* * *
Phee recoiled from the gently spoken words. Trust him? She did…to a point. But wouldn’t she have to tell him everything at some point? Which meant answering questions about Adam and that day on the pond. There was no way he’d look at her with such sweet vulnerability on his face if he knew.
Flashes of memory assaulted her with images of pink water and Adam’s pale face, eyes wide open, as if dying young had surprised him too. The chair caught her when her calves bumped against it, toppling her away from Cal.
“You should leave.” The words scraped through a tight throat, while anxiety threatened to dislodge dinner from her stomach. Lord, she might be sick all over his perfectly polished leather shoes. Of course they were polished and perfect, just like the rest of him. The very opposite of her, with her one remaining suit of clothes, battered pillow, and two personal possessions.
Although it wouldn’t hide anything, Phee covered her face with her hands. The urge to tell him everything nearly overwhelmed her. To get it over with and purge every damning secret. He’d let her leave then, without a fuss. Accepting a liar was one thing. But a murderer?
However, this was Calvin. She sneaked a peek up at him standing there with hands on his hips and a fall of hair nearly hiding his disgruntled expression. This man’s generous nature sometimes overrode common sense. What if he tried to help? It would be nothing for him to wave his magic wands of money and connections and make it all better. Like assigning a footman to guard her while she slept, but on a larger scale.
“Get some rest. We can talk in the morning if you wish. There are just as many ways to run off when the sun rises,” Cal said gruffly.
The door latch closed with a gentle snick as he left the room.
She ran her fingers through her short curls and sighed out a gusty exhale. Lordy, what a day. Beyond the glow of the lantern, the bed beckoned.
Staying the night wouldn’t change things in the long run. Besides, one place she’d be safe from Milton’s henchmen was Cal’s house, with its legion of footmen and the regular patrols outside protecting the residents of Mayfair.
Crossing to the window, she flicked the curtain open barely enough to peer into the night. Along the street, gas lamps illuminated tiny circles of pavement in otherwise inky darkness. No silhouetted men loitered in any of those dots of light, but that proved nothing.
Maybe things would look clearer tomorrow. Because to be wholly honest, she didn’t want to leave London. Not really. Feeling tired and frayed around the edges like this made the available options appear limited. Sleep might help. For now, she was safe.
She plucked her pillow from where it had fallen on the floor, and the pound notes inside crinkled with a soothing reminder of her life’s savings. After pulling back the blankets, she sat on the edge of the mattress and removed her boots. With that move, it became official, in her mind at least, that she’d stay for the night. After carefully folding her clothing, Phee snuffed the lamp.
The bindings around her chest had become a familiar pressure over the years. Sleeping in them wouldn’t be a problem, especially when exhaustion pulled at her limbs.
A down-filled pillow dipped under her head, and she cocooned herself in smooth linens and the comforting weight of blankets over bare legs. Sleep should come quickly.
Except it didn’t.
When she closed her eyes, her brain settled on one thing: he’d nearly kissed her. And she’d wanted him to. His pupils had taken over the warm chocolate of his eyes when he brushed a thumb over her bottom lip. Cal’s spicy scent had filled her head, even as she’d realized his breathing was as unsteady as hers.
As she rolled to her side and tucked the blankets into the crook of her neck, an ache in her chest grew with each new thought spinning in her head.
She’d never kissed a man.
When she and Adam turned thirteen, Uncle Milton had sent Adam to boarding school, then arranged a marriage for her to Sir Potter—who’d been seventy if a day, and some kind of business associate.
That was when she cut off all her hair and tried to run away.
When Milton found her, he locked her up until she agreed to marry Sir Potter. She stayed in that room for eight days, living on scraps the chambermaids slipped to her when they made their rounds.
Adam came home from school on the ninth day for a scheduled break.
He died on the tenth day after he picked the lock and sneaked them from the house to plot their escape. With the blind hope of children, they’d decided to stow away on a ship to America and start a new life.
