The garden was quiet, save for the lazy hum of a bumblebee near the foxgloves. Ines quietly sat on the stone bench, her hands gripping the leather cover of the book in her lap so tightly that her knuckles were white.
She stared at Carcel. She was waiting for the punchline. She was waiting for the laugh. She was waiting for him to tell her that he was joking, that her scribblings were the silly fantasies of a bored spinster, fit only for the fireplace.
"Are you teasing me?" she asked. Her voice was small, suspicious, and threaded with a fragile hope she was trying desperately to crush.
Carcel turned his gaze from the roses back to her. The sunlight dappled through the leaves of the oak tree, casting shifting patterns of light and shadow on his face. He looked... comfortable.
He smiled. It was not the wicked, dangerous grin of the library. It was a soft, quiet expression.
"What would I gain by lying to you, Ines?" he asked gently.
He leaned back slightly, resting his weight on his hands on the stone bench. "I will admit," he continued, a small, dry chuckle escaping him, "the content... the subject matter... was quite shocking. I certainly did not expect to find that specific vocabulary on a page written by my best friend’s sister."
Ines felt a fresh wave of heat rise in her cheeks, but she didn’t look away.
"So, at first," he admitted, "I was distracted. I was... well, I was terrified. I thought you had been hurt. I thought you were writing on something you went through."
He looked her in the eye.
"But then... I read it again. In the library. After... after everything."
He paused, searching for the right words.
"I didn’t notice it at first because of the shock," he said, his voice sincere. "But the sentences... they were very well written. The way you described the longing. The way you described the... the heat. It wasn’t just vulgar. It was... it was feeling. You have a way with words, Ines. You make the reader feel what Doris feels."
He looked away then, his attention caught by a small, white butterfly fluttering near his boot. He watched it dance in the air, his expression thoughtful.
Ines sat frozen. She stared at his profile.
Her heart was doing something strange. It wasn’t the frantic, terrified hammering of her illness. It wasn’t the heavy, lust-filled thudding of the library. It was a slow, warm, expanding rhythm that seemed to fill her entire chest.
He is... he is such a strange man, she thought.
Her mind began to race, analyzing this new data with the same intensity she had applied to his anatomy the night before.
Noble ladies usually only write simple letters, she told herself. We are taught to write thank-you notes. We are taught to write invitations to tea. We are taught to copy poetry into journals.
She looked at her hands, resting on the book.
For a woman to not only read literature—real literature, in French and German—but to also write it... it is considered odd by many men. It is considered ’unfeminine.’ It is considered ’too clever.’
She remembered Lord Westhaven. She remembered the other men at the balls. They wanted a wife who smiled, looked pretty, and didn’t have too many thoughts in her head.
Especially romance novels, she thought, a bitter edge to her internal voice. Especially erotic novels. They are seen as foolish. Trash. Dirty little secrets that women read in the dark and men laugh about in their clubs.
But Carcel...
He had read it. He had seen the most scandalous, private, shameful part of her imagination. Her scandalous hobby and he said her writing is beautiful.
He hadn’t mocked her. He hadn’t told her to stop. He hadn’t treated it like a dirty joke. He had treated it like what it was. An art.
She played with her fingers, tracing the embossed pattern on the book cover.
I don’t know how to express it, her mind continued, struggling to name the feeling. It wasn’t just relief. It was something deeper. But it makes me happy. It makes me so incredibly happy that Carcel acknowledged it. Because... because he respects me.
That was it. The key. The missing piece.
He didn’t just desire her body. He didn’t just pity her loneliness. He respected her mind. He respected her work.
Carcel turned his attention from the butterfly back to her. He caught her staring.
For a long, silent moment, they just looked at each other. The garden faded. The sounds of the birds faded. There was only him. His dark eyes, framed by thick lashes. The strong line of his jaw. The mouth that had... the mouth that had praised her writing.
A sudden, cold wind of realization blew through Ines’s mind.
We will soon be done, she thought, the panic rising sharp and fast.
The ’French lessons’... they are just a cover. They cannot last forever. Once I run out of questions... once the manuscript is done...
She looked at his hands, resting on the stone.
And his business with Rowan. The shipping investments. The meetings. They will soon be over. He does not live here. He has his own estate. He has Carleton. He has a life in London.
He will be gone.
The thought was a physical pain, sharper than any tight fitting dress.
Will I ever meet someone like him again? she asked herself. She scanned her memory of six seasons, of a hundred balls, of a thousand introductions.
No.
Is there another man like him? A man who is strong but gentle? A man who can handle a gun and appreciate a romance novel? A man who would lie to her brother to protect her secrets? A man who would stop... who would stop in the middle of that... because he wanted her to be comfortable?
There probably isn’t another man like him in the entire world.
She swallowed hard.
And even if there were, she admitted to herself, the truth settling in her heart like a heavy, precious stone, even if there were a thousand other men just like him... I wouldn’t feel this way about them.
Her heart was racing now.
Thump. Thump. Thump.
It wasn’t her illness. It wasn’t "emotional stress." It wasn’t fear.
I realized it, she thought, her eyes locked on his.
I want him.
Not just for a lesson. Not just for a scene in her book. Not just for a night in the library.
I want him all to myself.
I want to wake up and see him at breakfast every day. I want to argue with him about books. I want him to be the first person to read my pages. I want to see that smile, the one he saved just for me, for the rest of my life.
But does he feel the same way?