She heard his footsteps in the hallway, then the drawing room door swung open. Edward stood there, his dark hair slightly disheveled. Beatrice’s body responded to his presence before her mind could intervene—her pulse quickening, her skinsuddenly warm. She was acutely aware of every detail—the way his white shirt clung to his chest where the rain had seeped past his coat collar, the slight flush on his cheeks from the cold, the intensity of his blue gaze as it found her.
“You’re still awake.”
Beatrice kept her gaze on her book, though the words blurred before her. “It is not so late,” she replied, wishing her throat wasn’t so tight.
Edward removed his coat and handed it to the butler who had followed him in. The older man took it with a bow and retreated, closing the door behind him with a soft click.
“It’s coming down rather heavily,” Edward commented, moving closer to the fire and holding out his hands to the warmth. The flames illuminated his profile, casting half his face in shadow. “I was fortunate to find a hack when I did.”
Beatrice turned a page she hadn’t read. “Fortune favors the prepared, or so they say. Though I imagine being caught in the rain is a small inconvenience compared to the pleasures of the afternoon.”
She hadn’t meant to say it—not like that, with the edge of accusation in her voice.
“Beatrice,” he said, just her name.
She looked up, meeting his gaze with a coolness that belied the traitorous warmth spreading through her chest.
“Yes?” she asked, arching one eyebrow.
Why did he have to be so handsome? Why hadn’t she realized when she married such a man that he would never be solely hers?
Edward was sensible, kind, and cautious. At least so she had thought. Never did she believe she’d be following in her mother’s footsteps of pining for a man who would never be wholly hers.
Yet here she was.
Edward took a step toward her, then another, until he stood beside her chair. A drop of rain fell from his hair onto the open book in her lap, spreading across the page like a tear.
“You’ve been sketching,” he said softly, noticing the charcoal smudges on her fingers.
Beatrice snapped the book shut. “Yes.” She tried to grab the sketchbook but it was too late. He picked it up and flicked it open to the drawing of a young woman.
She closed her eyes briefly and willed him not to look too closely. If he did, he might recognize elements of her in there.
Elements she tried so hard to hide from him.
After a few moments of listening to her own heavy heartbeat, he placed the sketchbook carefully on the side table.
“Miserable evening,” he murmured, moving to the window.
“Indeed.”
Sweet Mary, how she hated this. The stilted words. The polite exchanges that meant nothing. How she longed to scream and rage and bash her fists against his chest and demand to know what he had been doing.
But to do so would give her away. It would let him see her weakness. He’d know then.
He’d know she cared.
“Good evening?” she asked, despite herself.
“Acceptable.” He gestured toward the window. “Would have been better if it wasn’t so grim.”
“Even a torrent of rain cannot stop you from your evening excursions it seems.” She said it with a tight smile.
Edward pivoted and eyed her. She swallowed hard. Whoops. So much for not giving herself away.
“I don’t have much choice, Beatrice. There are many matters to be dealt with.”
“Oh, yes,matters.So many important matters that one must be out at all hours.”