Claiming grief, she avoided Milton until it was time to take her brother’s place at school.
That day by the pond, she’d dressed in her brother’s sopping wet clothes and stolen his future. In reality, she’d never really been a woman. A girl, yes. And that had nearly been the end of her. Since then, womanhood had been something she’d dreamed of, while keeping it firmly in the land of “someday.” With Cal’s near kiss lingering as a tingle where he’d touched her, it looked like someday was arriving earlier than expected.
The most beautiful man in London wanted to kiss…her. Which begged the question why. And why now? She’d been wrestling with this attraction to Cal for two years. Like looking directly into the sun, it could only hurt to study her feelings when she couldn’t allow them free reign. The self-denial had been a near constant torment, although one she’d grown accustomed to.
Yet he’d almost kissed her.
Why? All the clamor in her head quieted under that one word. None of this made sense. A public relationship with “Adam” would be a tremendous risk for Cal, so why flirt in the hack or nearly kiss her tonight?
With a huff, Phee flopped onto her back. The dark canopy above the bed offered a better view than the water-stained, chipped plaster ceiling of her rented room, or the wooden interior of a mail coach.
What she really wanted to do was charge into his room and demand answers. But what if she’d misunderstood? What if he hadn’t considered kissing her? The physical signs she’d read as desire might have been irritation or anger. It wasn’t like she knew what the hell she was doing, after all.
But what if she was right, and he wanted to kiss her? It could be glorious. It could be the beginning of something wonderful.
Or it could ruin him if anyone found out about them. He’d been appalled at everyone laughing about the marquess’s-mini-member jokes and discussing his love life—how much worse would it be when he couldn’t defend himself without exposing her secrets?
And all this was pure conjecture, because she could be wrong about everything. He hadn’t actually kissed her.
But he wanted to. Probably.
She swore into the dark room, loud and colorful with the flavor of the gutter she’d lived in until today. After flipping the covers off, she stomped to the chair and shoved her legs into her breeches, then threw on her shirt. The floor chilled the bottoms of her feet, but she ignored her boots and flung the bedroom door open before she could think better of it. Only one man had answers to her questions. Sifting through all the things floating around in her brain might be too much, but this one thing, she could do.
* * *
A knock at the door was the last thing he’d expected. Cinching the tie on his banyan, he set aside the brandy he’d poured after dealing with the maddening woman across the hall.
The door swung open, and Ophelia charged in, looking ready to fight, with her serious eyes, stubborn jaw, and tight mouth. Cal braced himself for the next round and hoped like the devil it would end better than the conversation in her room. It was nearly impossible to not feel raw and exposed after literally begging, then being thrown out on his ear.
“Did you nearly kiss me? If so, I need to know why. Because the math doesn’t add up. Us, I mean. Why risk it? Why start something with me?” She gestured between herself and Cal with such a confused look, Cal wanted to either laugh or cuddle her. He wasn’t sure which, or if either would be welcome.
<
br /> “The math works perfectly. And yes, I wanted to kiss you.” He let it go at that to see where she would take the conversation next. Ophelia’s coppery-red brows scrunched, and she shifted from one foot to another. One bare foot to another. He smiled at how wonderfully intimate it was to have her standing barefoot in his room in the wee hours of the morning. Even if she was there to quarrel.
“My, your toes are long.” They were as delicately boned as the rest of her.
“What? Oh, yes. I got teased about them as a child. I can pick up a pencil with my toes, you know.” She shook her head. “Which is entirely off topic. I’m struggling to wrap my head around this, Cal.”
He inched forward. The need to follow through, to touch her, thrummed in his fingertips, but she might not want that. Cocking his head, he tried to dissect the emotions flitting across Ophelia’s face. “Which part is confusing? Is it that you’re pretending to be a man and I still find you attractive?”
She swallowed loudly. Hesitated, then said, “I mean, yes, that is a shock. But it’s more that you’re all this”—she threw her hand out to indicate Cal’s general person—“and I’m all this.” This time gesturing toward herself.
