“I am not a governess!” she burst out, her eyes flashing. “The child already has one, and a good one at that. What she needs isnot another set of lessons or rules from another woman. What she needs is a mama. She needs friends. She needs a family that shows her what love is.” Dorothy’s voice wavered, but she did not falter. “But I am not allowed to be any of those things. Not truly. Not while you cage me with silence and distance and tell me my only duty is to watch over her like a nursemaid.”
Silence fell again, sudden and taut. Magnus did not break it. He could not. His gaze had fixed, unbidden, on her mouth. On the way, her teeth pressed against her lower lip, leaving it flushed, marked.
It was a small thing, innocent perhaps, but it struck him like a blow. A memory he did not wish to recall pressed at the edges of his mind, dark and insistent. He forced it back, forced himself to breathe, but the sight of her lips held him in place.
Why does she have to bite on it? What is she trying to do?
He watched Dorothy stare at him, waiting. Expecting. Her eyes searched his face, her lips caught once more beneath her teeth as though she could not stop herself. He told himself it must be nerves, nothing more. A foolish habit of hers. Yet his chest tightened all the same, and his thoughts grew tangled.
He did not like the memory that came with the sight.
“Is that truly what you think?” she asked at last. “That I am nothing more than a nursemaid in your house? That my place begins and ends with Eugenia?”
She fell quiet, biting her lip again. Magnus swallowed hard, but no words came. He could not answer. Not with those lips daring him to remember what he had sworn never to recall. Shock rippled through him. He had thought himself master of his composure, of his rage, of his house. Yet here he stood, undone by the smallest gesture, silent before the woman who should never have had such power over him.
Magnus had not meant to touch her. Yet before sense could catch him, he had crossed the space between them, his hand closing around her face as though compelled. He stood, towering over her, his hand cradling her chin as though it belonged there. His thumb lingered at the corner of her mouth, dangerously close to the lip she kept worrying, and the warmth of her skin under his palm startled him more than the sharpness of her words.
Dorothy’s eyes widened, startled, her whole body stiffening under his touch. For a moment, she seemed utterly frozen, as though she could not decide what to do. The shock in her gaze pierced him, but she did not move, and that stillness unsettled him more than if she had struck him.
“Stop doing that,” he whispered in a strained voice, as though every syllable cost him.
Her chest rose, defiant, though her eyes betrayed the sting of his tone. “Is that an order?”
“Please,” he added in the same tone.
The word hung between them. Deep down, he knew it was one word he had not earnestly spoken to another soul in years, but he didn’t dwell on it. Dorothy stilled, her lips parting ever so slightly, her gaze lifting to his as though she could scarcely believe him.
Her eyes did not leave his, and though he told himself he should step back, that he ought to release her at once, he could not.
The soft give of her skin beneath his hand, the warmth of her breath, the wide eyes fixed on him... it was all too near, too perilous. Something surged through him, sharp and consuming, as though the very air between them had changed, crackling with a current he had no name for... yet.
Reality crashed into him like a cold wave.
What am I doing?
He tore his hand from her face as though her skin burned him and stepped back with uneven breath. One step, then another, and still the charge of it clung to him, tightening his chest until he felt half-mad. He could not bear her gaze. Those eyes that had softened in spite of her anger, those lips he had ordered, begged, to still.
Without a word, he turned from her, retreating as though distance alone might quell what he had unleashed. He did not stop until he reached the door, and even then, his hand trembled on the latch.
He stepped into the corridor, drawing in a ragged breath as the silence of the house closed around him. Perhaps he had come upon her too harshly. Perhaps he had pressed her too near. Or perhaps... that moment had awakened something within him.
It was a feeling he did not know, a foreign tide that unsettled him more than any enemy, and he could not yet decide if it was welcome or ruinous.
So, he walked on, farther down the passage, as though distance might banish it. But no matter how far he went, the tension of that moment followed him still.
Dorothy had worn a path across the carpet outside his chamber door. Back and forth she went, her palms pressed tight against her skirts, her pulse drumming loud enough she feared the servants might hear it echo through the hall. She contemplated whether she should leave it. Maybe she ought to let the storm of the afternoon fade with the night. But every time she turned away, her steps brought her back.
Dorothy had spent the entire afternoon turning his anger over in her mind, trying to make sense of it. The only explanation she could grasp was the painting itself. His father’s likeness beside that of his sister. Perhaps the memories bound to that portrait were not kind ones. She supposed that his relationship with the late Duke had been far from tender and that the sight of him had perhaps struck some old wound too sharply. If that were so, his reaction, though harsh, would not be without reason, andthough her intent had been to brighten the drawing room, her sisters had taught her long ago that intent meant little beside another’s hurt. Emma had often said that it was never about what one meant to do but how one’s actions made another feel. That lesson now returned to Dorothy. It was why she lingered outside his study door, determined to set matters right in case she had, unknowingly, pried open a wound best left untouched.
At last, before she could lose her nerve entirely, she raised her hand and knocked. There was a pause, then his voice came. “Come in.”
Her heart leapt. She opened the door and stepped inside.
Magnus stood near the hearth, the firelight catching at the hard planes of his face. He did not look startled, though his brow arched faintly at the sight of her. Dorothy shut the door behind her with care, the soft click sounding louder than it ought to be, and then she faced him.
The instant her eyes found him, standing with his back half-turned to the firelight, the memory struck her like a rush of wind. She thought at once of his hand against her face, of the startling warmth of his palm, and of the way his voice had softened when he uttered that single word.
Her lips parted as her heart began its wild hammering anew. It had taken long, unsteady minutes after he had left her chamber for her pulse to quiet, yet even then, it had never truly stilled. Every time her mind dared return to that moment, the drumming began again, as if her very body betrayed her.
