Lady Ines Scandalous Hobby-Chapter 48 - Forty Eight

GONG... GONG... GONG...

The deep, mournful chime of the grandfather clock in the main foyer echoed through the sleeping house. Twelve strokes. Midnight.

Ines stood, her hand on the brass knob of her bedroom door. The house was a tomb of silence, the air still and heavy. She was dressed in a royal blue blue nightgown and was ready for her lessons.

She slipped out of her room, a silent, blue-gray shadow in the moonlit hallway. She did not need a lamp. Her feet were bare on the thick carpet, making no sound. She knew this path. She had walked it in her mind a hundred times today.

Her thoughts were her only companion.

Today was... she searched for the word... productive.

She had, after the doctor had left, locked herself in her room. Edith had brought her a tray for luncheon, and she had barely touched it. She had written. And written.

"Today, I wrote three times more than usual," she thought, a small, secret smile touching her lips. "Plus the ones I had already written before."

She pictured Gladys’s face when she had come to the library, summoned by that urgent, unprecedented letter. Gladys had looked at the new pages, her eyes wide, her mouth a small ’o’ of shock.

"Gladys was so happy," Ines remembered, the memory a warm, bright thrill. "She praised me. She said my descriptions are getting... ’vivid.’ She said the ladies of the ton would be so delighted, they might actually faint."

She almost laughed at the memory. A good, productive day.

And the rest of it... it had all fallen into place. "The doctor assured Rowan that I’m fine." He had, after a very long, very boring examination, declared her heart "unusually resilient." He’d blamed the collapse on a combination of heat, excitement, and a "lady’s delicate constitution." Rowan, placated, had finally relaxed.

And now... there was only this.

"And Carcel..." her mind continued, her steps slowing as she approached the library alcove. "I just want to inquire about more things." It was a reasonable, logical thought. She was a writer. He was her source. This was... research.

She paused. She had gotten to the library door. It was closed. Dark.

She rested her hand on the cold, carved wood.

"Lies!"

Her own mind, her most brutal critic, reprimanded her.

"Let’s not lie when nobody’s around," she thought, her cheeks growing warm in the darkness. This isn’t research anymore. Not all of it. The places he touched me...

Her free hand, of its own accord, drifted up. Her fingers brushed her neck, the curve of her waist. She could feel him. The memory was not a thought; it was a physical echo.

"...they still tingle every time I remember it."

She looked at the door. He had said "same time, same place." But after yesterday... after her collapse... after his cold, logical rejection in the shed...

"Will he still come?" she whispered to the wood. "Or did he... quit?"

A sharp, cold, and surprisingly painful bolt of disappointment shot through her. What if he wasn’t here? What if he had finally come to his senses and decided she was a foolish, dangerous girl he was better off avoiding? What if he had left her, high and dry, with a head full of new questions and a body full of... of this?

She closed her eyes, leaning her forehead against the door, just for a moment. She let her writer’s mind take over, conjuring the one, perfect, impossible scenario.

She imagined him. She imagined he was already here. He was standing right behind her, a silent, dark shadow.

One of his hands, her mind spun, would be on the door, right next to her head. Trapping her. The other... her breath hitched... the other would be on her breast, his thumb brushing, his palm cupping her.

His head would be on her neck, his lips just behind her ear, inhaling her scent. His voice... his voice would be deep, and rough with that desire she now recognized.

"Are you not getting in?" he would whisper.

Am I that selfish? she asked herself, a small, guilty thought. To want that? To want... more? Even when the other party isn’t willing anymore.

She was so lost in the fantasy, in the imagined heat of his hand, the imagined scent of his skin, that she felt it.

She felt a puff of hot, real breath on the bare skin of her neck.

And then, she heard it.

It was not her imagination. It was not a fantasy. It was a real, low, amused, and devastatingly close voice. A velvet rumble, right by her ear.

"Are you not getting in?"

Ines did not scream. She couldn’t.

Her lungs seized. All the air left her body in a silent, terrified whoosh. She spun around, her hands flying to her mouth, muffling a high-pitched, strangled "Mmph!"

He was there.

He was right there. Not a fantasy. Real.

He was leaning against the doorframe, his arms crossed, his large frame blocking the entire alcove. He was, as she had pictured, not wearing a coat. Just a simple, dark shirt, unbuttoned at the collar, and dark trousers. He looked rumpled, and tired, and he was watching her with a small, lazy, half-amused, half-resigned smile. He had been standing there, in the shadows, watching her. 𝕗𝐫𝐞𝕖𝕨𝐞𝗯𝚗𝕠𝘃𝐞𝚕.𝐜𝗼𝚖

When she was calm enough to breathe, when her heart, which had stopped, had decided to restart at a pace that was sure to kill her, she... she hit him.

It was not a ladylike tap. It was a series of frantic, frustrated, furious thumps against his very, very solid chest.

"Carcel!" she whispered, her voice a sharp, scandalized hiss. Her hands were flat against him now, and she was pushing him. He didn’t budge. He was a mountain. "You... you...fool!"

She hit him one last time, a solid thwack.

"If you keep scaring me like this, you will definitely kill me!" she panted, her entire body shaking. She was trying to calm her racing heart, her hands now clutching the front of his shirt.

Carcel’s smile did not fade. He unfolded his arms and, with a slow, gentle, almost lazy motion, he caught her wrists. He held her hands, still fisted, against his chest.

"I’m sorry," he murmured, his voice a low rumble. He did not sound sorry. He sounded amused. "I arrived a minute ago. I saw you... just... staring at the door. You seemed very far away."

He tilted his head. "So, I had to ask. I didn’t mean to scare you."

"You did scare me!" she hissed, pulling her hands from his grasp. She stepped back, smoothing her silk robe, trying to regain a single shred of her dignity. Her face was on fire. "I thought... I thought I was alone. I thought..." I thought...

She glanced, nervously, down the long, dark, silent hallway.

"It’s fine," she said, her voice shaky. She turned to the door. "Let’s just... let’s go in. Before someone sees us here."

She turned the knob, her hands still trembling. She pushed the door open, into the pitch-black, familiar, and suddenly charged air of the library. She slipped inside, a shadow of pale blue.

Carcel followed, a larger, darker shadow.

And the door clicked shut behind them, sealing them in the dark, together. Again.