“I do not know what I was thinking but I should not have agreed to your deal.”
He reached for her, but she turned away from him. Silence fell, heavy and suffocating.
Miss Dowell lifted her head up, every inch the proud, wounded alchemist he had met at the masquerade. “I will take my leave, Your Grace.”
She walked towards the exit without a second glance.
Alexander moved instinctively. “Wait.”
She did not. She kept walking. He longed to follow her, but pride rooted him in place. He could not force her to stay and understand the terror that lived within the Hawthorne House, so he watched as she reached the door.
For a moment, he hoped that she might turn back, but she did not and perhaps that was for the best.
CHAPTER 9
Theodora dipped her quill into the inkwell, steadying her breath as she opened her leather-bound notebook to the page markedStage Six — The First Kiss (Symptoms: Sensory Overload & Butterflies.) The heading stared back at her like a challenge. She pressed her lips together, then began to write in her neat, precise hand.
Observation, Day Three
The physiological effects of the first kiss remain consistent with the symptoms of nervous excitation. Upon contact with the lips, the pulse accelerated and respiration became shallow. Warmth spread across the chest and lower abdomen, accompanied by a temporary loss of coherent thought.
These symptoms, though often attributed to romantic sentiment, are clearly manifestations of hysteria. A temporary agitation of the nerves caused by proximity, surprise, and the sudden stimulation of sensitive tissue. Notably, the subject holds no affection for the instigator of the kiss.
Indeed, she finds him insufferable, arrogant, and wholly disagreeable. Therefore, the accelerated pulse cannot be attributed to affection. It is merely the body’s involuntary response to external provocation.
She paused, tapping the quill against the margin as her thoughts drifted back to the Duke and her lips tingled in response.
It had been three days since he had kissed her with a boldness that still made her breath catch. The warmth of him lingered like a phantom sensation. She lifted her fingers to her mouth, brushing them lightly across her lower lip.
“This is ridiculous and entirely unscientific!” she hissed to herself and pushed the notebook aside.
Theodora sighed loudly. The sound echoed around her in the silence of her chamber. To distract herself, she reached into a drawer and pulled out a second journal. She turned to a blank page, dipped the quill, and wrote;Observation Day One ofMelancholy: Potential Remedies and Interventions.
Her handwriting here was softer, and less rigid than when she wrote about her experiment with the Scarlet Duke. Theodora reminded herself to note that down as well.
She stared at the blank page before her as she recalled her meeting with Lady Rosalind. Theodora’s heart ached for the young girl mostly because she understood her pain.
But what is the root of her pain?
She dipped her quill again, ready to continue her notes on potential remedies.
Rest, sunlight, and gentle companionship?—
Her hand slipped when a knock at the door interrupted her.
Theodora sighed. “You may enter.”
The door creaked open, and Marianne stepped inside. She was the youngest and newest of their maids, barely sixteen, with a round face and earnest brown eyes. Theodora smiled at her and the girl curtsied nervously.
“Begging your pardon, Miss Dowell. A letter has arrived for you.”
Theodora accepted it with a nod. “Thank you, Marianne.”
The girl bobbed another clumsy curtsy and slipped out, closing the door softly behind her. Theodora turned the envelope over in her hands and her breath caught when she recognized the bold, slanted, and unmistakably masculine handwriting.
“Speak of the devil,” she mumbled under her breath.
She frowned as she imagined what he may have written about this time.