“Is this a self-confidence issue, or are you questioning my ability to see beyond your—admittedly very clever—disguise?”
She wrinkled her nose. “Both? I understand you liking Adam. But being attracted to me as Ophelia is…unexpected.”
Separate from his new feelings toward the woman, Cal could see her point. Objectively, she wasn’t classically beautiful. But only if you didn’t pay attention. Now that his eyes were open to her unique appeal, he couldn’t see anything but beauty. “Not to be a total arse and answer your questions with questions, but I’d like to know something. What do you see when you look at me?”
They stared at one another while Cal’s pulse thudded in his ears.
“Um, you have a mirror. You know what you look like.”
“That’s not what I asked. What do you see?” Cal reached out one finger to touch Ophelia’s chest near her heart. Under his finger, her chest rose, then fell on a breath before she answered.
“My friend.” She closed her eyes and seemed to come to a decision, because when she opened them, her voice didn’t shake anymore. “You’re smart. Most people don’t realize how intelligent you are. And you’re funny. Not the kind of funny that makes others the joke. But humor that comes from genuine wit.” Spots of pink flagged her cheeks. “I…I like it when you need a shave and your beard stubble shows so many colors. I’ve tried to count how many colors are in your beard, but I’m scared you’ll catch me staring.” Hesitating, she raised a hand, then swept one finger across his evening scruff from his cheek to his chin.
The words—maybe not an agreement that she wanted his kisses, but certainly an acknowledgment of awareness—sent his heart pounding madly. Brushing a finger over the voluptuous curve of her bottom lip, he smiled when her thick lashes fluttered closed. However, he had a point to make here. “Now ask me what I see when I look at you.”
Her eyes flew open so wide, the copper lashes nearly touched her brows. “I don’t really want to.”
Cal leaned forward until their noses nearly touched. “Ask me.”
Her breath huffed, warm and sweet on his face, and he couldn’t resist dropping a kiss on the tip of her nose. It was an adorable nose, after all.
She rolled her eyes, parroting the question. “Fine. What do you see when you look at me?”
Between them, she rested her hands on his chest, but she clenched them into fists, as if preparing to block an attack. Whoever had taught this woman that words could be weapons deserved to be shot at dawn.
Smoothing his fingers along her cheekbones, then down to her pointed chin, he tried to soothe with both his touch and his words.
“Like you, I see a friend. A survivor. A woman who will make something of herself through sheer stubbornness. And I see color.” Cal couldn’t help smiling, because there was no better way to describe her. “You brighten every room you enter. When the light catches on your hair, I see shades of red and gold I didn’t know existed.”
“I hate my hair.”
“No interrupting, Puppy,” he chided, taking shameless advantage of how close she stood to kiss her temple. One short curl brushed his nose, while another stood straight up. “I appreciate that you’re honest in everything you can be. Even with hard topics like my sister’s bad decisions. Put an épée in your hands, and you’ll beat me nine times out of ten, and for some reason I find that incredibly attractive. And I can’t stop staring at your lips. They dominate your face and inspire thoughts I never expected to have about you.” Her gaze settled on his mouth, which he took as an encouraging sign when her lips were a scant inch away. “Yes, I think about kissing you. It’s a recent development, I admit, but once the idea entered my head, I’ve thought of little else. Does my vision sound like how you’d describe yourself?”
“Not really, no.”
“But do you stand by what you said about me?”
“Of course. Everything I said is true.”
“Is it? Perhaps I see myself differently. Perhaps I see my looks as a burden, not an asset.” That piece of honesty stung. “If I choose to believe you, to accept your words, they become true for us.” Cal waited a beat to see if she followed what he said. “If you choose to believe me when I say I desire you, it becomes real for us. And then, the math—as you put it—works fine. In fact, it means we’re equals. Friends with a mutual attraction, albeit under unusual circumstances.”
