Page 36 of The Earl’s Marriage of Convenience

Instead, it made her impossible to ignore.

His gaze dropped, almost without intention, to her lips as she drew breath. They parted slightly, the faint flush in her cheeks deepening beneath the intensity of the moment.

Something shifted within him—sharp, immediate, and entirely unanticipated.

This was no longer an argument.

It had become something else entirely. He stepped closer. Too close.

Her breath brushed against his lips, cool and unsteady, and she did not move away. If anything, she leaned the slightest fraction toward him, as though drawn by the same force he could no longer deny.

He did not consider propriety, or consequence, or anything beyond the moment unfolding between them. Rather, he only knew—he wanted to kiss her.

The realization struck with startling clarity. It was not a passing inclination, nor idle curiosity, but something far more immediate and difficult to resist. A want that felt instinctive, almost inevitable in its certainty.

He lowered his head, drawn forward without conscious thought.

Her gaze flickered to his mouth and lingered there, as though the space between them had already begun to close.

Another breath.

Another fraction of distance.

“Edwin?” His sister’s voice broke through the moment with startling abruptness.

He recoiled at once, stepping back as though the contact itself would have burned him.

Eliza did the same.

They stared at one another, both breathing unevenly, the air between them altered in a way that could not be undone.

He would have kissed her. And not lightly. Not carelessly.

It would have been reckless, irrevocable—and worse still, he knew with unsettling certainty that he would not have regretted it.

Not even for a moment.

Edwin dragged a hand through his hair and stepped back again, forcing distance where none had existed moments before. “I—” He stopped, abandoning the attempt entirely.

With one final look at her, he turned and strode back into the house.

He offered some vague explanation regarding his coat, then took his leave without delay.

The evening air struck him as he stepped outside once more.

He drew in a breath—

And found it did nothing to steady him.

It felt, absurdly, like escape.

And yet, even as he put distance between himself and the house, he could not shake the sense that something had begun in that courtyard—something he was no longer certain he wished to resist.

Chapter Fourteen

Eliza did not sleep well. Not for any lack of opportunity, nor for any external disturbance, but because her mind refused to settle into the orderly patterns she so carefully maintained. Every time she closed her eyes, the events of the previous evening returned with unwelcome clarity—the closeness, the heat of the moment, the unmistakable sense that something had nearly occurred which could not be undone.

It had been a lapse.