Chapter 27 #3
His thumb journeyed across my tiny nail before he looked into my eyes again. “Has your memory been as relentless as my imagination?”
Yes.
I swallowed and those warm eyes of his followed the movement. Was he toying with me? I thought our war was over. I told him it was over. I apologized for locking him in his room and stealing his key. He shouldn’t be trying to fluster me like this.
I raised my chin in an effort to regain some kind of control, but it only brought my face closer to his. No matter, I simply needed to straighten him out. “If Hattie doesn’t love you, why would she send me here? I would never throw myself at the man my cousin is in love with.”
His lips quirked and he reached for a second finger. Why hadn’t I pulled away? “She isn’t.”
He was trying to take revenge—he had to be or he wouldn’t be lying. “She is. We spoke of it only this afternoon.”
He shook his head softly. “And I spoke to her after dinner. So one of us is mistaken, and I’m quite positive it isn’t me.”
That couldn’t be right. “Then why would she send me here? Whose proposal am I supposed to be postponing?”
He stepped closer, only by half a foot, but it was intentional, and it did something strange to my throat. “Mine. But not to Miss Pryor.”
“What?” I forced a laugh. “You can’t mean me. I’ve only known you for . . . how long? Two weeks?”
“Three weeks, if you count our first encounter. And I do.”
“You barely remember our first encounter.”
“A fact that has haunted me relentlessly.”
“No. You’re wrong. You must be. It would be preposterous for her to think you would propose to me so quickly.”
He gently took all of my fingers and wrapped them in his. Captain Calder had always held an air of resolution about him. His intentions entered a room before he did. And all of that focus, all of that power, now centered on me. “Which is probably why she wanted you to tell me to wait.”
I closed my eyes. Suddenly the things he was saying didn’t seem quite so preposterous.
And if anyone had ever caught him looking at me like he had been just now—Davis, Hattie, my parents—perhaps they might think he was halfway to a proposal and needing some resistance.
I could believe it.
I tore my hand away from his and stepped toward the door. I had to leave.
“Miss Blackwell, wait.” He caught my elbow.
I didn’t turn. I couldn’t look in those eyes again.
“If you think I will stand in this room with you for one more minute before I speak to my most beloved cousin, you are mistaken. You have made your point, but I will not risk her happiness without knowing I am the one who misunderstood her reasons for sending me to the library tonight.”
“And if you did?”
I couldn’t answer that. How could I? Not before I spoke to Hattie.
I stayed silent.
He did not.
“I plan to court you, Miss Blackwell, and I won’t be discreet about it.
By tomorrow, that will become quite clear to everyone in this house, including your father and Mrs. Wickerton.
I wasn’t free to do so before. Or rather, I didn’t think I was.
” He gave my elbow the softest of squeezes.
“But Evelyn, she dropped that glove by accident. There was never an understanding between us. I’ve been a free man all along. I simply didn’t know it.”
“Are you certain?” My voice was barely a whisper.
“Yes, but you aren’t. So you’d better leave before I ask you if your hands were ever in my hair that night, and why. You’d better leave before I take the time to thank you for caring for me as you did. Because it won’t be with words.”
My heart was beating so sporadically and loudly he must hear it. I’d tried to banish the memory of his kiss so many times and now I wanted nothing more than to relive it.
Tears pricked my eyes and I turned to take in the sight of him one more time. It would be so easy to step forward and into his arms. It would be so easy to love him. So much easier than it had been to oppose him.
But he was right. I wasn’t completely certain of Hattie’s feelings, and so I took a step backwards. “You should wait a few minutes before leaving. We can’t be seen together.”
He nodded and I turned and left. I wasn’t careful with my steps and I made no effort to be silent when I strode through the house, not to my room, but directly to Hattie’s.
The door was locked but I knocked on it softly and listened for any noise from inside.
There was a muffled movement and then Hattie opened the door.
She put a hand to her lips and then slipped out of her room, grabbing my fingers the instant the door was shut.
“I couldn’t sleep. I was so excited for you.” She took in my dressing gown. A wicked gleam, so out of place on my innocent cousin, sparked in her eye. “Did you have a pleasant time convincing Captain Calder to wait another week before he proposes?”
The happiness radiating from her was the same as it had been the last time we’d spoken of Captain Calder.
But I could see where that happiness stemmed from this time. It was happiness for me.
Blast it all, Captain Calder was right. I’d been a fool.
A blessed, dimwitted fool.
I fell into Hattie’s arms and burst into tears of relief.