Page 33 of A Duchess Worth Stealing (Saved by Scandal #2)

Chapter Thirty-One

C ordelia had no idea how much time had passed since they finished dinner. With Mason, time was a relative thing. It always passed much more quickly than she wanted it to.

They stood side by side at the railing of the terrace, the remnants of dinner behind them, but the night was still before them. The garden lay in shadow now, the flowers only faint smudges of pale color against the darkness.

She rested her elbows on the cool stone and glanced at him. “You keep surprising me, you know. First the picnic, now dinner… If you keep this up, I shall have to assume you are trying to charm me.”

He smiled faintly, eyes on the darkness beyond. “What if I am?”

She tilted her head, trying to sound light though something in his tone made her heart trip. “Then you ought to know I am perfectly capable of recognizing such attempts.”

“Oh, are you?” He finally looked at her, one brow raised in mock skepticism. “Forgive me, Cordelia, but I don’t think you know how to flirt at all.”

Her mouth fell open. “I most certainly do.”

“I doubt it.” His voice was low and amused. “And before you tell me, learning from books doesn’t count.”

She gasped, more for effect than outrage. “You don’t know that’s where I learned it.”

“Where else would you have?” His smile deepened. “Some obscure French novel, perhaps? Full of swooning heroines and smoldering glances?”

She narrowed her eyes at him, suppressing a laugh. “You seem to know a great deal about swooning heroines yourself.”

“I’ve met a few,” he said casually, leaning on the railing as though entirely at ease. “But you’re not the swooning sort.”

“No?”

“No,” he said, his gaze lingering on her for just a heartbeat too long. “You’re the sort who would trip a man rather than faint into his arms.”

She tried not to smile, but the corner of her mouth betrayed her. “Perhaps I ought to prove you wrong and faint right here.”

“I’d catch you,” he said simply, and something in his voice made her glance away, suddenly unable to think of a suitably clever reply.

She traced her finger absently along the stone railing, aware of him watching her. The air between them had shifted. It was still warm, still playful, but heavier somehow.

“Would you really catch me?” she asked at last, her tone light though her heart was beating rather faster than it should.

He didn’t answer right away. “Every time,” he said quietly.

Her eyes flicked to his, surprised by the sincerity there. For a moment, it was as if the darkness pressed in closer around them, making the small circle of terrace their own private world.

She almost said something, something she would have regretted and not regretted all at once. Instead, she looked back out at the night. “I don’t think you would like it if I depended on you so much.”

“Cordelia.” His voice was low, and serious now. “It isn’t about what I would like. It’s about what I would do.”

She felt the weight of the words, and for a heartbeat, they didn’t feel married in name only. For a heartbeat, she felt tethered to him in some invisible way she couldn’t name. Her breath caught when the space between them narrowed to nothing more than a whisper.

But just before their lips touched, she turned her head away, laughing too quickly. “I told you, I’m apparently dreadful at this… flirting business.”

He tilted his head, studying her with that quiet intensity she had never been able to meet for long. “Is that why you pulled away?”

Her cheeks burned. “You said my attempt at flirtation was… amateur.”

A smile softened his expression, but his voice was nothing but gentle. “Cordelia… that was teasing, nothing more. If I had meant it, I would not be standing here wishing you’d let me try again.”

She looked at him then, properly looked, and saw no mockery in his face. All she could see was warmth, patience, and something that stole her breath.

“You make it sound as though I’m worth kissing,” she murmured.

He stepped closer again. “You make it impossible not to think so.”

Her pulse tripped as his hand came to rest lightly against her cheek, coaxing her toward him. And this time, she didn’t turn away.

When his lips met hers, it was nothing like that awkward first kiss.

They moved together as though it were the most natural thing in the world.

Her heart leaned fully into it, unfurling something she hadn’t dared acknowledge before.

And in the way his hand lingered at her jaw, in the slow, deliberate press of his mouth against hers, she felt it, that something had changed in him, too.

When they parted, the night air felt cooler against her lips, as though it knew what had just passed between them.

They remained close, his forehead brushing hers, their breaths mingling in the quiet. She could not quite meet his eyes, afraid, perhaps, of what she might see there… or of what she might reveal herself.

His thumb traced an absent path along her jaw, a touch so light she might have imagined it.

“You see?” he murmured. “Not amateur in the least.”

Her laugh was soft and unsteady. “Perhaps I had a skilled partner.”

“Or perhaps,” he said, his mouth curving in the faintest smile, “you’ve always been better at it than you knew.”

Something swelled in her chest, something dangerous, heady, and far too tempting.

She wanted to stay there, suspended in the moment, in the nearness of him.

But the knowledge of what their marriage truly was and what it was meant to be lingered at the edges like a shadow that would not be chased away.

She wondered if she should kiss him again.

She wanted to. But at the same time, she knew that she mustn’t because some part of her knew that if she let herself fall entirely into him, there would be no bottom to the plunge.

Only the dark, endless abyss that came when one gave their heart where it could not be kept.

She straightened, careful not to let the movement feel abrupt. “Thank you,” she said, her voice steadier than she expected, “for the dinner… and the evening.”

His gaze searched her face, but whatever he was looking for, she could not allow him to find.

“I wish you a good night, Mason.”

Before he could answer, she stepped away from the railing and toward the warm glow of the house, her skirts whispering across the terrace. She could feel his eyes on her back until she crossed the threshold, and the door closed softly between them.

Only then did she let out the breath she had been holding.

Mason stood where she had left him, the night air pressing cold against his skin. He could still taste her on his lips, still feel the warmth of her body when she had leaned into him and the sudden absence when she stepped away.

He replayed every second, trying to pinpoint what he had done wrong, but nothing in her eyes had warned him. One moment, she had been there with him entirely, and the next, she had withdrawn into some unreachable place.

A sharp, restless heat rose in his chest. Before he could think better of it, his fist came down hard against the edge of the table. The jolt sent two plates clattering to the ground, shattering into jagged white shards at his feet.

The sound snapped him out of it.

He stared at the broken pieces, his breathing ragged, a flicker of shame curling through him.

He had promised himself… no, he had sworn that he would never let the shadow of his father’s temper touch him, that he would never give in to the same reckless anger that had made his childhood house so cold and unpredictable.

Yet here he was, standing over the ruins of a table setting because he couldn’t bear not understanding her.

If Cordelia had seen that… if she had looked at him with even a flicker of fear…

His jaw tightened. No. This couldn’t happen again. That kiss, whatever it had meant, would not be repeated. They would keep to their arrangement: polite, civil, a marriage in name only. It was the only way to be certain he would never frighten her.

Even if it meant closing the door on the warmth he’d almost let himself believe could be theirs.