She lifted her chin, that small gesture of defiance he'd come to know so well. "If you must know, I have an interview with the Harrington family. They require a governess for their three daughters, and they've been kind enough to overlook certain... recent unpleasantness... in favour of proven academic credentials."
"The Harringtons." He knew the name vaguely. New money from Manchester, textiles or mills or some such trade-based fortune. The sort of family the ton barely acknowledged despite their wealth. "You're interviewing to be a governess. You?"
"Yes, me." She moved past him toward the stairs, her portfolio clutched like a shield. "Their fortune may be founded on looms rather than land, but their children's Latin is apparently in desperate want of improvement. I intend to oblige."
"Manchester?" The word came out strangled. "You're planning to go to Manchester?"
"Unless they've moved it recently, yes, that's generally where one finds the Harrington family." She paused at the top of the stairs, not quite meeting his eyes. "They're prepared to be quite generous with wages, and more importantly, they neither know nor care about London gossip. My scandal means less than nothing to merchants who need their daughters to make good matches."
Adrian felt something wild and desperate claw at his chest. This wasn't idle talk or dramatic posturing. She was genuinely preparing to leave, to bury herself in some industrial city where her brilliance would be wasted on teaching basic declensions to uninterested children.
"You would exile yourself for this?" He moved closer, close enough to catch the faint scent of lavender water she'd always favored. "You would abandon your scholarship, your translations, everything you've worked toward?"
Her knuckles whitened where she gripped the portfolio. "You mean the half-finished catalogue that society now sniggers over? The translations no respectable journal will publish because my name is poison? Better to teach arithmetic to Harrington children than to remain in London as a cautionary tale for young ladies who dare to want more."
"That's not...you know that's not true. Your work has value regardless of what those fools whisper."
"Value?" She laughed, the sound sharp enough to cut. "Tell me, Your Grace, which publisher will accept manuscripts from the notorious Miss Whitcombe?Which family will hire a librarian who might corrupt their sons or entrap their husbands? Which scholarly society will admit a woman whose name is invariably followed by 'that creature who spent the night with Everleigh'?"
Each word was a lash, made worse by the calm precision of her delivery. This wasn't emotion speaking—this was cold, calculated truth, the kind of logical analysis she brought to her translations.
"You act as though I have no plan," Adrian said, frustration bleeding through his carefully maintained control. "As though I haven't been..."
"Haven't been what?" She whirled to face him fully, and he saw the exhaustion beneath her composed facade, the purple shadows under her eyes that spoke of sleepless nights. "Making grand gestures? Appearing at balls to defend my honour? Dancing with me in full view of society's worst gossips? Yes, Adrian, you've been quite busy ensuring my complete ruin. Forgive me if I don't see the master plan in that."
"That's not fair."
"Isn't it?" She descended two steps, then turned back, using the height advantage to look down at him with those expressive eyes that had haunted his dreams since that first day in Hatchard's. "You storm into salons and make declarations. You demand dances and deliver cutting setdowns to anyone who dares slight me. But what comes after the gesture? What happens when the music ends and the gossips have had their fill? You don't think beyond the moment, beyond the satisfaction of playing knight errant to my damsel in distress."
"I'm trying to protect you!"
"I never asked for your protection!" The words echoed in the narrow stairwell. "I asked for honesty. I asked for truth. I asked for a man who could see me as more than a problem to be solved or a reputation to be salvaged. Instead, I got Duke Everleigh, sweeping in to save me without once considering that perhaps I didn't need saving."
Adrian felt his hands clench at his sides, a thousand words crowding his throat—explanations, justifications, declarations he couldn't quite voice. How could he make her understand that every action, however misguided, came from a place of desperate love? That the thought of her facing society's cruelty alone made him want to challenge every gossip-monger to a dawn appointment? That he'd spent every night since that damned ball pacing his library, trying to find a solution that preserved both her independence and his sanity?
The silence stretched between them, taut as a violin string about to snap. Eveline stood there in her carefully mended dress, portfolio clutched like armor, chin raised in that defiant angle that made him want to either shake her or kiss her senseless. The morning light from the stair window caught the auburn threads in her dark hair, turned her skin to cream and roses, made her look like a painting of scholarly virtue about to be martyred on the altar of propriety.
He moved before conscious thought could stop him, crossing the space between them in two strides. His hand caught her wrist; gently, so gently, but firm enough to halt her retreat. She gasped, the small sound loud in the enclosed space,and he could feel her pulse racing beneath his fingers like a trapped bird.
"Adrian," she said, and his name on her lips was half warning, half plea.
He backed her against the wall, his body caging hers without quite touching, and saw her eyes darken. The portfolio slipped from her nerveless fingers as he leaned closer, close enough to see the tiny flecks of gold in her irises, close enough to count the freckles across her nose that she tried so hard to hide.
"This is what I think about," he said roughly, his voice dropping to that register that always made her shiver. "This is what keeps me awake at night, what drives me to make grand gestures and storm ballrooms. Not duty, not protection, not some misguided attempt at gallantry. This."
And then he was kissing her with all the desperate hunger of a man who'd been starving for weeks. His mouth claimed hers with none of the tentative exploration of their previous encounters. This was possession, pure and simple, a brand of heat and need that spoke more clearly than any words could.
For a heartbeat, she stood frozen. Then she made a sound, part surrender, part challenge, and her arms came up around his neck, fingers tangling in his hair as she kissed him back with equal fervor. The world narrowed to this moment, this connection, the slide of lips and tongues and the tiny sounds she made that drove him to absolute distraction.
He pressed closer, needing to feel her against him, needing to prove that this thing between them was real and vital and worth any amount of scandal. Her body yielded and demanded in equal measure, soft curves and fierce response, and he thought he might go mad from the contradictions of her. His brilliant, impossible, infuriating Eveline who could translate dead languages but couldn't see the simple truth of how desperately he loved her.
The kiss deepened, became something almost violent in its intensity. His hands found her waist, spanning it easily through the modest fabric of her dress, and he lifted her slightly, pressing her more firmly against the wall. She gasped into his mouth, her fingers tightening in his hair, and he swallowed the sound like a man dying of thirst.
This was what lay beneath their careful distances and formal addresses; this wild, ungovernable need that made mockery of social conventions and carefully laid plans. This was why he couldn't stay away, why every resolution to be sensible crumbled the moment she entered a room. This was...
She wrenched herself away so suddenly he nearly stumbled, her hands coming up to push against his chest with surprising strength. They stood there, both breathing hard, and Adrian watched her try to rebuild her composure like someone stacking cards in a windstorm.
"This," she said, her voice shaking despite visible effort to steady it, "is exactly the problem. This is why I have to leave."
