He stepped closer. “I don’t want to guard you. I want tohelpyou. Whatever happens next, you won’t face it alone.”
She hesitated. The weight of the last five years, the fear, the solitude, the heartbreak, pressed against her features like a mask she was growing tired of wearing. Finally, she nodded. And though the fog clung to the ground and the gravestones loomed around them, something in her gaze flickered with life for the first time.
They left Highgate together, walking through the mist not as ghost and soldier, but as two people who had been broken by the world and, somehow, were finding the will to stand again.
Chapter Four
By the timethey reached Hampstead, Isobel’s limbs were numb from cold and tension. The fog had thickened to a dense shroud, cloaking the narrow streets and cobbled alleys in eerie silence. She could barely hear the clatter of their boots over the pounding in her ears. Every passing shadow made her heart hitch; every turn in the road felt like a potential trap.
But Elias said nothing, only walked slightly ahead, his hand loosely curled around hers, grounding her with each step.
The flat was tucked behind a shuttered grocer’s shop, down a crooked lane lined with yew trees whose branches clawed at the mist like skeletal fingers. It looked unremarkable from the outside—small, brick-faced, with soot-darkened windows and a chipped green door. But as soon as Elias unlocked it and drew her inside, she exhaled for the first time in what felt like hours.
It was warm. And quiet.
A fire had been laid in the hearth earlier, the flames now crackling low and steady, casting amber light over worn furniture and dust-speckled glass panes. The air smelled faintly of old paper, oak polish, and the ghost of pipe smoke. Everything felt still and waiting. Untouched.
Elias shut the door behind them and bolted it. “You’re safe now,” he said gently.
The words echoed inside her. They were strange. Foreign.
She loosened her rain-drenched cloak and stepped deeper into the room, her eyes drifting over the modest but well-kept furnishings. A small bookshelf lined with well-worn volumes. A single armchair near the fire, with a faded cushion that looked too delicate for a man like Elias to have chosen. A writing desk tucked beneath the window, its surface bare except for a blotter and a crystal inkpot.
“This isn’t your home,” she murmured.
“It was a friend’s,” he said, shrugging out of his coat and hanging it on the hook near the door. “A fellow officer. He moved to Scotland, but left the key with me in case I ever returned.”
She turned to him. “Did you know you’d come back?”
“No,” he admitted. “But something in me hoped I would.”
She opened her mouth to reply, then stopped. Words failed her. They were too heavy in her throat. Instead, she reached for the ribbon at her collar and undid it, the weight of her wet garments too oppressive now. Her hands shook slightly as she unlaced the top of her bodice. She hadn’t realized how cold she was until she stepped out of her boots.
She glanced up and found Elias watching her. Not with lust. Not with pity. But with that same fierce reverence that made her quiver her far more than she liked.
He crossed the room slowly, stopping just before her. His hands rose, but he hesitated. “May I?” he asked, voice low.
She nodded, even though she didn’t have a clue about his intention.
He touched her face like she was something sacred, as if afraid she might vanish beneath his fingertips. His thumb brushed the edge of her cheek, lingering just long enough to capture a drop of rain that had clung there, trailing it softly down to the corner of her jaw. She didn’t breathe. Couldn’t.
A damp curl had fallen loose from her braid and clung stubbornly to her temple. With deliberate care, Elias reached up and tucked it behind her ear, his fingers grazing the sensitive skin there. The touch was featherlight, but it sent a shiver cascading down her spine that had nothing to do with how cold she had felt only seconds ago.
She wanted to step back. Say something. Break the spell. But her body wouldn’t obey. It was as though the very air between them had thickened, laced with unspoken things—grief, longing, memory.
She lifted her eyes to meet him. And he was already looking at her. Not with pity. Not with duty. But with something rawer. Hungrier.
The fire crackled behind them, casting flickering gold across the planes of his face. She saw the tension in his throat, the tight set of his shoulders, the restraint trembling just beneath the surface. His hand hovered now, still near her face, not quite touching. He was giving her time to pull away. To say no.
But she didn’t.
The space between them collapsed in the span of a heartbeat. His lips brushed hers, soft, questioning, barely there. A whisper of a kiss.
She inhaled sharply. That was all it took.
He kissed her again, firmer now, the ache between them breaking loose like water behind a cracked dam. Her hands rose before she could stop them, clutching the front of his coat, pulling him closer. He wrapped an arm around her waist, and she melted against him like she’d been waiting for this moment all her life.
It wasn’t gentle. It wasn’t perfect. It was real.
