CHAPTER TWENTY
Ceci
By late morning, the holiday had loosened the house. There was less movement, fewer interruptions, and a different quality to the hours. Duncan disappeared into estate business and a letter from the hospital. Margaret went about her work with even greater disapproval of frivolity than usual.
Ceci found herself in the long gallery with Archie and no very good explanation for how they had ended up there alone. He had asked whether she wanted air.
She had said yes. That was all.
The gallery ran along the south side of the house, bright with winter light and lined with portraits and tall windows looking over the grounds.
Outside, the world had gone cold and clean.
Inside, the air smelled faintly of wood polish, stone, and the roses in a bowl someone had left to soften the season.
Archie walked with his hands in his pockets, close enough to be company and far enough to avoid presuming more than that. For several minutes they said nothing. The silence felt sharpened.
“So,” he said at last, “do you always survive dreadful rooms by becoming more interesting than they are.”
Ceci smiled. “I’m not sure that was survival.”
“No,” he said. “You were spectacularly alive by the end of it.”
“That is a ridiculous thing to say before noon.”
“I make no claims to discipline.”
She turned toward him, laughing. “That part I believe.”
He had stopped walking without her noticing. Now they stood by one of the tall windows, the light cutting cleanly across his face and making his eyes impossibly bright.
“I meant it,” he said. The line dropped the laughter straight out of the space between them. Ceci’s breath caught in a very stupid, very physical way.
“Archie.”
“Yes.”
“That sounds dangerous.”
His mouth curved. “Only if you intend to pretend you haven’t noticed.”
There were six different things she could have said. Every one of them would have been a lie.
He stopped close, still not touching her, but near enough that the possibility became the whole room.
Ceci could see now the finer details of him, that distance kept hidden, the slight roughness at his jaw from a morning shave, the loose fall of fair curls at his temple, the strength in him that was easier to miss when he was joking.
He was built more solidly than Duncan, less all line and restraint, more warmth, more body, more invitation.
“You flirt like a man without any fear,” she said. He laughed softly. “That is an outrageous misreading of the situation.”
“Is it?”
“Yes.” His voice lowered. “I’m only good at making fear look charming.”
That went through her.
She had no defense for it. He looked at her, really looked, and whatever came next stopped being banter.
“You have no idea,” he said, “what you looked like last night when you were pretending not to be frightened.”
Ceci’s pulse jumped.
“That feels unfair.”
“Very,” he agreed.
He lifted a hand then and paused, close enough that she could stop him if she wanted to.
She didn’t.
His fingers touched the edge of her sleeve, then traced lightly down until they reached the curve of her palm. He did nothing more than that. It was enough to make every nerve in her wrist remember the hidden feather beneath her cuff.
“This,” he said, “is the part where I ask whether I may be indecent.”
“You already are.”
The smile that answered her was so sudden and warm it nearly undid her before he even touched her again. His thumb slid just under the edge of the cuff and lifted it back, slowly, exposing the inside of her right wrist. The black feather lay there, delicate and impossible in the pale winter light.
Archie’s breath changed.
“Christ,” he said.
“It’s only a tattoo.”
“No.” His eyes lifted to hers. “It’s your wrist.”
That was so unexpectedly intimate that she could only stare at him. Then he bent his head and kissed the inside of her wrist, just below the feather.
The contact was brief.
The effect was not.
Heat shot through her so sharply she caught the edge of the window seat behind her. Archie looked up at once, as if he had felt it too.
The tenderness was worse than the desire. He had found the hidden feather and, somehow, the woman beneath the ink.
“That,” Ceci said, and had to stop because her voice had betrayed her. His smile flickered, low and wicked. “That what?”
“That was…” She swallowed. “Uncivilized.”
“A serious charge.”
“You said you weren’t Anglican.”
“I’m broad-minded in practice.”
She laughed, breathless enough that the sound barely counted, and he moved closer still. There was room now for one more decision.
She made it badly.
Or beautifully.
She caught the front of his tie and pulled him in.
The kiss was not careful. It was also, she realized almost at once, not entirely new in the way first kisses were meant to be new.
Archie kissed like a man who had spent years talking instead of doing and had finally found the occasion persuasive enough to abandon the better habit.
Warm, intent, a little helpless in his own confidence.
Ceci felt his hand close around her waist, then tighten as if he had surprised himself by how much he wanted the fact of her there. She opened to him before she could decide whether she meant to.
That, too, felt dangerous.
The kiss deepened until the whole gallery seemed to go quiet around it. Ceci had the absurd thought that the portraits along the wall must be appalled. Then Archie made a low sound against her mouth that dissolved the thought. When they broke apart, it was only far enough to breathe.
“Oh,” she said.
Archie, pressing his forehead to hers, laughed under his breath. “Yes.”
“That was a terrible idea.”
“Yes,” he said again, sounding altogether too pleased with it.