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As far as she was concerned, this was her second chance with the man who’d always held her heart. She’d cared for Robert and honored their vows, but she’d never loved him as she’d loved Harry. She never felt the pull, the desire, the aching need as she had with Harry. Her body had been tingling since he’d walked through the study door; it hummed when he smiled at her. When he touched her…zings of awareness fired throughout her body. When he kissed her—when his tongue teased the seam of her lips and begged entry—she became molasses.

He licked deeply, his tongue tangling with hers, stroking, teasing, claiming. Mina breathed him in, savoring the hardness of his body against hers. She lost herself in the kiss. Every chasm that had once existed between them was eliminated; the world narrowed and blurred until it was only the two of them.

A rush of damp heat flooded between her thighs after she ran her nails through Harry’s thick golden hair, and he emitted a groan so animalistic that it stole her breath. She wanted to hear it again. And again. He held her waist and ground up into her bottom, letting her feel the intensity of his desire. What she wouldn’t give to feel his skin on hers—to see if this caring, giving man was as generous a lover as he was a friend.

Harry broke the kiss to trail his lips down her jaw and taste the erratic pulse at her neck. Mina’s head fell back, and she clutched him to her, wishing to be free of her cumbersome skirts so she might straddle his strong thighs. This man… This man who was no longer a boy was everything she’d ever wanted, all she’d ever needed, and what she had never stopped desiring.

Suddenly, Harry removed his mouth from her skin, leaving Mina chilled and wanting. Both of them were panting, and she did not miss the way his gaze flicked to her heaving décolletage before finding her eyes. The corners of her mouth tilted up in a knowing smile. This most certainly had not been a one-sided kiss.

“We should sleep,” Harry murmured, the blue of his irises nearly swallowed up entirely by the pupils. Mina’s heart skipped several beats; she hadn’t been anticipating things moving so quickly. As if reading her mind, Harry clarified, “In our respective beds.” He was so irresistibly adorable when he blushed.

“As opposed to on the floor or in the stables?” she jested and then laughed when his lips thinned into an unamused line. He was trying to be honorable, and she was poking at him. “I understand,” she sighed and stood, but Harry caught her hand and followed.

“Then I need you to understand that this is not for lack of desire.” They stood almost nose-to-nose, yet Mina felt insignificant when she was faced with his breadth and his undeniable presence. Her breath caught when he pulled her lower body flush to his, reminding her again of the physical manifestation of that desire. “It has been a long and trying day with many emotions. I believe it will be better for both of us if we sleep and return with a clear head in the morning.”

“Are you being honorable?”

“A truly honorable man would not be kissing a recently widowed woman and the daughter of his employee. I was honorable once, and it cost me what I wanted most in this world.” Mina’s breathing halted altogether. “And if we finally do share a bed, I want to be certain that it is done out of desire, and not out of heightened emotions. There will be no regrets. I have spent many, many years thinking about this moment, and I will not have anything less than perfect conditions.”

Briefly, Mina wondered what she might do to convince Harry to reconsider, but she only nodded and said, “Then, goodnight.” After a slight hesitation, Harry released her to take her leave.

“Allow me to escort you back to the cottage.”

“No,” she said firmly, and she could tell the firmness of her response startled him. “If you do, then I am not sure I would allow you to leave.” With that, Mina slipped from the study and walked on unsteady legs back to the steward’s cottage. She couldn’t resist pressing her fingertips to her kiss-bitten lips and marvel at what had taken place.

Despite his insistence that Mina retire, Harry knew he would be unable to sleep if he tried to do the same. His blood pounded with violent force through his veins, snarling at him for release and chastising him for allowing Mina to walk away. Still, Harry knew he’d done the right thing. She had been crying; their emotions were buzzing. The last thing he wanted was for them to fall into bed and have Mina experience even the slightest sliver of regret over it. That was the only fear Harry had. Gone were his concerns about compromising Mina. She was a grown woman and a widow; she knew her mind. Even so, sorrow, fear, and pain could make people act in regrettable ways. However, if she thought it over and agreed to be with him, then Harry was resolved to keep her and devote his life to making her happy. Regardless of the complications caused by her father’s shortcomings in his position, they had brought the two of them together once more. He couldn’t hold any of it against Mina and, if anything, he had to admire her for her dedication and determination.

