10. Sound
Chapter ten
Sound
Two days had passed since Michael’s visit, days filled with careful touches as Emma changed Everett’s bandages and an awareness that made even simple interactions feel charged. Each time their eyes met, Emma found herself remembering how his lips had felt against hers in that delirious kiss.
“Your wound is looking well,” she said, covering his thigh with a quilt with hands that remained admirably steady. “Though I wouldn’t advise any…strenuous activities.”
“Including lessons?” he teased.
Emma straightened, smoothing her skirts. “That would depend on the lesson.”
“Sound,” he said softly. “No physical exertion required.”
She should refuse. After tending him through fever, after feeling his life pulse beneath her fingers, maintaining professional distance had become nearly impossible. Yet she found herself asking, “What does sound have to do with physical pleasure?”
“Everything.” He rose from the chair with careful grace, still favouring his injured leg. “Close your eyes.”
“Mr Hughes—”
“Everett,” he corrected. “After seeing me through fever, surely we can dispense with formalities.”
Emma’s cheeks warmed at the memory of bathing his fevered skin, of singing to him in the darkest hours. “Very well… Everett.” His name felt dangerous on her tongue. “Though I fail to see how—”
“Shhh.” He moved behind her, close enough that she felt his breath stir her hair. “Close your eyes. Listen.”
Against her better judgment, she let her eyes drift shut. For a moment, there was only silence and the hammering of her own heart.
“What do you hear?” His voice came low near her ear.
“The clock ticking. Wind in the trees outside. Your—” She caught herself.
“My what?”
“Your breathing,” she admitted. “It’s deeper now. No sign of residual congestion from the fever.”
A soft laugh. “Only you would make such a clinical observation at a moment like this. Listen deeper. What else?”
Emma forced herself to focus beyond the distracting heat of his presence. “The fire crackling. Someone walking in the street outside. A door closing downstairs. Mrs Norris in the kitchen, most likely.”
“Good.” His voice had dropped to a whisper that seemed to caress her skin. “Now listen to my voice. Notice how it changes when I move…closer.”
Her breath caught as he circled her slowly, his words painting pictures in her mind.
“The human voice is an instrument of infinite variety. It can command.” His tone hardened, making her shiver.
“Or seduce.” Now a silky purr that pooled heat in her belly.
“Or worship.” The last word emerged as little more than a breath against her ear.
Emma’s hands clawed at her skirts, suppressing her longing to reach for him.
“Colour is creeping up your neck. Simply from sound.”
“A natural response to stimulus,” she managed, clinging to scientific language like a shield.
“Is it?” His voice deepened further. “Then shall we experiment further? Tell me what you hear now.”
For a moment, silence. Then, so quietly she might have imagined it, he began to hum. The melody was familiar. It reminded her of dark nights during his fever, when she’d sung to soothe his demons.
“You remember,” she whispered.
“Yes.” The word held layers of meaning that made her skin prickle. “Open your eyes.”
She obeyed, finding him much closer than she’d expected. In the afternoon light, she could see the gold flecks in his brown eyes, the slight stubble shadowing his jaw. Her fingers itched to trace that jaw, to discover if it felt as rough as it looked.
“Your turn,” he murmured.
“My turn?”
“Speak to me. Let me close my eyes and drink in your voice.”
“I…” She faltered. “What should I say?”
“Anything. Tell me about medicine. About your patients. About the stars. Just let me hear you.”
Hesitantly, she began describing a particularly challenging surgery she’d observed. But he stopped her with a quirk of his brow.
“Not your professional voice,” he said. “The one you used when you sang to me. When you thought I couldn’t hear.” Heat flooded her cheeks. “I remember the way you hummed when you thought I was sleeping, Emma. How your voice softened when you called my name.”
“I was merely…monitoring your responses.”
“Were you?” His eyes crinkled in the corner as he opened them. “Then it’s your turn. Monitor your responses to this.”
Her eyes fluttered closed, then he began to recite poetry, his voice bypassing her ears entirely and vibrating through her bones. Words about moonlight and desire, about skin and silk and secrets. Emma found herself swaying toward him, drawn by the hypnotic cadence of his voice.
“Your breathing has changed,” he observed, still in that mesmerising tone. “Shallower. Quicker. Tell me why.”
“You know why,” she whispered.
“Say it. Let me hear the truth in your voice.”
