Chapter 12 #2
“I truly did just want to check on you. I’ve been…concerned.”
She bent her head, recollecting how many times she’d been near tears in his presence today.
First in the garden beneath the tower, then during the hackney ride from Whitechapel.
He must think her the veriest watering pot.
It wasn’t her. It never had been. She was as strong as any of her Academy sisters. Stronger.
“You needn’t be,” she told him.
“Hazard of the job,” he said.
She gave him a dubious look. “Newspaper editor?”
“Husband,” he replied.
The butterflies’ wings beat faster. She felt a trifle breathless. “Are you implying that the mere fact of being married can change how a person feels about another person?”
“It seems to be the case.”
“And that’s all it is? Some ingrained sense of societal convention?”
“Very likely,” he said.
Nell didn’t believe it. She wasn’t a conventional person. Rather the opposite. “I’m not convinced.”
“What else could it be?”
“I don’t know,” she said. “Perhaps it’s simply that we like each other.”
Again, he smiled that subtle, dry smile. As though he was amused by her, or by the situation, or perhaps by his own reaction to both. “A remote possibility, surely.”
“Don’t tease me.”
His smile faded. “I don’t know what else to do when you’re standing in front of me like this. When I—” He broke off, turning his attention to some point over her shoulder. He pushed his fingers through his hair. “It’s been a long day. We neither of us are thinking clearly.”
“Miles…”
His gaze returned to hers. There was no humor in it this time, only the same perilous intensity she’d observed in him on the first occasion they’d met. “What do you want from me, Nell? What do you want me to do?”
“I don’t know,” she answered honestly. “Something.”
He nodded slowly. His jaw hardened, as though he’d come to a decision. “Very well,” he said. “Something it is.”
· · · · ·
Miles was a fool to have come to her room.
He had known it from the minute he stopped at her door, from the very instant he’d knocked, even as he’d justified it to himself as gentlemanly concern.
The fact was, since that taut moment when they’d parted in the dining room, he hadn’t been at all himself.
He’d spent the past hours pacing the library, attempting to attend to his correspondence, compiling notes about Cowgill’s disappearance, starting an outline of the facts he’d learned thus far about the Academy, even checking on Shadow, all to no avail.
He’d been too restless to settle on any task.
Mrs. Bright had said that adding a new cat to the household sent a charge through the ranks.
Miles supposed that adding Nell to the house had put a similar charge through him.
He couldn’t get her out of his head. Couldn’t stop imagining what she was doing, what she was thinking.
And when he’d entered her room to find her looking so unbearably lovely…
His pretense of concern had been laid bare.
Go, his conscience growled as he stood over her in front of the dwindling fire. Say good night. Take your leave and be done with this madness.
But he didn’t.
He couldn’t.
His hand lifted practically of its own accord to cradle her face.
Feeling her tremble beneath his touch, his chest constricted on a rush of raw tenderness.
How soft she was beneath all that starch.
How delicate and unexpectedly vulnerable.
The pad of his thumb moved over the silken curve of her cheek in a slow caress. She took an uneven breath.
And there was no resisting her any longer. Bending his head to hers, Miles kissed her very gently on the lips.
Nell’s dark lashes fluttered closed. She listed toward him, brow puckered with uncertainty. But there was nothing uncertain about the way her voluptuous mouth yielded to his. She softened to him, lips parting just enough to allow their fractured breath to mingle—hot, quick, mutually unsteady.
Miles had never tasted anything so sweet. Everything within him urged him to take more, to deepen the kiss, to touch her and taste her. She was there for the asking. His very own wife, here in his house, very nearly in his arms. What could be more natural? More logical?
He didn’t listen to his impulses. He wasn’t focused on himself. He was focused on Nell.
“All of my learning has been theory rather than practice,” she’d told him.
She knew what a kiss was, clearly, but Miles doubted she’d ever experienced one. He didn’t intend to put her off the business.
His mouth stilled on hers. “There,” he murmured. “Was that something enough?”
She huffed a quavery laugh. He felt it as much as heard it. “Yes,” she said. “Thank you.”
He drew back from her. “Thank you.”
“How formal we’ve become.”
His hand fell from her cheek. “Forgive me if I—”
“No. Don’t apologize.” Her face was as pink as a damask rose. “It’s just…I’ve never been kissed before.”
Miles’s heart hammered against his ribs. He’d known that. Of course he had. It made it no less impactful to hear. “No?”
“Wasn’t it obvious?” She stepped back from him. Her unbound hair curled in loose waves down her back, the flaxen strands shimmering like moonbeams in the flickering firelight.
Miles wished he’d taken the opportunity to touch it as he’d kissed her. He could only imagine what it would feel like. “Not to me,” he said. “But then, I’m somewhat out of practice myself.”
She gave him an interested look. “There’s no one else that you…That is, there hasn’t been another…”
“No,” he said. “Not for a long while.” He paused. “And you—?”
“No,” she answered. “Never.”
He nodded. “Well, that’s…” But he could think of nothing else to say.
Across the room, the bed loomed in the waning candlelight, the coverlet turned down invitingly.
Miles cleared his throat. He hadn’t made it this far in life by abandoning his self-control. “I’ll allow you to get some rest,” he said. “We have a busy day tomorrow.”
She clasped her hands in front of her. “Yes. I should at least try to sleep.”
“I should do the same,” he said.
“Where is your room?”
“Next door. We’re connected through the bathing room. Did Mrs. Bright not mention it?”
Nell’s cheeks burned brighter. “Er, no. She didn’t say. And I was too weary to ask. But it naturally makes sense. As we’re married—”
“Quite,” he said. “If you need anything—”
The door creaked open on its hinges. Both he and Nell turned, startled out of their abominable awkwardness, by the sight of Horus pushing his way into her room.
He was the oldest of the strays in residence. An enormous, slightly over-plump, long-haired black cat with wide golden eyes. The undisputed ruler of the house, as Mrs. Bright had described him. He padded across the carpet, making straight for Nell.
Her mouth tipped up. “Horus, I presume.”
“Come to inspect you just as he inspected Shadow,” Miles said.
Nell sank down, a little clumsily on her injured leg, holding out a hand to the cat in unspoken greeting. Horus approached to sniff the curve of her fingers. He blinked twice before rubbing his cheek against her knuckles. His seal of approval as it were.
“Shall I remove him?” Miles asked.
“Oh no,” she replied. “I wouldn’t dream of evicting him.”
“I warn you, he’ll attempt to sleep next to you all night, and possibly steal your pillow.”
“I don’t mind.” Nell scratched Horus’s head. “I would appreciate the company.”
Miles’s muscles tightened, a dozen responses running through his head at once. When it came to the point, he opted for the safest one. “In that case,” he said, “I shall bid you both good night.”
“Good night, Miles,” Nell replied without looking at him. She continued petting the cat. “Sleep well.”
Miles hesitated for a moment longer in brooding silence before exiting her bedchamber and heading for his own. He had the bleak premonition that tonight sleep was going to elude him.