“Listen,” Ezra said. Very, very slowly, so that she had time to move away if she wanted to, he laid a hand on her shoulder. “I don’t think you should leave. I think you should stay here with Iris. And Sarah. But if you intend to go, I will not stop you. I willhelpyou. Only… do it right. Let us give Iris notice, so that she does not wake one morning to find you suddenly gone.”
He spoke so gently. He didn’t pressure her with the fact that Iris had lost enough, that no doubt she’d woken up one morning to find her mother gone forever. He didn’t do anything to try to sway her one way or another. He offered tohelp her.
Peter would never have done that, whispered that quiet, sensible voice inside her, now a bit louder than it had been before.He could not even pretend to care about anyone other than himself.
“Very well,” she heard herself saying. “I will remain another week. I can manage a week. That will give me time to let Iris know.”
His smile was tinged with sadness, but he still looked so nakedly relieved that Letty almost could not stand to look at him.
“Good,” he said. “That’s good. Thank you.”
Just like that, her throat felt thick again. He was thanking her. She wasn’t doing what he wanted, but he still was thanking her for the small concession she’d made, even though failing to do so was madness.
“You are too kind,” she mumbled. Without thinking, she stumbled a half step forward, as if drawn in by him like iron shavings to a magnet. “Why are you so kind to me?”
He slid his hand on her shoulder around her back, until he was holding her in a halfway sort of embrace, one that offered comfort without trapping her.
“I thought I was overbearing, annoying, and could not take no for an answer,” he said, a touch wryly.
Somehow, Letty had found herself pressing her forehead to his shoulder.
“You are,” she said, a slight smile tugging at her lips. “But you can be kind, too. And I am only a governess.”
She’d meant it as a contrast to Iris—of course, he was kind to Iris, who was very likely a member of his own family. But maybe she had meant it the way it sounded, too. After all, she couldcount on one hand the people who had ever made her feel as though she was worth something—Sarah, Clio, Helen, and now Ezra.
It did not escape her that three-quarters of that number were part of the madcap Lightholder family. Lunatics, the lot of them.
But Ezra—who, she was beginning to see with greater clarity, had a genuinely good heart beneath the charm and the insolent smiles—stiffened, as if truly offended by her comments.
“Letty.” Her name was stern as he pulled back just enough so he could look down at her. “You are not ‘only’ bloody anything, do you hear me? You are aperson, and I could not own you more than I could own the skies. Nobody could, and I would like to wring the neck of the person who made you think otherwise. Fuck titles. Fuck wealth and prestige and all those things that the world says you need in order to matter. You matter because you areyou. Nobody can take that from you. And if you point me in the direction of the person who made you think it was a good idea to flee into the night, I shall gut them where they stand.”
It was a pretty speech, made all the prettier because he didn’t deliver it with any of his usual polish. He said it angrily, but she didn’t feel any of the heat of that anger. It wasn’t at her. It wasforher, on her behalf.
“Ezra,” she said, wonderingly—because he was a goddamned wonder.
He sighed, and it was almost melancholy.
“I told myself I wouldn’t do this again,” he muttered.
And then his lips were upon hers.
CHAPTER 15
His kiss should have frightened her, because she had just been so bloody afraid of the pull that he had over her. But it didn’t frighten her; she wasn’t afraid because his mouth was warm and soft and right.
She let herself sink into him like falling into bed after a long day.
And he lifted her up because he’d never let her fall—had never, would never—and his arms were so strong around her that she could have let him hold her forever.
Dangerous, whispered a voice, but it was terribly quiet compared to the part of her that was shouting for more.
When he made to pull back, she made a frustrated sound. Her hands were in the front of his shirt, and she clenched hard enough that the fine fabric would never be the same again.
He didn’t go far.
“Is this all right?” he asked, his lips close enough that they brushed, ever so lightly, against hers as he asked the question.
It was another chance for her to come to her senses, to step away. But she’d known he had this gravity to him, that she was forever destined to be caught in his orbit. Maybe she’d known it from the start. Either way, she was too deeply in his pull to free herself now.
