Page 73 of Mail-Order Viscountess

She looked between them—her sister’s earnest expression, Thomas’s patient waiting. Both of them asking her to trust. To let go, just for a moment.

The tightness in her chest eased a fraction. “All right.”

Relief flicked across Thomas’s face. “Good. We’ll leave in twenty minutes.”

The moment she stepped onto the porch, the cold nipped at her face, and she drew a sharp breath at the clean bite of it. This winter wind carried the scent of pine and snow—so different from the stale air of a sickroom.

Thomas helped her into the wagon with his hands at her waist. The simple courtesy shouldn’t affect her—she’d climbed into wagons countless times without assistance—but something had shifted between them these last few days.

Something she didn’t have words for yet.

She settled onto the bench beside him, and when he released the brake and guided the horses forward, she let herself lean into his side. He lifted one arm, and she tucked herself against him as he wrapped that hand around her.

So easy, letting herself be with this man.

She’d spent so long holding herself apart, keeping walls in place. But Thomas had sat outside her door for three days, reading her books and telling stories into the darkness. Thomas had broken through when she needed him most. Thomas had held her while she fell apart and promised she’d never be alone again.

Maybe he was right.

The wagon rattled down the trail, and she let her gaze drift across the landscape. A fresh coat of snow now blanketed the hills in soft white, broken only by the dark spires of pines. The sky stretched overhead in the shade of winter blue that seemed to only live here in the Montana Territory—rich and sharp and impossibly vast.

“Better?” Thomas’s voice rumbled near her ear.

“I didn’t realize how much I needed this.” She tilted her face up to the weak winter sun, filling her chest with cold air. “I feel like I’ve been holding my breath for over a week.”

“You have been.” His arm tightened around her. “We all have.”

She let herself sink deeper into his warmth as the wagon wheels crunched through snow-packed ruts. The rhythm of it—the steady plodding of the horses, the creak of wood and leather—worked its way into her bones, loosening the knots a little at a time.

Somehow Thomas had known what she needed.

Each night this past week—after they’d ended her quarantine—they’d returned to his room to sleep, and he’d held her in the darkness, his body warm against her back. They’d talked for hours sometimes, trading stories and secrets she’d never shared with anyone.

He’d told her about the latest letter from his father. How the duke had mentioned that his cousin, Reginald Balfour—the one who’d kidnapped Thomas’s oldest brother when they were all young boys, the man who’d been the reason the boys came to America to begin with—had begun pestering the queen again about their family’s title. Thankfully, the monarch shut him down quickly this time. Thomas had laughed when he’d said it, a low, humorless sound in the dark, and Kate had felt the tension in his body. Even an ocean away, that man’s shadow still reached for them.

And the kisses. Heat bloomed low in her stomach at the memory. The desperate press of his mouth against hers that first time, salt-tinged with her tears. The gentler ones that followed—in the hallway, in the quiet hours before sleep, stolen moments when the house was still.

He hadn’t pushed for more. Hadn’t asked for anything beyond what she was ready to give. That restraint, more than anything, had healed something inside her. She’d spent so long bracing for men to take, to demand, to prove her stepmother right about the nature of the world.

Thomas simply gave. Over and over, without asking anything in return. He made her feel safe.

“Thank you.” The words came out before she could stop them. “For everything this week. For staying. For…all of it.”

He turned his head to press a kiss against her hair. “There’s nowhere I would have rather been.”

The sincerity in his voice made her chest ache. She’d been so certain, that first day she met him in Butte, that she couldn’t trust him. That his easy charm was just another mask, another manipulation. Now she couldn’t imagine facing the past week without him at her side.

The road wound down through the pines, and Kate sank into the moment. The creak of wagon wheels. The steady warmth of Thomas beside her. The clean bite of winter air against her cheeks. For the first time in days—weeks, maybe—something close to peace soaked through her.

“We should reach Walnut Springs within a quarter hour.” Thomas adjusted the reins. “We’ll stop at the doctor’s first to get the medicine for Clara. Then I need to pick up some supplies from the mercantile.” He paused, and the tone shifted in his voice. “And the livery. I’m hoping to get the last of what we’ll need for California.”

She froze as the word twisted inside her.

California.

She’d thought—hoped—maybe he’d set that aside. He hadn’t mentioned leaving once since Clara fell ill. In the quiet hours of the night, wrapped in his arms, talking about everything and nothing, California had never come up. She’d let herself believe that maybe, just maybe, he’d changed his mind.

But he hadn’t.