Page 21 of My Lord Rogue (Wicked Widows’ League #34)

She looked up, startled by the gentleness in his eyes.

He reached into his pocket and pulled out a handkerchief—a soggy, battered square of linen, but cleaner than anything she wore.

He held it out, but instead of simply tossing it across the bench, he closed the gap between them, sinking down beside her so that the warmth of his body radiated through the damp air.

Their fingers met, both slick with rain, and the contact sent a jolt through her.

She nearly flinched, but caught herself in time.

She took the handkerchief and dabbed at her cheeks, her brow, the line of her throat where water still collected in droplets.

She became acutely aware of every movement—how her collarbone rose and fell, how the hollow at the base of her neck looked under the open collar, how her hair, dark and wild now, clung to her skin.

She felt him watching her, and when she looked up, he did not look away.

“I want to say something,” he said, “but I don’t know if it’s what you want to hear.”

Theo returned her attention to the orchids, to the riot of color and form that seemed suddenly so artificial, so childish in its excess.

“You should say it anyway,” she said, her voice unsteady.

He drew a slow breath, then let it out. “I find myself thinking of you constantly. Not as the woman who invented a suitor, but as the woman I want—” He stopped, searching her face, as if for permission to finish the sentence. “The woman I want in my bed, in my life.”

She was not prepared for the bluntness of it. For a moment, the room felt as if it might tip sideways, send the world spinning off its axis. She wanted to laugh, or to slap him, or to run screaming into the storm. Instead, she froze, her heart galloping so fast it made her dizzy.

Teddy’s eyes darkened, the flecks of gold gone to earth.

His hands clenched at his sides, the knuckles gone white with the effort of restraint.

He looked at her as if she were the only thing left alive in the world, as if the rest of the house, the party, the country itself had washed away in the rain.

“You don’t have to answer,” he said, his voice barely above the pulse of thunder. “But I needed you to know. This stopped being a game for me a while ago.”

Theo felt the words burrow under her skin, hot and mortifying.

She wanted to look away, but the force of his gaze kept her rooted.

Her body responded before her mind did—a slow, insistent heat blooming between her legs, a sensation both alien and completely her own.

She pressed her thighs tighter, trying to ignore the ache.

She took the handkerchief, twisted it between her fingers, then brought it to her lips. The gesture was unconscious, almost childlike, but Teddy watched it with an intensity that made her flush.

“You’re not supposed to say things like that,” she managed, but the protest was weak, insubstantial.

He smiled, the expression lopsided and a little desperate. “I was never good at the things I’m supposed to do.”

A flash of lightning rendered his features in harsh white, the angles of his jaw, the wet gleam of his mouth, the mess of hair stuck to his forehead. He was beautiful, in the way dangerous animals are beautiful—every line and muscle engineered for some specific, terrible purpose.

Theo wanted to tell him to stop, to leave her alone, to let her have her silence and her safe, unremarkable life. But she could not speak. Instead, she backed away a fraction, just enough to put a sliver of space between them.

She reached for her locket, again finding only skin, and lowered her hand.

Teddy saw the gesture, and for a moment, something flickered in his eyes—hurt, or maybe envy, or maybe nothing at all.

She offered him a weak smile. “I usually wear a locket with a miniature of Charles.”

He reached out, so gently it was almost an apology, and brushed a strand of wet hair from her cheek. His fingers were rough with callus, warm despite the cold. “Your husband is gone, Theo,” he said, the words as soft as a caress. “And I am here. Flesh and blood. Wanting you.”

It was a cruelty and a mercy, both at once.

She closed her eyes, letting the words hit her, bruise her, change her. For a heartbeat, she imagined Charles alive again, sitting in this impossible hothouse, smiling his sad, kind smile. She wondered what he would make of her now—so changed, so hungry, so impossibly alive.

When she opened her eyes, Teddy had not moved. His hand still hovered on her cheek, trembling. She wanted to lean in, to let herself fall, but the part of her that belonged to the past held her rigid. “This isn’t fair,” she whispered.

“No,” he agreed, and his voice was raw. “It isn’t.”

For a moment, neither of them breathed.

Lightning illuminated the glasshouse, casting their shadows across the tile and up the far wall, where they writhed together in monstrous, beautiful silhouette.

His fingers brushed the line of her cheek, traced the slick curve of her jaw, then slipped behind her neck and caught in the tumble of her wet hair.

It was a mercy and a cruelty, the way he touched her—so gentle, so reverent.

She wanted to lean into it, to let the pressure of his hand guide her toward the only comfort left.

But she did not. Instead, she stiffened, and when his mouth met hers, she recoiled so violently that the back of her head struck the glass behind her.

He fell back at once, hands raised in apology. “I’m sorry—” he started, but she was already on her feet, trembling so hard she thought her bones might splinter.

“You can’t,” she said, the words coming out in a rush. “I can’t.”

He stared at her, stunned. His hair dripped rain onto his forehead, and a single drop found its way down his nose and over his lips. It made him look wounded, almost childlike.

“You can’t what?” he asked, the words so soft they barely registered above the hiss of the rain.

She pressed her hands to her face, but the tears came through anyway, mixing with the water already on her skin.

“I can’t betray him,” she whispered. “Not for you. Not for anyone.”

Teddy’s face went blank, then hard. He stood, and for a moment they were nose to nose, two animals in a trap.

“He’s dead, Theo,” Teddy said, and there was no softness in his voice. “He’s dead and you’re using him like a shield. Is that what you want? To be a widow forever, to spend the rest of your life hiding behind a ghost?”

The words struck her like blows. She recoiled, her hands clutching at the locket and the ring at her throat.

“You don’t understand,” she said, her voice ragged.

He shook his head, and now the water ran freely down his cheeks, indistinguishable from tears. “I understand better than you think. I know what it is to lose someone. But I’m still here. I’m alive. And I want you—God help me, I want you more than my own life.”

There it was. The naked, brutal truth. The confession that made all other words seem cheap.

Theo sagged, her back finding the support of a cold, wet bench. The orchids loomed over her, obscene in their abundance, their petals shining with rain. She wanted to disappear into the earth, to let the plants claim her and grow up through her bones.

She looked up at him, and for the first time, she saw what it cost him to be vulnerable. To want and be denied, again and again. “I’m sorry,” she said. The words were hollow, but they were all she had.

He stared at her, his face a ruin. Then, without another word, he turned and strode to the door. He wrenched it open, and the storm rushed in—wind and rain and the sound of thunder, a chaos that threatened to swallow everything.

He vanished into the downpour. The door swung on its hinges, and for a moment the whole conservatory felt as if it might be torn from its foundations.

Theo collapsed, her head in her hands. The heat, the wet, the smell of bruised leaves and her own skin—they overwhelmed her, made her feel animal and raw.

She sobbed, not for Teddy, not even for Charles, but for herself. For the woman she had been, and the one she could never be.

She curled on the stone bench, the locket clutched in one fist, the wedding band digging into her palm.

Outside, the storm raged on. Inside, the glasshouse filled with the sound of her weeping, and the orchids—bloody, waxy, obscene—nodded in silent agreement.

The world was stripped down to its essentials, water, heat, flesh, and want. There was no comfort to be found, only the certainty that the future would hurt as much as the present.

Theo rocked herself, back and forth, until the worst of it passed.