Chapter 12
Nell’s heart was beating so heavily she could barely attend to Mrs. Bright’s words as the housekeeper gave her a tour of her new rooms.
Good lord. What was that? That throb of unnameable longing that had passed between her and Miles in the dining room? Nell had never felt anything like it in her life.
It took her a full five minutes to get her pulse under control. Only then was she able to take in the candlelit grandeur of her new chamber.
And it was grand.
Carpeted in pale floral Aubusson and furnished in elegant style, it was easily five times the size of her bedroom at the Academy.
An immense curtained four-poster bed stood at the heart of it, flanked by matching mahogany wardrobes.
Two overstuffed upholstered armchairs were arrayed in front of a marble fireplace, heavy silk draperies covered the windows (multiple windows!), and in the corner stood a delicately carved dressing table, its surface adorned with a bouquet of white gardenias in a porcelain vase.
Similar bouquets of gardenias graced the mantelshelf and the table next to the bed.
Nell bent to smell the ones that stood on the dressing table, inhaling their sweet, sultry fragrance. They were so perfect they didn’t look real. “What gorgeous flowers.” She glanced up at Mrs. Bright. “Are they from the gardens?”
“Oh no, ma’am. These are shop bought.” The housekeeper laid out Nell’s prim muslin nightgown and gray flannel dressing gown across the end of the bed. “Mr. Quincey was quite specific. Gardenias, his wire said. I presumed they were your favorite.”
Nell slowly straightened from the bouquet, a queer feeling settling in her breast. She didn’t know how to reply. Gardenias were her favorite flower, but she knew for a fact that she’d never mentioned that to Miles.
Mrs. Bright smiled at Nell’s confusion. “The master wanted your room to be comfortable for you. He set it all down to the letter. The rest of us are merely following his instructions, though we are very happy to welcome you home, ma’am.”
Home.
Nell traced the waxen leaves of one of the snowy white flowers with her fingertip, thinking of her new room, her new life.
Her new husband.
Mrs. Bright held out her arm. “Come, Mrs. Quincey. The bathing room is this way. Gladys has got the water piping hot in the tub for you.”
· · · · ·
More than an hour later, after a long soak in the copper tub, Nell was curled up in one of the overstuffed chairs in front of a crackling fire, finishing the final stitches on a sampler, when a knock sounded at her door.
By rights, she should have already retired. She was weary enough for it in body. Yet the wheels of her mind wouldn’t stop turning. Her surroundings were too strange and the past two days too full of tumult.
Not to mention that this was her wedding night.
Rather than spend what remained of it staring uselessly into the flames as she waited for her hair to dry, Nell had retrieved her tapestry workbag and begun the painstaking process of sewing a coded message to Miss Corvus.
If Nell finished it tonight, she could post it to the Academy first thing in the morning.
“Come in,” she called out distractedly, expecting another visit from the maid.
The door opened. It wasn’t the maid. It was Miles. He was in his shirtsleeves, his tie loosened, and his hair rumpled as though he’d lately been raking his fingers through it.
Nell’s eyes widened and her heart skipped a beat. Despite everything, she hadn’t anticipated…
But here he was.
He stopped at the threshold, taking in the sight of her unbound hair, uncorseted figure, and bare toes peeping beneath her hem in one comprehensive glance. An odd expression passed across his face. Shock? Alarm? Desire? Nell couldn’t tell. It was gone before she could grasp it.
She set aside her sewing. Drawing her dressing gown tighter around herself, she moved to rise.
“Pray don’t get up,” he said as the door drifted shut behind him. They were the same words he’d uttered yesterday morning in his office.
Yet how much had changed since then.
He clasped his hands behind his back. “I was on my way to my room when I noticed your lights. Are you—That is…Do you require anything?”
By some miracle, she kept her countenance. “Nothing at all,” she said.
“You’re unable to sleep?”
“I haven’t tried yet. I’m waiting for my hair to dry from my bath.”
A dull flush appeared just above the line of his collar. “Your bath. Of course.” He pointedly turned to look about the room, reverting to his usual businesslike manner. “I trust Mrs. Bright has made you comfortable?”
Nell watched him in the glow of the fire. She’d never seen him out of his element before, let alone flustered enough to turn red. Or, rather, almost red. He composed himself before her eyes with impressive rapidity, the threat of a blush vanishing from his neck as swiftly as it had appeared.
Such self-control he had. Such unerring command over himself and the world he inhabited.
