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Did you mean this embrace, Thomas?—

“No,” he said softly. “No, not at all.”

He turned her hand and kissed the pale skin of her wrist, slowly following the map of bluish veins up her arm. She gazed down at him with gleaming eyes, her lips parted with want as he leaned forward with the motion of his light kisses.

He knew there was a reason he had insisted on capped sleeves—his lips savored the smoothness of her skin all the way to the peak of her shoulder.

Bracing one hand on either side of her thighs, if only to cool his desire to touch her and hear her sighs of pleasure, he bent his head and kissed the dip where her neck joined her shoulder. He kissed the line of her collarbone and up the column of her throat, then along her jaw until he paused at her mouth.

Sophia was breathing raggedly, her chest heaving, her entire being seeming to call out for him to kiss her properly. But he held back, those blasted words circling around and around in his head like vultures over carrion.

I don’t want to break her heart. I don’t want to make promises I can’t keep if it is more that she seeks.

She reached for his lapels as if to pull him into a kiss regardless. “What is troubling you, Thomas?” She spoke so quietly, yet it was like being struck with a mighty blow.

“Nothing,” he replied.

She frowned. “I didn’t take you for a liar.”

“I… am still thinking about the play.”

She sniffed. “Now, Iknowyou’re lying. What is the matter?”

He met her gaze, as eager to pull away and avoid confrontation as he was to just kiss her and lose himself in her entirely. The silence stretched in the small gap between them, begging to be filled.

But as his mouth opened, uncertain of what truths and lies might come out, the carriage jolted violently. Unbalanced as he was, he threw himself at her, wrapping her up in his arms as they were tossed this way and that, the horses whinnying their alarm.

He held onto her like that until the carriage ceased rocking and heard the driver call out, “We hit a ditch, Your Graces! Doesn’t look like we’ve lost a wheel, so we’ll carry on once I’ve calmed the horses!”

“Very good, Maxwell,” Thomas called back, breathless, as he released his tight grip on his wife and moved back to his side of the carriage.

She sat there with her hand pressed to her chest, panting.

“Are you well?” Thomas asked.

She blinked and nodded. “I will be.”

Soon enough, the carriage resumed its journey, and Thomas and Sophia resumed their silence, both lost in their thoughts. And though Thomas was no great believer in fate and divine intervention, he could not deny that some force beyond himself hadn’t wanted him to say what he’d been about to say.

Leave it as it is,he told himself.

If Sophia could watch a play and feel things as if they were real, then he had no right to bewilder and confuse her in her own marriage. It was better if she continued to believe that he was a cold fish with no ability to feel whatsoever.

No, it was better for both of them if he pushed his emotions down and hid them away—just as his father had taught him.

After all, as Romeo and Juliet had just shown him, nothing good could come out of falling for the enemy.

CHAPTER 19

“Has the mare arrived?” asked Thomas as he put on his leather gloves and then tucked a riding crop under his armpit.

“Yes, Your Grace. It arrived as scheduled right around noon,” responded the stablemaster as he walked beside him. “She weighs a healthy nine hundred pounds, almost six-and-ten hands at the withers, and looks to be the picture of health.”

“Splendid. Glad to know my cousin keeps his word.”

“Your brother examined her as well, Your Grace.”

Thomas snorted. “William likes to think he knows a thing or two about horses, but his betting history would suggest otherwise.”