Chapter Eighteen
Ornithology is not all running around with nets. Sometimes you need to sit quietly and watch a bird’s heart unfurl before its wings do.
Birds Through a Sherry Glass , H.A. Quirm
The night’s breeze intensified, lamenting the clouded moon in a low, aching voice that made the lamplight tremble. Beth and Devon sat cross-legged on the child’s bed, eating dinner from plates in their laps. Beth had turned shy, so they managed no more than a halting conversation about the food and weather until Devon could hardly breathe from boredom.
“I suppose your childhood bedroom looked like this,” he said, just for something to discuss that did not involve squalls or sausages. But it was apparently the worst comment he could have made, judging from Beth’s suddenly blanched expression.
“Not exactly,” she murmured. Setting aside her mostly empty plate, she rubbed her hands against her thighs, staring so intently at the wall beyond Devon’s shoulder that he might have supposed the caladrius perched there.
A gentleman would have changed the subject. And Devon really wanted to believe he had at least a few gentlemanlike attributes somewhere inside him, even if they looked like a ruined temple half-lost behind rotting vines. But he’d also spent many of his formative years in America, where changing the subject just when things were finally getting interesting would have led to most of the country’s history not happening.
“Oh?” he asked, and putting a bite of sausage in his mouth, he just looked at her, waiting for an answer. He’d done the same thing often enough with his students to be confident it would work—and sure enough, after a fraught moment, she surrendered.
“I was sent to boarding school in Surrey when I was five. Youngest student, most clever, et cetera. That meant a dormitory bedroom, of course. Altogether without frills, and not a dab of pink anywhere in sight.”
She became occupied with a loose thread on her dress, and Devon could hear in the brittle silence all the things she’d omitted from her tale, the grief and loneliness and struggle. He speared another sausage bite and said as he lifted it to his mouth, “Plenty of birds, though, I imagine.”
That made her smile, as he hoped it would. “Oh yes, birds everywhere. Surrey is a treasure trove of them.” She sighed happily, her gaze softening as she remembered. Then she blinked, turning that heavenly look on him, and any control Devon felt he had over the conversation completely unraveled, becoming a tangle of emotion deep inside his heart.
“Your eyes are like a sky spun by wild and beautiful wings,” he said.
She stared at him with alarmed confusion. “My eyes are spinning?”
He grinned. “No, spun as in weaving, magic weav— I’m trying to be charming here.”
And while she blushed endearingly and almost ripped the loose thread right out of her dress, he took their plates and tilted until he could set them on the bedside cabinet. Straightening again, he leaned forward and kissed her.
She stiffened for the smallest moment but did not pull away, and as he coaxed her lips apart, everything in her eased, soft, warm, and trembling on the same verge of sexual desperation where he was trying to balance as well. They couldn’t attend to it in a child’s bed, however; not even he was that depraved. So he ended the kiss gently and pressed his mouth instead against her forehead, making her sigh.
“I’ll sleep on the floor,” he whispered, moving away—
And she caught him, her ink-stained fingers clutching his arms with an ornithologist’s strength. “It’s a cold night,” she said. “Logic dictates we share the bed. If we remain clothed, it will be quite safe.”
He raised an eyebrow at that. “Darling, someone should have included at least a little of the humanities in your education.”
“I trust you,” she insisted, proving that he’d corrupted her indeed, considering she was able to say something so villainous. His wretched, malnourished heart dropped to its knees and began weeping. He flinched, trying not to leap off the bed and run screaming into the night.
“It’s cold,” she repeated, her voice hushed. And Devon heard it then—what she really meant. What she hid behind her nice manners and apologies. The same thing he hid behind his cynicism: deep loneliness and longing for affinity.
