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She was plainly unhappy. It was written in the tight set of her jaw, the dull sheen of her eyes. Audrey Gideon was not a woman designed for passivity. She had faced down his fevered madness, defied a would-be killer, and mended a half-dead starling without complaint. And now she sat before him, quiet and resigned, and he could not bear it.
She deserved better. She deserved a husband who would stand at her side with pride, who would shout down Lady Astley and cradle her heart as reverently as she did her healing tools.
But the very notion of becoming that man left him paralyzed.
The idea of marriage in earnest—of gradually hardening into his father’s likeness, of growing remote and brittle over time—made his skin crawl. Julius had spent his life defying Lord Snarling’s dictates, clinging to his liberty like a lifeline. The mere thought of domestic stagnation conjured the scent of aged ledgers and cold port, of disappointed silences and generations of inherited resentment.
Perhaps, he considered, once we are wed, I will find a better solution. Perhaps then the fog in my mind will lift.
Yet every attempt at clarity only churned his thoughts further into confusion.
It hardly helped that he had recently been stabbed, lost his faculties to fever, and still had a murderer to apprehend. Frankly, it was an inconvenient time to be experiencing what might well be the tender beginnings of love.
He sighed and glanced toward the window, half-hoping to see his father returning early. A row with the earl would do him good. Clear the cobwebs, ignite his convictions. Arguing with Lord Snarling had always been oddly cathartic, a ritual that crystallized Julius’s sense of identity. Nothing reaffirmed his position like fervently disagreeing with his dear papa.
Failing that, he would have conferred with his excellent new chum, except his excellent new chum was the problem.
Audrey Gideon had proven a partner more capable and invigorating than any friend he had ever known. He had passed an entire week in her company without once longing to flee or throttle her. That was a first. She challenged him, understood him, made him laugh, and for his sins, made him ache with longing.
Now he could not distinguish between guilt for having ruined her reputation and the deeper, murkier truth that he liked her. Truly liked her. Liked her mind, her humor, her spirit.
Everything was a blur. Duty, desire, affection, protection. It all bled into a single, swirling mass of impossible emotion.
Still, one thing was clear.
She must not disappear.
Audrey must not cross the Channel. The thought alone made him nauseous. If she fled to France, he would be forced to follow, and even imagining the pitch of a ship’s deck beneath his boots brought a sour sting to his throat.
He had endured the voyage home from the Grand Tour with clenched teeth and green gills. He had no intention of ever boarding another cursed boat.
No. Audrey had to remain on English soil. She had to remain his, in whatever half-formed way she would allow, until he could make sense of his tangled heart.
