“When I asked for another kiss.I was foxed entirely.And… and I know the first kiss”—the only kiss—“was a strategy, an alchemical experiment.Do not worry that I am somehow becoming enamored of you.I’m not a ninny.Now.”She stood, searching for her cane.“I’m going to explore this house.”She took one wobbly step, inhaled a hiss as pain scorched through her.
“Bloody hell, woman.”Apollo swept her up into his arms.“Which way?”
She refused to cling to his neck, crossed her arms over her chest and pointed with her chin to the door they’d entered through.“That way.I want to go up the stairs.”
He complied, kicking the door open wider and taking her into the entry hall and up the stairs.
“These stairs are gorgeous,” she said, glad her voice didn’t tremble.
“You’re angry with me.”
“Stop here at the window.”
He did, and they stared out over the drive together.
“You should be thanking me,” he said.
“Thank you for the help with Stone’s notes.I should have considered your ability to translate his scrawl sooner.”Lead and gold.Fascinating.When she’d not been agonizing over the first kiss, the failed request for a second, she’d been turning her brain over and over those two elements.Lead.Gold.Surely Stone could not be trying to turn myth into reality.“I can move forward now.I was quite stuck before.”
“That’s not what I mean.”
“The view from here must be lovely without the fog.You can keep going up now.”
“Consider all the reasons we shouldn’t kiss, Sybil.”
“Go left,” she said at the top of the stairs.“This is such a beautiful house.I feel a distinctneedto explore every corner.”
He went left.“First there’s your brother and your father and likely Diana, all of whom would rather see me run over by a mail coach than anywhere near you.”
“Oh!Go in there.”
He slipped through the appointed doorway.“Then there’s your current circumstances.You’re in mortal danger though you seem not to care.Which means everyone around you must care more.”
“The walls are gorgeous.I’ve never seen such murals.I adore it.Next room!”
He carried her back into the hallway.“And of course, you cannot forget the most important reason we must not kiss.”
The most important reason… More important than disapproving family and mortal danger?She was terribly curious.“That room now, please.”
It was a bedchamber, and her heart stuttered.The bed, flooded in clean, white linens, seemed big and sumptuous, and the eerie, misty air outside the windows seemed to permeate the walls.It was elegantly decorated in shades of blue.The curtains were pulled back to let in the dim light, and a set of matching armchairs rested with a small table before the fireplace.Paintings of open fields and sunsets splashed across the walls—more murals.And a large rug echoed those evening colors.The chamber begged to be inhabited.
“Drop me on the bed,” she said, “I’m claiming this room.”
He placed her carefully on the mattress then moved to stand at the fireplace, as far from her as possible.With a face as still as the stone carvings bordering the empty grate at his back, he said, “Me.”
“You what?”
“I’m the reason we shouldn’t kiss.”
She chose her words carefully.“If I were desirous of more kissing,youwould be the best reason to do so.”
After several moments of silence, he said, “What do you mean?”
“What doyoumean?”
He tugged at his hair.“I’m no good!That’s what I mean.I’m a bit insulted you forced me to say it.”
“I’m a bit disappointed you didn’t put more menacing seduction into saying it.”Horrid to tease him, but he looked so boyish admitting his sins, so alone.That hardmehad sat like a stone between them, a word that would never meet any others.
