“Lady Rothwest.” He bowed slightly. “I trust you slept well?”
It was the politest of fictions. She had scarcely slept at all—too aware of him in the room next door, of the locked door between them, of how completely they had come undone in his study and how impossible it felt to return to polite distance now.
“Perfectly,” she lied.
“Excellent. The journey is roughly three hours, depending on road conditions. I’ve had a kitchen maid prepare refreshments for the journey.”
So formal. So controlled. As if he hadn’t held her desperately in his study just the day before.
The carriage waiting outside was the same that had borne her to Rothwest House on her wedding day—all dark wood andluxurious leather. But this time, instead of taking the opposite bench, the Duke sat beside her. The seat was wide enough that they did not touch, yet his presence radiated like heat from a banked fire.
As London slowly gave way to open countryside, the silence between them grew heavier, thicker. At last, she broke.
“Are you going to ignore me for the entire journey?”
“I am not ignoring you. I am maintaining appropriate distance.”
“We are trapped in a carriage together. Thereisno distance.”
“Physical proximity and emotional distance are entirely different matters.”
“How convenient,” she said lightly, “that you can separate them so neatly.”
He turned to her then. She saw the shadows beneath his eyes—shadows that mirrored her own. “You think this is easy?”
“I think you are making it more difficult than it need be.”
“Am I?” His voice darkened. “We have an agreement, Celine. One designed to protect you—”
“I do not need protection.”
“Don’t you?” His tone dipped into something low, something dangerous. “You have no idea what you are asking for. What I am capable of. The things I—want.”
“Then tell me.”
“No.”
“Why?”
“Because once I begin, I will not stop. And we have twenty-four days left.”
“Who’s counting?”
He looked away, jaw tightening, and said nothing.
They stopped at a respectable coaching inn for luncheon, where the proprietor all but tripped over himself upon noticing the Duke’s crest and immediately provided a private dining room. The meal was good—roast chicken, warm bread, winter vegetables—but Celine tasted none of it, too aware of every slight movement he made, every breath.
“You are not eating,” he observed.
“Neither are you.”
“My appetite has been… uncertain of late.”
“Since when?”
“Since I acquired a wife who insists upon challenging every boundary I set.”
“Perhaps you set too many.”
