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The governess withdrew, leaving her in the hush of the garden. She traced her thumb along the wicker arm of the chair.

It was beginning again—the whispers, the glances, the careful barbs. And now Graham stood in its path. So did the girls.

Her fingers curled tighter. If anyone sought to drag them down for the crime of being hers, she would not hide in the shadows.

And Graham would protect the girls to his last breath. Of that, she was certain.

But as for herself—she wasn’t sure. She thought she’d understood his retreat, thought she’d asked too much, too soon. Now, doubt slid in like fog through the midnight streets. Perhaps it wasn’t her eagerness that had sent him running.

Perhaps it was simply her.

CHAPTER 18

The side door yielded to Graham’s touch without a sound. He slipped through the servants’ entrance. The kitchen lay in darkness, copper pots gleaming dully in the moonlight that slanted through tall windows.

He paused, listening. No footsteps above. No murmur of voices. The house had settled into sleep hours ago, leaving him free to creep through his own halls like some vagrant seeking shelter.

Coward.

The word followed him up the narrow back stairs, past the sleeping quarters where his staff dreamed peacefully, unaware their master had spent the day wandering London’s streets like a madman. The hospital had been mercifully quiet—no emergencies to occupy his hands or silence the accusations that circled his mind like carrion birds.

He’d walked instead. Miles of pavement beneath his feet, through neighborhoods that grew progressively grimmer as the day wore on. Bermondsey. Whitechapel. Places where a man could disappear into the press of bodies and no one would mark his passage or wonder at his purpose.

But even there, in the stench and squalor, he’d found no peace. Only the memory of Abigail’s face when he’d turned away from her. The careful composure that had settled over her features like a veil.

I chose you.

Her words had echoed with every step, every breath. She’d chosen him, and he’d repaid her faith by fleeing into the night like some green boy afraid of his wedding bed.

Graham reached the main floor and hesitated at the crossroads of corridors. To the left lay the stairs that would take him to his chambers—to the connecting door he’d locked before the wedding, the barrier he’d erected between them. To the right, his study beckoned with its familiar shadows and blessed solitude.

He turned right.

The floor creaked beneath his boots as he loosened his cravat. A single lamp burned in the corridor, casting just enough light to navigate by. Someone had left it for him.

Abigail, no doubt.

He’d been a husband for precisely one day and had already failed spectacularly at the endeavor.

He pushed the door open with a sigh.

Abigail stood by his desk in her nightgown. The lamplight gilded her profile in soft firelight. Her hair was unpinned, streaming down her shoulders and back. Her hand rested on a small gilt box as she placed it on his desk, and she laid a hand on her chest, startled at his sudden appearance.

“I didn’t mean to intrude. The girls brought you a present while we were shopping today,” she said, pulling her wrap closer around her.

While he’d been wandering the streets, she’d been caring for his nieces. Taking them out, buying them things, being the guardian they needed while he nursed his wounds in dark alleys.

“You shouldn’t have troubled yourself,” he said and pressed his lips together as a shadow crossed her face.“I mean, thank you.”

He hovered a few steps inside the room. She should be angry, yell at him perhaps. Not bring him gifts for God’s sake.

She regarded him a beat longer but he could conjure nothing more.“I should let you work,” Abigail said, moving toward the door.

His hand shot out, catching her wrist. “Wait.”

She went still beneath his touch, but didn’t pull away.

He cleared his throat. “Please.”