“It’s quite big,” Clara whispered. The house before her possessed more years and mass than Coledale. Even in the dark, she could tell that. “Alfie, come look.”
Her son squeezed between her and Atlas and pressed his face against the glass, his breath fogging it with his warmth. “Who are all the people walking about?”
Atlas hummed, but not the lyrical sound she now knew so well from many hours of travel. “I forgot about that.”
“Forgot what?” Clara asked.
“The harvest festival. Last year my brother, the marquess, hosted a bonfire and dance at Briarcliff, planned to do the same this year. Several of Theo’s wedding guests were thinking ofstaying on for it.” He collapsed back into the seat. “Has it really been a week?”
Seven days only. And everything transformed.
“Seems impossible.”
His gaze flickered to her, his hands still for the first time all day, his attention entirely on her. “We should have spent the hours preparing you. What we shall tell my family.”
“What shall we tell them?”
“The truth, though…” The creases of his face softened. “My mother will not like it.”
“Will not like me?”
“Convenienceis what she will dislike. The agreement between us. You, she’ll adore.”
“How can you be sure?”
The coach lurched to a stop.
And Atlas grinned. Again. After seeing it so often, it should be commonplace, but it hit her like a punch, like the blade that had taken half her finger. Because this time a dimple appeared in his cheek, a companion for the ever-present one in his chin. How had she not noticed it before? Perhaps he’d not given her his true grin before now. He saved that one, apparently, for coming home.
She snorted. “Hardly fair.”
“What?” He cocked his head to one side, the cheek dimple disappearing.
“That you have two dimples”—she tapped her chin, her cheek—“when most mere mortals have none.”
That grin again.Holy Hepplewhite, would she ever become used to it? “You have a teasing little birthmark. Just there.” His gaze dipped a bit, lingered on the patch of skin just beneath her right eye where that little black dot lived its daily life.
“And what of it?” she asked, breath turning to honey in her lungs.
“Unfair.”
“And why’s that?” And why did his gaze never waver? Why did her throat go so dry? Difficult to speak even three small words.
“Calls to a man’s fingertips.”
His words brushed the ghosts of those very fingertips against her skin, just below her eye, exploding that little beauty mark’s daily life into a revelation of dullness. Into a revelation of denial, because the way he curled his hands atop his thighs sent a message as firm as those appendages—she wanted those fingertips everywhere on her they’d never been before.
She’d decided no bodies in this marriage.
Her decision seemed fragile, easy to break, like a thin layer of ice over a pail of water on a winter morning.
The coach door flew open, and Alfie flew out. “Fire!”
The word filled Clara’s lungs with a rush of air, and she vaulted toward the opening, would have hit the ground in a mad rush, but strong fingers wrapped around her upper arms, held her still.
“It’s just the bonfire,” Atlas said, shiveringly close. “Remember?”
“I don’t want him to get lost.”
