Page 104 of A Mother for the Blind Duke’s Orphans

Then, before courage could leave her, she raised her other hand to his face. He became utterly still as Poppy touched his hair first. His curls were dark and thick. Her fingers moved to the firm line of his brow, then down to the eyebrows that gave his face such sternness when he was thinking. She traced the bridge of his nose and listened to the rhythm of his breathing.

She had seen him often. Across tables. In doorways. At the edges of the rooms. But touching him was different. She could not pretend he was only duty beneath her fingertips. She found the shape of his cheek, the tension in his jaw, the place where he held back words until they hardened inside him.

Her thumb brushed his lower lip, and he closed his eyes.

“I can teach you too, Hector.”

She wanted him to understand.

“I can speak in the language you trust.”

Her hand remained on his face.

“Poppy,” he groaned, and the sound vibrated through her.

There was a warning in it. And a need so strong she felt it in the pit of her stomach.

It was not clear who moved first. Perhaps they both did, but Hector’s hand slid to the back of her neck while hers rested along his jaw. Hector leaned forward until their lips brushed. Poppy was uncertain, but when he closed the distance between them, she leaned into the kiss as if her life depended on it.

Then Hector exhaled against her, and the restraint changed.

He did not seize her or claim her. He kissed her with a gentle primal hunger, and with all the longing he had hidden inside. Poppy responded equally. Her fingers tightened on his coat. The dark ballroom fell away until there was only the warmth of his mouth and the astonishing fact that he wanted her as much as she wanted him.

When they parted, they remained close enough to breathe in the same air.

Neither of them spoke.

Poppy rested her forehead lightly against his chin, and Hector’s hand stayed at her neck, and his thumb brushed against her skin, as though he feared any further motion would break whatever had come between them. Poppy no longer felt foolish for wanting.

And Hector, standing without his cane in the center of the ballroom, did not step away.

Chapter Twenty-Three

Hector had known silence all his life, but he had not known it could acquire a taste, and that taste was Poppy.

She was there when he woke and remained through the morning. But along with every thought of her was the guilt.

Poppy had made him promise never to touch her. And he had touched her because, for one moment, the wanting in him had been stronger than the discipline he had built his life upon.

That was the truth.

He could strip away every gentler version of it, every excuse made of longing and tenderness, and that hard fact remained.

He wanted her.

So, he had taken.

Hector’s hand tightened over the head of his cane until the carved surface bit into his palm. The pain was small and deserved. He leaned his weight into it and forced himself to remain still.

He had not been drunk. He had not been mistaken or misunderstood who she was, or what she had endured, or what she had trusted him to be. He had looked at her, and he had kissed her. It had felt, in that moment, like the first honest thing he had ever done for himself.

That was what damned him most.

When the moment ended, and duty came back with its coldness, he realized that Poppy mattered more than his selfish desires did. That had been true before he kissed her, and it was truer after. Her peace, her safety, and her trust were not things he could place beneath his hunger and still call himself honorable.

“Hector!” Jasper found him standing near the window, though the light did him little good.

“You look,” Jasper began, “as if you have just condemned a man to hang and discovered he was yourself.”