She listened for voices—his voice—but heard nothing. The absence of his laughter, his gentle chiding, left her feeling hollow.
She glanced at the empty chair across from the table, and her heart clutched. She wanted him there. She wanted him to cross the room, to catch her when she faltered.
The suspicion flared again.
What if, because she had refused to be his heart, he had turned elsewhere?
A sudden weariness seized her, but she trusted her legs to take her out of the breakfast room and through the hallway.
Lizzie’s clothes lay waiting in her workroom, half-finished frocks and tiny shirts embroidered with daisies and forget-me-nots. The needlework had always soothed her, each stitch a small victory against the chaos of her mind.
She arranged the soft muslin in her lap, selected threads in gentle pastels, and threaded a fine needle. She worked methodically, drawing the thread through the fabric, knotting off each design with the care of one who stakes her peace upon a single pattern.
The act of creation steadied her. It kept her from thinking too far ahead of herself.
Still, as she stitched, she could not help but imagine Felix. Would he remember her this morning? Would he think of her while he sat with another?
The possibility stung, but she told herself that even if he sought comfort in another’s arms, she had this, this gentle labor, this promise to Lizzie stitched into cloth.
And perhaps that was more real than any fleeting desire or broken vow.
CHAPTER 13
Felix Greycliff rose before the world, before the sun had made its low, resigned crawl up the London sky. He left the warmth of the master suite and let himself drift down the silent corridors of Carden House, his footfalls muffled by tapestries older than the century.
He moved by habit, following a route so deeply carved into his bones that he hardly saw the lacquered wood or the armor lining the gallery. If the corridors of Carden House were a puzzle, he was the only one who knew the solution, and he solved it daily, restlessly, with the nervous energy of a fox pacing its pen.
He found his way to the stables and saddled his own horse. Ranger was a muscular, unlovely chestnut with a white blaze and the temperament of a mercenary.
No one stopped him as he led it out into the mist, and no one would.
The ride was not urgent, but he pushed the mare hard, needing the rhythm, the wind, the soreness in his knees and back to crowd out the ache in his chest. Still, Rose reappeared: Rose in the nursery, Rose in the bath, Rose with her impossible, unyielding need for something more than him.
He remembered the way she had rebuffed him. She was far from cruel, but her voice had held such soft, assured finality that it made his ears ring even afterward. She wanted not just hunger, not the transactional warmth of bodies, but something else. She wanted to be wanted, not possessed.
He could have railed against it, but he found himself instead hollowed out. He was not a sentimentalist. He had spent his whole life armoring himself against that sort of vulnerability.
And yet…
The memory of her voice, the delicate ache of her body pressed against his, the knowledge that she was too good for him—that she wanted him, even, but not like this.
He reached the outskirts of London by the time the sun had cleared the roofline, the city already alive with carriages stacking up in the fog, men and women of this world darting in and out of sight.
Felix stabled the mare at a mews he favored for its lack of gossip, then walked the remaining blocks to White’s.
At the club, the doorman nodded him through with the unctuous familiarity Felix despised. The interior was as he remembered: low light, heavy chairs, and the kind of masculine bonhomie that reeked of brandy and ancient disappointments. He found a seat near the fire, ordered coffee, and waited for the heat to work its way into his fingers.
He pulled his battered brass snuff box from his pocket and tapped it on the armrest in a nervous, repetitive rhythm he was sure gave away the fact that he had barely slept. The lid snapped open, and the powder hit the back of his nose with a violent sting.
He closed his eyes, just for a moment, and let the pain bring him back to the present.
The sound of low conversation drifted in from the other end of the room, someone debating the odds on a parliamentary bill, someone else laughing at the predictable foibles of a mutual acquaintance.
None of it touched him.
He tried to remember a time when he had not been at war with himself, but the recollection would not come.
The first glass of brandy tasted like a dare, the second like an apology, and the third like fate.
