Slowly, carefully, he shifted toward me, lowering his right arm to his side and leaving me a clear space toescape.
If I only wantedto.
Holding my breath, I rose ontiptoes...
“Ahem!” A loud cough broke thesilence.
We sprang apart. I was panting, my heart galloping painfully in my chest, as I stared uncomprehendingly at my older brother...who stood just before the open doorway of the dining room, watching us with barely-suppressedhilarity.
“Sosorry to interrupt,” Jonathan declared, sweeping an elegant bow. “But I did think I’d better warn you, in case you hadn’t noticed the housemaid passing by, that the rest of the gentlemen are all about to come stampeding out here on their way to the parlor. So...” His lips widened into an outright, maddening smirk. “Don’t you think you two ought to find a nice cozy broom closet before you go any further with this sort ofthing?”
I stared at him, wordless, for one frozen moment. Then Wrexham shifted beside me, drawing in a breath, and I began to turn towardhim—
And my reason finally,finallycame crashing back intome.
My jaw dropped open. Heat swept through my body. But this time, it wasn’t elven wine orexcitement.
It was pure, unalloyedshame.
I swore that I would let himgo.
If we’d waited even one moment longer—if Jonathan hadn’t warned us—every gossiping magician in Cosgrave Manor would have seen us embracing and spread the news likewildfire.
Within minutes, Wrexham would have been hopelessly compromised...and nothing I said or did after that could have released him except for ourmarriage.
How could I have been socareless?
With a moan of guilt, I turned and fled through Cosgrave Manor all the way to my room without a single glanceback.
8
There weremornings when rising from bed to face the world seemed frankly impossible. Or even more accurately:pointless.
But I’d spent the last four months learning to do it anyway. So I hauled myself out of bed the next morning at a reasonable hour, I sailed down to the breakfast table with grim determination, and when I glimpsed Miss Banks’s hopeful approach in the corner of my eye, I didn’t evenflinch.
“Of course,” I said, setting down my fork as she fluttered near me. I couldn’t quite summon up a smile, but I did manage a polite nod. Wrexham was just stepping through the far door into the room, but I forced my gaze to remain fixed—mostly—on Miss Banks’s hopeful face. “We agreed to take a walk in the knot garden, did wenot?”
“Oh, yes, if you wouldn’t mind, that would bewonderful,although of course you can finish your breakfast firstand—”
Oh,no.
For all that he was allowing himself to be delayed by various conversational sallies along the way, Wrexham was definitely setting a course toward mytable.
Grim determination was one thing. Outright heroism before I’d drunk my morning tea was quite another...and I’d learned last night just how weak my resolve had become in the two long months of ourseparation.
So I interrupted Miss Banks ruthlessly. “What better time than the present?” Leaving my half-full plate behind, I rose to my feet and tucked one firm hand through her arm to tow her from the room. “We may as well get this over withimmediately.”
Really, there couldn’t be any better time to remind myself exactly why it had been so necessary to give up my fiancé in the first place...even if he was still stubbornly acting like a man who hadn’t been fiercely driven awayforever.
At least he didn’t try to stop us as we strode, arm-in-arm, pasthim.
But the sardonic twist on his lips spokevolumes.
My back teeth were grinding together. I forced my jaw open with an effort as we stepped through the doorway. “We’dbetter—”
“Here.” Miss Banks tilted her head, not quite hiding a satisfied smile, as a maid appeared at the end of the corridor with a pile of warm outerwear in her arms. “I asked for our coats and boots to be brought before I came to findyou.”
Hmm.There was more to the shy and sweet Miss Banks than I’d imagined. Perhaps she would survive the Great Library afterall.