People called him a genius, but he didn’t see it that way. He certainly didn’t feel superior to anyone. It was only that his brain seemed to operate on a different, far less comfortable frequency than others’. Talk to them about a bird in flight and they’d describe wings, but he’d learned not to say anything about lift-induced vortices and ballistic trajectories, or the exhilaration of his soul as he watched fire-breathing eagles or plain seagulls take to the sky. Even other ornithologists ran out of interest after a while. So he moved through the world in a constant state of dissatisfaction, looking for some kind of connection by making people laugh, and rescuing them from dangerous birds, and having a lot of sex. It never worked, though, because he was only giving a small part of himself, and no one asked for more. Except his professors, of course—they could not get enough of his passion for learning. But they also spent years trying to extinguish his playfulness, so it was really just the same coin, different side. And while his cousins, Gabriel and Amelia, could follow the sharp angles of his thoughts, he’d scarcely seen them since being sent to America at fourteen. Besides, neither of them cared about birds, the heart of his heart.
Beth was the first person he’d met who truly spoke his language. Her presence made the world finally slide into place for him. She was beautiful, unconsciously sexy, and he was drawn to that, of course, but it was only a minor part of how he felt. His attraction to her was so intensely intellectual it affected his very brain function, until it seemed like he walked for her, breathed for her, got hard just hearing her say the words mandibular rostrum .
With a sigh, he gathered her into his arms. “Let’s be warm together, then,” he said, and laid them down together on the bed. Some wriggling ensued, some kicking of feet, as they pushed the bedding back, then hauled it up again to cover them. It was provoking, to say the least, but the laughter was what really got to him, the comradeship as they wrangled blankets and squirmed on pillows and tried to arrange their clothes. Intellectualism gave way to sweet goofiness, and by the time they settled together, Devon reckoned he’d never been so aroused. But Beth was lavender-scented softness in his arms, and he wanted that more than sexual release. He wanted her, his clever angel, his rival, his friend.
Besides, no man could comfortably make love to a woman with that row of china-faced, ringleted dolls smiling menacingly down at him from the shelf beside the bed.
At last, quiet, and nestled together in more cozy warmth than was actually pleasant, they looked at each other in the amber lamplight. The world seemed to melt away. Devon could not have said exactly what he saw in Beth’s eyes that kept him absorbed, only that it felt like everything.
He’d never fallen so fast for a woman before. Or perhaps it was more accurate to say that she uplifted him, drawing him out of cynicism into a happiness he was enjoying wholeheartedly; a happiness that had taken him so off-guard, his usual defenses were useless against it. Then again, maybe he didn’t want to employ them anymore. Beth was welcome in.
He stroked her hair until she drifted asleep, then still went on gazing as the slow, feather-quiet sway of her breathing caressed him with peace.
“I love you,” he whispered, closing his eyes, sinking into dreams.
And behind her own closed eyes, Beth lay awake, holding her heart tight, trying not to break into a thousand bright pieces.
—
There are many awkward experiences a woman might experience. Being caught without menstrual protection. Not realizing until after getting home that there has been a bit of lettuce stuck in one’s teeth since lunch. But surely the worst must be waking in the arms of one’s professional rival, with whom one almost surrendered every scruple the night before. It might seem like a cozily romantic moment, but only to someone who’s already brushed their hair and applied deodorant.
Beth regarded Devon’s quiescent face, mere inches from her own, with considerable anxiety. Was he asleep? Would he remain so if she moved? Had there ever been a more beautiful man in the existence of the world?
Realizing there was no safe way to answer these questions, she did the only thing possible: twisting her lower half toward the edge of the bed, she slithered backward. Devon’s arm, hooked over her, slipped until just his hand lay on her arm. She paused, holding her breath, but he did not wake. So she slithered some more—his hand dropped to the mattress—his eyelashes stirred—Beth froze, but as he gave no other sign of waking, she exhaled with relief…
And fell off the bed.
Holding her breath, she peered up over the edge of the bed to check that Devon kept sleeping. (Really, it was unfair that any man should be so beautiful.) Reassured, she rolled onto her hands and knees and crawled across the room as fast as possible for someone in a long dress and petticoats, to say nothing of her corset. Reaching her suitcase at last, she clutched it in both arms, stood up, and tiptoed toward the door, all the while glancing nervously at Devon’s motionless form. Alas, thus glancing, she forgot to look where she was going and collided with a dollhouse. Tiny window shutters clattered. Even tinier furniture tumbled noisily. Holding her breath again, Beth waited, but Devon did not stir. The sable locks draped over his forehead remained in place, the curve of his lips lay in the dream of a smile, and her heart yearned toward him even as she continued on out the door.
