She, however, did not take well to being tended to. Not lately. For the past several nights, the earl had served as her lady’s maid, taking down her hair, bringing her a cup of tea, and spending the end of the day in quiet conversation with her. All the while, even on those nights when he rubbed her back and cuddled her close on the bed, she felt him withdrawing to a greater and greater emotional distance.

He wasn’t physically skittish with her, but rather very careful. Anna wanted to think he was almost cherishing, but there was no evidence of desire in his touch. And she bundled into him closely enough the evidence would have been impossible to hide. She clung to him for those times when he offered her comfort but felt all too keenly the comfort he was no longer interested in offering, as well.

She was losing him, which proved to her once and for all that her decision to leave—her many, many decisions to leave—were the better course for them both.

Better, perhaps, but by no means easier.

“I am being followed,” Helmsley said, taking a long swallow of ale. Ale, for God’s sake, the peasant drink.