“Augusta…” Hudson muttered, desperate to taste her name.
Her eyes darkened, and her lips parted slightly. Hudson’s gaze dropped to her mouth, then back up, a movement he had not authorized but could not now retract.
Neither of them stepped away. The moment stretched between them, taut as a wire, his head tilting a fraction, her chin lifting in unconscious answer.
“I’m trying to be good for you, my sweet, but you are making me want to be very, very bad,” he whispered.
He could see the pulse beating at the base of her throat, could track its acceleration as his hand rose, seemingly of its ownaccord, to brush a strand of hair from her cheek. Her skin was warm beneath his fingers.
Her breath caught. His own lungs seemed to have forgotten their purpose. He made to incline his head toward hers, hypnotized by the inviting plumpness of her lips.
“Ahem, Your Grace.” The housekeeper’s brisk footsteps sounded at the end of the corridor, followed by her voice, pitched to carry without shouting. She rounded the corner, her candle held at shoulder height, and Hudson stepped back quickly.
He cleared his throat, the sound unnaturally loud in the suddenly charged air.
“Where will you take your dinner this evening, Your Grace?” Mrs. Beale asked. “The dining room or the study?”
Hudson’s answer emerged in the clipped, formal tone he reserved for estate business. “The study,” he replied. “I have correspondence to attend to.”
“Very good, Your Grace.” Mrs. Beale nodded, then turned her attention to Augusta, who had taken a half-step back and was now smoothing her skirt with hands that were not quite steady. “And you, Miss Norton? Shall I have a tray sent up to your room?”
“No, thank you, Mrs. Beale.” Augusta’s voice was admirably level. “I’ve already eaten.” She inclined her head to Hudson, then to the housekeeper. “Good night to you both.”
She turned toward the governess’s corridor. A different wing, a different world.
Hudson stood rooted to the spot, watching the straight line of her back, the careful set of her shoulders, until she turned the corner and disappeared from view.
Mrs. Beale cleared her throat. “Shall I send Milton with the post, Your Grace? It arrived while you were out.”
Hudson nodded, not trusting his voice.
The housekeeper inclined her head and withdrew, leaving him alone in the corridor, the echo of her practical questions filling the space where something impossible had nearly happened.
He stood there for a long moment, his hand pressed against the door to Cassie’s room, feeling the wood beneath his palm. Then he turned and walked toward his study, each step measured, each breath carefully even, as if the simple mechanics of movement might restore the order that had been so thoroughly disrupted.
But the memory of Augusta’s face… Her eyes dark with wanting, lips parted in unconscious invitation…
It followed him down the corridor and into the night, a ghost he could not exorcise.
Chapter Sixteen
The Nightingale’s private office sat in near-darkness, the single lamp on the desk casting more shadow than light.
Hudson had dismissed his staff an hour ago, sent Slater home with orders to return at dawn, and now sat alone with a decanter of brandy and a temper he couldn’t seem to leash.
His fingers drummed on the polished wood, and his thoughts kept circling the same impossible point.
The morning room, Augusta’s fingers brushing his at breakfast. The hot-air balloon, her body pressed against his as the basket swayed.
She lived under his roof. She was in his care. And God help him, he wanted her with a passion that made his entire body ache.
The door opened without a knock. Hudson didn’t look up. Only one man in London treated the Duke of Oakhart’s private sanctum as an extension of his own drawing room.
James dropped into the chair across from the desk with the easy confidence Hudson had grown used to. He took one look at Hudson’s face, and his grin sharpened.
“I wanted to ask you what you thought of the balloon exhibition. But let me rethink that. How was the rest of your day?”
Hudson scoffed and shook his head. “Fine.”
