“Just fine?” James grabbed a glass and poured himself some brandy before he took a long sip, his eyes gleaming with delight. “Do tell me more.”
“There’s nothing to tell.”
James leaned forward. “Ah. So I imagined the electricity crackling between the two of you as much as I imagined the pair of you following young Cassandra and me side by side. How was the rest of the evening? Did you finally realize that the governess was a woman and make the most of the opportunity?”
“No,” Hudson sneered. “Nothing like that happened. We went home, she read a story to Cassie, and we went to bed. Ourrespectivebeds,” he emphasized before James could make an assumption he would enjoy far too much.
“Hmm.”
The clock on the mantel ticked. Somewhere in the building, a door opened and closed.
James swirled his glass. “Hot-air balloon. Ice cream. Reading a bedtime story. None of that sounds like a problem.”
“It isn’t.”
“Your face disagrees.”
Hudson set his glass down with enough force to make the brandy slosh. “You’re seeing things that aren’t there.”
James set his glass down. “Give in to it, for God’s sake. You’re a man. Denying yourself is making you insufferable.”
“I do not have the faintest idea what you are talking about.”
James snorted. “Yes, you do. Do not think for a minute that I did not notice the way you looked at her. Or the way she looked at you. There’s a fire there, my friend, and there’s only one way to, ah, quench it.”
“I can’t do that.” Hudson stood, moved to the window, and stared out at the darkened courtyard. “She’s in my employ. Under my protection. I won’t ruin her.”
“Then marry her.”
Hudson turned. “What?”
James raised an eyebrow. “Marry her. Plenty of marriages have been built on far less. Cassie adores her. You clearly do too, though you’d rather boil yourself in oil than admit it. And the rest is,” he waved a hand, “irrelevant.”
“The rest isn’t irrelevant,” Hudson said. “She’s a disgraced lady through no fault of her own. She came to me with nothing but her skills and her honesty. I won’t take advantage of that.”
“Taking advantage,” James argued, “would be dismissing her once you’d had your fill. Marrying her, that’s called honoring your intentions. Or do you plan to deny those, too?”
Hudson turned back to the window. The courtyard was empty, the carriages all parked away for the night, the cobblestones slick with dew. “Cassie must be settled and launched into Society first. Before I turn my attention to my own future.”
James snorted. “Cassie is not even twelve. That means you’re proposing to wait, what, five or six years? During which time the woman who makes your jaw clench like you’re being fitted for a skull cap will be living under your roof.” He paused, letting the implications sink in. “If you can neither marry her nor claim her, then for God’s sake, find yourself another woman. At least as a distraction.”
Hudson didn’t respond immediately. His reflection in the glass pane stared back at him: dark-eyed, tense, the face of a man who had built his life around control and was watching it slip through his fingers like water.
He turned around, crossed back to the desk, lifted his glass and finished the brandy in one swallow, then set it down with deliberate care.
He nodded once.
James’s grin widened. He stood, clapping Hudson on the shoulder with the casual ease of a man who had solved a particularly satisfying puzzle. “Good man. I’d suggest Madame Reverte’s, off Curzon Street. Discreet. Thorough. And she keeps very good cognac.” He moved toward the door. “Though I warn you, it won’t fix what’s actually broken.”
“Go home, James.”
“Good luck,” James called, already pulling the door open. “Though I suspect you won’t need it. Women have a remarkable ability to tell when a man’s thinking about another woman.”
The door swung shut behind him.
The office settled back into its particular quiet: the creak of the chair as Hudson resumed his seat, the soft guttering of the lamp, the distant sounds of the building settling for the night.
Hudson stared at the empty decanter, then at his own reflection in the darkened window.
