“Oh, my. It seems as though we have a guest,” Terence’s chest rumbled with a chuckle. “Allow me, Jane…”
He reached forward and coaxed the butterfly onto his finger. His touch lingered upon her cheek, and it burned. Even through his gloves, Jane felt as though she were being branded—and it was exquisite. His dark hazel eyes bore into her, and hers into him, holding each other captive within unseen cages. Everything burned, pleasantly.
Her heart stuttered in her throat. She suddenly hungered for more of his whispering, heated touches and fervid stares.
Was the heat always this overwhelming? Or was that just the greenhouse’s natural humidity?
The butterfly twitched its wings of iridescent emerald and black upon his knuckle still caressing her cheek.
“Graphium agamemnon—the tailed jay,” Jane whispered at last, breathless. She wasn’t fond of bugs, but she liked to know the names of pretty things—and this just so happened to be one of several species of butterflies her mother had pinned in her studio.
His mouth eased into a gentle slope of a smile. “Fascinating,” he murmured with that rolling purr that found a way to comfort her very bones.
Just as she was becoming addicted to his touch, Jane tore her gaze away with a clearing of her throat. Startled, the butterfly shuttered upwards into the greenhouse’s glass heavens.
“I-If you’re no true naturalist, it makes me curious as to why you would bring me here.”I would much rather return to the museum, she thought and hoped he could somehow hear it. It took every bit of her willpower to not raise her hand and cup where he held her face, to savor the heat that haunted the flesh there.
The confidence that’d previously charmed his features crumbled as his brows knit together.
“I-I thought it would’ve made for a nice scenic walk given the time of year. Forgive me, I’ve always found these gardens to be rather calming—” His words stumbled and slurred, and Jane couldn’t resist a small laugh. She made him nervous. She liked that. She could hold influence over a nervous man—just what she required to recover from… whatever influence he had overher.
“Not that I mind,” she said with a shrug and latched back onto his arm, like a parasite clinging to the tongue of a fish, leeching off his warmth. “I trust you know where you lead me.”
His tremoring paused, and his hand clasped atop hers. “I… appreciate that, Jane…”
It was late afternoon by the time they finished lunch and returned to the hotel, where Mrs. Sterling sat in the parlor room with her sketchbook open to a page depicting what looked like some kind of fossilized plant. She had her watercolors out, and the tips of her fingers bore multicolored stains. Her hair shone like copper wire under the gaslight, streaked with pale white, as she turned with a smile upon Jane and Terence’s entrance. The only way she andJane resembled one another was their eyes, green in color and always crinkled at the corners with some sort of emotion. Elation, despair, worry, exhaustion. There was always a crease of some kind there. They otherwise more resembled old colleagues rather than a mother and daughter.
“About time you two came back. Come and warm yourselves, children, you look chilled!” She said, brushing her hands as she stood to greet them. She must’ve noticed their rosy noses and cheeks, much in the same way that Jane caught something hinting at a catty knowing flickering across her grin.
Jane felt a sudden chill across her shoulders in the absence of Terence’s heat when he took a step back toward the door. She bit her tongue to withhold an urge to whimper.
“Ah, thank you, Mrs. Sterling, but it’s almost evening. I ought to leave you ladies to enjoy your night. The marshes of Wolf’s Run can be a beast to navigate at night once you can no longer see the road,” Terence said, lips pursed.
Both women shared a frown.
“Well, if you insist, Mr. Hayes,” Mrs. Sterling said.
“We will see you again—soon—yes?” Jane’s words emerged as a whine. She wasn’t fond of the idea of him leaving quite yet, and, desperately seeking an excuse, added, “Y-you mentioned having fossils you’d want my father to see.”
Their luncheon hadn’t been anything spectacular, but Jane wasn’t ready to have their time together come to an end. Lunch was at a simple cafe on a street neighboring the gardens, lined with brown storefronts Terence walked her through, though she couldn’t recall the name of the road nor any of the stores, only that everything was gray and colorless. And cold. She’d been grateful that Terence’s body was so warm, and that he didn’t seem to mind her pressed against him. In the end, his eagerness to showher shops that had gowns and hats and shoes displayed in their windows was enough to make her smile. He was making an effort, and that was what mattered most to her.
The excursion and their lunch of tea and sandwiches was rather boring, with simple conversations consisting of Terence asking what her trip across the Atlantic was like, what she thought of Cambridge so far, what she’d thought of the gardens, and if she saw anything that piqued her interest in any of the store windows.
“Do all English women allow themselves to dress so…” she waved her hand in an attempt to capture a word that floated in the air around her, then used her pointed gaze to gesture to two young girls that strode past where they sat at the window. Both of them wore brown, so muted and dry that they nearly blended into the slick street. Their hats were small, and they wore jackets that hung well past their knees.Practical. That was the word Jane needed, but it wasn’t what she wanted. “Drab?” was what she finally settled for as she wrinkled her nose, settled her chin on the heel of her palm, and watched the girls cross the street.
From the lip of his cup, Terence glanced between her and the girls. For a moment his gaze lingered on her chest, on her trilobite charm, to which Jane arched her back to puff her chest out further; the necklace itself was a similar shade of brown, but she knew she could make such a color flourish.
“I’m afraid I wouldn’t know,” he said. He then gestured to his own dark wardrobe and tilted his head. “Do you think of me as drab?”
“But of course!” She said and pinched the edge of his sleeve between a thumb and forefinger. “Have you ever considered that you’d look charming in green? Maybe even a fuschia color.”
“Do you think so?” He looked at himself with a pinched brow, as if imagining himself in said colors.
Certainly. “Maybe,” she shrugged and pinched his coat again.
She couldn’t deny the comfort his company brought, especially after being denied an opportunity to further converse with him beyond simple introductions at May’s exhibition. The idea of never seeing him again before the Sterlings were to leave England made something in her heart grow heavy. She was just starting to dig her claws into a man free of the influence of her sisters and mother, to at last have a companion wholly to herself… she couldn’t let him go yet!
Mrs. Sterling looked between them both, eyes wide with a curious hunger. “Oh? Fossils, you say?”
