Page 17 of A Rogue's Rules for Seduction
“I’ve no idea what my heart desires.” A sharp pain radiated out from the center of Willa’s chest, and she used her free hand to press against it.
“Perhaps that’s what this time on Mr. Longbridge’s island is for,” her brother’s wife suggested. “Listening, trulylistening, to your heart.”
“Am I supposed to forgive him?” Something ached within Willa, something that felt suspiciously like longing. But longing only led to more vulnerability, and with it, pain.That, she couldn’t allow.
Celeste stroked her fingers down Willa’s face. “Forgive yourself for being hurt. There’s no shame in it. As for you and Dom...” She shook her head. “Both of you must find a way forward. In whatever form that takes. Together or apart. So long as you both can find your way toward peace.”
A hard, hot knot lodged in Willa’s throat. “Peace seems the furthest thing from me right now. I ran to the Continent to seek it, but the change in landscape only served to show me that I can’t outpace something inside of me. If anything, it only showed that I...”
She choked back her words. How could she admit, even to someone as understanding as Celeste,what Dom’s desertion had meant to her? What it meantabouther?
“Salome,” a man’s voice sang from down the hallway. “Where’s my lusty Salome?”
“There’s no one here named Salome,” Willa muttered, frowning.
Celeste’s face turned a deep, rosy pink. “I... um...”
“Salome, I await you in the study for private tutoring. You know what happens to naughty students who are tardy.” Kieran appeared at the end of the hallway, and he, too, turned scarlet. “Oh, God.”
With dawning horror, Willa looked back and forth between her brother and the furiously blushing Celeste.
“I’m going to bed now and will spend the rest of my life insisting that I saw and heardnothing.”
Before Kieran or his wife could say another word, Willa ran for the safety of her room.
Sometime during the night, the storm had stopped. Mr. Longbridge had said that the weather was mercurial, and came and went with astonishing speed.
When Willa made her way down to the breakfast room in the morning, sunlight streamed in through the tall windows, and birds sang unfamiliar tunes to herald the new day.
She greeted the few guests who were up at thisearly hour, and told herself that the tight feeling in her chest was gratitude because Dom wasn’t amongst their number. As she considered the array of food on the sideboard, Miss Steele joined her, and together they piled their dishes with poached eggs and toasted bread—though Miss Steele declined the rashers of bacon.
“Strange that the storm made me sleep even more soundly,” Miss Steele remarked as they served themselves.
Willa made a noncommittal noise. She’d spent most of the night careening from one side of her bed to the other, though it wasn’t the rain or wind that kept her awake. Her mind had been filled with the abject sorrow in Dom’s eyes when he’d offered his apology, and his words echoing with what sounded like true remorse. Yet she’d meant what she had said to Celeste—it would take more than a few sentences to make right the wrong that had been done.
And when she had shut her eyes, Celeste’s counsel had rung in her ears.
Forgive yourself for being hurt. There’s no shame in it... It’s about both of you finding a way forward. In whatever form that takes. Together or apart.
There was so much to try to understand, about herself, and how she could possibly take that forward-leading path that Celeste urged her to take.
One thing she did know: she couldn’t let him,or anyone, know how much he occupied her thoughts, or how her body kept turning to him as if seeking out a dark star.
Everyone would think she was weak, and she couldn’t permit that. God, how she prayed for indifference toward him.
“Good morning, Mr. Kilburn,” Miss Steele said, glancing toward the door.
“Good morning, Miss Steele. Lady Willa.”
Willa’s spine stiffened at the sound of his deep voice. She shouldn’t acknowledge Dom straightaway, yet still she turned toward the entrance to the breakfast room in time to see him stride into the chamber.
His hair was damp, slightly curling, as though he’d bathed first thing this morning. There wasn’t anything else remarkable about his appearance—if you didn’t count being a mountain of a man in perfectly tailored dark clothing as having a remarkable appearance.
He nodded at the others in the room, but when his gaze fell on Willa, it snagged. She couldn’t look away from him, and he seemed equally as fascinated by her, his storm-hued eyes penetrating as he stared at her.
“Didyousleep well in the middle of the storm?” Miss Steele asked.
The spell between her and Dom snapped apart as he addressed the other lady. “Takes a lot to rattle me.”
