Page 54 of How Not to Marry a Duke

He did not finish. He did not need to.

Florinda looked down at their joined hands. His hold was gentle. His skin was warm. The November wind was cold against her cheeks, carrying the rich decay of autumn leaves and the distant woodsmoke of some farmer's fire.

Nothing. She felt nothing.

No spark. No flutter. No desperate wish for time to stop, for the moment to stretch, for his hand to move toward her face with trembling fingers that would never quite make contact.

Just nothing. A pleasant emptiness where feeling should be.

"I should go in," she said. "Thank you for a lovely afternoon."

"Of course." He released her hand with obvious reluctance. "Until the ball, then. I shall count the days."

I shall count the days.

The words should have touched her. A man, counting days until he could see her again. Was that not what she had wanted? Was that not what Frederick's letter had promised—a man who counted, who catalogued, who could not stop himself from measuring the distance between moments?

But Camberton's counting was not the same. His was the easy arithmetic of anticipation, not the desperate mathematics of obsession. He would count the days the way one counted down to a holiday—pleasant, manageable, forgettable.

Frederick counted the way one counted heartbeats. As though stopping would mean death.

Florinda climbed the steps to the house, her leg protesting each one. She did not look back. Did not wave.

Inside, she closed the door and leaned against it, pressing her palm to the cold wood. The hallway held the fragrance of beeswax polish and Margot's hothouse flowers and the fading warmth of the afternoon sun.

Her hand still felt nothing.

But her arms—her arms remembered. Frederick's hands beneath her knees, around her shoulders. The warmth of him as he carried her up fourteen stairs. The press of his body against hers in those suspended moments before he set her down.

Her arms remembered being held.

And they ached.

Chapter Sixteen

The Refusal

Lord Camberton arrived at Ashbourne House with hothouse orchids and the determined countenance of a man who had rehearsed his speech before the mirror.

Florinda knew what was coming. Had known, perhaps, since the carriage ride—since his thumb had traced her knuckles and his eyes had held that particular quality of a man working himself toward a question. The drawing room fire crackled too loudly in the silence as he crossed to where she stood by the window, the orchids clutched before him like a shield.

Pink orchids. The same shade, she could not help but notice, as the gown Penelope would wear to the engagement ball.

Ten days. Ten days until that ball. She had been counting without meaning to—the habit had become a disease.

Margot hovered near the door with her embroidery, the needle moving through linen with the precise rhythm of a woman pretending not to watch. The fire had been built up too high; the room felt close and warm, carrying the honeyed sweetness of the orchids and the faint mustiness of the old carpet beneath their feet.

"Miss Ashbourne." Lord Camberton stopped before her, adjusted the orchids, cleared his throat. "Florinda. If I may be so bold."

"You may."

Her voice emerged steadier than her pulse. Behind her, the window glass was cold where her shoulder blades pressed against it—she had not realised she was retreating until her back met the sill.

"I have enjoyed these past weeks immensely." He was speaking now with the careful cadence of memorised words, his eyes fixed on a point somewhere above her left ear. "Our conversations. Our drives. Your patience with my enthusiasm for—well." A self-conscious laugh. "For hedgerows, I suppose."

The orchids trembled in his hands. She watched them shiver and thought, absurdly, of Frederick's hands—how they had trembled as he lowered her to the settee, how they had clenched at his sides when he spoke of counting gold threads.

Lord Camberton's hands trembled from nerves. Frederick's had trembled from restraint.