Good grief, his heart was racing like he’d just run up a mountain.
What was it about this girl that made him feel like this? Like he was only now opening his eyes for the first time?
Like he was seeing everything with fresh eyes, experiencing everything with senses he’d never known he’d had.
His whole life he’d thought calling upon a lady was...well, boring. But maybe it was only the ladies he’d known who’d been boring.
There was nothing dull or ordinary going on behind those lovely green eyes. Whatever she was thinking, whatever she was feeling...
He was desperate to know it.
He watched her as she peered down at the passage. It was simple enough, just a few paragraphs transcribed from the same novel. He’d already compared the passage word for word with the novel’s passage to see if there were any missing words or added letters—anything out of the ordinary that marked it different from the novel. But there’d been nothing noticeable, at least to his eye.
Lydia’s lips pursed in concentration and her brows drew down as she read it. Truly, he hadn’t spent enough time on the passage. If he still worked in the Home Office, he’d have had assistants to help him with work that he found too tedious.
Too boring. He was no expert in encryption, and he knew it. He’d been content to let that sort of work be handled by men who worked at desks.
He ran a hand over his hair and drew in a deep breath. Lud, all these years perhaps he’d been clinging to the childish notion that adventure and intrigue were only to be found...out there.
On battlefields and in the dark shadows of night. It had never occurred to him that adventures could be found in a book passage, or that passion and curiosity and intrigue could be found sitting still in a darkened drawing room with a clever, bookish young lady.
But as he watched the mystery before him—the darling, sweet, quiet mystery that no one had sought to uncover his perspective was flipped on its head. Now all he was certain of was that anyone who mistook quiet for boring was a simpleton, every person who’d overlooked this young lady was foolish...and anyone who thought passion could only be felt in the midst of battle had never fallen in love.
“Will you speak to me now?” he asked when she’d stopped reading and had stared off into the distance.
Her gaze lifted with surprise. “P-pardon?”
He gestured to the drawn curtains and the extinguished candles. “Is it only being seen that frightens you? Or is there something more I can do to put you at ease?”
She nibbled on her lip, her cheeks pinkening as she held the passage to her bosom. “Why are you interested in what I have to say? No one else is.”
“Ah, but no one else enjoys a mystery as much as I do.”
She smiled but he saw a flicker of sadness in her eyes that he despised. “You’ll be disappointed.”
“Never.” It came out low and gruff. But he couldn’t imagine ever being disappointed in this woman.
She moved slightly, shifting closer to the shadows. “You think I am a mystery, but I am just a coward.”
“No,” he said slowly and with a shake of his head. “I think that mind of yours is always racing.”
“Perhaps, but only because I fill it with fictional stories.”
“If that’s the case, then you have lived far more than most,” he said.
She smiled, her gaze searching his in the shadows. “That’s how I used to think of it. When I was a child.”
She hesitated, and he felt his lungs hitch.
“Go on,” he urged.
She lifted her shoulders. “I was sick as a child. Often.” Her lips twitched. “All the time, really. The doctors said I would surely die.”
His heart twisted at the casual way she said it. “I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be,” she said. “I lived.” She glanced down at herself with a wry smile. “Obviously.”
“I’m glad to hear it,” he deadpanned.
Her smile widened. He could practically see her stepping out of the shadows. Not literally. She still stood in the darkest corner of this room, but just like in the library, she seemed to leave a specter behind with each word she spoke and every new smile.
“You didn’t spend much time around others then,” he guessed. “As a child.”
She shook her head. “Never.”
“Then it’s no wonder that small talk and banter doesn’t come easily to you.”
“Much to my mother’s horror, I’m afraid.”
“Eh.” He lifted a shoulder. “Frivolous chatter is given too much credence.”
“Perhaps,” she said. She fingered the parchment in her hands, glancing down at it briefly as if only just now remembering it was there. “But I keep thinking about what you said the other day.”
“That’s no good,” he teased. “I rarely speak wisely.”
“Oh, but you did,” she said. “You said what is life without risks?”
“Did I?” His heart thundered in his chest. He had. He knew he had. It was a motto he lived by, but it wasn’t until she said it back to him that he realized what a coward he’d been.
Oh, not all the time. He’d had his moments over the years. But his aversion to stepping into his brother’s footsteps, of finding a wife and starting a family...
It was a risk, plain and simple. He could be miserable in that new life. Or...
He met her gaze, seeing more depths in their green sparkling hue than he could reach in a lifetime. She was quiet for a long moment. Thinking before she spoke.
That was what made her such an oddity among society. She was an intelligent, well read, kind young woman...who actually thought before she spoke.
“I think perhaps you’re right,” she said at last. “I spent so much of my childhood not taking any risks. Being told that I couldn’t, because I wasn’t strong enough. And I let that define who I am now. Who I’ve become...”
She fell silent but the air was filled with a soft snoring sound that had them both looking over in surprise to find Kitty with her head to the side and her mouth gaping open as she snoozed.
Lydia clapped a hand over her mouth and just barely squelched a giggle.
The sound was adorable. “Shh,” he said teasingly in a whisper. “I shouldn’t want to wake her.”
