Chapter 11 #2
She hesitated an instant, then accepted the volume and opened the cover, finding Catherine’s name inside, written in her neat, precise hand. She looked up, silent, her gaze assessing.
“Have you read Keats?” he asked.
“Yes,” she said. “When I was very young. Too young, I think, to understand what I was reading.”
Something moved in her expression, sadness or regret. He could not be sure. It left him wondering about the girl she had once been, reading poetry she was too young to understand, unaware of all that was to come.
“You will understand it now,” he said.
Her reply did not come at once, the silence filled by the sound of the waves. Finally, she said, “You had any number of opportunities to return this before now.”
“I did.”
Her eyes were steady on his. “And yet.”
He could have deflected. There were innumerable ways to do so. But he wanted her honest response and so he offered an honest challenge.
“The book,” he said, “was a pretext.” A partial truth; he had used it as a pretext to come here, to see her. But he had also wanted her to have it, to read it. He was certain that in the verses she would find her way to things not said.
The silence that followed was extremely satisfying.
She blinked, her only concession to her surprise. “I see,” she said, her tone even.
“Do you.” He did not phrase it as a question.
“You came because—” She broke off and he watched her consider and discard the options. “Why did you come, Mr. Penrose?”
Almost did he decline to answer. And then he offered something rare: the truth.
“Because I wanted to.”
Her brows lifted. The corners of her mouth quirked, not quite a smile, more an expression of bemusement.
“A very direct answer,” she said.
“I suspect the only sort of answer you appreciate.”
She inclined her head. “Appreciating the truth does not mean I expect to receive it.”
“No. I imagine not.”
The breeze moved between them, carrying the smell of the sea. She looked down at the book in her hands then up at him.
“Did you enjoy your visitor yesterday?” he asked.
She tipped her head, studying him, waiting.
“I passed Miss Tregian’s carriage. There is no one else she would have been calling on this side of town.”
Minerva said nothing for a long moment, her breathing slow and even. Measured. And then she said, “She brought seedcake.”
“She would.”
“She was most welcoming.” The words were spare and simple, but her tone suggested she had not yet decided if the welcome was true. He did not offer his own opinion of Tamsyn’s welcome. She did not need his warnings. Minerva Ashworth had learned her wariness all on her own.
Another silence, longer this time.
“That was a very honest thing you said,” she murmured. She referred to his comment about pretext and not his mention of Tamsyn.
“Yes.” He made no effort to expand or explain. She needed none of that, having already understood precisely what he meant.
“Thank you for returning it.” She lifted the book and smiled, open, genuine, unguarded in a way she had not yet offered him. That smile reached inside him and twisted.
He stared at her mouth, the smile softening the usually careful set of it, her lips full and lush. He wanted to test their softness, to taste them.
He raised his hand.
His thumb found the curve of her lower lip and traced it, slow and deliberate, dragging lightly along the soft flesh.
She went utterly still beneath his touch, her eyes wide, pupils dark, surrounded by only a thin rim of bottle green. But she did not pull away.
The world narrowed to that small point of contact, his thumb and her lips and the space between one breath and the next.
Almost did he lean in. Almost.
The wanting was sharp and tight and entirely inconvenient. He held it leashed, neither acting upon it nor withdrawing, while the moment stretched between them like blown glass, hot and fragile.
Then he lowered his hand.
She exhaled, the sound very small.
He had not kissed her. But he had learned something of great import: she very much wanted him to.
After a long moment, he murmured, “Enjoy the book.”
Then he made a polite bow and went down the path, pausing at the gate to look back. She was still standing in the doorway, the book held against her chest. And she did not look away when he turned.
Minerva closed the door and let her back fall against the wood, the book held to her chest, her blood thrumming in her veins.
She stood there for a long moment and just breathed.
Her lips felt swollen, the ghost of Mr. Penrose’s touch imprinted there. She pressed her index finger to her lower lip, then dropped her hand.
He had filled her senses, his height, the breadth of his shoulders, the faint hint of bergamot and citrus that surrounded him. She had wanted to lean close and just inhale.
She had wanted him to kiss her.
She had not retreated from his touch, had not wanted to retreat. Surely, he had seen that, known that. And he had chosen to stop short of it. After touching her in a way that was neither proper nor polite, he had chosen to step away, the tautness of his expression suggesting it cost him to do so.
He had done something that was, in a way, more intimate than kissing. He had shown her how very much he wanted to and how much control he had.
The most alarming part was not that he had touched her, but that she had let him see what his touch did to her. He had come here on a pretext, offered her honesty, touched her. And the way he had looked at her before he lowered his hand…
Dear Heaven.
What was she to make of any of it?
She inhaled slowly through her nose and exhaled through her mouth, making a count of the seconds the way she had taught herself. Once. Again. The third breath was steadier than the first.
With a soft, shaky laugh, she pushed off the door and went to the sitting room. There, she settled in the chair by the window and opened the cover of the volume he had made a point to return. Catherine’s name was written on the flyleaf in her neat, precise hand.
She turned the page.
Lamia, Isabella, The Eve of St. Agnes, and Other Poems. John Keats.
She had first read Keats at fifteen in Papa’s library on a rainy afternoon when she had pulled the volume from the shelf without intention and had not put it down until the night had crawled near to morning and her candle was a shallow puddle of hardening wax.
That book and all the others had not survived the transition from her father’s house to the life she lived after.