Nicholas shoved his blowpipe into the fire and glared at the dancing orange flames. Normally, nothing was as calming as blowing glass or crafting an intricate mold. This morning, he was far from calm. He had bolloxed things with Penelope.
He had wanted their first lovemaking to be perfect. Slow, gentle, romantic. Instead it had been fast and carnal. They hadn’t paused to kick their shoes off, much less get undressed. And as soon as it was over, they were done. Goodbye.
For a rake, that specific sequence of events was often considered an ideal encounter. It was not what Nicholas had wanted to give Penelope at all. He wasn’t certain how he felt to discover that it was all she had wanted from him.
Oh, very well, he knew exactly how he felt.
Miserable.
He gathered molten glass onto the tip of his blowpipe and sighed.
Penelope was marvelous. Smart and sensual, funny and logical. A scientist and a surprise. Any man would be lucky to have her. Nicholas preferred that the man in question… be him. But he couldn’t blame her for turning him away.
What had he offered her? Not one night, but two? How generous of him. Imbecile. She should have made him exit through the chimney.
He locked the molten glass inside the clay mold and began to blow. It was all his lungs were good for. What could he have said to Penelope? The more he opened up, the more he risked being found not good enough.
As a rake, he was more than serviceable. He was splendid. London knew what to expect, and Saint Nick delivered.
As Nicholas the bachelor glassblower, however, he became an oddity. A hobby that would raise no eyebrows for a man outside the beau monde would make Nicholas a laughingstock.
He would not offer Penelope a laughingstock. Nor had he any intention of forcing her to mix with his fast London crowd. Not that it mattered. He had already been dismissed.
He snapped his blowpipe from the clay mold. Was he cleaving to the persona of Saint Nick for Penelope’s sake, or for his own safety? Just because something was easy didn’t mean it was right. Or good.
Devil take it, he didn’t want two nights with this woman. He wanted all the nights. Now unto infinity.
He dropped his head into his hands and groaned. He was in love, damn it all. And he only had two days left in Christmas. Time was disappearing fast.
He was going to have to tell her.
His legs shook as he jumped from the stool. Declaring himself to a woman was possibly the most terrifying undertaking he had ever attempted in his life, but Penelope was worth it. His heart thumped. They were a good match. She had to feel it, too.
He retrieved two molds from a hidden shelf. This was his gift. He had made them for her, and this was the perfect moment to deliver them. He cracked open the molds and carefully withdrew two glass figurines.
Turtledoves. One-of-a-kind, just like Penelope. Delicate to the eye. Stronger than they looked. The perfect gift to bring when informing a woman that one had fallen in love with her.
He hoped.
His muscles twitched. He’d never been in such a position. No one had ever loved him, chosen him, wanted him to stay. He knew not to expect too much.
But Penelope was worth the risk. What they were building was real. Not some temporary distraction, but a relationship based on mutual respect, honesty, and the sheer joy of each other’s company. Only a fool would walk away without trying to make it last.
He set the birds down just long enough to put the smithy to rights, then started for the road.
To label himself nervous would be a gross understatement. Penelope was clever. If she returned his affection, he would be vindicated. If she didn’t… Then he supposed he really was the shallow, otherwise useless rake he had always pretended to be.
He tilted the top of his head into the wind and strode faster. The one thing that scared him more than rejection was missing the opportunity to try.
She was stepping onto her front stoop just as he turned up her walk.
His insides warmed, and an involuntary smile curved his lips. The sight of her always made him happy. He could not fathom where she might have been at this hour of the morning.
He caught up with her as she was about to shut the door.
She did not move aside. Or invite him in. Or smile.
“You said one night,” she stammered. “It’s daytime.”
Not the most auspicious start. He pressed on anyway.
“Here,” he said. “I made these for you.”
Her hands seemed to accept his offering reflexively, rather than out of any particular desire to receive a gift. She did not even glance down to see what it was. “Nicholas—”
“They’re turtledoves,” he blurted out. So much for his grand romantic gesture. It could not possibly go worse, and he was powerless to solve it. Or stop his mouth from babbling. “Glass figurines. They stand alone, and they can interlock. Turtledoves mate for life.”
Splendid. Now he sounded like Virginia.
To his horror, Penelope’s beautiful brown eyes took on a wet sheen. Not in a this-is-so-romantic-I-could-just-cry sort of way, but in a this-is-so-horrible-I-could-just-die sort of way. “Nicholas—”
“I love you,” he announced, using his last scraps of courage. “That’s what I came to say. Even if you don’t feel the same, I thought you should know.”
“It’s not love,” she said, her eyes tortured. “It wasn’t supposed to be like this.”
He tried his best to hide the tornado of disappointment within. There was his answer.
He was not what she wanted.
“Very well,” he said despite the swaying in his head. “There’s no need to ask why. I can well imagine.”
“I don’t think you can. You don’t know the whole truth.” She took a deep breath. “It was me. Rather, it was Duchess. I believed I had perfected a formula that could manipulate male emotion—”
“You what?” he stammered.
“—but I couldn’t be certain until I proved it. I needed a test subject in order to run the trials—”
“A what?” he repeated, taking a jerking step backwards.
“—and I gave the trial a strict time limit in which to accomplish predetermined tasks.” Her voice cracked as she met his eyes. “The experiment worked beyond my wildest dreams.”
“It worked?” he repeated, banging a trembling fist to his chest in anger. “You toyed with my heart to prove a theory?”
“That wasn’t the intended goal.” Her voice cracked. “I only meant to—”
“I was listening,” he said, not bothering to hide his bitterness. “Your intent was to manipulate my emotions in order to trick me into playing the lovesick swain for your own amusement.”
“Not amusement,” she said quickly. “Science—”
He scoffed. “You are very amused by science. Don’t shift the blame.” His hands shook. “I believed you of all people would treat others with unfailing honesty, and you purposefully misled me.”
“I…” She closed her eyes. “Yes. I did.”
“It was a game to you.” His heart lurched in humiliation. “See how long it took me to exhibit whatever behaviors you’ve been marking behind my back with your little tally marks.”
She winced.
“I’m surprised you didn’t enter your wager in the betting book at White’s,” he said, each word scratchy and raw. “Then everyone could laugh at the silly laboratory specimen who believed he had finally unlocked his cage.”
She shook her head, cheeks pale. “I never thought of you as a specimen.”
“Didn’t you?” His voice was empty. “Wasn’t that how you chose me to be an unwitting part of your little experiment? You saw me as a thing instead of a person.”
He had been such a fool. He’d believed he had found love, but he hadn’t even found a real connection. He was just a research subject. An animal, like any other. Useful for a brief moment, then dumped back in the wild.
It had been a farce all along.
He should have known better. Of course she didn’t love him back. Back when she’d selected him for a laboratory experiment, the one true thing she had told him was that she didn’t believe in love. His useless heart banged against his ribs.
It didn’t matter how real the past fortnight felt to him. To her… it wasn’t. This was nothing more than the successful conclusion of a routine perfume trial. His chest tightened. She could skip back to her laboratory and concoct another potion, but he was done being part of her tests.
“I don’t love you, then,” he said hollowly. “As it happens, I don’t even know you.”
He spun around on stiff legs and strode as fast as he could from her door.