All About Passion (Cynster 7)

After a moment, he answered, “I’d thought to leave that to you.”

Not to his wife, but the woman he’d thought she’d been. Francesca ignored the point, even though she knew it was echoing in his mind. “She’s quite regal in her bearing-I thought perhaps Regina would suit.”

“A queen.” He nodded. “It fits.”

Francesca glanced at his face; in the half-light his expression was unreadable. She pressed her palms together. Tight. “I do thank you for the mare.” She gestured. “It was a very kind thought.”

Regardless of his mistake.

They kept strolling; she felt his gaze touch her face but didn’t meet it. Then he shrugged. “It seemed the least I could do if I was going to stop you riding hunters.”

Charles’s hunters, so he’d thought, not his.

She glanced up and their eyes met. Briefly.

She looked ahead and said nothing more.

He did the same.

The house loomed before them; he led her to a door. He held it open and she entered; he followed. Francesca stopped, enveloped in sudden gloom, unsure of where they were.

Gyles walked into her.

His strength wrapped around her as he steadied her against him-awareness flared, then raced, prickling over her skin. Heat followed.

For an instant, they stood locked together in the deepening gloom. Neither moved; neither spoke.

She knew his thoughts. Knew he knew hers.

His chest expanded as he drew in a breath, then, stiffly, he stepped back. He waved her on. “Straight ahead.” His voice had deepened. “This will bring us to the stairs.”

She stepped out; he fell in beside her. They strolled along the wide corridor. “Has work on the bridge progressed?”

“Reasonably.” He paused, then added, “We’ll need to get more lumber, bigger beams to better support the trusses. That’ll take a week or so, and the ground’s too sodden at present…”

He kept talking as they climbed the stairs, then crossed into the wing they shared. They halted outside her door.

Their eyes met; their gazes held. Silence fell.

She wished she knew what he was thinking, what he saw when he looked at her. The only truth she could read in his eyes was that last night had in no way diminished his desire for her.

Nor her desire for him.

But last night had changed things between them in ways beyond the obvious. In subtle, fundamental, fateful ways.

They both knew it, sensed it. In a sudden instant of clarity, she realized he was as much at sea with what was now between them as she was.

He breathed in, then inclined his head and stepped away. “I’ll see you at dinner.”

She nodded, then drew her gaze from his and entered her room.

“No-not that gown, the one with the green stripes.”

While Millie ran back to the armoire, Francesca sat before her dressing table and examined her reflection in the mirror. The steam from her bath had set her hair curling wildly. She’d worn it down for the wedding, and half up through the day…

Reaching back, she gathered the mass and twisted, then groped for a handful of pins.

Returning with the required gown, Millie stopped and stared. “Oooh, ma’am-you do look smashing!”