“This is who I am, Basset,” Adelaide insisted, though without the sharpness she might once have used with him. “And seeing as I have given you the heir you need, there is no need to remain together so much. In a few years, perhaps we could have a second. The spare. Or perhaps a daughter. But for now, we ought to be like every other couple in Society. I need things to go back to the way they were. For my own comfort.”

Back? Back to fighting and avoidance and living his life without a single moment of joy within it? After what he had found and felt, he was now supposed to forget all about it?

Utterly impossible.

“I don’t want things to go back,” he told her, lowering his hand to the bed and releasing it gently. “I want things to move forward, and in this exact path. I want to see where this leads, Adelaide. I want to know the ending. Because I think it could be something extraordinary.” His throat threatened to close on emotion, and he could only plead with her to change her mind. “I love you, and if you would open your eyes, let down those walls, you might come to love me in return.”

Adelaide only shook her head. “This is all too much. I can’t—” She bit her lip and looked away, her throat bobbing ominously.

Well, at least she was not ruling out the possibility of eventually loving him, so he supposed that must be taken as a small victory. If she was not ready to consider such things, to take a chance with him, then he would not push.

But neither could he stay.

“Very well,” he told her, keeping his voice low for the sake of the still-sleeping Taran. “I can see you are not ready for this conversation. My apologies. But now you know where I stand, so I will give you time to decide what it is that you truly want. My task in London is done, and I think my presence here might affect your decision, so I will take my leave in the morning.”

He bowed, turning from the bed, and headed for the door.

Adelaide uttered a choked version of an exhale behind him. “And where will you be while you wait?”

He looked over his shoulder and met her eyes. “Home.”

Adelaide was a fool.

It had taken her a little more than twelve hours after Harrison had left to acknowledge that, but the fact remained.

She had been unable to sleep the night after he’d left, tossing and turning in her bed, acutely aware of the emptiness beside her, which was bizarre, as he had never slept beside her for the entire night. Yet she had missed him so desperately that she had soaked her pillows with tears.

Knowing he was not there, would not come, and she could not see him… was intolerable.