—
Devon waited until the door closed behind Beth, then turned onto his back. Pushing a hand through his hair, he stared at the ceiling with an expression that would have been entirely bleak except the butterflies painted there made that impossible.
He’d known she would leave him. Everyone did, and of course a woman as intelligent and sensitive as Beth Pickering would be no different. He could only admire that she’d escaped his corrupting influence so quickly, despite how much it hurt.
Which was a lot.
He loved her. It was astonishing; he’d had longer relationships with a block of cheese, but there it was—he interrogated the idea from several angles, set it against various laws of human behavior, and sought a second opinion from skepticism, before concluding that he just loved her, completely, hopelessly, with all the scrappy mess of his heart. No doubt his father would frown disapprovingly, since emotions were an impediment to career success; and his aunt Mary would need an application of smelling salts, since she’d always wanted him to marry a nice American girl and stay in the United States, where news of his exploits would not reach her gardening club; and Gabriel would—
Oops, Gabriel.
Devon groaned. He’d completely forgotten about his cousin, who was probably sitting at home in Oxford, thinking about the conference he’d missed and cursing Devon’s very existence. Devon owed him a humble apology, transport costs, and most likely a signed declaration that Gabriel Tarrant was the Superior Cousin. But it would have to wait. He had important work ahead.
Questioning Gladstone about the caladrius’s location.
Securing the bird for himself.
Being awarded Birder of the Year.
And doing whatever was necessary, including relinquishing those other goals, to win over Beth Pickering.
Which meant catching up to her now. Climbing out of bed, Devon dressed in fresh clothes, washed cursorily, and in less than ten minutes was powering toward the boardinghouse’s front door.
And there she was.
Standing opposite the dining room entrance, she was eyeing it with trepidation as she chewed a thumbnail. She hadn’t left him.
She hadn’t left him. She was just getting breakfast.
Or, at least, trying to summon the fortitude needed for getting breakfast, considering what sounded like a minor crowd inhabited the room. He smiled. If it had been a flock of birds, she’d be inside already, and he’d have run off without seeing her. Thank goodness for her introversion.
He tilted his head to the side, contemplating her. Gone was the pretty dress; she’d dressed instead in a simple beige skirt and white shirtwaist, presenting the quintessential image of an English lady professor, calm, sensible, restrained—except for her hair, bereft of its pins, which he’d scattered to the office floor last night. It flowed down her back, utterly indiscreet.
His hands tingled with the memory of having been in that hair, the softness drifting against his bare fingers. His trousers began to feel tight at the thought that she was going to breakfast in an unbound state because of him. (His brain flashed images of the caladrius at him, alongside the Birder of the Year trophy, but he did not notice.)
She hadn’t left him. Hadn’t crept out with her clothes in her arms before he could ask for anything more than sex, hadn’t walked away without looking back while he stood on a transatlantic steamship’s deck trying not to cry, just a scared boy no matter how clever he might be.
Shaking his head, he hastily summoned a rascally expression and ambled toward her.
“Good morning, Miss Pickering.”
She did not jolt or gasp, as he thought she might. “Mr. Lockley,” she said, bestowing upon him the briefest glance.
Ah, so she was going to be like that. His smile deepened. Someone ought to teach her that standoffish behavior was a siren call to scoundrels. Hands in his pockets, he glided to her side and nudged his elbow against hers.
“Sleep well?”
“Adequately,” she replied. But then her good heart had her adding in a softer tone, “And you?”
He loved her, loved her. “Blissfully, thank you.”
“I’m glad. However, before we continue, I must clarify something. Last night was a temporary aberration induced by the peculiar stresses of the competition, and the experience will not be replicated. I trust you agree?”
“I do,” he said easily. Then he bent to whisper close to her ear. “After all, I never kiss a woman the same way twice.”
She did gasp then, looking up at him with an outrage that wavered when she discovered how near their faces were to each other, then melted completely as she gazed into his eyes. Devon knew he could have kissed her right then and won her surrender. But instead, he offered his arm. She laid her hand on it as if mesmerized, and he escorted her gentlemanlike into the dining room.
