She watched with wide eyes as he took himself in hand—the same hand that had just been inside her, she realized with a furious blush—and he pumped his arm fiercely, his gaze fixed on her. It didn’t take long before he let out his own hoarse cry. He caught his release in his shirt, and this small act of consideration struck her. There would be no questions from the staff this way.
For a long moment, they both just watched one another as their breaths slowed and their bodies cooled. Letitia thought sheshould likely flinch away from his regard, but she didn’t feel exposed under his gaze. She felt… adored.
That is more dangerous than exposure, she reminded herself.
“Do you see?” he asked eventually, his voice soft.
She did—but not in the way that he meant.
She pushed herself to sit up, then awkwardly pulled a blanket over her shoulders. It didn’t really cover her, but she figured she should try before speaking again.
He knew what was coming. She saw it in his face.
“You are still leaving,” he said before she could. It was an act of generosity. He was giving her this gift.
“I am,” she said. “One more week, and then I will go.”
“Very well,” he said. He let out a slow breath. “Very well.”
As she settled herself down to sleep, she dared to believe that he had actually seemed disappointed.
CHAPTER 16
“Interesting,” Sarah said, tapping her fingers on the table between them. Iris was abed, and Letitia had asked her friend to join her for a late-night cup of tea in her bedchamber.
“What’s interesting?” Letitia asked suspiciously.
Sarah waved vaguely with her handless arm. “It’s only that I never before took you for an idiot, Letitia Knightley.”
Letty had been midway through a sip of tea, which turned her squawk of outrage into more of ahacking coughof outrage.
“I am not!” she protested when she had regained her composure.
Sarah raised an eyebrow. “What else would you call someone who has a good position with good pay with an employer that is kind and a child that is about as sweet as a little girl can be—and yet, despite that, wants to throw away that position becausethe kind employer dared to ask if she had any secrets?” Sarah paused pointedly. “Which youdo, even though none of that is your fault?”
Letty narrowed her eyes. “I assume these questions are rhetorical,” she said pertly.
“Don’t use your fancy governess words with me, Letitia,” Sarah countered. “Why would you tell me everything if you didn’t want me to speak my mind?”
In fairness, Letty had not told hereverything.She loved Sarah like a sister, but even sisters didn’t need to know certain intimate details.
Besides, Letitia was the tiniest bit embarrassed that she had let herself be so thoroughly overtaken by her passions. She was a sensible woman most of the time. So what on earth had happened to her cool head?
Ezra Swifton happened, that is what.
She covered up these confusing emotions with sarcasm.
“Well, I thought you might want to know that I was leaving before you woke up one day, entered this room, and found an entirely different woman living here. I thought it might give you a fright. Next time, I shan’t be so considerate.”
Sarah gave her a look of utter disapproval.
“See reason, Letty,” she urged. “So the man is eager to keep you here. That’s good. That’s how it is supposed to go, when you are good at your job.”
Letitia was already shaking her head.
“I… I just can’t,” she said. Even the idea of staying made her muscles go rigid with fear. “I can’t work for someone who feelsentitledto me.” She wasn’t certain that the words were right, not after the way Ezra had shown her that he was far from immune to her, but she didn’t have better ones. “That’s how it starts, you know. And then, by the time you realize the trap is even there, it has tied itself so tightly around your neck that you nearly kill yourself getting free.”
She remembered those weeks of planning to escape Peter’s control all too clearly. It had been frightening. She’d been sure he would discover her before she could get away, that he would do something—her imagination conjured up increasingly terrifying possibilities of what that something might be, the thoughts keeping her awake at night, preventing her from sleeping.
