Isabel lifted a shoulder. “The rose. Expected, I concede, but I can’t help it. I like the idea of the rose.”
“What idea?”
“A rose can protect herself.”
He nodded, his serious eyes taking her in. “And a rose is beautiful.”
Of a sudden, Isabel didn’t think they were talking about roses anymore. What he could be saying, well, it quite stole her breath away and made her heart race. She gave a nervous, little laugh.
His gaze tightened intensely on her. “Isabel, you are a rose.”
Again, her nervous, little laugh sounded. “I’m hardly an English rose.” Quite simply, she was too dark, too foreign, and too Jewish. Facts she was certain Percy understood.
“Not the standard English sort. You’re of the wild rose variety. All the more precious for her rarity.”
What a thing to say. Isabel wasn’t sure she could ever draw breath again. Her gaze broke from his and stared unseeing at the needle and cloth in her hands. She had no response for such words. Even if she did, she wasn’t sure she could speak it around the lump that had formed in her throat.
“I imagine the flowers are difficult to come by in London,” he said.
He’d changed the subject, for which she was grateful, truly, even as another part of her, a part that must be given no leeway, craved the other talk. “I happen upon them sometimes.”
“In Cheapside?” He was fishing for information about her.
She nodded. No harm in giving him this.
“I take it you live aboveGalante: Dressmakers Extraordinaire?”
A sheepish laugh escaped Isabel, and she nodded. Eva had been so excited by the name that Isabel hadn’t a choice but to agree to it. It was quite grandiose.
“That is fine work,” he said, jerking his chin toward her lap.
Isabel stared down at the bodice she was reconstructing with velvet edging as if concentrated deeply on her work. In truth, she was hiding the gratification that surged through her at his praise, fearing he would see it in her eyes. “Are you an expert on ladies’ attire?”
Percy snorted. “Hardly.” He began to sway from side to side as Ariel had become fractious at standing still for too long. “I’m simply pointing to the fact that if this is an indication of the quality of your wares, then you must run a successful shop.”
“We do.” Her brow crinkled. “Or wedid. We met with a few challenges this year.”
He grew utterly serious. Once again, he was the devastating man she had first encountered. She couldn’t help feeling he’d purposely maneuvered their conversation to this point. “Isabel, what were you doing in Number 9?”
“I think that’s been fairly established.” Oh, that she didn’t feel a hot blush pinking her cheeks.
The intensity within his gaze didn’t let up. “But how were you obliged to be there?”
Isabel broke from his gaze. She had to. He was hitting too close to the matter. She glanced at Ariel snugged safely in Percy’s arms. “He’s fallen asleep.”
Percy gazed down at the babe. The look in his eye softened, and Isabel’s heart contracted. The vision of a strong man holding a small babe with tenderness and care, well, it was too much. She set aside her sewing and came to her feet. “Here,” she began, crossing the room. “I’ll take him to his bassinet.”
She held out her arms for the transfer. Unlike earlier, when Ariel was awake, they had to move more carefully so as not to wake the babe.
First, it was Percy’s scent that reached her, his body heat infusing sandalwood withhim, a scent she’d so very recently come to know, intimately. Then it was the feel of him, for she couldn’tnottouch him—the tensile length of his forearms, the brush of fingertips across the back of his hand—as she shifted Ariel from his to her arms.
“You have him secure?”
His face lowered as he spoke. He was close, so close she could lift onto the tips of her toes, lean in ever so slightly, and press her lips to his.
It would be so simple. Andright.
It would make matters infinitely more complicated. Andwrong.