She finally looked him in the eye, and for the briefest of seconds her face lit, a smile twitching at her lips. But that lasted only an instant before Ophelia seemed to catch herself. Shaking her head, she stepped away. “In no version of reality are you and I equals.”
It felt like a rejection, hitting him sharp enough to steal his breath. Although he opened his mouth to call out, he waited when she paused with her hand on the door. She glanced over her shoulder, and with heartbreaking vulnerability, he saw everything play across her face—the desire and the fear waging war within her.
She’d been hiding for over a decade, and the street where she’d lived wasn’t safe anymore. All those words he’d wanted to say died on a sigh. Asking her to handle all of that, plus his feelings for her—out of nowhere—wasn’t fair.
He might want to save her, but that didn’t automatically mean she needed saving.
The bedroom door closed, leaving him alone again.
Chapter Eleven
Creeping out in the middle of the night like a thief would have been a better idea. Phee took another sip of coffee and tried to ignore the tension in the breakfast room. The sunny-yellow striped wallpaper acted as a cheerfully ironic backdrop to their uncomfortable silence.
Cal set his cup aside with a clatter that jarred her from her thoughts. With a jerk of his head, he sent the servants from the room. Wooden doors clicked shut, leaving them alone, two seats apart, with a pot of coffee between them on the table and a whole lot of unfinished business hanging in the air. “So, this is awkward.”
After their talk in his bedroom, she’d lain awake staring at that canopy, mulling over something he’d said. You’re honest in everything you can be. That was how he saw her, and God knew that was how she wanted to live her life. He already knew she was a woman and that Milton wanted her dead. Telling him her story didn’t necessarily mean confessing details about Adam’s death. Those were her demons to wrestle, not his.
Taking a steadying breath, she gathered her courage. “My brother, Adam, called me Phee.”
He took a moment before replying. “Good, so we are going to talk about it. And where is Adam these days?”
“The same place he’s been for the last eleven years. In a graveyard in Northumberland, six feet under a headstone with my name on it.”
Cal paused midswipe while spreading butter on his toast. “Let’s start at the beginning, if you don’t mind. Walk me
through it. I want to help, but I need to know what you’re dealing with.”
Pouring another round of coffee into their cups kept her busy long enough to find the beginning in her mind. The coffee urn wobbled, but she managed to get every drop into the cups and not on the table’s glossy finish. Small victory, that.
“Adam and I were orphans. My family tree is scraggly, and Mother’s oldest brother was the only relative who could take us. Milton is a businessman, so I assume my parents thought their fortune would be in capable hands until we inherited.”
“The bit about coming into your money at twenty-five is the truth, then.”
“I tell the truth when I can.” She nibbled on a toast point. “Milton didn’t want children and hated taking on someone else’s. We were an inconvenience. At least, that’s what he told us over and over, but I think he enjoyed having easy targets. He’s not a pleasant man.” A kind understatement. “As soon as we turned thirteen, Milton sent Adam to school and arranged a marriage for me to a geriatric business associate.”
Cal placed the knife and toast on his plate with carefully measured movements that hinted at his emotions. He got very precise when trying to maintain his composure. It was something she’d seen often with his father and sister, but never directed at her. Sure enough, the betraying twitch of his left eye showed his inner struggle. “Thirteen? Is that even legal?”
“Shockingly, yes. In protest, I hacked all my hair off, dressed in my brother’s clothes, and bolted. Didn’t get far before Milton caught up with me. When Adam came home a few days later for a school break, we managed to sneak out to the pond. We were planning to run away together, you see, and were figuring out the details of how to go about it. The pond was our place. That was the day Adam drowned.”
Because she’d been fussing and acting like a brat. A bite of breakfast stuck in her throat. With a shaky hand, she lifted her cup once more to wash down the food and guilt.
Adam had attempted to tease her out of her mood, and she’d swatted his chest. Not hard. But hard enough to unbalance him. She’d tried to grab his hand but missed, and over he went.
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