There was another silence. He couldn’t have said why it was so important to him that she used his name, but it was. Itwasimportant.
“Thomas, then,” Emma said, her voice low and breathy.
It couldn’t have been the first time he’d heard his name from her lips, but somehow the effect was intoxicating, like taking a swig of whiskey right from the bottom. Thomas bit into his lower lip, willing himself to stay calm.
She was only inches away. He could just reach out and touch her. It would be so easy. He could trail his fingers along the ridge of her collarbone, up the smooth lines of her throat, and over the curve of her chin. He could trace the outline of her lips…
“Do ye have any gloves?”
The sudden question woke Thomas from his reverie. He cleared his throat and crossed one leg over another, trying to ignore the way the moonlight glinted off her skin.
“Gloves? No, I don’t think so. Why?”
She grimaced, glancing down at her hands. “Healer’s fingers, remember? Stained green.”
“Will it transfer to the dress?”
She pursed her lips. “I don’t think so, but it’s hardly elegant, is it?”
He leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees. “Who cares about elegance? Yer fingers are a sign that ye are a healer. It shows that ye can save lives. That’s a thing to be proud of, don’t ye think?”
“Aye, but in a dress like this…”
“Are ye saying that a woman who saves lives isnae fit to wear a fine dress?”
There was another long pause, then he saw the glint of a smile spread across her face.
“That’s a fine way of looking at it, I do agree.”
“Aye, well, ye are a fine lassie.”
Again, that had slipped out without him meaning to do so.
Thomas leaned back in his seat, feeling breathless for some reason. It was hard to measure time in a carriage like this, but he knew they must be getting close to their destination. Then, they’d be at the Sinner, and it would be all noise and heat and chaos, and he might lose this opportunity forever.
He slipped his hands into his pockets. His fingers picked out the blocky shape of the box, but he moved past that.
Not yet.
He pulled out the package, the paper rustling loudly in the gloom.
“Here. I bought ye this. A present. I think it’ll go well with yer gown. Sorry about the bad lighting to look at it.”
Emma blinked down at the parcel, then reached out to take it, almost tentatively. The soft pads of her fingers danced across his palm as she took it, sending tingles down his arm.
She unwrapped the package delicately, untying the knot of twine carefully and slowly, not tearing so much as an inch of the paper. Thomas was just starting to wonder whether she would get it open before they arrived when she pulled back a flap of paper, and the necklace glinted in the moonlight.
Emma sucked in a breath, her eyes widening. “Oh, Thomas! It’s beautiful. Is… is this really for me?”
“Aye, it is,” Thomas said, a heady wave of relief washing over him.
He wasn’t sure what he’d expected. Disdain, perhaps. Maybe she wouldn’t have liked it. Or perhaps she would have seen it as a kind of bribe.
Emma picked up the necklace, turning it this way and that.
It was a fine piece of jewelry. Gold, of course, with smooth knots of real jade set into the necklace at intervals. It would clasp perfectly around her smooth throat, although he wished he’d brought something red now to go with her dress.
Oh, well. He wasn’t to know she’d want red silk.
