The sun was high and bright, a sharp, clear, unforgiving light that was the very opposite of the night before.
Carcel stood on the front steps of the Hamilton townhouse, adjusting his cravat. The simple, mindless, normal action was a comfort. He tugged at the knot, his movements precise, his expression calm.
He had not slept. Not really. After he had... concluded his "lesson" with Ines—after he had cleaned up the evidence, watched her, in a daze, retrieve her notes, and then practically pushed her, gently, from the library—he had gone not to his bed, but to the brandy.
He had sat, in the dark, in his own chair, and processed the evening.
He had come to a single, terrible, and exhilarating conclusion: He was, quite possibly, the worst guardian in the history of England. And... he could not wait to do it again.
Rowan had, blessedly, already left. A note at the breakfast table had informed them he was meeting with his man of business, and would not return until luncheon.
The house was theirs.
Carcel stepped down from the stone steps, his polished boots crunching on the fine gravel of the drive. He was not sure where he was going. He just... he needed air. Air that did not, in his imagination, smell of her. Of lavender, of her skin, her hair, and the sharp, metallic, unforgettable scent of her... research.
And then, he saw her.
She was in her little garden. The small, walled-in, private world of flowers and herbs that was, he knew, her truest sanctuary.
She was not, as he had half-feared, writing. She was sitting on a small, stone bench, her back to him. A book, a simple, leather-bound volume, was open on her lap. Her hair, her glorious, reddish-brown, fiery hair, was not in a chaste, tight bun. It was in a soft, loose, simple braid that fell over one shoulder. She was wearing a dress of pale, morning-yellow. She looked... she looked like spring. She looked so innocent.
A sharp, powerful, and deeply protective wave of... something... washed over him. It was the same feeling he’d had in the library. The same feeling that had made him... teach her.
He walked toward her, his steps silent on the soft grass. He stopped, just behind her. She had not heard him. She was lost in her book.
He lifted his hand. He was not going to touch her. He was not.
He brushed his knuckles, a feather-light, deliberate, intimate caress, against the perfect, shell-like curve of her ear.
She screamed.
It was a high-pitched, terrified, "Ahh!"—a sound of nerves, stretched to their absolute breaking point, finally snapping.
She shot up from the bench, her book, her gloves, her little, innocent, garden shears, all of it, clattering to the grass. She spun around, her face pale, her eyes wide with terror, her hand flat against her chest.
She saw him.
The terror, in a flash, was replaced by a furious annoyance.
"Carcel!" she hissed, her voice a sharp, whisper. She was breathing heavily. "Will you stop scaring me like that? You... you... you are a menace!"
He smiled. He could not help it. This fiery, furious, alive creature—this was the one he had... known.
He sat down, quite calmly, on the bench she had just vacated. He made himself comfortable.
He looked up at her, his expression one of pure, innocent inquiry.
"Je suis désolé, ma dame," he said, his voice a low, smooth, perfectly accented rumble. "Bonjour."
Ines just... stared at him. She was still standing, her hands clenched, her whole body vibrating with a mixture of leftover fear and new, profound, confusion.
"What?" she asked, her voice flat. "I... I don’t..."
He smiled, a slow, lazy, devastatingly attractive smile. "I’m sorry, my lady. Good morning."
He patted the stone bench beside him. "I told you... I told Rowan... I would teach you French, didn’t I?"
Ines blinked. That lie at breakfast. The alibi.
"Oh," she said, her mind, which had been in a state of pure, high-alert panic, slowly, cautiously, coming back online. "I... I thought... I thought that was just a... a figure of speech. A... a cover."
"It is a cover," Carcel said, his voice practical. He leaned back, stretching his long legs out, a picture of pure, masculine relaxation in her small, floral, feminine world. "But it is a cover that must be... maintained. I announced to your brother, in his own dining room, that I was giving you French lessons. And if you, his very intelligent sister, cannot say a simple ’good morning’ or ’goodbye’ in the language after a week of my... tutelage... even Rowan, who does not speak a word of French, will become suspicious."
He was right.
He was incredibly, infuriatingly, clever. She realized, with a new, dawning, and slightly unwelcome respect. incredibly, infuriatingly, clever.
She slowly, slowly, bent down. She picked up her book. She picked up her shears. She did not, however, sit down. She stood, a few feet away, her arms crossed.
"That’s true," she muttered, her gaze on her flowers. It makes sense. He was... he was protecting them. He was protecting her. He was protecting his lie.
She looked at him. He was watching her, his dark eyes full of that same, amused, knowing light from the night before.
"But... French?" she asked, her voice a whine. "Can I... can I really learn it? When I am already learning German? It sounds... difficult."
Carcel chuckled, a low, warm, sound. "It’s not difficult. Not for you."
He was, she realized, no longer looking at her with that... that hunger from the library. He was looking at her... he was looking at her as if he knew her. As if he... liked her.
"You have a knack for language," he said, his voice simple, clear. A statement of fact.
Ines was, for a second, genuinely startled. "A knack for languages? Me?"
She thought of her German verbs, her endless, awful, struggles with grammar.
"Yes," Carcel nodded, his gaze, for a moment, drifting to the small, perfectly-tended, row of roses. "You."
He looked back at her, and his eyes were... they were kind. It was a look she had not, in all this, expected.
"Just like your writing," he said, his voice soft.
Ines’s heart, which had just, finally, settled back into a normal, calm, post-faint rhythm, stopped.
It did not lurch. It did not flutter. It stopped, dead, in her chest.
"My... my writing?" she whispered.
He was still looking at her with that same, strange, kind expression.
"It’s beautiful, Ines," he said. He said it simply. He said it as if he were commenting on the weather. As if he were not, in fact, discussing a series of works that would have her, and him, and everyone they knew, banished from society.
"So I’m sure," he finished, his voice a low, warm, and utterly devastating caress, "you can do it."
Ines just... stared.
She was not breathing. She was not thinking.
He had, on the library desk, shown her what desire felt like. He had, in the library, shown her what pleasure felt like. But here, now, in the bright, clear, honest light of day, sitting in her own, small, safe garden, he had just, with six, simple, impossible words, given her something more.
He had given her, she realized, with a dawning, terrifying, world-altering jolt...
...his respect.
"My... my writing..." she stammered, her voice a small, cracked, disbelieving, and utterly hopeful sound... "...is... is beautiful?"