—
Beth went with Devon in something of a daze. Only fifteen minutes prior, she had reached the firm decision that, although she was desperately attracted to the man, there must exist some doubt as to the sincerity of his interest in her, considering she was a plain little owl and he a worldly rake. Furthermore, her own behavior had gone as far from sensible as it was possible to get without losing one’s head entirely (to say nothing of one’s virginity). So while she might reasonably continue a professional association with Devon, intelligence led her back to the same conclusion she’d made at the train station in Canterbury: she must forget romance and focus on winning **tenure** .
So how she had gone from Absolutely Setting a Boundary with Mr. Lockley Like the Independent, Educated Woman She Was! to almost immediately thereafter tingling with delight as he guided her across the corridor was a baffling mystery. Even more baffling was the fact that she found little desire within herself for solving this mystery—and, conversely, a whole lot of desire for Devon.
As they stepped into the dining room, all conversation around its long table abruptly ceased as ten heads looked up from newspapers or coffee cups to stare at them. Then, being British, looked politely away again, although with enough throat clearing and newspaper rustling to make it clear the politeness lidded a writhing mass of profanity. Beth and Devon did not say anything; it would have been pointless. The damage to their reputations was clearly now beyond repair (or at least, Beth’s reputation, Devon’s actually being improved) thanks to the front-page headlines of three different publications.
BIRDER SWEETHEARTS IN TRAIN TRYST
ORNITHOLOGISTS ORDER LOVE FROM MENU
PROFESSORS IN FINE FEATHER
Beth’s stomach roiled, and she was fairly sure it wasn’t just the smell of fried bacon causing it.
“Come along,” Devon whispered and, in the gentlest example yet of manhandling, guided her across to the sideboard. Taking a plate, he lifted the tongs set on a dish of grilled tomatoes, then turned to her.
“Some of these?” he asked. Beth looked at him confusedly for a moment before comprehending that he was serving her, not himself. At once, her vocabulary disappeared in a glittering burst of amazement. No one had ever served her unless employed to do so. And from the rather nervous look in Devon’s eyes, he’d never done it before either.
I love you. The memory of his whispered declaration at the verge of sleep took her glittering amazement and turned it into moonlit snow: romantic but also chilling. For while she might have stayed awake for hours last night imagining he really meant those words and fantasizing about where it could lead, looking at him now, with his eyes like a raven’s wing and his beautiful face, and what had been her point again? Oh yes. In morning’s light it became clear what he’d actually said was “eye of newt,” inspired by the windstorm outside to quote Macbeth . That made much more sense.
He raised an eyebrow, waiting for her response. She directed him to the foods she wanted, then he pulled out a chair at the table for her and ensured she was comfortably placed. By the time he brought her a cup of tea, Beth’s logic had given way to a helpless dream of their wedding day. Eventually he sat beside her with his own plate of food, and she gave him a bashful nod of thanks. He winked in reply. Turning to reach for the salt canister—
She stopped, hand in midair.
The entire company was staring at them, and judging from the range of expressions, also imagining their wedding day.
Snatching back her hand, Beth fixed an unblinking stare on her plate. How was she supposed to eat now?
“Excuse me, sir.” Devon’s voice wandered casually into the enthralled silence. “May I ask how you developed such an excellent mustache? I’ve never had luck in growing one. Perhaps you can advise me?”
Beth glanced up through her eyelashes to see the gentleman opposite her blush and stroke his whiskers. He launched into a detailed explanation of their care, and although Devon did not move, Beth could practically feel him nudging her in his friendly way. An ephemeral smile slipped across her mouth, then hid itself away again. Picking up her fork, she began to eat, and Devon guarded her peace by asking the hirsute gentleman about barbers, pomade, and the perils of crumbs, until she’d finished.
After breakfast, they left their suitcases with the landlady and set off for Professor Gladstone’s house. Summer was rousing slowly for the day, white-skied and quiet. The long, dusty road coursed through hedgerows and frothy trees, beyond which lay a view of plump hills and groves. Beth’s stomach returned to roiling now that she was alone with Devon, no other person in sight to judge her behavior. Good sense, upon being summoned, whispered pathetically that it was unwell and could not attend. She was forced to the meager resort of hugging her satchel for comfort—not a particularly effective thing to do considering the binoculars and hard-edged field journal inside.