“Because…” She wet her lips. “Because your voice makes me feel things I shouldn’t.”
“Shouldn’t?” He stepped closer. She could almost feel his warm breath on her cheek, though he carefully didn’t touch her. “Or couldn’t with Dr Kincaid?”
The question should have offended her. Instead, she found herself answering with raw honesty. “He never affected me like this. No one has.”
“Show me.” His voice rumbled low. “Let me hear what I do to you.”
Emma’s mind went blank. She was a woman of science, not poetry. As she listened to his breathing, however, words began to flow.
“Your voice haunts me,” she confessed softly. “Like smoke curling through my dreams. When you speak, I feel it here.” She pressed her hand to her chest. “Like a physical touch. It makes me wonder…”
“Wonder what?” His voice had grown hoarse.
“If this is how my patients feel when laudanum takes hold. This floating sensation, this heightened awareness of every sensation.”
A hint of smile touched his voice. “Why am I not surprised by your medical analogy?”.”
“I don’t know how else to be.”
She opened her eyes to find him looking at her with a burning gaze that made her breath catch. “Don’t ever change. Your commitment to reducing suffering, your precise mind; they’re part of what makes you…extraordinary.”
The word was far too intimate for their arrangement. Emma took a step back, needing distance from the emotion he was stirring.
“I should check on Mrs Norris,” she said quickly. “And you should rest.”
She fled then, her heart pounding with the knowledge that their lessons had become far riskier than she’d intended. In her study, she pressed trembling fingers to her lips, still feeling the vibration of his voice in her bones.
What had she gotten herself into?
Hours later, as afternoon faded toward evening, Everett had just settled in the parlour with a book when hurried footsteps in the hall caught his attention. Michael Kincaid’s voice, pitched low but urgent, made him stiffen.
“I finally got the visitor data. We need to review it tonight.”
“Come to my study.” Emma’s answer held barely contained excitement. “Mrs Norris? We’ll need coffee.”
The firm click of Emma’s study door made his chest constrict.
Everett tried to focus on his book but found himself reading the same paragraph repeatedly.
Finally, he gave up and put his ear against the study door.
As he strained to hear their muffled voices, only fragments reached him.
“…cases in Gravesend” and something about water that he couldn’t quite catch.
Visitor data? That was brilliant. It wouldn’t take long for him to smoke out the traitor at Royal College, if he could be called that. If his father was hiding anything, God forbid… Everett didn’t dare finish the thought.
After several minutes of frustrating half-sentences, their voices dropped even lower.
The occasional rustle of papers was the only indication they were still at work.
Everett found himself imagining them bent over documents together, their heads close as they shared observations in whispers too intimate for colleagues.
He shouldn’t care. It wasn’t part of his mission to know what Emma did with other men in the privacy of her study.
His departure was imminent. Given Emma’s research and her precarious position, it must be soon.
A low laugh drifted through the door—Michael’s—followed by Emma’s softer response.
Something twisted painfully in his chest.
The scratch of chairs being moved. Silence. What were they doing in that heavy quiet? Wincing at his still-healing leg, Everett walked away before he did something foolish. He grumbled to himself at another shared laugh. More silence. Unable to help himself, he approached the study door again.
“…getting late,” Michael’s voice emerged. “We should...”
“…a few more…close to…a pattern…”
Their voices dropped again, followed by the rustle of papers. Everett pressed closer to the door, holding his breath.
“You can’t keep pushing yourself like this,” Michael said firmly. A pause. “Emma…”
Everett’s shoulders grew rigid at the tenderness in his tone. He could picture them standing close, Michael’s golden good looks bent toward Emma’s upturned face. Had they moved from medical discussions to more intimate memories?
“We agreed...” came Emma’s sharp voice.
“Did we? It was…”
More silence. Was Michael touching her?
“It’s late…” Her voice was softer now.
“I could stay...” Michael’s suggestion hung in the air. “…try again…”
Everett retreated before he could hear Emma’s response, not trusting himself to remain silent. In his room, he paced like a caged animal, remembering how Emma’s eyes sparkled when discussing medicine with Michael, how their shared knowledge created an intimacy that excluded him completely.
But beneath his jealousy lurked deeper questions. What patterns were they seeking that warranted such secrecy?
Sleep proved elusive. Every creak of floorboards, every murmur of voices from below sparked new torment. Were they still working? Had Michael’s suggestion of “old times” proved too tempting to resist?