Free The Glass Orchid by Emma Barron

weight of it, as if his anger were a corporeal being ready to physically strike him. And then it was gone as George stalked out of the office, his father seemingly satisfied that he had procured a promise of obedience from his son. He had no reason to believe otherwise. Camden had thus far always done as he was told, behaved as he was expected. And parts of Camden wanted to do that now, wanted to stave off any further conflict by doing what his father ordered. He should cease all contact with Del and redouble his efforts at the shipping company. Then his father would be happy — or at least not overtly furious; Camden doubted his father was ever actually happy — and Camden could continue living his rote life in relative peace.
    He just — couldn’t. There was something in him, some small spark that became a little more inflamed every time he thought of Del, which prevented him from meekly submitting to his father’s demands. Yes, he could avoid any contact with her and buy himself a reprieve from his father’s fury, but he was beginning to think the price he paid — had been paying his entire life — was becoming more than he could bear.
    He stared down at his desk until the numbers in the ledgers blurred, and he knew he would get no more work done tonight. He rose abruptly, toppling his chair over and scattering papers, but he was too frustrated to care about setting his office back to rights. He grabbed his coat and left the shipping offices. He needed air, needed to move, needed time to think. He would walk the streets until he was calmer, and then he would return to his office to finish the accounting.
    Even as he stormed down the streets following a now-familiar route, he still pretended to himself there was some question as to where he would end up that night.
    • • •
    A cool evening breeze blew in from the open window, causing the delicate silk curtains to billow and ripple on the current. Del drew her robe closer around her as she closed the book on her lap with frustration. She had been trying all evening to read the overwrought gothic romance but she was having difficulty focusing. She found herself reading the same paragraph over and over again, and when she was finally able to read through an entire chapter, she was plagued with a distraction of a different kind. Every time she encountered a description of the aggressive raven-haired hero sweeping the heroine into his arms, he somehow changed into a soft-spoken blond man in her mind. Somehow, it was Camden she envisioned storming the haunted mansion to rescue the quivering maiden.
    Del tried to banish such ridiculous images from her mind, but her mind refused to cooperate. It conjured memories of Camden, of his eyes peering into hers, his voice soft against her ear, his hand strong and firm on her back. It created visions of him. Camden riding on his horse as she had seen him yesterday afternoon in Hyde Park, except in her head he was wearing no cravat or waistcoat, and his linen shirt was open to the waist, exposing his muscled chest.
    “Ugh, stop it,” Del told herself.
    She rose from the settee and went to the sideboard to pour a tumbler of brandy. She took a gulp, reveling in the warmth that burned a trail down her throat. She wiped the sticky liquid from her lips with the back of her hand and went to sit back down, the half-full tumbler still clutched in her fingers.
    She simply had to stop thinking about Camden, had to stop romanticizing who he was and what they could be together. She had thought in the beginning it was simply curiosity. He had intrigued her with his young innocence tinged with a hard, still-burgeoning masculinity. It had caught her off-guard how forthright he was with her, how he treated her as a person with desire and needs, and not just a vessel to fulfill his lust. She had agreed to accompany him to the theater because she thought that if she spent time with him the alluring sense of newness and mystery would wear off and