But it was important she reset the boundary between her and Devon that she’d been so determined upon this morning, or else the villain might turn her calm waters into an absolute typhoon, and she didn’t want that, did she?
Actually I wouldn’t mind , answered her heart unhelpfully. Ignoring it, Beth glanced sidelong at Devon. “I must clarify something,” she told him.
“Again?” Devon flashed a grin. He was kicking at pebbles while he walked, an endearingly boyish behavior that had Beth veering into the middle of the road to escape the charm radiating with devastating power from him.
“Yes, I must—”
“Hyyyaah!!”
Suddenly, a great chaos of noise filled the world. Beth felt a moment’s confusion before Devon was leaping to wrap his arms around her. As he threw them both into a hedge, Beth’s confusion exploded into shock. She stared through a veil of hair at a curricle speeding away along the road, its pair of horses kicking up great clouds of dust.
“Are you all right?” Devon demanded, cradling her against him, his hand brushing the hair away from her face as he searched for injury.
“You saved me,” she sighed dreamily—then, hearing herself, forced Proper Etiquette kicking and screaming back into her brain. “I’m much obliged for your timely assistance.”
Devon chuckled. The sound vibrated through Beth’s heart, causing havoc with its already tumultuous pulse. She attempted to push herself up, but Devon held her closer, so that she was now at risk of suffocation, crushed nerves, and fatally broken scruples.
“Are you sure you’re not hurt?” he insisted. There remained no hair against her face and yet he kept brushing. His eyes had turned the color of old fire. Beth went still, like she did when observing a distressed bird.
“I’m quite sure,” she said softly. “You should let me up before a newspaper reporter comes past.”
He nodded but did not move, except for his hand, which was now sliding down her throat. After the past week, Beth had a good idea where it might end: deep inside her feminine wiles. She tugged herself free, getting clumsily to her feet and brushing off road dust, leaves, and hot tingling sensations.
“As I was saying,” she continued a little shakily, “I must clarify something.”
Devon gave a huff of laughter. He rose, looking like a pagan god emerging from the undergrowth. At the sight, Beth’s good manners rushed forward—not to protect her but to offer themselves as sacrifices on whatever altar Devon might suggest. Appalled at herself, she began striding down the road.
For three steps before stumbling on a pebble.
Immediately, Devon was at her side, holding her upright. “You are hurt.”
The genuine anxiety in his expression melted away the last of Beth’s resistance to him. The man might be a villain, but he was a decent, good-hearted villain, and she could honestly no longer think otherwise. He listened to her, always made her feel welcome, and now here he was caring that she might be hurt. Not letting herself love that would be allowing all her bullies, the people who’d told her she was not worth care, to rule her heart. And it would be allowing them to devalue Devon too, which she couldn’t tolerate.
“I’m fine,” she told him with a smile. He did not seem convinced, however, and Beth suspected he was on the verge of carrying her all the way to Gladstone’s house. Gentle reassurances were not going to suffice. So she pulled away and began striding once more along the road, swinging her hips just a little in the way she’d seen Hippolyta employ when desirous men were on the scene.
“To clarify,” she said in her archest tone, “we are rivals, traveling together only as far as Professor Gladstone’s house, after which we will go our separate ways.”
“Of course,” he answered as he followed, his voice easing just like she’d hoped. She cast him a provoking look.
“Perhaps we may shake hands again at the Birder of the Year ceremony, when you congratulate me on winning.”
That made him smile, and Beth was relieved to see color return to his face. “You really are an angel,” he said. “I’ll mention you in my winner’s speech.”
Edging to the side of the road, Beth skimmed her fingers along a hedgerow, letting the tickle of leaves and twigs send sparks through the heavy smolder Devon’s touch had caused in her. “What would you say about me, exactly?”
“Why, that you are a tremendously accomplished woman,” he answered. “Clever and capable and beau—”
Alas, just at this most interesting part, a hand reached out from a gap between bushes and yanked Beth off the road. Staggering, she drew breath to scream, but another hand clamped over her mouth, and she was dragged into darkness.