Sterling would never give up his magic, or his cause. It made him a little reckless on a hunt sometimes—he was so determined to prove this was where he belonged that he took risks—but one of the things she most adored about him was his passion.
Empathy made her blurt, “You’re better than he is, Sterling. And you look handsome and powerful and ridiculously aristocratic, but that’s only a shell. And maybe I prefer the Sterling I know—the one with the disheveled hair, the one with his collar undone, and his shirtsleeves rolled up, and a cup of tea in his hand—but he’s still there. He’s just all buttoned up for the moment.”
Sterling brushed his thumb against the sensitive skin between her forefinger and thumb. “Thank you.” His mouth finally softened into a smile. “That’s twice you’ve mentioned my shirtsleeves. I’m going to begin to think you have a weakness for a gentleman’s forearms, Edie.”
Just yours.
But she didn’t dare say it.
And yet, somehow, he knew. She could see it in his eyes, see it in the way his smile faded, heat stealing through the crystalline blue of his eyes.
She swore he stopped breathing.
And so did she.
Butterflies rioted within her. Their fingers were still laced together as if neither of them wished to break the tentative link. It wasn’t right. She ought to let go. She ought to take a decent step back, put some distance between them….
But the way he was looking at her….
Footsteps were clipping toward them: The servant returning.
It broke the spell.
“My Sterling?” he asked softly as she tugged her fingers free.
“Pardon?”
“You called me ‘my Sterling.’” There was another faint, satisfied smile dawning on his lips. “You guard your heart so fiercely, Edwina, that I’ve always wondered if you even liked me. But now I know.”
Oh, gods. She shot a mortified look toward the butler, who was possibly close enough to hear. “Of course I like you. You’re ridiculously charming. Everyone knows it. Everyone likes you. It’s very frustrating.”
“How do you even manage a compliment that isn’t a compliment at all, and yet, also manages to neatly sidestep revealing anything personal?”
“Skill.” Or perhaps a lifetime of keeping all her hopes and dreams locked deep within her.
“Shoot for the stars, my darling Edie,” her mother had always told her.
But then she’d died when Edwina was seven, and she’d been sent to live with her aunt—a woman she barely knew.
Shooting for the stars hurt. Because she’d soon discovered there was no one there to catch her if she fell anymore.
His face fell a little. “I see.”
She wasn’t the only one who kept her feelings locked up tight within her, but she’d managed to learn to read him like a book.
She couldn’t fathom it. Here he was, a veritable gilded god, and yet it seemed, for a moment, as if her words had the power to hurt him.
And she couldn’t bear to hurt him.
“I do like you,” Edwina admitted in a whisper. “And not for your charm or your title. Or even your dashing good looks. But for you.”
Too much so.
He eased out a breath she hadn’t been aware he was holding. “Well, that’s a start.”
“A start?”
There was no time to follow up on her question however, for the butler cleared his throat.
