After the Wedding (The Worth Saga #2)(62)

“Very well.” Theresa frowned. “If I must.”

Benedict waited until the other woman had retreated to the hall. “You’re so nice to her,” he murmured. “You’re getting soft, General.”

Theresa glanced at him. “Am not.”

But she was. She wasn’t sure entirely how it had happened. The dowager hadn’t done anything, really, except try to teach Theresa manners and put her in pretty gowns…and then, when she’d realized that both of these things were going extremely badly, she had shifted tacks.

Theresa loved Judith and Judith loved Theresa.

But you harbored a different love for someone who had known you since you were a child—a love tempered by the tantrums that you had once thrown. Judith’s affection felt so conditional—given only when Theresa behaved. Somehow, that made Theresa not want to behave at all.

The dowager liked Theresa—General Register Office visits, terrible embroidery, and all.

“She’s just got good ideas,” Theresa said instead. “She understands me. Judith wants me to be a lady. The dowager wants me to be happy.”

And she likes me, just as I am.

The dowager had told her that once, and Theresa had never realized she wanted to hear it until it had been said.

But Theresa didn’t say that. It made her seem vulnerable, and the one thing she knew for certain was that she could never let her brother see her vulnerability.



* * *



Adrian had made plans to leave with Camilla tomorrow.

Mr. Singh checked the schedules to Lackwich for Adrian. Tomorrow he and Camilla would need to be up before dawn; that meant this was the last morning here before…

His thoughts wandered, and he pulled them back to the land of rationality. No point in feeling odd about the matter—they would go to Lackwich, hopefully find proof of Bishop Lassiter’s wrongdoing, head immediately to his uncle, and file the paperwork for annulment with his assistance. It was what he wanted.

Definitely that.

And if they had one more day together? He had a great deal to do. He’d show Camilla the plates and ask her opinion. They’d talk; he would go to work. It would be just like every other day.

At that thought, he heard the tap of footsteps and he looked up.

She stood at the top of the staircase, smiling down at him, and…

It took him a moment to remember that she wasn’t his.

She could not be. The early morning sunlight cascaded through the east-facing window, catching on motes of sunlight. It danced across her face, as if the daybreak itself were smiling along with her. Oh, no. What was he doing, thinking those thoughts about her?

And then she skipped down the stairs and his heart squeezed in his chest. Oh, damn. What was he doing?

Right. The china. He was showing her the first run of the china plates that Harvil was bringing to the exhibition this year.

He should offer her his arm for the walk, but even that seemed too much. Instead he gave her a smile that he hoped was friendly and not stupid with the pent-up desires that he could not indulge in. Not here. Not about her.

“You don’t have to come.” His voice felt rough.

“Of course I don’t have to.” She smiled up at him. “But I want to. How else will I know what you’ve been doing all day, every day?”

“Well.” It was a good thing she couldn’t see him blush like a schoolboy. “Let’s be off, then.”

He didn’t offer her his arm, and she didn’t try to take it. Still, he felt the phantom pressure where her hand ought to have rested on the crook of his elbow as they walked.

You know, he could have said. I like you. I think you’re lovely. I think you’re brave. I think I want you.

He hadn’t said the words, and she hadn’t said them back. But he felt them on the tip of his tongue. He could see them in the way she tipped her head back to catch his expression, in the way her eyes followed him, bright with happiness.

It wasn’t love. It was attraction, and there was no place for attraction between them now. He wanted to choose someone, not to give in to lust and physical ardor, trapping himself for the rest of his life.

“They’re really just review pieces,” he told her as they approached the building. “You’ll see. We have a lot to do. Once we’ve settled on the design, we have to make a copperplate for transfer printing the underglaze.”

He shuffled the keys into his hand and opened the door.

“None of those words made sense to me,” Camilla said at his side.

“Well… I’ll explain it if you want. Probably in greater detail than you want. Most people don’t want to hear. In any event, after it’s been glaze fired, we enamel it.” Their steps echoed in the corridor. He stopped at the door to the studio. “That was last night. I haven’t seen the review plates since they were fired.”

“Does firing change it?”

“Um…yes. The overglaze colors, see, are made of flux, minerals, and—” He stopped, catching himself. “Right. You don’t need to know.”

Her eyes glowed at him. “Oh, you can tell me anything. I don’t mind.” That shy little dip of her head, the splay of pink across her cheeks. She was so damned lovely, the way she blushed so easily. “I’d like to hear anything you find interesting, really.”