After a few days, things calmed down. Cordelia trimmed a lamp in her room and began to prepare for bed. A knock came—too soft for a servant. Before she could answer, the door eased open.
Dante stood there, hair disheveled, coat half-buttoned, tension in every line. He closed the door and stayed with his back to it, as if he had walked hard and only just stopped.
“Are you all right?” Cordelia asked.
He didn’t answer. He looked like a man holding two ropes and getting pulled by both.
She stepped closer. “You haven’t come to this room for a while,” she said gently. “Why are you sleeping apart?”
His mouth worked once. “Pride,” he said at last, voice low. “If I lay beside you, I wouldn’t hold to the lines I drew. I would fail the man I said I was.”
She searched his face. “Has that changed now?”
He moved, slow as if through cold water. He stopped close enough to feel her breath, lifted a shaking hand, and tucked a loose strand behind her ear. His knuckles grazed her cheek. “I don’t know,” he said. “I only know it hurts how much I need you. It breaks something in me I thought was iron.”
Cordelia took his face in both hands. His jaw was tight; his skin felt chilled. “You’re here,” she said. “That’s what matters.”
He bent and kissed her. It began soft, careful, the kind of kiss that asks permission and waits for it. She gave it, leaning in, fingers curling at his nape. He sighed into her mouth, and the sound made her chest ache.
He kissed the corner of her lips, her jaw, the place below her ear. “I have missed you,” he murmured. “Every hour.”
She slid her palms down his chest, feeling the hitch in his breath, and eased the coat from his shoulders. He let it fall, never looking away from her. When she reached for the first button of his shirt, his hand stopped hers.
“What do we do?” he said, voice rough.
“Dante,” she breathed. “Stay.”
He exhaled like a held weight easing down. He led her backward until her calves met the bed and guided her down, hands always in sight, asking even when he did not speak. His fingers found the ties at her waist; he loosened them with care. He kissed the hollow at her throat, the line of her collarbone, the warmth of her shoulder. Her hands slid under his shirt, learning heat and muscle and the hard thud of his heart.
“Tell me what you need,” he whispered.
“You,” she said.
He touched her slowly at first, mapping what soothed, what made her breath catch. His palm smoothed along her thigh, lifting fabric by inches. She spread her legs wider to let him in closer, and he took advantage of the invitation. With a hasty movement, he lifted the hem of her nightgown, not even noticing how he had undone the tie on his own pants and was already pressing against her entrance, sweating madly from the sensation of her beneath him.
He watched her face and adjusted. “Here?” he asked against her mouth.
“Yes,” she answered, breath unsteady.
He leaned forward and slid into her, each movement accompanied by her sweet moans. When she tugged him closer, he braced so his weight was a gift, not a burden. He kissed her again, longer, until the careful line between them thinned and heat rose like tide. Need pulled at him; he fought it down to keep the pace she set, but his restraint frayed.
The brutal image reappeared before his eyes. This time, he was convinced that he was seeing Daniel instead of himself. How he slid into her, how she spread her legs beneath him and moaned his name. Dante growled, closing his eyes tightly. Cordelia heard it. She found his wrists and gently stroked them with her fingers, drawing his attention back.
“Are you okay? We can stop,” she whispered softly.
His mouth found her ear. “It hurt to think of you with someone else,” he said, quiet as confession. “It made me wild.”
It was true. After these words, Cordelia felt a noticeable change. He began to move more sharply, his hands found her hips and pressed her to the bed, making it impossible for her to move. This was a different Dante: persistent, jealous. He pushed himself into her, stole new sighs from her lips, raised her hands above her head, and squeezed so hard that it felt like her bones were creaking. Something in him loosened and then tightened in a different way—less fear, more hunger. The gentleness did not vanish; it gathered into strength.
The tempo changed. He set it and she matched, breath to breath, the room narrowing to touch and sound. His hips pressed, his hand set her pace, his mouth took hers when she broke on a gasp. She felt the shift from careful to certain, from tending to claiming, and let it happen. It was not unkind; it was a man laying down a vow with his whole body because words had failed him. She arched to meet him, the answer clear in her hands and in the yes she could not hold back.
The world tightened and then broke sweetly. He followed, a harsh breath against her skin, her name caught between his teeth. For a long beat neither of them moved.
When sense returned, he eased their hands apart and kissed the marks his fingers had left on her wrists, contrition in the touch. He drew the blanket over her and lay beside her on his back, staring at the ceiling.
Cordelia turned to him, still hot, still shaking a little. “Dante,” she said softly.
He did not answer. His thoughts ran hard and loud under his quiet—lines he had drawn, the man he had said he would be, the man who had just chosen need over law. It had felt like truth in the moment. Now it felt like he had stepped across something he might not be able to step back over. He had taken what he wanted to drown a doubt, and the doubt still lived at the edge of the room. His jaw worked: he swore to hold the line until set the house right. He broke his word to himself.
She drifted toward sleep, exhausted, drained to the point that she couldn't utter a word. He stayed very still, listening to her breath even out, trying to match it and failing. At last he slid from the bed with care and dressed in the dim light.
On the table he found paper and charcoal. He wrote a short line, folded it, and set it where her hand would find it first thing. He stood a moment longer, looking at her in the quiet, the blanket pulled to her shoulder, the lamp low.
He left a soft touch at her hair that did not wake her and moved to the door. On the pillow, the note waited:
The garden. Will you take a walk with me?