Free It Takes Two to Tangle by Theresa Romain Page B

long time.”
    It didn’t bring him closer to look through his things, and it didn’t send him farther when she kept them hidden away. Sometimes she didn’t want him close at all; she only wanted to forget what she’d done to him.
    But she couldn’t forget anything, ever.
    Henry’s left hand tightened around his pen, then he laid it aside. “I am honored by your confidence.”
    She gave him a tight smile and smoothed a lock of her hair trying to uncoil from its pins. If only it was so simple to tidy up unruly emotion. “I probably spoke out of place, Henry. Your wound is much fresher than mine.” Charles, after all these long years, awoke more guilt than grief.
    Henry’s clenched left hand unfolded, so close she could almost touch it. And so she did, just a brush over the back of his hand.
    Their hands were freed from formal gloves, and Henry was warm skin under her skin—solid bone, sinew, all working perfectly together. To touch him was a wonder. A hand was a living miracle. She supposed Henry knew that better than anyone.
    Again, she met his gaze. He was watching her closely as she traced lightly over his hand, his eyes deep and blue enough to drown in.
    She sputtered for words, resisting the undertow. “Do you want to talk about it? Your injured arm?”
    â€œNo,” he said, but his eyes did not cool with this refusal. “Though I thank you for asking about it. It’s a part of me now.”
    He twisted his living left hand beneath her right—she thought at first to free it from her grasp. But he simply rotated it, placing his hand palm to palm with hers. Fingers wrapped around fingers, their sensitive pads awakening each other with pressure as light as the feather on a quill. The contact was simple, everyday, yet almost unbearably intimate.
    And it was too uncertain; it could mean everything or nothing. A naked hand to a naked hand was a pact between business partners, a promise between friends, a beginning for lovers.
    It was with Caroline he wished a beginning. And Frances had promised to help.
    That was better than a pact, at least.
    â€œWell.” She freed her hand, found a quill they hadn’t ruined yet. “Let’s write that letter. You can start again with C .”
    My caro , she thought, though she could never say it now.

Six
    â€œToo bad you remembered to cover the carpet this time.” Emily sighed from the doorway of the morning room. “I could use some guilt ammunition.”
    Henry turned to look at his sister-in-law, more relieved than annoyed by the interruption. His latest effort at painting—this time with watercolors—was not going nearly as well as had this afternoon’s writing lesson. “Emily. You’re plotting something again?”
    â€œI’m always plotting something.” She trailed into the room and stood beside him, lowering her pointed chin to fix him with the full force of her bright eyes. A vivid green touched with blue; nearly the same shade as Caro’s.
    There was a pigment for creating just such a color. Paris Green, Henry had heard it called. It was a new formula, no more than a year old. Derived from copper and arsenic, and remarkably dangerous to work with, as so many of the richest colors were.
    â€œAren’t you going to ask what I’m plotting?” Her eyes narrowed.
    He set down his brush and turned to sit on the edge of the baroque table they’d painted a few days before. “Aren’t you going to tell me what you’re plotting?” he mimicked. “I can tell you want to. You’re all swelled up like a pufferfish.”
    â€œI’m—” She looked down the smooth line of her alizarin-red gown. “I am not . Hal, you’re as bad as my boys.”
    He grinned. “No one could ever be as bad as your boys.” He loved his nephews deeply, but they were an exhausting pair.
    â€œTrue, true,” Emily granted.