Page 68 of A Highly Unlikely Duchess
He inhaled sharply. “I’m pretty good with a sword.”
Emily let out a small, breathless laugh, her eyes shining as she looked at him. In that moment, the relief was so sweet itwas addictive. She realized that she was opening herself up to this man in ways she hadn't prepared for. She was tempted to feel things... dangerous, soft, permanent things that she had promised herself were impossible for an arrangement like this.
But as his hand remained firm on her shoulder and his gaze held hers with an intensity that felt like a promise, she couldn't bring herself to pull back.
It felt too good to be protected. It felt too right to be seen.
“Who is in here?”
The voice cracked through the silence of the library like a whip. Emily gasped, her heart leaping into her throat as she nearly dropped the heavy, leather-bound volume she had just pulled from the shelf. She hadn't expected another soul to be awake at this hour, let alone prowling the darkened corridors of the house.
The figure in the doorway was tall and familiar, and holding a candle.
She exhaled. “Theodore?” she called out.
“Emily?” He stepped inside, holding the candle up slightly. “Is that you? What on earth are you doing down here so late?”
“I couldn't sleep,” she admitted, hugging the book to her chest as if it were a shield.
In truth, sleep had felt like a distant country she couldn't reach. Every time she closed her eyes, the events of the ball played on a loop: the venomous whispers Euphemia had shared, the way the room had felt like it was closing in, and the steady, grounding weight of Theodore’s hand on her shoulder. Her mind was a chaotic tangle. She had come to the library hoping that a dry history text might bore her into unconsciousness.
“And you?” she asked, trying to steady her breathing.
“I saw the light under the door. I wanted to check who was in here,” he said. “I could not sleep either. I was walking.”
“Walking,” she said.
“Around the house,” he said. “It helps sometimes. When I cannot settle.”
She looked at him, then down at herself, and almost laughed.
They were both in white.
She was wearing her nightgown, the ivory dressing gown that Peggy had laid out for her, the one with the small embroidered detail at the cuffs that she had always thought was slightly too fine for nightwear.
Her hair was down, loose around her shoulders, and her feet were in the soft slippers she wore when the floors were cold.
Theodore was wearing a white untucked shirt, with the collar loose and the cuffs turned back to the elbow. His waistcoat was undone and hanging open, and he had clearly pulled a dark coat over the whole arrangement as a concession to the possibility of encountering another person, which he had now encountered.
His hair was falling forward at the temple as usual, with complete indifference to the hour or the company.
Theodore crossed the library toward her, set his candle down on the table beside hers, and looked at the shelf she had been standing in front of. He leaned back against the edge of the table, crossing his arms over his chest as he studied the heavy book still clutched in her hands.
“Did you find something worth reading?”
“Not quite,” she said. “At this point I would read anything. A treatise on drainage. Mr. Briggs's opinions on roses were compiled into a volume. Anything that would make my eyes heavy enough to close.”
He looked at the shelf. “I could find you something,” he said. “I am reasonably skilled at selecting the precise book that would defeat even the most determined wakefulness.”
“Is that a talent you developed intentionally?” she asked, turning to lean on the shelf.
“It developed naturally,” he said. “I spent a considerable portion of my youth in this library looking for exactly that kind of book.”
Emily looked at him, her pulse thrumming. The candlelight softened the hard lines of his face, making him seem approachable, almost vulnerable. For weeks, she had been a guest in his life, piecing together fragments of who he was from rumors and banter. She felt the curiosity she had been carrying for weeks move toward the surface.
She took a breath, her heart racing with a different kind of nerves. “What if you told me about yourself instead?” she asked softly. “I think I would prefer that to any book on these shelves.”
Theodore tilted his head, looking at her strangely, his eyes dark. “About me? That is a vast and largely boring territory, Emily. What could you possibly want to know?”
