He was very near to losing his mind.
It was past midnight when he abandoned the pretence of work and made his way to the library. He told himself he required a book. He told himself he did not hope to find her there.
He was not convincing.
She was there.
Of course she was.
As though some invisible thread connected them, drawing them both to the same room at the same hour, night after night, bound by a gravity neither could resist.
She looked up as he entered—and this time she did not feign surprise. She did not reach for her slippers, nor adjust her shawl, nor perform any of the small proprieties that had marked their earlier encounters. She simply looked at him, her blue-green eyes dark in the firelight, her lips faintly parted, her body very still.
Waiting.
“I knew you would come,” she said softly.
“I could not stay away.” He crossed the room, each step measured, inevitable. “I have tried. For days. Each night I tell myself I will remain upstairs like a rational man and leave you in peace.”
“I do not want peace.” Her voice was low, steady, certain. “I have not wanted it since the night of the storm.”
He stopped before her chair. Looked down at her—at the auburn hair falling loose about her shoulders, at the delicate curve of her throat where her pulse beat quick and visible, at the way the firelight rendered her in gold and shadow.
“Tell me what you want.” His voice was scarcely his own—hoarse, stripped of restraint, all discipline abandoned. “Tell me, Lorraine. Because I am standing here attempting to do what is right, attempting to be the man you deserve, and I cannot—” His hands flexed at his sides. “I cannot think. I cannot draw breath when you are this near. Tell me what you want, and I will give it to you. Whatever it is.”
She rose.
Slowly.
The book slipped from her lap and fell to the floor, unnoticed. She came to stand before him—slight, resolute, incandescent—and lifted her face to his.
“You,” she said. “I want you.”
Something in him gave way. Or perhaps something long fractured settled, at last, into place.
He lifted his hand to her face. His fingers trembled as they traced the line of her jaw—the first deliberate touch, chosen, unambiguous. Her skin was soft, warm beneath his calloused hand. She leaned into it, her eyes drifting closed, and the sound she made—a quiet breath, half surrender, half summons—sent a sharp, unsteady heat through him.
“Lorraine.” He cupped her face in both hands, tilting it upward. Her eyes opened, and he saw himself reflected there—saw not the man he had been, but the one he was becoming beneath her gaze.
He bent toward her.
She rose to meet him.
Their breath mingled. He could feel the warmth of her lips, a whisper from his own. Could feel the faint tremor in her body, answering the one in his. The fire murmured behind them. The wind pressed softly at the windows.
The distance between them vanished—to the span of a heartbeat, a breath—
A scream shattered the silence.
High. Terrified. From above.
Thomas.
They broke apart at once. The world rushed back—cold air, hard edges, the reality of a house that held a child who needed them.
“Thomas.” Lorraine was already moving, gathering her shawl, crossing the room. Her expression shifted in an instant—from desire to urgency, the governess reasserting herself over the woman.
“Go,” Dominic said. “I will follow.”
