As light as a whisper, he touched his lips to hers. The kiss was neither passionate nor fiery. He didn’t urge her to open her mouth to him. Yet, he didn’t know if any kiss had ever branded him more. Withhis thumb, he stroked her unmarred cheek, while his mouth lingered on hers.
He didn’t want to consider all the kisses they’d never share. All the nights, all the days. All the smiles and laughter that would not be theirs.
Aware of the coach coming to a stop, he pulled back, his gaze holding hers. They were so near to a streetlamp that he could see her clearly. Her eyes shone with a brightness. Not tears, surely.
Releasing his hold on her, he slipped his fingers beneath his neckcloth, located the chain that held the St. Christopher medallion, and dragged it over his head. “For your future travels,” he said as he draped it around her neck.
He heard a tiny mewl, almost painful. She closed a hand around the disk. “I’ll treasure it.”
“Should you ever need me—”
“I won’t.”
Crossing over in front of her, he shoved open the door, leapt out, and handed her down. His footman was already at the top of the short steps, handing off the balloon to her butler.
“Take care of yourself, Langdon,” she said flatly.
He watched her until she disappeared into her residence.
Chapter 24
Although she never turned around, never so much as glanced back, she was keenly aware of his gaze following her movements. When she passed over the threshold, closed the door, and slumped against it, she could still sense him standing there, waiting.
She wondered if he was holding his breath as she was. Until her chest ached with the need for fresh air.
She was still standing there when her butler returned after taking her balloon someplace out of the way.
“Will there be anything else, madam?”
“No” came out on a croak, most likely because she wanted to utter a different response. Because there was something else she wanted, but it was futile to ask him for what he hadn’t the power to give her.
Love.
Through the oak, she heard the distant slamming of a coach door, quickly followed by the clompingof horses’ hooves and the whir of wheels. In all these years, she’d never been angry at her father. She’d been dumbfounded, confused by his actions. Most assuredly, she’d hated what her mother had been forced to endure.
But in her mind’s eye, memories of him had never been tainted. He’d always remained the loving father, the one who lifted her onto his shoulders when she grew tired of walking or needed to see into the distance during the village’s annual fete. He was the one who had shown her the world from on high.
I lay the world at your feet, he’d once told her just before he’d hugged her close and laughed.
She’d always believed his laughter to have come about because of joy and love. But she was having a difficult time at the moment not hearing his words as anything except a horrendous joke, his laughter a sinister foreshadowing of a life that stole away dreams rather than granting them.
Belatedly, she realized her butler still stood at attention, scrutinizing her, striving to determine how to be useful. For surely, it had to be apparent that something was amiss with her. She suspected he was trying to determine exactly how much he could pry before he’d be stepping over a line that separated servant from mistress of the household.
“Have the balloon spread out in my study.” She wanted to ensure she hadn’t missed any tears. Lie. She wanted to run her fingers over Langdon’s needlework. “And please see to it that a bath is prepared.”
With tasks in hand, he visibly relaxed, all theair seeping out of him as it did the envelope when the balloon needed to return to earth. “Very good, madam.”
She might have chuckled at the swiftness with which he departed, but she wasn’t certain if she’d ever laugh again.
Trudging up the stairs in her gaslit residence, she found herself comparing the trek to one recently made on darkened stairs where she’d needed a lamp to guide her. How uneven the steps were, but how full of character they seemed. It was ridiculous to miss them, to regret that she’d never again climb them.
In her bedchamber, she stood before the cheval glass, hardly recognizing the woman reflected back at her. It wasn’t the cuts, scrapes, or dark blue bruises. It was the light gray frock, with buttons done up to her throat. Within her wardrobe was no frock to match it in portraying innocence or virtue. Everything had been designed to reveal, while not slipping into the area of obscenity. It seemed odd to have so much of her covered and hidden away.
Her discomfiture served as further proof that she wasn’t meant for Langdon’s world.
She wandered over to the window. The draperies were drawn aside. Gazing out on her streetlamp-lit surroundings, she found herself wishing she was looking out on the blue water, turbulent or calm. That she could hear the wind whistling through ancient cracks. That she could reach down and pick up a book from an ungainly stack.
Why was it that after only a few days she could be missing so much? Langdon most of all.