She shook her head. “Let’s not.”
She met his gaze and he was sure she felt it too.
They were alone. Not quite as dark as the library, but it had the same intimate feel. Like they could be the only two people in the world.
He watched her take a deep breath, her fingers clenching around the parchment before she set it down with definitive movements.
“Lydia...” he started, uncertain of what she was doing.
But then she took a few more steps until she was standing directly in front of him, so close he could reach out and pull her the rest of the way into his arms.
It required all the strength he had to hold himself still.
Her chest rose and fell quickly, her breathing shallow and audible and her eyes filled with fear.
He frowned. Was he frightening her? She was the one who’d approached him. How could he help? Before he could so much as shift away from her to give her space, she reached out with fluttering hands and rested them on his chest.
Her throat worked, and he held his breath as she stared at his cravat, her expression adorably fierce and determined. Then she went up on tiptoe and pressed her lips to his.
His mind went blank as his blood roared in his ears.
Yes. This.
Always this.
Heat suffused him and he ached to wrap her in his arms, to crush her to him, but he understood deep down that this was not his moment.
This was hers.
Whatever this was...she needed to do it.
And so, he stood still, only letting his hands come to her cheeks to cup her face as he met her soft, gentle, searching kiss with one of his own.
Too quickly, she pulled away, a dazed look in her eyes and a soft smile on her lips.
“Why...” He sounded as dazed and addled as a fool. How? Why? By what good fortune? He had too many questions. He settled for, “To what do I owe this honor?”
Her stunned look morphed into a glorious smile and she let out a huff of laughter. “Because I’ve never been kissed before, and...that seemed like a shame.”
“It’s a travesty.” He brushed a thumb over her lower lip. “These lips were meant for kissing.”
She smiled. “Really? I didn’t know what I was doing.”
“It was the best kiss of my life,” he said. “I’ll remember it forever.”
Her brows drew together and she searched his eyes for teasing, but she’d find none.
That was the truth, and the truth was...
What? Terrifying?
Exhilarating?
Life altering. Yes, that was it. This slip of a girl had come into his life and turned it upside down without even trying.
“I’m a lucky man that you chose me for your first kiss,” he said.
“You make it sound like I just chose you because you happened to be standing here,” she said, her tone filled with laughter. “I chose you because...”
She hesitated, and her cheeks went pink.
He thought for a moment she might lose this spectacular bravery she’d only recently discovered but she recovered with a deep breath and a tremulous smile.
“I kissed you because I like you.”
And that was it. That was the moment his heart was lost forever. He knew as much, but perhaps he wasn’t as brave as she was, because he defaulted to laughter rather than an earnest confession. “You just like me for my intrigue.”
She laughed.
“Not just that,” she assured him. And his heart thudded wildly when she met his gaze and said, “I like the way you make me feel.”
He leaned down, his fingers lightly tracing her jaw, her cheeks, his nose grazing hers. He was much too close.
This was dangerous in the extreme, for so many reasons.
But he couldn’t drag himself away if he’d tried. “How do I make you feel?”
“Like someone else.” Her brows drew down right away as if annoyed by her response. “No, that’s not right. I feel like me, but a me I’ve never known before. You make me want to be brave. You make me want to...to write my own story rather than live out others’ adventures.”
He nodded, joy and pride, and gratitude, and something unbearably sweet making words difficult. His voice was too gruff. “I know the feeling. You’ve had a similar effect on me.”
Her brows hitched up in disbelief. “Have I?”
“Mmm.” His thumb stroked her cheek, and his heart felt like it was swelling to double its size in his chest. He ached to lower his head farther. To kiss those lips, to call her ‘mine.’
“You strike me as a man who’s always been brave,” she said.
A smile tugged at his lips. “In some ways, I suppose. But no one is without their weaknesses.”
She nodded slowly as she considered that, and then her gaze grew heartachingly earnest. “I don’t want to die without ever having lived.”
His heart thudded, his gut twisted...blast, everything in him reacted to that statement. It was how he’d always lived his life and to hear her say it back to him. To know he’d helped her conquer some fear...
It was humbling. And it made him want to be the man she thought he was. The man who encouraged her and made her feel stronger and braver.
That was a worthy purpose in life if he’d ever known one. Being one woman’s hero—this woman’s hero—put all the rest of his daring deeds to shame.
He straightened, shaken by the thought, and forced himself to move away from temptation.
He started to drop his hand, but she caught his wrist and pressed her cheek into his palm.
And he couldn’t breathe for the intimacy of the moment. It put any other encounter with a woman to shame. Anything he’d thought was desire or attraction before had been nothing compared to this raging fire that burnt him all the way to his heart.
“Kissing you was the first real risk I’ve ever taken,” she said. Her eyes glittered with pride and excitement and a passion to live which made her the most beautiful creature on earth, he was sure of it.
“I hope it’s not your last,” he said.
“It’s not.” Her lips curved up in a smile that he caught in the palm of his hand. Her eyes glimmered with mischief now and he narrowed his eyes with suspicion.
“Did you have something specific in mind?”
Her smile was radiant as she repeated his earlier words back to him. “I thought you’d never ask.”