How had he managed to fool himself into believing the flares of fire in her chestnut hair had been a trick of his imagination, and that the glory of possibility did not live in her fathomless eyes? Even more now than a decade before, his hands ached to learn the softness of the curves beneath her serviceable mahogany dress, to trace the supple line of her cheek and learn the silken weight of her unbound hair. Harry had lain awake many a night imagining how different their lives might have been had he allowed Mina to kiss him during their final meeting. He might have been an inexperienced lad at the time, but even he did not believe he’d imagined her intentions. His honor hadn’t allowed it, though. She’d been frightened about the abrupt turn her life was about to take. It might have been a temporary comfort for her, but it would have been devastating to him. He knew even back then—when the sweet, shallow puffs of her breath had tickled his lips—that he would never have been able to allow her to go after that first kiss. He would want her to be his first, his last, his only…and that was unfair to Mina. Their relationship would never have been tolerated by his father and, once they were cast from Society and he was unable to provide for her, she would have been forced to return to her father a ruined woman with no prospects. Harry’s punishment for the transgression would have been far more lenient. Following a period filled with whispers and derision, he would have been welcomed back, forced to toe the proper line once again, and married off to produce the requisite heir and spare. Eventually, he would have made out far better than Mina, and he simply could not have allowed that. Instead, Harry had walked away. He’d done what he thought was best and stepped aside to give Mina the chance to have a normal life and find some joy in it. Somehow, time had passed, but it felt almost as if they’d never parted. There they were at Ravenshire Manor once again, their lives converging on this place as a waypoint in their existences, drawing them in whether they wished it or not.

Heaving a deep sigh and scrubbing his hands through his mussed hair, Harry strode over to the desk and sat behind it. He had to adjust himself a couple of times before he was able to find a comfortable position. Knowing sleep was a long way off, he decided to lean forward and examine Mina’s work. Most of what he saw was what he expected. She’d gone through all the ledgers and confirmed their accuracy. She kept detailed notes about accounts and lease agreements. He found a small diary bound in plain brown leather set on the desk’s far corner. Curious, he picked it up, unwound the thong keeping it closed, and began to skim through the pages. He nearly closed it and set it aside when he saw it was Mina’s personal ledger, but then he saw a note that made him pause. Then another. Then another. Each month, there was a withdrawal and a footnote referencing another page in the diary. Flipping to that entry, Harry read the names, dates, and payment amounts, hardly believing the truth before him.

Mina had used nearly everything left to her by her late husband to help cover the wages of Ravenshire Manor’s staff and ensure they did not suffer for her father’s mistakes. She put everything she had into remedying a situation she did not cause because she did not want anyone to experience hardship. She was protecting her father, she was buoying the people she knew and cared for, and she was putting all of herself into trying to save an estate she loved.

Harry pressed the heels of his palms hard against his closed eyes, groaning at the sharp pain in his chest when he realized that all Mina had done—all she had sacrificed—could very well be for naught.

With Townsend’s involvement, there was a significant possibility that all her efforts, all her time, all her money had been spent on an estate that simply was not capable of being saved. It was possible that, regardless of it all, she and her father could be without an income and without a home in a matter of only a few months.

Harry slumped back in the chair and stared into the throbbing embers in the hearth.

“Two months,” he said bitterly. There were two months left for them to find a solution he wasn’t sure even existed.

Looking back at Mina’s diary, he knew they had to try.

“I was thinking about what you said last night,” Harry said without preamble as he strode into the study the following morning to find Mina already bent over the books. A quick glance told him she’d removed her diary from the desk and tucked it away; he’d already seen what he needed to, and he was grateful for it. “We can try.”

She cocked an arched brow at him. “Try?”

“You know far more than I do about running an individual estate; you have more experience with what is wrong at Ravenshire Manor and what needs to be fixed. You mentioned yesterday how one of your problems was your lack of authority.”

“A kinder way to put the issue of my gender,” she remarked.

“I’ve devised a solution: You provide the knowledge and I provide the authority. We can restore Ravenshire Manor together. We can try.”

There were several tense moments where Mina simply considered him. She wore another gown in pale grey. The drab color should have been demure, but it only served to accentuate the elegance of her features, the intensity of her eyes as she stared at him. “You wish to try to save Ravenshire Manor? Even with the threat of Townsend looming over us?”

“Correct,” Harry replied resolutely. “At the very least, let us set aside the next few days to think things through and analyze the options. If, at the end of it, there is nothing to be done, then the property will go to the Marquess anyway. In that case, perhaps some mitigation can be performed. Maybe sales can take place, tenants can be given notice. I am certain you know better than I what the options are, so—” Harry dropped into the chair positioned across the desk from Mina, “—educate me.”

A quarter of an hour later, Harry had helped Mina spread her collection of documents across the study floor. She claimed there was a precise order to them, but Harry wasn’t so certain.