He lifted his eyes and met hers, and the heat in them sent something sharp and immediate through her.
She dropped the chalk.
Thomas looked up. “Miss Weston?”
“Clumsy of me.” Her voice was breathless. She bent to retrieve it, and when she straightened, Dominic was gone.
Their next encounter occurred in the corridor beyond the music room.
She carried a stack of books from the nursery to the library; he approached from the opposite direction. The passage was narrow—too narrow to pass without acknowledgement, without the unavoidable closeness of shared space.
They halted.
The books pressed between them like a barrier.
“Miss Weston.” His voice was low, controlled—restraint drawn tight over something far less so.
“Your Grace.”
“You carry too much.”
“I manage.”
“Allow me.”
“That is not necessary—”
He reached for the uppermost volume. His fingers brushed hers, and the contact—brief, entirely accidental—sent a jolt through her that stole her breath.
They both stilled.
The corridor lay empty. Afternoon light slanted through the windows in long, golden lines. She could see the pulse at his throat—quick, unsteady. His eyes had darkened, the grey reduced to a narrow ring.
“Lorraine.” Her name, roughened in his mouth.
“Dominic.”
The air between them thickened, as though it had taken on substance. She could feel the warmth of him even through the books, could catch the faint scent of sandalwood and something deeper beneath it—clean, warm, unmistakably his.
A door opened somewhere beyond. Footsteps approached.
A maid rounded the corner, halted, and stared.
“Begging your pardon, Your Grace—”
Dominic stepped back at once. The moment shattered.
“Carry on,” he said, his tone perfectly composed, perfectly ducal—as though nothing at all had transpired.
He moved past her without another word.
Lorraine remained where she stood, clutching her books, her pulse hammering so violently she felt it in her teeth.
***
The breaking point came three nights later.
Dominic had been sitting in his study, failing to read, failing to think about anything except the way she had caught her breath in that corridor—the small, sharp intake of air, like a woman touching something unexpectedly hot. He had heard that sound in his dreams every night since. Had imagined, in graphic and increasingly desperate detail, what other sounds she might make under different circumstances.
