A Scandal By Any Other Name-Chapter 40 - Forty

The air in the carriage turned electric. The word hung between them like a challenge.

Rowan’s eyes narrowed into slits. "Watch yourself, Miss Kingsley. You forget your place. You are my employee."

"My place is to get you to the altar," Delaney shot back, refusing to back down. "And right now, you are digging your heels in like a stubborn mule. What is the problem? Is it fear? Are you afraid she will actually expect you to care?"

"There is nothing wrong with her!" Rowan yelled. "The problem is not with her!"

"Then what is it?" Delaney cried. Her voice cracked. "Tell me! Help me understand so I can fix it! Why can you not just be happy with the woman I found for you? Why must you fight me on everything?"

"Because I don’t want to be managed!" Rowan shouted. He leaned forward, invading her space. "Because maybe I wanted tonight to just be a ball! Maybe I wanted to enjoy the moon on the balcony without being told it was a ’strategic error’! Maybe I wanted to have a conversation that wasn’t an interview!"

"I did not say it was an error!" Delaney defended herself. "I said you needed to go back inside! I was looking out for your future! I was trying to save you from yourself!"

"My future?" Rowan laughed humorlessly. It was a dark, bitter sound. "My future looks like a schedule, Miss Kingsley. Breakfast with Celine. Tea with Celine. Opera with Celine. A lifetime of doing exactly what is expected of me. A lifetime of perfection."

"That is what marriage is!" Delaney said. "It is duty! It is stability! It is securing the line!"

"Is that all it is?" Rowan asked. His voice dropped to a whisper, but it was louder than his shouting. "Is that what you want for yourself, Miss Kingsley? Duty? Stability? No passion? No arguments? No fire? Just... silence?"

Delaney’s breath hitched. "It doesn’t matter what I want. I am not the one getting married. My wants are irrelevant."

"But you are the one pushing me into it!" Rowan said. "You are pushing me toward her so hard I can barely breathe. Why? Why are you in such a rush to get rid of me? Do you hate being here that much?"

"Because I need the money!" Delaney shouted.

The truth hung in the air, ugly and bare. She hadn’t meant to say it. But the pressure was too much.

"I need the money, Your Grace," she said, her voice shaking with the weight of her secret burdens. "I need to finish this job. I need to leave. I cannot stay here playing house with you forever. I have a life to live. I have debts. I have ghosts. So yes, I am pushing you. Because every day you hesitate is another day I am trapped!"

Rowan looked at her. The anger in his eyes shifted. It wasn’t gone, but it was replaced by something else. Hurt? Confusion? Understanding?

"Trapped?" he repeated softly. "Is that how you feel here? Trapped?"

"Yes," Delaney said.

She had never felt freer than she did arguing with him. She had never felt more alive than she did standing on his balcony. But she couldn’t admit that. If she admitted that, she would lose everything.

"So please," she whispered, a tear finally escaping and sliding down her cheek. "Just call on her. Marry her. Be happy. And let me be."

Rowan stared at her. He looked at the teal dress that made her look like a queen. He looked at the loose curl of hair touching her neck. He looked at the tear shining on her skin.

He felt a surge of emotion that terrified him. He didn’t want to let her go. The thought of her leaving—of the house going quiet, of the breakfast table being empty—made him feel physically ill.

"And if I don’t want to let you go?" the thought crossed his mind, dangerous and unauthorized.

He opened his mouth to speak. He didn’t know what he was going to say. Maybe he was going to fire her. Maybe he was going to beg her to stay. Maybe he was going to tell her that Celine was a candle and she was a forest fire.

"Miss Kingsley, listen to me—"

SCREECH.

The world turned upside down.

The carriage driver slammed on the brakes with violent force. Perhaps a stray dog had run into the road. Perhaps another carriage had cut them off in the fog.

The wheels locked. The iron rims shrieked against the cobblestones. The carriage lurched violently to the left, skidding sideways.

"Ah!" Delaney cried out.

Physics was not kind to women in corsets and silk slippers on velvet seats.

She was thrown forward. She slid off the seat as if she had been pushed. Gravity pulled her across the small space between them.

She didn’t hit the floor.

She hit Rowan.

Rowan braced himself against the wall of the carriage, his legs locking to absorb the impact. His arms flew out instinctively to catch her.

Delaney collided with him. It was a hard impact. Her knees landed between his boots, cushioned by the layers of her petticoats. Her hands flew out to stop her fall.

She grabbed the lapels of his black coat. Her gloved fingers curled tightly into the expensive wool, anchoring herself to him.

The carriage shuddered, rocked once, and came to a complete, jarring halt.

Silence returned. But this time, it wasn’t heavy. It was deafening. It was charged.

Delaney was frozen.

She was half-kneeling, half-sprawled across Rowan’s legs. Her face was inches from his. She could feel the hard muscles of his thighs beneath the thin silk of her skirt. She could feel the heat of his body radiating through his clothes.

She could feel the rapid, thundering beat of his heart against her knuckles where she gripped his coat. Thump-thump. Thump-thump. It was racing.

She looked up.

Rowan looked down.

His hands were gripping her waist. He had caught her to keep her from hitting the wall of the carriage, and now his large, gloved hands were holding her firmly against him. His thumbs pressed into the boning of her corset.

They breathed.

In. Out.

Their breath mingled in the small, dark space. The cloud of warm air from their lips touched.

Delaney’s heart was hammering against her ribs so hard she thought he must be able to feel it vibrating through her dress.

She should move. She knew she should move. Propriety dictated that she immediately apologize, scramble back to her seat, and fix her dress. A lady did not straddle a Duke in a carriage.

But she couldn’t move. Her limbs felt heavy. Her mind was blank.

She looked into his eyes. In the darkness, his eyes were almost black, blown wide with shock and adrenaline. But there was something else there, too. A hunger. A question.

"Miss Kingsley," Rowan breathed.

It wasn’t a question. It wasn’t a command. It was just her name, spoken like a prayer in the dark.

He didn’t let go of her waist. If anything, his grip tightened slightly, his thumbs moving in a small, unconscious caress against the silk.

Delaney looked at his mouth. It was just there. Inches away. She remembered the shape of it when he smiled. She remembered the sound of his laugh.

She felt the heat radiating from him. It burned through her gloves. It burned through her dress. It burned through the lies she had been telling herself all night.

The argument about Lady Celine seemed a million miles away. The list of criteria seemed ridiculous. The money seemed like paper.

There was no list here. There was just the man who smelled of sandalwood and the night air. There was just the woman who smelled of jasmine and secrets.

"Your Grace," she whispered.

She didn’t let go of his lapels. She pulled slightly. Just a fraction of an inch.

Rowan’s gaze dropped to her lips. He watched them move. Then his eyes flicked back to hers.

The air between them crackled. It was dangerous. It was terrifying. It was inevitable.

He looked at her not as his employee, not as his cousin, not as a problem to be solved. He looked at her as a woman who had just fallen into his arms and fit there perfectly.

"Are you hurt?" he asked. His voice was rough, strained, as if he were holding back a flood.

"No," Delaney whispered.

"Good," he said.

But still, neither of them moved. They stayed there, suspended in the moment, the rest of the world locked outside the carriage doors. The anger of the argument had transformed into something else entirely—a raw, undeniable tension that threatened to consume them both.