But he didn’t stop her. It felt so good he could not—would not—stop her.
She rose up on her toes and brushed his cheek with her lips.
“Thank you,” she murmured. “For coming after me.”
He stood still, frozen, shocked at the feathery warmth of her breath on his cold skin. Her eyes met his, a question in them now—one he didn’t have the answer to.
(Yes. Yes.)
And then her lips moved toward his.
He stepped backward.
(Lunged away.)
His abrupt movement disrupted her balance again, and she toppled sideways. She caught herself on a snowy topiary, panting.
Oh, he was a donkey. An absolute donkey.
“I’m sorry,” he gasped, his entire body feeling like it was burning in a vat of boiling water. “I …”
“No, no,” she said lightly, standing straighter, her manner brisk. “I should not have—oh, devil-shining bloody hellfire.”
She turned around and ran into the house, leaving him in the frozen garden, unsure whether he’d been blessed or cursed.
Chapter 16
Where in eternal blazing Hades was the godforsaken bloody staircase in this preposterous old pile?
In her rush to get away from Henry, Alice had snuffed out her lamp, leaving her fumbling through dark rooms with tears in her eyes and her heart in her throat.
Stairs. She’d found the stairs. Oh, thank merciful Jesus.
She dashed up them, half blind and tripping on her cloak, and slunk down the hallway in what she hoped was the direction of her bedchamber.
Oh, what had she just done? Had she really tried to kiss Lord Lieutenant Henry Evesham?
She’d forgotten, momentarily, who and what he was. She’d only felt the pull between them.
If only he hadn’t lowered his head when she’d smoothed the snow from his brow. She knew hunger like she knew music. She had no doubt he’d wanted to feel her hands on him. But to want touch—even to need it—and to welcome it were two different things.
She doubted he’d ever look her in the eyes again, let alone find it in himself to drive her on to Fleetwend.
A door shuffled open just ahead of her, and a male voice cursed.
She froze.
The light of a candle moved toward her, and behind it, Jonathan Evesham stood, in a nightshirt and a sleeping cap. “Are you quite all right, Mrs. Hull?”
“Oh, yes, thank you,” she stammered. “I was looking for the necessary and seem to have lost my way.”
He lifted the candle. She felt the dim light shine over her damp hair, her ermine cape, her winter boots.
“In your furs?” She could not make out his face, but she could hear the sarcasm in his voice.
Oh, bile of witches. What would he think she’d been doing? Nothing that would reflect well on her reputation as a Methodist widow. She prayed Henry would not materialize behind her and make the appearance of the situation any worse.
“I was chilled,” she explained, shivering for effect. “I’ve been a bit ill since my husband’s passing. The shock.”
“My sympathies on your loss,” he said, without much hint of sympathy. “A recent one?”
“Yes,” she said, clutching herself. “Christmastime. Could you point me to the necessary?”
He gestured at a doorway at the end of the hall. “Just there.”
She stumbled ahead, but he cleared his throat. “Do you need light?”
“Oh, yes, thank you.” She held out her lamp to him and he lifted up the glass and relit the candle with his own.
He moved aside so she could pass, but she felt him watching her intently as she walked down the corridor to the privy. She closed the door and leaned against the wall, cursing herself. She remained there for five minutes, in case Jonathan was waiting to see if she’d been lying.
When she stepped back into the hall it was empty. She rushed to her bedchamber and shut the door, shaking. She took off her boots and got under the covers, cloak and all. She closed her eyes and held herself. Don’t let it come to anything. Please. Please.
She awoke, hours later, to knocking at her door. She rose, drowsily, and opened it.
Henry stood there, stiff and uncertain. She flinched, wondering if he’d entertained questions from his brother on her whereabouts in the night, or if he merely appeared shaken because she’d molested him.
He took in her state of dress, her rumpled hair, the pillow indentation on her cheek, and his shoulders softened. “Are you all right, Alice?” he asked in a low voice.
His concern made her feel worse. She wanted to tell him about his brother, but she could not risk someone hearing her if anyone else was about in the hall.
She glanced up at his eyes. “Yes. And you?”
A corner of his mouth twitched. That tiny, faint tremble, not so much a smile as the idea of one, heartened her.
“Well enough.” He glanced at her eyes, then at his shoes.
Was he nervous? What was he thinking?
“I went out to visit a few friends who live on the estate, and they are gathering at the priory at two o’clock. If you would still like to play the organ, I’d be most appreciative.”
She nodded with everything she had. “Yes, of course.”
Meaning, forgive me.
Meaning, I’m sorry, it was a mistake.
He held out a book of music. “A hymnal for you. And there’s a list of songs to play, tucked inside.” He gestured at a piece of paper that stuck out between the pages.
She withdrew it from the book. He’d jotted out the names of five hymns, along with their pages in the book. His writing was orderly and neat.
It was writing that she knew.
She’d been reading it the night before.
Her diarist was Henry Evesham.
She gripped the door handle and prayed that it would hold her up. “Thank you,” she said through a dry mouth.
He nodded, frowning like he wanted to ask her what was wrong. His face knit together in her mind’s eye with the one so like it she’d been imagining for her long-suffering, self-denying, grumpy, amusing, tedious, lustful diarist, whose thoughts she’d become so intimately acquainted with.
“You’re certain you’re well?” he asked.
She nodded, because she couldn’t speak.
He stepped back tentatively. “Meet me downstairs in the great room at half past one?”
She nodded again. He bowed, then retreated from her door.
She snapped it shut and leaned against it, reeling.
Two days ago, she’d hated Henry, and now she wanted to open the door, run down the hall, grab him by the shoulders, and tell him what she knew. He was taller than her by nearly two heads, but she wanted to cradle him like a child and tell him he was too hard on himself, that he needn’t suffer so, that life didn’t need to be so dreadful. She wanted to lead him to the kitchen and feed him cream cakes while giving him a back massage, and also to kick him in his shins for pretending to lack doubt, pretending to be above human desires, pretending not to see what the diarist so clearly saw.
But, oh God, if he knew she had his journal—
He’d be humiliated.
And the things he’d think of her. A wave of bile surged into her throat. She swallowed it, breathing through her nose. Stay calm. Stay bloody calm.