And he had felt something.
Not desire, not exactly. That would be too simple.
It was... recognition.
A fleeting sense that here was someone else pretending to belong to a world that grated against the grain of who they truly were.
He passed a baker’s window and caught the scent of warm loaves and honeyed buns. A couple exited arm-in-arm from a nearby bookshop, their hands brushing in an unthinking gesture of ease. Arthur watched them with a strange twist in his chest.
Had he ever looked at Sophia that way? So unguarded? So trusting?
No. With Sophia Carter, he had looked forward—toward what might be, what she might be with him. But he had not seen her for what she was—ambitious, poised, calculating. She had known what she wanted, and when it had not been Arthur, she had moved on with clinical precision.
He had told himself it had hardened him for the better. Taught him realism, not romanticism. That detachment was strength.
But now…
Abigail had not asked for his protection. Had not simpered or clung or blushed like a girl grateful for a rescue. She had steadied herself, thanked him plainly, and returned to her composure without clinging to the moment.
And still, she lingered in his thoughts.
He turned down a narrower lane, the echo of his boots quieter here. Beaumont Manor was only a few streets off, its windows already lit with warm glow. He should have been glad of it—glad to return to order, to solitude.
But instead, his steps slowed.
He imagined her again—Abigail—standing amid shattered pottery and scattered lilies, as if plucked from a dream and dropped unceremoniously into the chaos of his world. He had caught her by instinct, indeed. But something else had held him there.
Some small, dangerous seed of possibility.
He paused at a wrought-iron gate near the square, his hand resting on the cool iron as he glanced toward a narrow garden tucked behind a stone wall.
The tulips there swayed gently in the breeze, their scarlet and ivory heads nodding like polite greetings from another world—one untouched by scandal or scrutiny. The sight stirred a memory he had not meant to keep. The vivid chaos of Covent Garden, the scatter of petals and pottery, and Abigail’s voice—breathless, startled, unmistakably real—uttering his name.
Arthur’s jaw tightened.
It was nothing, he told himself. A coincidence. A moment of chance. He had happened to be there, that was all. The city was not so large that two people might not cross paths unexpectedly.
And yet, there had been something about the way her fingers had curled unconsciously against the fabric of his coat, the slight tremor in her voice as she thanked him. A vulnerability so swiftly masked, it was lingering far longer than it should have in his thoughts.
He drew in a slow breath, the evening air tinged with lilac and coal smoke. He was tired. That was all. Too much society, too many women whose faces blurred together, too many conversations that began and ended with nothing of consequence. Abigail Darlington was simply a deviation from the expected—sharp-witted, reserved, disarmingly self-possessed.
And undeniably intriguing.
He pushed open the gate to Beaumont Manor and stepped through, the familiar crunch of gravel beneath his boots grounding him. The butler opened the door before he could reach for the handle, and the soft candle-light of the entrance hall washed over the marble floors and mahogany paneling, unchanged and unmoved by anything beyond its walls.
He shrugged off his coat, handed over his gloves, murmured a quiet good evening—and still, something in him resisted the calm.
As he ascended the stairs to his study, the tulips lingered in his mind. The garden. Her voice.
Perhaps it was nothing.
And yet, as he reached the landing and paused to glance out toward the darkened city below, Arthur felt the faint, unmistakable pull of curiosity.
Not affection. Not yet.
But something that might become dangerous, if left unchecked.
He turned away from the window, his steps echoing down the corridor behind him.
