But here his imagination faltered. How would she look at him, were she his bride?
His gaze caught on hers. She was staring at him, her face gone pale. Her fingers were locked on a piece of polished silver, clutching the stem of the fork like a lifeline.
“Lydia,” he said.
She shoved her chair back from the table and stood. Her fine linen napkin fell to the floor.
“Excuse me,” she said. “I—I beg your pardon, Mother, I have to—I must—”
She closed her mouth, turned on her heel, and fled.
Heedless of the Hope-Wallaces, of the rules of polite society, of the choked sound of amusement from one of the brothers, Arthur was on his feet after her in an instant.
Chapter 22
You are the summer and the winter, the spring and the fall. When you change, I want to change alongside you. I want to discover you anew every morning. I want to forget what dawn looks like except in your eyes.
—from the papers of Arthur Baird, composed in pencil, copied out in ink, unsent
Lydia ran all the way to her bedchamber, which in retrospect was not her cleverest play, since it was one of the only rooms in the house that Arthur knew how to find.
His hand was on the door before she could close it. Before she could shut him out.
She was panting from her rapid ascent up three flights of stairs—at least, she wanted to believe it was from the stairs. But in truth she’d felt as though she could not catch her breath from the moment Arthur had started to speak of their wedding.
Her mother’s delighted demand for the details of the ceremony had been—well, had been very like her mother, at once affectionate and shameless.
But Arthur’s reply, the careful details in his low rough voice, had filled her with a longing so profound that she did not know how to guard against it.
She had felt ruthlessly exposed, there at the dinner table, with her family around her and Arthur’s words conjuring her heart’s desire in the candlelight.
Had he taken pity upon her—helpless in conversation, tangled in her own reserve—and thought to rescue her?
It had not felt like rescue. It had felt like a scalpel, paring away every bit of the armor she kept around her heart. He must have been able to see, when he’d looked at her, how much she wanted all of it to be real. All of them must have seen.
“Lydia,” he said as he crossed the threshold, “I’m sorry. I did not mean to shame you in front of your family. I’d thought—I’d meant to help you.” He closed the door behind him, shutting them together into her chamber.
She was hot, flushed and oversensitive, as though she could feel his gaze laying her open. She thought the faintest touch upon her skin might leave a bruise.
“It’s not because of my family.” Her voice sounded raw.
He had taken a handful of steps toward her, but at her words, he hesitated. “I’d thought perhaps I’d given you some embarrassment, with the attention of all of them upon you.”
“They are my family—it’s not the same—it’s—”
How could she explain herself to him?
With his brother, she had imagined a marriage of convenience—precisely the exchange of political goals that Arthur had spoken of at the inn.
She had been willing to accept such a marriage once. But now that she knew Arthur Baird—his careful heart, his gentleness, his immense and quiet capacity for love—she did not want convenience alone. She wanted everything.
She wanted to know that without her impulsive words on a staircase in Haddon Grange, without the intervention of the de Younges and Jasper, he would still be here with her, asking her to be his wife. She wanted to believe it.
But she had been foolish once before, had built castles in the air, and she wasn’t—she wasn’tgoodat this, didn’t know if she could trust what she wanted so desperately to be true.
If only he would speak first! If only she could be certain—if only there were norisk.
His face had gone stricken as he’d taken in her broken-off denial. “Is it regret then?”
