18. Tour of London
TOUR OF LONDON
Over the next several days, Rose and Reginald found one excuse after another to leave The Domus together.
At first, the reasons were almost convincing. Rose needed to purchase some parchment. Reginald required a new chart. She wanted more violet water, and Reginald was suddenly fascinated to learn how the scent of a flower could be trapped in a bottle.
Soon, they stopped pretending.
They might as well have been tourists newly arrived in London. Reginald secured them admission to the British Museum; they climbed to the Whispering Gallery at St. Paul’s, stared at the lions at the Tower, and shared hot chestnuts in the crush of Covent Garden.
Rose had lived in London all her life, and yet she had seen almost none of it. Reginald had been gone so long that much of it felt new to him as well.
The days passed in a blur, and for most of them, Rose forgot entirely about the place where she lived and worked—and what Reginald still intended to do with it.
Their excursions did not go unnoticed.
Nell watched Rose cross toward the office with knowing eyes, and even Mr. Huxley had taken to peering over his spectacles whenever she appeared upstairs.
Rose wished they wouldn’t.
Their hope followed her everywhere, as though the fate of The Domus rested upon how charming, persuasive—or desirable—she could make herself.
They were all waiting for her to change Reginald’s mind.
But Rose no longer knew whether she could.
In truth, she scarcely knew what she was doing anymore.
All she knew was that the outings felt ridiculously like…
They felt like courtship.
Except Reginald never kissed her.
After that night in the receiving room, he’d pulled away angry with himself and sworn it wouldn’t happen again.
And it hadn’t.
He’d kept a careful distance, despite every lingering glance and charged silence between them. If anything, his restraint had only made the tension harder to ignore.
And yet, he treated her like a Mayfair debutante.
It was maddening.
And aside from outright seducing him again, she wasn’t sure if there was anything she could do differently.
A little past the middle of August, their carriage carried them east through London toward Greenwich.
The crowded streets gradually gave way to wider views of the Thames, its waters thick with sails. Ahead waited the grand Royal Hospital, built for old seamen, and the Observatory rising above it in the park.
It was a place shaped by ships, science, and the men who’d spent their lives at sea.
And by then, Reginald made no pretense about the invitation, and Rose had accepted easily. What did it matter who was showing who around, so long as it contributed toward his positive impression of London at the end of the day?
And Reginald did seem to be enjoying himself. He led her along the river first, where masts crowded the water, and ships passed close enough for her to hear men calling from their decks. Everything was bustling, even despite the grey and threatening skies looming overhead.
As they walked, Reginald pointed out the different rigs and flags, explaining where each vessel might have come from, moving from one to the next almost faster than Rose could follow.
From there, they crossed the grounds of the Hospital and entered the Painted Hall.
Sensing a hush in the room, Rose stopped just inside.
Kings, gods, ships, and clouds climbed the walls and spread across the ceiling until the massive hall seemed to open into another world.
“You’ve been here before?” she asked, keeping her voice low.
“Once,” Reginald said. “With Harry.”
Rose glanced at him. “The duke?”
Hearing Malum called by his given name unsettled her. It made the formidable duke sound almost human.
“He wasn’t a duke then. Nor quite so determined to dislike everything.”
Rose hadn’t known the Duke of Malum well. Nell had always served as the go-between for him and the women of The Domus. But on the few occasions Rose had spoken with him, he’d seemed fair. Imposing, certainly, but never careless with his power.
She didn’t think Reginald meant to be either.
Whatever their differences over The Domus, both men seemed driven by the same stubborn need to do what they believed was right. Neither wore his birthright as though it placed him above everyone else.
They looked alike too. Both tall, dark, and striking.
Though Rose found Reginald the handsomer of the two.
His features were less sharply cut than his brother’s. Less formal. Not softer, precisely—there was nothing soft about Lord Reginald—but easier to look at.
Far too easy.
“He can’t dislike everything,” Rose said, smiling. “He’s married now. And a father.”
“True.” Reginald looked toward the ceiling. “Marriage has softened him.”
“Perhaps that softness was always there. He just needed the duchess to draw it out.”
“And the baby.” His mouth twitched. “Although, he’ll never be entirely soft. He is Malum, after all.”
Rose nodded, and then turned to study the man beside her rather than the priceless artwork all around them.
“And you? Do you think you’ll ever marry?”
The question was straightforward, with no expectation whatsoever—but when Reginald turned to her, her heart gave a small, foolish dip.
“I had thought not,” he said. “But perhaps, if I met the right woman.”
His gaze remained on her.
For one impossible moment, Rose wondered—No.
No.
A low rumble of thunder sounded beyond the walls, and Rose shivered. Rain stirred the old dread in her—the memory of water falling everywhere and having nowhere safe to go.
Maybe she’d needed the reminder that this may feel like courting, but men like Lord Reginald did not marry women like her.
No man, in fact, would ever marry a woman like her.
Reginald glanced toward the windows. Then, without a word, he put an arm around her shoulders and drew her briefly against his side.
It did not mean anything.
It could not.
The warmth of him beside her. The hours they’d spent wandering London. The way they found any excuse to take each other’s hand.
None of it could matter.
Rose had a purpose. Everyone was trusting her to change his mind, and her thirty days to accomplish that were slipping away.
Only lately…
Each moment spent in his company felt like something she had no right to take.