“She and the maid have been very kind,” she answered. “They’ve already unpacked my cases. And Gladys brought up a hot water bottle.”
Nell refrained from describing that awkward encounter. The gawky young maid had plainly been perplexed as to why a new bride would require artificial warmth on her wedding night.
“The flowers are beautiful, by the way,” Nell added. “However did you know that I liked gardenias?”
Miles walked to the vase on the mantel, examining the bouquet. “Your perfume. It’s gardenia, is it not?”
Nell blinked. Goodness. He had been paying attention. He must have done to have noted a scent so faint as that. “It’s not perfume.”
He flashed her a look. “No?”
A peculiar warmth suffused her midsection.
He was only an arm’s length away, close enough to touch her.
And here she sat, naked under the thin layers of her robe and nightgown, with her hair loose about her shoulders, and her bare feet tucked beneath her.
She hadn’t ever been this vulnerable in the presence of a man before.
She’d rarely been this vulnerable with anyone.
It was that very vulnerability that allowed a rare frisson of self-doubt to sneak its way into her soul.
She remembered, all at once, how the men at the Red Lion had looked at her, their attention torn between her face and her limp.
The staff at Miles’s office had regarded her just the same.
So had nearly everyone since she’d arrived in London.
Those endless stares, filled with admiration, then bewilderment, and—ultimately—pity.
Nell had told herself that she was bored by it.
The identical response over and over again, so dull and predictable.
She’d reminded herself that their opinions were no reflection on her.
She knew who she was and what she was worth.
But that was then. She’d been on her mission, out in the world, crinoline clad and purposeful. While here…
She had no defenses.
Mrs. Pritchard’s cruel words came back to haunt her. “As for that cane—it will disgust most men even to see it.”
Most men, the hateful madam had said. A week ago, it wouldn’t have mattered to Nell if it was all men. But not now. Not in this moment.
She realized, to her vexation, that after a full day spent in his company, one man’s opinion was coming to mean something to her.
“It’s French bath soap,” she informed him. “A gift from Mrs. Royce. She bought it for me when she was last in Paris.”
Miles moved the vase of flowers a fraction of an inch to the left, as though its placement had been off. “Bath soap,” he repeated with a peculiar lack of inflection. “Of course.”
“The teachers at the Academy aren’t permitted to wear perfume,” she explained. “It would only encourage the girls to want perfume of their own.”
“Yes, I see. Quite sensible.”
Nell could remain seated no longer. It put her at too much of a disadvantage.
She rose from her chair, exquisitely conscious that sections of her hair were still damp, and that she had no corset or crinoline to provide her any armor.
“But I do like gardenias very much,” she said.
“I thank you for them. And…And for everything.”
Miles turned.
Nell’s already surging pulse skittered wildly. She’d thought herself at a disadvantage sitting. It was nothing to meeting him face-to-face. He must be several inches over six feet tall at least. It wasn’t as noticeable when she was in her boots and bonnet, but it was painfully obvious now.
“It was done for myself as much as for you,” he said.
“Still, you didn’t have to be so kind about it all. The special license, the gardenias, the welcome I’ve received from Mrs. Bright and the other servants. As well as the first-class railway fare. That was all for my benefit, I suppose, though I was too blind to see it at the time.”
His brows notched. “I’m not an unfeeling monster, Nell. I’m aware this isn’t what you wanted. Being here like this, with me. But…” He shook his head. “Since it couldn’t be helped…”
“Since I ruined you, you mean.”
His eyes met hers. The expression in them was solemn. “Perchance we ruined each other.”
Butterflies fluttered in Nell’s stomach as she returned his gaze. She felt the same bewildering swell of uneasy longing she’d felt in the dining room before they’d bid each other good night. She didn’t understand it.
“Perhaps we did,” she said. “For better or for worse.”
“As the vicar so appropriately put it.”
There was an interminable pause.
Nell was the first to break it. “Miles…” she began softly. She didn’t sound at all like herself.
Miles’s throat contracted on a swallow. “Yes?” His own voice was a husky rasp.
“Doesn’t it seem strange that…that this is our wedding night?” she asked.
“No,” he said. “Given that we were married this morning.”
“I wasn’t talking about the logic of it. I meant—”
“I know what you meant.”
“Then—”
“That isn’t why I came to your room,” he said.
Heat bloomed in her cheeks. “I wasn’t implying that it was.”