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“I wanted to,” Hudson responded simply.

He retrieved his coat, wincing slightly at the state of his shirt beneath it, and for a moment Anna thought he meant only to nod his farewell, as he so often did. Instead, he crossed the small distance between them, and before she understood his intention, he pressed a brief, easy kiss to her lips.

“I shall see you at dinner,” he mumbled, already turning toward the door, entirely unbothered.

Anna stood frozen in the middle of the nursery, one hand rising unconsciously to touch her lips that were strangely still warm from his kiss, and it was only once the door had clicked shut behind him that the full strangeness of the moment settled over her.

He had kissed her. Simply, casually, as though it were nothing at.

And he had not seemed to notice anything unusual about it whatsoever, which was perhaps the most alarming detail of all. A calculated kiss she might have understood – might have armed herself against, seen it as another skirmish in whatever strange campaign he seemed to be waging against her composure. But this had not been calculated or even deliberate.

It had been thoughtless, easy, as though the thought of doing otherwise had not occurred to him.

This might mean that they were starting to shift from a mere arrangement to something more meaningful. Something that resembled a healthy family, with something close to an amicable marriage. Because in that moment, she had felt more like a wife than she had previously in the year she had been married. Whether he had noticed this shift in himself, she could not say. Perhaps it was simple to suspect he had not.

She, however, had noticed it keenly enough for both of them, and it terrified her nearly as much as it pleased her.

Anna looked down at Lucy, still sleeping peacefully in her arms, entirely unaware of the quiet upheaval her mother was presently experiencing, and let out a slow, unsteady breath.

She thought of the walls she had built so carefully over the past year – walls constructed not out of spite, but out of necessity, a means of surviving a marriage that had promised her nothing beyond the bare minimum she had bargained for. She had told herself, over and over, that requiring nothing from Hudson was the safest course, that hearts left unguarded were hearts easily broken, and she had built her small, careful life around her children specifically so that she would never again have to depend upon a man’s affection to feel whole.

But affection, it seemed, did not much care for the walls one built against it. It found its way in regardless, leaving her alone with her heart racing over nothing more than an ordinary brush of lips against hers.

“Oh dear,” she whispered to no one at all. “That will not do.”

She said it lightly, but even as the words left her, she knew – with the particular, sinking certainty as a woman who had spent a year convincing herself of something she no longer entirely believed – that it was already rather too late for such warnings to do her any good at all.

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

As a businessman, Hudson had faced many difficult men who were so stubbornly stuck in their ways and refused to admit their shortcomings in any case. As a child, he had weathered his father’s temper and had found a way to keep himself out of the sight of his stepmother when she was in one of her moods.

And as a man, he had learned to deal with the close scrutiny of the ton as a man.

He had experienced many difficult situations and yet, he still felt quite uneasy as he walked into the gentleman’s club, aware that he might be moments away from meeting and speaking with his brother for the first time in a long while.

It had been a little over a year since Cornelius had spoken to him with anything resembling warmth. A full year since the boy who had once trailed after him with a wooden rapier and a face full of adoration had looked at him instead with something closer to contempt.

Hudson told himself, as his carriage rolled to a stop outside the club, that he was prepared for whatever reception awaited him. However, it seemed as though he was having a rather difficult time believing it at all.

He reminded himself of Anna’s words, and used them to strengthen him with the courage he needed to face what lay ahead. Just as she had told him a few nights ago, Hudson loved his brother and would accept whatever choice he made. He had not been so certain of his own capacity for grace at the time, but he found the memory steadying regardless – a small anchor against the storm of old resentments he suspected the evening would stir.

Be patient, he told himself. Whatever is said, be patient.

It was, he reflected grimly, easier counsel to give than to follow.

He had brought it up again earlier that day, between the moments when Timothy had settled after making a complete mess of his father’s shirt. Hudson mentioned the possibility of seeing Cornelius soon, feeling as though he was not obligated to tell her just how soon they would be meeting, then he shared his concerns that his brother would not feel generous enough to let him speak to him.

“You are so certain he will refuse to hear you,” she had said when Hudson confessed his reluctance to seek his brother out as a result. “But you have not yet given him the chance to. Cornelius is angry, Hudson, not heartless. There is a considerable difference between the two, regardless of whatever your fear tells you.”

“You did not see his face the last time we spoke,” Hudson said, shaking his head. “There was no anger left in it by then. Only contempt.”

“Contempt is easier to wear than grief,” Anna told him sagely, far gentler than he believed he deserved. “I imagine he has simply found it a more bearable mask than admitting how much he still wishes things were different between you.”

Hudson had not known, at the time, whether to believe her. He was not entirely certain he believed her now, seated in his carriage outside the club with his brother’s uncertain feelings waiting for him beyond the door. But he had found himself unable to dismiss the thought entirely, and it was, in the end, the reason he had come at all.

The club was in its usual state of quiet indulgence when Hudson arrived – the low murmur of gentlemen at cards, the sharp crack of billiard balls somewhere beyond the main room, the particular scent of leather and brandy that had grown so familiar to him over the years he could have identified the place blindfolded. He found Owen first, as he had expected, near the boxing ring at the rear of the establishment, sleeves already rolled to his elbows.

What Hudson had not expected was to find Cornelius seated at the small table beside the ring, a glass of something amber in his hand and an expression of profound betrayal already forming on his face.