CHAPTER TWO #3
A shock of warmth, traveling up her arm, spreading through her chest, settling low in her stomach. Her breath caught. Her feet stopped moving of their own accord.
She looked up.
He had gone completely still.
His eyes were fixed on her face with an intensity that stole what remained of her breath. His hand, the hand she had touched, hung frozen at his side, the fingers slightly curled, as though he were holding onto the ghost of the contact.
Move, Evangeline told herself again. Move, move, move…
But she couldn't. She was pinned by his gaze, trapped in the narrow space between his body and the opposite wall, close enough to see the individual threads of silver in his irises, close enough to feel the heat radiating from him despite the chill of the corridor.
Neither of them spoke.
Neither of them moved.
A profound silence hung suspended between them, as though the very air stood still in anticipation. It was heavy with an emotion Evangeline found herself quite unable to define…an inexplicable mixture of fervent longing, apprehension, and a strange sense of understanding.
Then, very slowly, the Duke's hand rose.
For one wild, impossible moment, she thought he was going to touch her. Thought he was going to reach out and cup her face, thread his fingers through her hair, pull her toward him and…
He pressed his palm flat against the wall instead. Steadying himself. Holding himself back.
"You should go." His voice was barely a whisper.
Evangeline swallowed. "Yes."
She didn't move.
"Now, Miss Harcourt."
The command broke the spell. She stumbled backward, nearly dropping her book, her cheeks flaming with a heat that had nothing to do with embarrassment.
"I…yes. Of course. Good afternoon."
She fled.
Lucian remained pressed against the wall for a long time after she had gone.
His hand was burning. The hand she had touched…barely touched, the merest whisper of contact felt as though she had branded him.
What is wrong with me?
He had stood there, trapped in that narrow corridor, and he had almost…
He pushed himself away from the wall with more force than necessary. His legs felt unsteady. His breathing was ragged. His entire body was strung tight as a bowstring, thrumming with a tension he had not felt in years.
It meant nothing, he told himself. She brushed against you by accident. It meant nothing.
But he could still feel it. The ghost of her fingers against his. The softness of her skin. The way her breath had caught, the way her eyes had gone wide and dark, the way she had looked at him as though…
Stop it. Stop it now.
He strode down the corridor, putting distance between himself and the place where it had happened. He needed to think. Needed to remember who he was and who she was and all the reasons why this was impossible.
She was a guest. A scholar's daughter. A woman so far beneath his station that even entertaining thoughts of her was an insult to his name.
And he was betrothed.
Not officially, not yet, but the contract sat in his desk drawer, waiting for his signature. Lady Cassandra Mowbray. The political alliance. The duty he owed to his family, his title, his dead brother's memory.
He thought of the envelope with its blood-red seal.
He thought of Evangeline Harcourt's hand brushing against his, and the way his entire world had narrowed to that single point of contact.
This cannot happen.
He would not allow it to happen.
He would be cold. Distant. Unapproachable. He would make her understand that there was nothing for her here, no warmth, no connection and no hope of whatever she thought she had seen in his eyes.
He would sign the contract.
He would wed Lady Cassandra.
He would do his duty, as he had always done his duty, and he would not think about brown eyes and gentle smiles and the devastating softness of a woman's touch.
He would not.
From the shadowed alcove near the staircase, the Dowager Duchess of Ashborn watched her son stride past.
She had witnessed the whole affair.
The narrow corridor. The accidental touch. The way Lucian had frozen, had pressed himself against the wall, had looked at the Harcourt girl as though she were water and he a man dying of thirst.
Helena Ashborn's hands tightened on the head of her cane.
This was... unexpected. In all the years since the fire, since the scars, since Thomas's death had turned her surviving son into a ghost haunting his own home, she had never seen him look at anyone in that manner.
He had seemed immune to attraction, indifferent to companionship, resigned to a life of cold solitude.
And now this girl…this nobody, this scholar's daughter with her impractical dresses and her impertinent smiles had cracked through his walls in less than two days.
It was unacceptable.
The Mowbray alliance was essential. The family's political future depended on it.
Helena had spent three years cultivating this match, navigating the Marquess's demands, soothing Lady Cassandra's fears about Lucian's appearance.
She would not allow some penniless determined adventuress to destroy everything.
Miss Harcourt will find a suitable match elsewhere, she decided. I will see to it personally.
She watched her son disappear around the corner, his shoulders rigid, and his stride too fast.
Then she turned and began to plan.
That night, Evangeline lay awake in her enormous bed, staring at the canopy above her.
She could not stop thinking about what had transpired between her and the Duke.
The corridor. The touch. The way he had looked at her, as though she were something precious and terrifying all at once.
You must take your leave, were his words. But they were delivered in a voice so ravaged, so utterly stripped of its customary polish that it betrayed a soul in great torment
She pressed her fingers to her lips, remembering the heat of him, the scent of him, the impossible tension that had stretched between them like a physical thing.
This was dangerous. She knew it was dangerous. He was a duke, and she was nothing. He was cold and rude and determined to push her away.
But he had also given her permission to use his library. He had also frozen when she touched him. He had also looked at her with those storm-grey eyes, and something in his expression had said, clearer than words: I am not as indifferent as I pretend to be.
I should stay away from him, Evangeline thought. I should read my book and mind my business and let this visit pass without incident.
It was the sensible thing to do. The safe thing.
But when she finally drifted off to sleep, her dreams were full of narrow corridors and accidental touches and a voice like smoke and velvet, whispering her name.