Usually steel was met with steel, but she could not help but give him softness instead. “Just so.”
He blinked, the anger he clearly wore about him like a familiar cloak flickering. “I want nothing to do with that class of man who rules the world and looks down on all others. I do not seek to join it. I know my place.”
“At the Hestia.” In a barren set of rooms. Alone.
She lived in merry mayhem all day long, siblings to spare. But somehow the world… empty. Soon—alone. No amount of snooping about and gathering information would save her from that fate.
His voice filled the now small space between them. “I’ve never said a word about any of that to anyone. Why you?”
“I’m easy to talk to. I listen.”
“And then spread what you hear all over the place, no doubt.” He was trying to put distance between them again, to protect the soft parts of him he’d revealed.
“I won’t repeat a word. That was a gift, and I will never give it away or treat it carelessly.”
“It was the past, nothing significant.”
“It is one of the events that changed the course of your life. We all have them.” This time when she traced his scar, she pressed her finger gently into his skin, let the warmth of Rowan Trent sink swiftly through the lace of her glove. “You did not return to school. You lost any friendships you might have made.”
“I lost a tormentor, nothing more, and I did not grieve it.”
“You lost the chance to carve a place out for yourself there, to show that little villain you fit perfectly well there. Where would you be now had you been given the chance to do that?”
“There existed no real chance. Attempting to fit into society would be like trying to sew a rough, worn, burlap patch onto a silk gown. I do not regret where I am now.”
“Nor should you.” Him burlap and society silk? What a paltry, false comparison. “You are… magnificent.”
His body swayed closer as if her words were the wind that rocked him. He seemed riveted by her, by her lips, and she could not help but remember that day in his study when she’d begun to rearrange his life, and he’d lifted her onto his desk and said naughty things into her ear to scare her.
Had it been to scare her?
Or perhaps…
“Do you wish to kiss me?” she asked.
Chapter Fourteen
Isabella waited. She should not have asked that question. But she did not regret it.
Rowan blinked, but other than that small flash of dark lashes against pale skin, he did not move. Something about the curve of his cheek, the tilt of his head, the way he clasped his hands so tightly together behind his back, the leaf he’d claimed long forgotten in the grass now.
She knew. From all these things, she knew. “You do wish to kiss me. But you will not let yourself. Why?”
“I should apologize. For the first kiss. I was angry. Anger has no place in a kiss.”
“No, perhaps not.” She’d not felt anger under his touch that day in the linen closet. “And yet… I enjoyed it.”
A dart of green in the corner of his eye.
“And when you sat me on the desk and told me what a husband might do to a wife… you wanted to do it.”
Another dart of green, the curve of his cheek tighter, as if he bit on it from the inside.
“I wanted it as well, wanted you to do all those things you said.” She stood beside him, oh-so-close, and peered past the trees, to thewell-dressed women following rules tighter than Isabella’s stays. She knew the rules. Knew the consequences of breaking them. The breath stuck in her chest did not rip her heart into a faster rhythm because of the risk, though. No, her heart danced because of the opportunity.
The wind blew harder, sweeping an overhead branch to the side, and the sun snuck through, right across Rowan’s face.
He sneezed. He scowled.
