Alasdair reached the library before her. His steps were swift, nearly silent.
The air inside was cool, the fire in the hearth little more than a lazy flicker. Shadows curled along the walls, and the room was cloaked in an unnatural stillness, as though even the furniture knew something was about to happen.
Then the door creaked.
She slipped inside like a breath of wind with her curls pinned high, her gown catching the firelight with every step. Her eyes found him immediately.
And they burned.
“Now is not the time for a lesson, Your Grace,” she hissed, voice tight with restraint. “You saw me. You saw I’m doing well. I’m so close to sealing a match with one of them.” Her tone sharpened. “Meanwhile,youare busy charming the lords who once sneered at you. Congratulations. You’re becoming quite the polished duke.”
Her words were sharp, but her cheeks were flushed, and her chest was rising and falling just a little too fast.
He didn’t move. Just watched her from the shadows with a hunger he was no longer bothering to mask.
“Then why did ye come, lass?” Alasdair asked softly, though his voice carried the weight of something wound tight inside him.
She was slipping through his fingers, trying to walk away from whatever had been building between them, this fire that he couldn’t seem to control.
Elizabeth hesitated. “I—I don’t know. Perhaps I’m too polite. Or too obedient,” she muttered with a half-hearted shrug.
Her foot shifted slightly, turning away.
He nearly growled. She was going to leave. She’d come to meet him, but she was going to walk away now, as if none of this mattered. As if he didn’t matter.
“Ye could’ve ignored the note,” he said, stepping toward her. “Or handed it to yer sister and let her throw it back at me. But ye didn’t. Ye came. So, tell me why.”
“That’s an awfully presumptuous thing to say, Your Grace,” she replied, her chin lifting, but her voice shook at the edges.
She didn’t turn fully away. Not yet.
He took another step forward, slow and deliberate, until the firelight glinted off the strands of her hair. Her scent, lavender and something soft, like the powder on the stationery she’d used in that drawing she’d sent him, wrapped around him.
Her face was a map of conflict. She’d always been easy to read if he looked hard enough, and right now, her eyes were screaming at him even while her mouth tried to act indifferent.
“Ye’re wrong, ye ken,” he murmured. “And I ken what I feel. When I saw ye with those lords…” His voice dropped, hoarse. “Ye were actin’. Pretending to enjoy their nonsense.”
“Pretending?” she repeated sharply, turning back to face him. “You think I was pretending? That I am incapable of enjoying their company?”
He didn’t answer right away. Instead, he looked at her as if trying to memorize her entire face.
“Aye,” he said at last. “Because I’ve seen the way ye laugh when it’s real. And that laughter tonight? It was for them. For their benefit. It wasn’t for ye.”
“You’re impossible,” she whispered, her fists clenched at her sides. “Isn’t this what you taught me? To be charming. To be confident. To convince them I am someone worth marrying. Shouldn’t you be celebrating your success?”
His jaw tightened. “I should. But I’m not.”
Their eyes locked. The tension between them snapped taut, humming between heartbeats. He could feel it down to his bones.
“They don’t deserve ye, Elizabeth.”
She flinched. “You don’t know that,” she whispered, though her voice was starting to shake. “You act as though you know me.”
“I do know ye,” he said, stepping closer again, until there was only a whisper of air between them. “I’ve seen ye angry. I’ve seen ye scared. I’ve seen ye flushed after a kiss, and breathless after I touched ye. I know what ye sound like when ye want more and don’t dare ask for it.”
She sucked in a breath, her composure clearly slipping.
He dropped his voice, almost reverent. “And those men tonight? They don’t see what I see. They see yer dowry, yer face, the cut of yer gown. But I see the lass who sends drawings instead of letters. The one who sketches me eatin’ a damned macaron like it’s the most intimate moment she can imagine.”