his chair until the queen produced a displeased little sigh. “Very well,” she said. “While three thousand men are not a problem, tens of thousands could well be. Beaconsfield, we suggest you do as the duke recommends. As long as it can be done discreetly.”
* * *
What a curious thing power was, Sebastian thought when he was back on the train. The one person in Britain who could effectively tell him what to do barely reached his chest. And it was he who had given her much of that power, because he valued his mission and he needed her to achieve it. It was a worthy mission, of course. The men who had come before him had, save a few shameful exceptions, guarded and improved their dynasty for hundreds of years.
Still, as the sooty fog and grime of London faded into the distance behind him like a bad dream, he wondered where the line was between being a servant and a prisoner to a cause.
The train screeched to a halt at the next station.
“Oxford,” a member of staff announced below his coach window. “Ladies and gentlemen, please alight here for Oxford.”
Christ. The urge to scan the platform for the familiar glint of mahogany hair was absurdly overwhelming. He stared straight ahead, making Ramsey squirm in his corner across.
She had been gone for five days. He had caught up with an impressive stack of paperwork since, and he had quickly found several reasons why it was a good thing that Annabelle Archer had walked back out of his life.
It grated, of course, that he was not sure what had caused her to refuse him. He didn’t like unfinished business. And as the days passed, he was thinking of her more, not less. He caught himself looking for her in the stables. Had stared like a fool at the armchair where he had first found her. He woke hard and aching every morning, and couldn’t get relief from his own hand because in the end, he didn’t find release until he made it about her—her soft mouth, her soft moans, the sweet hot welcome of her body . . . hell no, the last thing he needed was to link Annabelle Archer ever more closely to his desires.
A shudder ran through the coach as the train prepared to leave.
A visceral urge to jump into action shot through Sebastian’s limbs.
I could have her.
He could get off the train. He could find her, take her, drag her back to his bedroom, and keep her until she haunted him no longer. His ancestors wouldn’t have hesitated to do exactly that. Even today men like him could get away with unspeakable things . . .
With a huff, the train detached from the platform.
He exhaled a shuddering breath. Cold sweat had broken over his forehead, and for a moment, he sat in awe at his own dark impulses.
There were more civilized options to woo her—writing a letter, calling on her.
He would do nothing.
He had been an inch from taking her against the library door, like a drunk using a wench behind a tavern. He had never treated a woman thus before. But the truth was, a shocking emotion had held him in its clutches that night—to be inside her, or die.
No one should have that much power over him.
He opened his eyes to the empty winter landscape rushing past. The horizon was fading into a sickly yellow hue.
He allowed his mind to return to Oxford one more time, pictured her with her head bent over a book, her hair curling against her soft nape and her clever mind whirring. A bittersweet pull made his chest contract. He supposed that was how it felt to miss someone.
* * *
It was a grave, grave offense to be late for a tutorial. Annabelle’s boot heels were hammering a wild staccato on the flagstone floors of St. John’s, and she all but skittered to a halt in front of Jenkins’s heavy office door, her breath coming in unrefined gulps.
Her life had become all about running from place to place. Between her assignments, the suffragists, tutoring poorly paying pupils, and making true on her promise to pose as Helen of Troy, the calm and poise she had once tried to cultivate lay hopelessly in tatters.
She was still panting when the door swung open and Professor Jenkins’s lanky form towered on the threshold.
Her stomach lurched.
“Miss Archer,” he said mildly, “I thought I had heard someone galloping down the cloisters.”