“Why are you crying?”
She jolted upright, startled, and lifted her face to him.
The devastation in her eyes hit him like a fist. His chest burned, seeing her pain. What he didn’t understand was why. This kind of reaction was for his family, the Nightingales and those wed to them, not a stranger.
Mungo dug through his pocket, searching for the handkerchief his mother used to always insist he carry, and he’d never forgot because of her.“No man should ever be without one,”she’d said a thousand times.
He held out the crumpled but clean cloth.
“Th-thank you.” Her voice cracked with emotion.
Their fingers didn’t touch. Yet the moment she took the handkerchief, a ripple of sensation shot up his arm.
What the hell is wrong with me?
He snatched his hand back and curled it into a fist behind him.
“Why is that book making you weep?” he asked, forcing a gruffness into his tone that anyone who knew him was used to. Women’s tears made him feel like he was wading through a bog in a thunderstorm, neck-deep, with rain pounding him senseless. Vulnerable. Exposed. Unable to punch his way out of anything.
“I—I…. My father used to read this book to me.”
The words were whispered and thick with grief. They deepened the ache in his chest.
“Buy it, then.”
Her shoulders straightened as she looked at him. The eyes that were red from crying were suddenly fierce. Angry.
He preferred that look to the one he’d seen when he’d first spoken to her.
“I don’t want to purchase the book,” she snapped, though the huskiness in her voice gave away her earlier tears.
“So why are you weeping over it?”
She wore her usual uniform of a gray dress buttoned to the neck, full skirts sweeping the floor, cuffs buttoned. A governess’s uniform. Sensible. Restrained. She had a dark gray coat folded over her arm and a gray knitted scarf looped neatly around her throat. That bonnet hid her hair, but he’d seen it. Thick and lush auburn waves that he knew would likely fall down her back when freed.
“Why are you in here?” she demanded instead of answering.
“I’m purchasing a book,” he lied.
The skeptical look she gave him said she saw through his lie.
“Are you questioning my ability to read, Miss Downing?”
She let out a loud huff of disbelief, shockingly unladylike, and it startled an unwanted twitch of amusement in him. Miss Eliza Downing was all that was proper unless she was around him, and Mungo found he liked that.
He shoved that thought down inside himself with the others he didn’t want to examine too closely.
“Is your father still alive?” he asked, ignoring her question entirely.
Her eyes widened a fraction. Personal questions were not his style. In fact, he avoided them with the same dedication most men reserved for avoiding a debutante’s determined mother.
“No,” she whispered after a moment. “He passed many years ago.”
Her fingers tightened around the book she held. A children’s book, he realized now. The sort with bright illustrations and big lettering.
She looked at him, gaze steady now. “Do you not have a memory of your childhood that can upset you because of the feelings associated with it, Mr. Mungo?”
“Mungo,” he corrected sharply. “And no.”
