blinked. “Apologise?”
“For my behaviour this afternoon. I was—” He broke off, uncrossed his arms, then folded them again. “I was inexcusable. To you, and to Julian. There was no cause for it.”
“There was a cause.”
He went still.
“You were jealous.”
She said it without accusation, without softness—only as fact, laid plainly between them.
A muscle worked in his jaw. “Julian is my friend. He meant nothing by—”
“I know what Lord Julian meant. And I know what you felt.” She held his gaze. “You need not explain it. Only decide what it means.”
Silence gathered between them, close and charged. The fire snapped softly in the grate; the wind moved against the panes. Lorraine heard her own heartbeat, far too loud.
“It means,” Dominic said at last, his voice low, “that I cannot bear it. To see another man stand where I would stand. To see him touch you where I—” He stopped, his grip tightening on the edge of the desk until his knuckles blanched.
“It means that I have no right to feel as I do—and that I feel it nevertheless.”
“You have every right.”
“I do not. You are in my employ. Under my protection. Any declaration from me would be—”
“Honest.” She stepped closer and saw the breath catch in him, the effort it cost him to remain still.
“I am not a child, Dominic,” she said, softer now. “I am not some naive girl who does not understand the risks. I know what I stand to lose. I have already lost it once.” Her voice steadied. “And I am still here. Standing in your study. Asking you to stop running.”
His gaze dropped, just for a moment, to her mouth.
The movement was small. Devastating.
When his eyes lifted again, something in them had shifted—darkened, deepened, the control thinning to something far more dangerous.
“Lorraine.” Her name was not a word so much as a breath. “If I stop running…”
He pushed away from the desk without seeming to mean to. The space between them closed. Half a step, no more, but enough that she could feel the heat of him now, could feel the pull of it like gravity.
“I do not think I shall be able to stop at all.”
The admission landed between them, heavy and irrevocable.
Her pulse leapt. She was suddenly, acutely aware of everything—the closeness, the warmth, the way his hand had lifted, almost unconsciously, as though drawn toward her and then held there, suspended.
“Then don’t,” she whispered.
For a moment that seemed to stretch beyond time, neither of them moved.
His gaze searched her face as though asking permission, and her body answered before her mind could intervene. She did not step back. Did not look away. If anything, she leaned the smallest fraction closer, enough that her breath brushed his throat.
His hand came to her waist.
Not decisively. Not yet. It settled there as though it had found something inevitable, something it had been seeking long before he allowed himself to name it. His thumb shifted—barely—against the fabric of her gown, and the contact sent a sharp, startling heat through her.
“Lorraine,” he said again, hoarse now.
Her hands rose of their own accord—hovered, then came to rest lightly against his chest. She could feel his heartbeat beneath her palms; faster now, matching her own.
The world narrowed to that point of contact.
To breath.
To heat.
To the unbearable, suspended knowledge of what would happen if either of them moved an inch further.
His head bent, just slightly.
Close enough now that she could feel the ghost of it, the almost of it, the promise of it.
Then—
He closed his eyes.
Drew in a sharp, unsteady breath.
And stepped back.
The absence of him was immediate. Jarring.
When he opened his eyes again, the fire had been forced down—banked, contained, but not gone.
“Not like this,” he said, his voice roughened to something almost unrecognisable. “Not in anger. Not in jealousy. You deserve better than that. You deserve…”
He broke off, swallowing.
“You deserve everything. And when I come to you—if I come to you—I want it to be because I chose it. Not because I was driven to it by my own weakness.”
Lorraine felt her throat tighten. It was, she realised, the most profound declaration she had ever heard—not of passion, but of restraint. Of intention.
“When,” she said quietly. “Not if.”
Something answered in his gaze. “When.”
She inclined her head once, the small formality absurdly unequal to the moment, and turned toward the door. Her steps were steady, though she felt anything but.
In the corridor, she paused, her back against the wall, breath unsteady in her chest.
It was a beginning.
She pressed her hands to her burning cheeks and smiled in the darkness.