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Another soft laugh. “Somehow, I doubt that. You are rather memorable, Miss Baker.”

“As are you,Evan,” she purred and then winked.

She must have known where this was going. Despite the jokes. Ignoring the puppy dog eyes she fixed him with. And never mind what the two had just done. Deep down, she must have known. But then again, so did Evan, right from the start he had, not that he it had stopped him. For one glorious moment he had given in to temptation and allowed himself to pretend that the harsh realities of the world did not exist. As if the storm had somehow washed them away.

The storm had since passed. Several minutes ago now, though it felt like mere seconds. He and Amelia lay on the floor of the cabin, bodies wrapped around one another, happy to pretend that it was still raging outside because so long as it did, they could pretend.

“What happened just now,” Evan began, forcing himself to crawl back a ways so that he couldn’t feel Miss Baker on him. “...I’m —”

“Don’t you dare say that you’re sorry.”

He grinned. “Oh, I’m not.” He was, but that felt unimportant. “I’m glad it happened. These last few days, I confess, have been harder than I expected them to be. Mostly, it’s because you are the most stubborn woman I have ever met.”

Her expression was unamused. “Was that supposed to be funny?”

“But you’re so much more than that, and although I never meant for things to go this far, I’m not sorry that they did.” He looked right at her, making sure that she could see he was no longer joking. “Not for a second.”

“Me neither.” Her smile was soft; it reached her eyes which seemed to shine like the sky after a storm.

“Good.” The self-control it took not to reach out and stroke her chin was harder than Evan could believe. “Be that as it may, you know as well as I do that...” A deep breath as the regret settled. “...that it can’t happen again.”

Miss Baker’s body seemed to cave in on itself. “But why?”

“You know why.”

“I — my father doesn’t have to know. There is no reason that —”

“That what? That we can’t sneak off together whenever we get the chance? That we can’t spend the rest of our lives hiding out in cabins and ducking into empty rooms when we think nobody is watching? You know that we can’t.”

“I don’t love Lord Malnor. I don’t want to marry him.”

“That’s irrelevant.”

“It’s not!”

“It is,” he said softly. “I’m sorry, Miss Baker. You know I don’t want to see you and Lord Malnor together.” He laughed at that, hoping she would join in. But she remained firm, glaring at him now because the fire that consumed her so often was roaring to life again. “And if I could stop it, you know I would. Dammit, what do you think I’ve been trying to do?”

“Not hard enough...” She looked away as the realization hit her.

“This can’t happen again,” he said more firmly. “And although I’m not sorry that it did, you must know that from this point on, I will do everything in my power to make sure that this was the last time. I’m sorry.”

And he was too. Oh, how he was.

Evan hated that it had come to this. That he had let things go so far that they had to. When he had found her alone in the cabin, he had been furious with her, certain that this was another ploy she’d tailored to try and seduce his friend. Jealousy was what had consumed him, jealousy because he had been through denying how he felt, and the possibility that she didn’t feel the same way was like a hand wrapping itself around his heart and squeezing until it burst inside his chest.

But he’d had no need to be jealous. No need to worry. Once he had calmed down, once he had seen earnestness in her eyes and heard it on her lips, he’d known that she felt as he did. And even though it was wrong, even though he had promised himself not to let things go this far, he was but a man and had succumbed to his most base desire.

Evan didn’t regret what he had done. Memories of this short time spent together, even if it was only a moment, would consume him for the rest of his life. He would love nothing more than to tell the world what they did, consequences be damned! Unfortunately, that just wasn’t reality. Not one that he lived in, anyway.

He didn’t know what he would do about Lord Lindstone. He didn’t know what would happen between Miss Baker and David. All he knew was that if things kept this way, the inevitable end would be that much harder to bear — and it would end too. Evan didn’t believe in true love like others did. He didn’t believe in happy endings and fairytales. He’d seen the way these things almost always ended, a cost that wasn’t worth the price.

In his mind, it was best to cut off the infected limb now before it consumed the entire body and ended him fully.

“Miss Baker...” he said softly, realizing that she hadn’t responded.

She was looking down at her hands, brow creased, expression determined as if trying to decide how to respond. It was a foolish notion, but a small part of him almost hoped that she refused him. That she told him she was going to tell her father everything, as if that might solve their woes. Maybe it would? Maybe it would make things worse? But Miss Baker was as stubborn as they came, and if she decided such a thing... that might just be the push he needed.

“Fine,” she said softly, almost a whisper.