Lust rushed through her like a sudden gust of wind, nearly knocking her over, nearly cooling her ire. How she wanted exactly what he threatened. But she did not want it to be a threat.
“More than one thing can be broken, my lord.” She fisted her hands in her skirts, held her ground. “A life. An agreement. A woman’s trust in a man. Do not”—she took a hard step forward and poked him in the chest—“test me.”
He rocked back on his heels, and a cynical smile spread across his lips. “Mrs. Dart, welcome back. It has been an agesince I’ve last seen you. Only thing that’s missing is the gray. I’m glad to have you in this hour of trouble because you will surely understand what Amelia refuses to. We must leave now, and we must counteract whatever wrongs have been done, and we must regaincontrol. No more of”—he fluttered his hand around his head as if gesturing to all that surrounded him, the room, the castle, Scotland itself—“ridiculous nonsense.”
“Ridiculous nonsense? My home? My life?”
“Your life is nothere. It is in Manchester. With me. Or in London, should we decide to live there.” He turned and made his way to his room.
“Have you listened to a word I’ve said?” she demanded. He usedweso easily. But he did not mean theweof the last fortnight. He meant theweshe had left back in London and in Manchester—Mrs. Dart and Lord Andrew. Not Amelia and Drew.
She wanted to push him out a second-floor window. But she also saw in his desperate clutch for control the young boy who had slammed a fist into his father’s face, who had done the same to a bad employer, who had buried all that anger far below to start his own business. She saw the man on the verge of losing a very significant client on the day they’d met, the man with panic in his eyes who she’d helped. She’d remained with him for five years. She’d fallen in love with him. And she loved him now more than ever, unfortunately. Because in this very moment, she wanted to plant her feet in this very place and never leave. Just to teach that man a lesson. But just like the day they’d met, she still wanted to help him, help the agency she’d come to think of as her own, the people who worked for it.
What was a woman like Miss Amelia—alone and too odd for her own good—to do without him? Withoutthem?
She followed him into his bedchamber as far as the doorway. “I will come with you, but it will not be as Mrs. Dart. If youwish me by your side, you getme, Amelia.” She backed into the hallway and entered her chamber just two doors down from his.
His footsteps preceded him into the room. “Impossible. You must be Mrs. Dart. That is what I have you for.”
And didn’t that rip her open, almost bring her to her knees. A wail rose up in her chest, but she swallowed it down. She would give in to it later. Mrs. Dart did not get kisses or caresses. Mrs. Dart did not get the darkness of his past or the vulnerability of his worries. Mrs. Dart got an iceman with eyes the blue of a winter storm. Amelia got eyes the soft blue of a summer sky, and she got passionate embraces and all those things Mrs. Dart’s gray gowns kept at bay.
Amelia walked to the window and spoke to the man behind her, whom she loved so horribly, without looking at him. “You get Amelia or you get no one.Thisyou cannot control. What will it be? Who will you have?”
“You know who I must have.”
A tear slipped from her eye. She was going to give in. Not forever. Not for long. Just long enough to make sure the agency, Miss Angleton and the others, would be well.
“Very well, then.” She placed her hand on the frosted windowpane. “Mrs. Dart will come, and Mrs. Dart will help you in these current matters. Please leave now. I must prepare for the journey.”
“We leave in one hour.” Then the click of a closing door.
True to his word, one hour later they were in the coach, Miss Angleton sitting beside Amelia, Lord Andrew sitting across from them, and Bernard bundled up and in his position as outrider.
She could be Mrs. Dart for a little while longer. But then never again. She would help him through his current woes and then find another position. With Tidsdale or otherwise. Perhaps maybe she’d even return here.
As the coach pulled away, she turned and watched Hawkscraig disappear beneath the ever-moving horizon. Last time she’d left this place, she’d not looked around even once, overjoyed to put the loneliness of Hawkscraig behind her forever. She’d been excited to begin a new adventure, to meet new people, to find a purpose, a community, perhaps a family. She’d done just that in Manchester. Had dreaded returning here. Yet somehow, after the last several weeks, Hawkscraig had become not a mausoleum echoing with loneliness but a temple for her fondest memories.
The gray sky began to spit tiny white flecks of snow. She placed a hand to the glass, the velvet curtains swinging on either side of her arm, offering her only a sliver of the disappearing edifice. She should be happy to leave the loneliness of that stark gray place, but now she feared the life that lay ahead would be the lonely one.
Twenty-One
Something was wrong with Mrs. Dart.
Or, perhaps, more accurate to say that Mrs. Dart was as she ever had been, and something was wrong with Drew. Terribly wrong. Because with each clipped step she took by his side, with each efficient completion of a task, he wanted to shake her. She never looked at him like she knew the feel of his body, and in the small study they’d commandeered at the Waneborough Charitable School of Art over the last three days, she’d never straddled his lap and distracted him from pressing obligations. No, she worked quietly alongside him. Entirely ignoring the pressing obligation in his trousers.
And wearing gray.
Damn but hehatedgray.
For the best. Must be. They had much to do. She knew it. Once they’d figured out how to obtain the necessary funds for the expansion, he’d sneak into her bedchamber and surprise her, pull that blue wrapper from her shoulders andremindher.
She did not want marriage. A sensible solution to their problem, but he would not ask again. The one time he had, he’d seen a viper in her gaze, ready to strike, to poison.
It made no sense. They were good together. In every single infuriating way, perfect for one another. He admired her more than any other woman, wanted her more, stood outside her bedroom every night after she’d retired and placed his palm upon her door, wishing it was her skin.
Hell.
He dropped his boots off his desk and checked his pocket watch. “It’s time. Beggsly will be waiting.”
