“Love?” Graham echoed, unsure why the word rattled him so much.In his head, he heard a gunshot, a wound burning across his face, and the screams. Men like him, with blood on their hands, and violence in a dark past, were not built for love, no matter how much they wished they fit.
“Love.” Owen nodded. Graham flicked his gaze from his glass to his friend. “It can feel beautiful, if only you let it in.”
“You fancy yourself loving Lady Eleanor, then?”
“Not yet,” Owen admitted, “yet I feel deeply for her.”
Graham nodded absently. He drained his brandy, stood up, walked to the window, only to find that Amelia had left the garden. What was that jump in his chest that had happened when he had thought about her being there? And why did his heart sink when he looked for her and found her not there when he could simply seek her out in the house?
“Would you like to attend a gentleman’s club with me?” Owen invited. “I was planning to go after seeing you but I would like to invite you.”
Graham shook his head. “I have ventured into society well enough this week, do you not think? I do not wish to bring more gossip to my door.”
Owen nodded, understanding. “Very well. Speak to Amelia, Graham. Allow her the opportunity to express herself.”
***
Fighting against Owen’s advice, Graham gave into his instincts to hide, and retreated into the library. Looking at the shelves, he realized he was not entirely in there for books, and pieced together his motive: he hadn’t run from the advice, for, without realizing, his steps had carried him to the very place he knew Amelia liked to frequent at least once a day.
It was though he naturally would be drawn to her there.
He looked around, wondering which books she had already read, which in his collection she’d already picked up, what she wished to read. Scanning the spines as he might see her fingerprints, he searched for clues of his duchess in the stacks, only to feel ashamed of actively looking for her when he had been the one to push her away.
He noticed a piece of paper sticking out from a copy ofAs You Like It,with Daphne’s neat cursive. Plucking it free, he read it, smiling.Dearest sister-in-law, if you have not read this yet then I urge you to. Rosalind is warm-hearted, intelligent, and a very good judge of love. You might find some comfort in her. Do come speak with me once you have read it!
“What is that you are reading?”
Graham dropped the piece of paper, startled, and whirled around to face Amelia. His heart pounded when he looked at her, thinking of everything Owen had said to him.
“I—I found it,” he said, feeling very off-kilter, and disliking it greatly. “I believe Daphne is urging you to read her recommendation.” He picked up the note and slid it into the book again. Amelia only nodded, looking at him from the doorway. In a dress the color of cherry blossom trees, she looked beautiful, and he could not tear his gaze from her.
He did not know what she saw in his eyes, perhaps some of the openness he felt since talking to his friend, but suddenly Amelia was drawing nearer, and Graham fretted.
“Do not come closer,” he whispered, his voice tight. “I have explained to you my… my curse.”
“I do not find you cursed,” she murmured. “I find you pained and scarred from a past you did not have a say in.”
“I hurt you today. I cannot guarantee it will not happen again.”
“It might do,” Amelia allowed. “It might not do. Regardless, I told you that we fight the shadows together, not apart.”
“And yet… I doubted you.”
“And do you still?”
There was such open honesty in her gaze that he could not help but shake his head, knowing that he should not have doubted her.
“How are you feeling?” Her question came soft, as if unsure whether she should ask it or not.
“I am well,” he told her. “Very well, in fact. And yet all at once I feel rather mad by my own thoughts for I cannot untangle them from one to the next. I understand why men do strange things for those they desire.”
His voice was a mere rasp by the time he had crossed the distance between them. There was such wide-eyed innocence in her eyes, and he craved to see more of it, more of her. How could he have thought she had tricked him? She was just as lost as he was in this grand society.
Tucking a strand of hair behind her ear, Graham gazed at her. He should have let his hand fall but it did not. Instead, his palm lingered, and he discovered how her face cupped into it, as though the two shapes were made to fit together. And for a moment, Amelia leaned into his hand, as though she craved the touch as much as he wished to give it. With her eyes fluttering closed, Graham wished to be suspended in this moment.
Amelia’s breath hitched, and he wondered if she could hear his heartbeat, for it seemed to echo deep within him. He struggled to regain control of himself. He ought to retreat, to protect her. She was already married to him; was that not punishment enough that he had done that to her?
No, he had to desire her too.
