“You should return home,” he said, turning away from her. “Rest. Tomorrow will be tedious, but worth it.”
“You’ll be all right?” She watched him, the wariness returning.
“Trentham is a lamb compared to you. I’ll manage.” He grinned, showing every tooth.
Rose hesitated at the door, then, on impulse, reached up to touch the cut at his brow. Her finger was cool and gentle, and Felix felt the touch as if she had pressed a brand to his skin.
“You’re bleeding again,” she murmured.
He caught her hand and held it, just for a moment, then let it go. “Occupational hazard.”
She dropped her gaze, the smile lingering.
Felix watched her go, the color of her dress burning afterimages against his eyelids.
As the door shut, the room seemed colder.
“Stand still, Rose, or you’ll stab yourself again.” Felix’s voice was low, amused, as he watched the world’s finest pins pass within a hair’s breadth of his wife’s ribs.
He lounged on the divan, eyes tracking every flutter and motion across the shop.
Rose glared at him in the mirror, the effect spoiled by the blush that climbed from collarbone to hairline. “You said this was aprivateappointment.”
He grinned. “It is. Only the staff and I have the privilege.”
The dressmaker, a monument of black silk and mother-of-pearl spectacles, tsked at the hem. “Your Grace, if you continue fidgeting, I’ll be forced to sew you into the garment and be done with it.”
“I’d pay triple for the spectacle,” Felix said.
The shop was a shrine to excess: bolts of velvet and brocade draped over every surface, a thousand shades of dye in open rebellion against the neutral light. Felix had never been in such a place for longer than the time it took to pay a bill.
This was different. The entire staff orbited Rose, alternately terrified and enthralled.
Now she stood on the dais, encased in a confection of blue tulle and delicate beadwork. Felix, who had once sat for a tailor bored enough to invent three new adjectives for the color gray, felt his mouth go dry.
“You can breathe, can’t you?” he asked, barely suppressing a grin as the maid fastened the final hook at her back.
Rose shot him a glare. “No, I cannot, and you know it.”
“Then I’ll carry you everywhere,” Felix replied. She rolled her eyes, but the edges of her mouth twitched.
The dressmaker completed her final pass and beckoned Felix over. “Your Grace, do you approve the fit?”
He circled the dais slowly, letting Rose feel the weight of his gaze. Her spine stiffened. Instead of appraising the cut, Felix found himself studying the way the blue set her honey-brown eyes alight. He ran a hand, feather-light, along her arm.
“She’ll outshine the Madonna in every church window,” he said.
The dressmaker smothered a smile. Rose said nothing, but the flush had migrated to her ears.
Felix snapped his fingers. “Pack it. And every other one you’ve prepared. If you’ve anything else in midnight blue or near enough, send it to Carden House.”
The staff bowed and scuttled. Felix watched as Rose, momentarily abandoned, regarded herself in the mirror, both pleased and bewildered, as if the reflection belonged to someone else.
“Your Grace,” she said quietly. “You didn’t have to?—”
He cut her off. “It is the least I can do. For you. For Lizzie.”
She hesitated, then their eyes met in the mirror. For once, there was no scorn or suspicion. Only something careful, and open, and very, very brave.
