Page 53 of From Rakes to Riches

She’d heard him use that rough voice before, yesterday morning when he’d brought Hestia back to her. The same current she’d felt leaping between them then was there again, writhing between them like a live thing, and he was gazing at her lips, his pupils darkening, his eyelids lowering…

Dear God, was he going to kiss her?

“Oh.” Her own eyelids fluttered closed as his thumb came up and traced her lower lip. It was the lightest, gentlest stroke, hardly a touch at all, but somehow it echoed across every inch ofher body, making her blood hum in response and a steady pulse beat deep inside her belly.

But he was a rake, wasn’t he? How could she have forgotten that? He knew how to touch a woman, how to seduce her, and?—

“I asked you a question, Helena. What did you think when you saw me sneaking into the stables in the mornings? Were you afraid for poor Hecate’s safety? Did you think I meant to do away with her?”

“I—I didn’t know what to think, at first, but now…oh.” She caught her breath as he traced her lip again, thrown entirely off her guard at the exquisite sensations flooding through her in response. How could a man reduce her to a quivering mass of need with a single stroke of his thumb?

“Yes? You didn’t know what to think, but now…?”

“I—the cream, and the blankets, and the salmon…I think you want to care for someone, and it’s easier to care for Hecate than Ryan and Etienne.” She forced herself to open her heavy eyelids and meet his gaze. “I think you’re either afraid to show how much you care for your sons, or else you don’t know how to, so you lavish all your tenderness for them on Hecate, instead.”

He stilled, his thumb ceasing its slow stroke across her lips.

“But you don’t need to do that, my lord.” She searched his inscrutable face, tried to see beyond the shadows that distorted the truth, to see to the man underneath, the one he hid from everyone. “The boyswantyour attention. They miss their father.”

He let out a hoarse laugh. “You’re a governess, Miss Templeton. You should know that what a child wants isn’t always the best thing for them.”

“But not this time, my lord,” she whispered. “They need you as much as you need them.”

He gazed down at her, his throat working, but whatever he wanted to say never made it past his lips. Instead, his handdropped away from her face. “You needn’t worry about Hecate, Miss Templeton.” He retreated behind his desk again, his back to her as he stared out the window into the dark, frozen garden. “I can assure you I don’t intend her any harm.”

Did he truly think she believed he’d hurt Hecate? “I know that, my lord. Will you…will you at least come to the animal husbandry lesson today? The boys want you there.”

“I’ll think about it. For now, you’re dismissed, Miss Templeton.”

He’d dismissed her from his presence every time she’d ventured into his study, but this time, it was different. Instead of his usual abruptness, this time he sounded…sad, and her heart gave a wrench in her chest.

Why had this come to matter so much to her? When did it become as much about Lord Hawke as it was about Ryan and Etienne? “Yes, my lord.”

She paused, but he didn’t turn around when she opened the door. Once she was on the other side she leaned back against it, touching her fingertips to her lips. She didn’t have any more answers than she had when she’d entered the study.

Only more questions.

9

Adrian didn’t join Miss Templeton for Ryan and Etienne’s feline husbandry lesson that afternoon, but kept to himself for the remainder of the day. The worst of it was, he was no longer sure whether it was his sons he was avoiding, or Helena Templeton.

Either way, he soon had cause to regret it, because by the time he did venture from his study, cursing himself as a coward, Miss Templeton had disappeared.

She didn’t appear with his tea tray that afternoon, and any hopes he might have secretly entertained that she’d come to the stables early the following morning were dashed when he entered, and found only Cyrus and Hecate. He would have sworn he felt the weight of Helena’s gaze on him as he crossed the stable yard, but her bedchamber window was dark, and she didn’t appear.

By mid-morning, the walls of his study were closing in on him, and he was so consumed with thoughts of, er…feline husbandry nothing in the world could have stopped him from hurrying to the stables for the lesson.

But when he got there, Miss Templeton was nowhere to be found, and neither were his sons. Hecate cheered up when he appeared, but once she found he didn’t have any more of the prawns he’d fed her earlier that morning, she gave a dismissive twitch of her tail that was downright offensive, and proceeded to ignore him.

Where the devil could Miss Templeton have gone? He never should have touched her yesterday. What had he been thinking, stroking her lips in that shameless manner? He’d likely frightened her to death. After such a lapse in propriety, he’d hardly blame her if she left her post!

At the very least, he could have attended the feline husbandry lesson. She’d invited him a half-dozen times this week. Yesterday she’d come close to pleading with him, her lovely blue-gray eyes wide with hope, only for him to disappoint her once again.

He trudged back to the castle and roamed aimlessly from room to room. Eventually he found the boys engaged in a rather chaotic fencing lesson with their beleaguered fencing master, but there was no sign of Miss Templeton. She wasn’t in the kitchens, the schoolroom, or the library. He even went so far as to knock on her bedchamber door, but there was no reply.

By the time he came across Mrs. Norris in the linen room, he was all but certain Miss Templeton had left his employ and fled Hawke’s Run in the dead of night, so she never had to see his face again. “Mrs. Norris! Miss Templeton is missing!”

Mrs. Norris paused in her inspection of the linen closet. “Missing, my lord?”

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