“Alone?” The word burst from her lips. “You think I know nothing of what it means to bealone? Every day I stand at the edges of society, watching others move effortlessly through a world where I will never truly belong. Lord Hadrian was one of the few who made me feel I might find a place here. He shows kindness, and constancy, and he genuinely wishes for my company. He does not push me away the moment I draw too near. He—” Her voice caught. “He does not make me feel as you do.”
“And what,” Jasvian asked in a voice scarcely more than a whisper, “do I make you feel?”
Iris drew in several shuddering breaths, the enormity of the question pressing down upon her. Rain continued to fall around them, though it had slowed to a gentle patter now, the garden growing hushed beneath the soft drumming. Something about the night, the darkness, the isolation of the garden—it strippedaway her defenses, leaving her raw and exposed. When she finally spoke, her answer was achingly, terribly honest.
“As though I stand at the heart of a tempest,” she breathed, voice unsteady. “As though my heart might burst from my chest at any moment. As though I cannot draw proper breath when you are near, and yet I feel more alive than I have ever been. As though every nerve in my body awakens to your presence, and I find myself counting the hours until I might see you again, even knowing I should not.”
By the time she finished speaking, he had drawn so near that she could feel his breath warm against her rain-cooled skin. “Iris?—”
“No.” She pressed her palms against his chest, intending to push him away. Instead, her fingers curled into the fine fabric of his coat. “I … I cannot …”
He took one final step to close the distance between them, leaning forward to press his brow to hers. “Iris,” he breathed, and oh, how different her name sounded without its formal title. Impossibly intimate, like a secret shared in the space between heartbeats.
Her eyelids fluttered shut, her resistance crumbling like autumn leaves. “Jasvian …” she whispered, savoring the taste of his name on her tongue.
“Everything you feel,” he whispered roughly, his breath mingling with hers, “I feel a hundredfold. You haunt my dreams, my every waking moment. When you enter a room, all else fades to shadow. Every minute away from you is agony, and the mere thought of you with another—” His voice caught. “It is a torment beyond enduring.”
His thumb traced the curve of her cheek, and Iris leaned into his touch. His breath was warm against her lips, so close now … so achingly?—
“Tell me what you saw,” he whispered, breath ragged. “At the Night Market. The vision that made you put such sudden and hasty distance between the two of us.”
Heat rushed through her body at the memory of what she had seen in that fleeting but intensely intimate moment. With a shuddering breath, she said, “You have already guessed.”
“You saw the two of us.”
Her answer was barely audible now: “Yes.”
Lightly, his fingertips brushed down the side of her neck, the intimate contact causing a shiver to dance across her skin and a sharp intake of breath she couldn’t suppress.
“But it was only a possibility,” she forced herself to say. “One of many. It does not mean …” She trailed off as his hand slid upward once more, his thumb tracing the sensitive skin beneath her jaw, guiding her to angle her head further. The gesture was both reverent and possessive, and she found herself yielding to it without conscious thought, her body responding to his as naturally as flowers turn toward sunlight.
“We cannot …” she murmured, on the brink of losing all self control. “Hadrian is …”
“I know.” Jasvian’s hand clenched into a fist as he trailed his knuckles back up her cheek. “I know … I know …” And she heard the anguish in his voice. “I … just …” His thumb grazed over her lower lip, and something tightened deep inside her in a way it had never?—
“Jasvian Evrynd Valenrik Rowanwood!”
They sprang apart at the sound of the voice that cut through the air like a guillotine. Jasvian spun around, and beyond him, standing in the pathway between the herbs and flowers, stood Lady Rivenna. The rain had now stopped, as if even the storm recognized the commanding presence of the Rowanwood matriarch.
“Grandmother,” Jasvian said, his voice emerging rather strangled. “What are you … How did you … I thought you were?—”
“The tea house,” Lady Rivenna replied coldly, “sees all.”
Iris felt herself shrivel with mortification while beside her, Jasvian drew himself up to his full height, attempting to gather the shreds of his dignity. “I was merely?—”
“Merely what?” Rivenna’s gaze swept over them both. “Attempting to compromise a betrothed young lady in my tea house garden?”
Iris felt her face flame. “My lady, please?—”
“And you? What were you thinking, Lady Iris?” Rivenna’s tone could have frozen the summer itself. “Do you have any notion of the scandal if anyone else had walked out here? The ruination would be absolute. Your reputation would never recover.” Her eyes narrowed. “Or have you forgotten that you have already promised yourself to another?”
“I-I was caught up in?—”
“Caught up in what, precisely? Feelings the two of you should have acknowledged weeks ago, before you accepted Lord Hadrian’s suit? Before it was too late to do anything but cause pain to all involved?”
Iris flinched as though she’d been struck. “My lady, I never meant to?—”
“You should return indoors, Lady Iris.” Though Rivenna’s tone remained measured, there was steel beneath the surface. “Your grandparents have expressed concern about your sudden absence. And I hope, for your sake,” she added, “that you can come up with a believable explanation for why you currently look like a drenched pixie.”
