'Tis the Season for Lady Sarah - Maggie Dallen Page 0,26

face him. “When you are so kind like this, so understanding, it’s…” She wet her lips as she searched for the word to describe the chaos he stirred inside her. “It’s disconcerting.”

His gaze had shifted to her lips again, but only for a heartbeat. Then he was meeting her gaze head-on and for the life of her she could not read what he was feeling when he murmured, “I know the feeling.”

Did he? she wondered. Did he feel it too? Or... A new thought had her dropping her gaze, pulling away slightly.

Or was he referring to his feelings for Lady Evelyn? The woman whom he’d loved.

A flash of irritation had her tightening her hands into fists. That cursed story. She almost wished he hadn’t told her about his first love. Not because she was jealous…

A surge of something toxic and ugly gave her pause.

Oh all right, perhaps she was a little jealous of this woman who had captured the great and mighty Everly’s attention.

But no, it was the story itself that she despised. She hadn’t been able to stop thinking about it all night or even this morning. When her mind hadn’t been conjuring memories of his kiss, or reliving every look and every gesture, she was thinking about that story.

She narrowed her eyes, glaring at the beautiful snowy scene before her.

That story had been the start of it. This...softening she was feeling toward Everly. She risked a peek up at his handsome profile and her heart lurched.

All right, fine. Perhaps this softening toward him had started before that, with his kindness. His understanding. But the story had not helped matters.

Hearing him admit to his own folly in love, knowing that he was capable of such sweet emotions…

It had been sympathy, that was all. Some traitorous part of her mind chose that moment to call up a vivid memory of the feel of his lips against hers. The heat and the passion and the…

Oh heavens. She had no idea what those other sensations were. Or that feeling. The one that had made her heart feel whole and her entire body feel like it had finally come home.

What was that feeling? She shut her eyes tight. Whatever it was, it certainly was not mere sympathy. It was something else. Something she’d never felt before.

Something she did not wish to name.

She gulped in air as if she were drowning.

“Sarah, are you all right?” Everly asked.

She nodded, but it was a lie. Was she all right? No. Not even close. But being so near Everly was certainly not helping.

Tugging herself out of his grip, she stumbled back a few steps, nearly losing her balance in the now. “I’ll be fine,” she said with as much calm as she could muster. “I just need a moment, that’s all.”

He started to protest, concern clear in his tone, but she ignored him.

Turning her back to him, she fled. Where she was going, she did not know. Just so long as it was away from him.

10

Solitude, that was what she needed.

That’s what she’d been searching for in the first place when she’d happened upon Everly. What a disaster that had been.

Sarah shivered as she headed toward the gardens and the greenhouse beyond. Aside from the fact that it was too cold to linger outside, the greenhouse was also hers. It was her spot. The place where she did her best thinking. And in the days and weeks following her father’s death—it was where she’d gone to hide her tears to not add to her mother’s grief.

So now, it seemed only fitting that she go there to think. And stew.

And perhaps cry, but just a little.

She bit her lip as she slipped through the doors of her little sanctuary. She wasn’t even entirely certain why she wished to cry, or why Everly’s kindness and his words left her so emotional.

But that was what she needed to figure out. It was this jumble of emotions that she needed to unwind and maybe then she could find some semblance of peace.

Or at least, not fear that she might burst into tears at a moment’s notice.

The quiet and the relative warmth worked a form of magic the moment she stepped inside. She’d only had a chance to take in one long inhale and let it out in a sigh of relief before that blissful silence was broken.

For a moment, she assumed it was just the flurry of gardeners preparing the Christmastide decorations. Tomorrow, the house would be awash with mistletoe and