He looked at her, listened to her, treated her…
As though she were simply Rose.
And all the while, she was working her way into his affections quite deliberately.
For her family at The Domus.
She did not ask why that excuse was beginning to feel so thin.
Rose swallowed hard, and forced herself to look up at the ceiling, where the painted mythological god Mars lounged above them. The chiseled god wore a gleaming helmet and armor, as he stood prepared for battle. He looked very determined.
The depiction had her imagining Reginald as he must have looked when he’d gone into the sea after one of his men—soaked, stripped of his coat, and driven by nothing but strength and purpose.
“Mars looks rather powerful for a mere god,” she said.
Reginald followed her gaze, though his arm remained around her shoulders. “Thornhill was generous, wasn’t he?”
Rose felt the words as much as heard them, standing so close against his side.
For a moment, neither of them moved.
Then a small party entered the hall, their footsteps carrying across the stone floor, and Reginald let his arm fall away.
They moved on.
By the time they had finished their tour and stepped outside, the rain still had not begun. The wind had picked up though, tugging at Rose’s skirts and sending leaves skittering across the path.
“The carriage is meeting us beyond the park,” Reginald said.
They made it halfway across the lawn when the storm broke. Rain came down in a single hard sheet. The wind caught Rose’s bonnet and nearly tore it free.
Reginald seized her hand.
“Run!”
They did.
By the time they reached the carriage, both of them were drenched. Reginald wrenched open the door, caught Rose by the hand, and helped her inside before climbing in after her.
They tumbled onto the seat together, breathless, droplets from their clothing soaking the floor. Rain drummed against the roof, loud and steady, but inside the air felt quiet, filled with the scents of damp and leather and… Reginald.
Water streamed from his dark hair, tracing the hard line of his cheek before slipping beneath his collar.
For those few seconds, nothing existed but the two of them.
But then the carriage lurched into motion, causing Rose to nearly tumble off the seat and she…
Laughed. Nervously at first, but then loud and bright.
A heartbeat later, Reginald joined her.
“Well,” Rose said, breathless. “That was poorly timed.”
Reginald was removing his dripping coat. “Two minutes earlier and we would have missed it.”
“My fault for lingering beneath Mars.”
His hands paused. “He is a striking fellow.”
Rose met his eyes, laughing again, then, noticing the wet linen stretched across his shoulders, her laughter trailed off.
When he caught her looking, Rose busied herself with her gloves. They were soaked through. She tugged at one fingertip, but the wet kid leather clung stubbornly to her skin.
“Here.”
Reginald shifted closer, his knee brushing hers.
He took her hand, working the glove loose one finger at a time. There was nothing improper in it. Nothing she had not allowed dozens of men to do.
But Reginald’s head was bent over her hand, his rough fingertips careful against her skin, and Rose could scarcely breathe.
At last, the glove came free.
Her fingers were pale with cold.
“So are you.”
But he wasn’t. Unless she imagined the heat coming off him.
Reginald enclosed her hand between both of his and rubbed warmth into her fingers. Rose watched the movement, then turned one of his hands over.
The pale scar she’d noticed the first night she’d met him.
She traced it. “What happened?”
“Rope burn. It festered for a time.”
“For a time?”
He shrugged. “The surgeon cut away what he could. I kept the hand.”
He said it as though that settled the matter.
Rose touched the edge of the scar with her thumb. Out at sea, there would have been no physician to summon. No safe harbor nearby. Only his crew, their limited stores, and miles of water in every direction.
He could have died from something so small.
Her gaze returned to his hands. Large and callused, shaped by rope and hard work. The hands of a sailor, not a lord.
Strong. Powerful.
And when she remembered how tightly they’d gripped her thighs, the carriage seemed to shrink around them.
Slowly, he lifted his gaze.
There was nothing proper in his eyes now.
It reminded her of the garden, when he had not known who she was.
London passed in a blur beyond the watery windows. His knee remained pressed against hers, and her hand lay warm between his.
And in that moment in time, she wanted nothing more than for him to kiss her. Not simply because he desired her, but because he needed to be close to her.
Reginald searched her face.
“Please,” she whispered. “Kiss me.”
He lifted one hand and cupped her cheek.
His palm was warm. His thumb moved once beneath her eye, so gently that her chest ached.
But when he bent toward her, he did not claim her mouth.
In fact, he barely touched it.
One soft brush of his lips. Then another at the corner, followed by a featherlight trail along her upper lip, as though he were learning the shape. His breath caressed her skin, warm and teasing.
Rose had been kissed hundreds of times.
Never like this.
There was no hurry in him. No demand. He kissed her as though she were something precious—and as though he could not quite believe she had allowed him this close.
When he finally drew back, Rose stared at him.
“You don’t have to stop,” she said. She didn’t understand. He’d told her he wanted her. More than anyone, he’d said.
Holding her gaze, he shook his head. “No, I do. I want you too much already.” He looked away briefly. “If I have you, I’m afraid I won’t know how to let go.”
Rose’s heart skipped a beat.
That was what she wanted, wasn’t it? And here was where she was supposed to seduce him further, to coax him towards saving The Domus and everyone who depended upon it.
Instead, Rose looked down at her bare hand.
Reginald picked up his coat and spread the driest part across her lap and their knees remained pressed together the entire way back.