“A Treatise on…Recreational…Combustion With…Notes on Color…and Trajectory.” He read slowly, almost painfully. “The earl would be a better choice, should you have a chance to make an argument for him. Don’t let Bessie bully you.”
“I would, that is, I…” she stammered, certain of nothing except she’d already made an argument forhim.
He glanced up, eyes so arrestingly blue that for a heartbeat she forgot to breathe. “She’s my aunt by marriage, if you don’t know.” He shrugged a broad shoulder, flipping pages, his brow adorably furrowed. His waistcoat held a faint shimmer that glittered in the sunlight, a light silver almost matching the threads racing through his hair. “What I’m saying is, don’t allow her to coerce you. We’re familyand that obligation is the only reason she’d consider me.”
Louisa clenched her fingers in her skirt, so desperate to tell him.I chose you.She could see the boy from the bookstore in his face—the same cautious tenderness balanced with a fierce, unspoken determination.
“A secret for a secret, Mr. Beckett,” she whispered, gesturing to the folio, the statement sounding more like a wager than a request.
He frowned and tapped the page. “Dominic, please. And it isn’t a secret if you ignite a marquess’s stable before the eyes of half the ton. In fact, I see a relevant footnote here: ‘use less sulfur, unless the goal is to startle livestock’.”
What madness had possessed her to let him read her transcripts?“It was the kitchen garden, and I only ruined five tomato plants. A minor potassium nitrate miscalculation. The notation isn’t connected to any particular—”
“Catastrophe.”
She folded her hands in her lap with frosty precision. “I was going to say experiment. And, for your information, pyrotechnics have been used in England since the 1500s. Queen Elizabeth even had a royal fire master.”
He hummed without comment and skimmed his finger over a line of text. A lock of hair dropped across his brow, grazing his lashes, and he shoved it back. Hair longer than fashion allowed, all the more maddening for how well he wore it. “I read poorly, if you’ve not guessed. Letters jump about on the page. Since I was a child, and no doctor has ever been able to help. We tried spectacles, but my vision isn’t the issue. It’s neurological, they approximate.”
“But the gambling…” She rubbed at a burn on her thumb that had healed but left a permanent mark. “You were legendary.”
“I was very astute at counting cards.” His mouth tilted into something dangerously close to a smile. “It’s a gift, until it’s not. Until one can’t exist another second unless willing to be wrecked by it.”
The moment, stitched with small revelations, blurred the line between formality and something achingly familiar. When Dominic recognized that she sensed it too, an unwelcome sentiment flickered in his expression, gone in an instant, smoothed over with that calm, unreadable reserve.
Intimacy had crept in through the cracks of confession, a quiet inevitability neither of them seemed able to stop.
Hearing footsteps in the hallway, he handed the folio to her seconds before the door opened and a footman entered. Setting the tea tray on a console table, moving silently as all good servants were trained to, he retreated with a bow.
Louisa poured without spilling a drop or once rattling the china. She wasn’t elegant, but she could manage the role of a lady, provided it wasn’t expected for long.
Cradling the Sèvres cup between his broad palms, Dominic blew a soft breath over the tea before murmuring, “I understand you’ve decided to marry, hence engaging Bessie Dove-Lyon’s services.”
Louisa brushed away a stray tea leaf and, almost without thinking, lifted her finger to her lips. His gaze followed, and the air sparked with suggestion. “Would you care for something stronger?” she asked at last, her breath unsteady. “This conversation might call for it.”
Dominic threw a glance at the mantel clock. “It’s early but—” He drained his cup in a single swallow. “Why not? I promise you, drink was never my weakness.”
“Make sure the footman—or worse, our butler, Pritchard—doesn’t catch me,” she whispered, crossing to her father’s sideboard. The decanter of brandy was cool beneath her fingertips, in contrast to the warmth she’d abided since Dominic Beckett stepped into the parlor.
Following her cue, he moved to the door and peered into the hall. “All clear,” he said, turning to lean his broad shoulder against the jamb. “This feels a little dangerous, when I’ve worked extremely hardto stay on the straight and narrow. Are you set to be a bad influence, my lady?”
Louisa looked up from pouring brandy into their teacups to find the first genuine enjoyment of the day crossing his face. “You’re teasing,” she returned in the sturdiest voice she could muster, trying to ignore how handsome he was, superfine coattail shoved aside, his hand sunk deep in his trouser pocket, his lean body in a roguish sprawl against the door.
“You should know some things about me.” Exhaling, he shook his head and shoved off the doorjamb. Striding to her, he took the teacup, his brow quirking at drinking liquor from such delicate porcelain. His fingers brushed hers, and though the contact was fleeting, it sent a shiver racing up her arm. He hesitated, his gaze flicking to hers with something unreadable but intense, as if he’d felt the same jolt.
Another surprise, he didn’t sit, but made his way about the parlor, set on restless exploration. “Due to my failings, I almost lost the family estate in Hertfordshire.” He trailed his finger over the ormolu mount of a vase that had been in her family for generations with the same wary touch one gives a loaded pistol. “Who’s to say I won’t lose it all the next time?”
“Why must therebea next time?” Louisa took a measured sip, the brandy giving her the courage to continue. “I suppose your wife will have to trust you. In any case, it evidences your honor that you’re trying so hard to dissuade me.” She strove to contain her sigh seconds too late. “The earl only explains how well we would suit, never why we wouldnot. He hasn’t dared mention my chemical endeavors. My father likely warned him not to broach the topic until the contracts are signed, then try to change my mind after it’s too late to argue.”
“Harcourt?”
She nodded, giving the contents of her cup a twirl.
“He’s a good man, I think. No extreme decadence, beyond the typical university mischief. And there are some in this city I woulddefinitely advise you against.” Dominic halted by her father’s bookcase and dusted his hand across the worn volumes with reverence. She’d never thought to value something as basic as the ability to read. Her heart ached for the boyandthe man. “Fairfax and I were at Oxford together. Until I was asked to leave.”
“I know about your history.” Bessie had prepared a file that wasn’t extremely personal, but rather, an overview of the man. Plus, her little secret, Louisa had voraciously consumed every scandalous word ever written about him. He was her boy in the bookstore, after all. “The parts your aunt was willing to share, that is.”
“My brother says I’m a brooder,” he murmured as Louisa followed his progress about the room. She noted how he lingered over a crystal decanter, turning it so the facets scattered rainbows across the wall. At the console, he traced the gilt mount of a porcelain vase older than the both of them combined, before lifting a silver-framed miniature to the light. He studied the painted face far longer than was necessary, his expression giving nothing away—except, conceivably, that he noticed far more than he let on. “I don’t want to be, but I fear he’s right. That might not make for an enjoyable union.”
