She wanted to clutch her stack even tighter, only she feared she would crinkle again. “You have my word that I am removing no documents or evidence, sir.”
“Can I trust the word of someone who has declared me an adversary?”
“As a gentleman, you have no choice. Unless you think to search my person, which I do not believe you are bold enough to do.”
“Not your entire person. Only the area where women are known to hide things.”
To her horror, his hands reached toward her. But he was only lifting the books and box out of her arms. She dared not breathe, lest she begin crinkling again.
“Let us go,” he said, holding out his arm toward the door.
He did not hand the books over, but carried them out as he walked behind her. She kept her back very straight so the banknotes might not move at all.
He handed her down the stairs, and escorted her from the building. He remained by her side as she strode down the street.
“My carriage is here. I will bring you back to Mrs. Ludlow’s, so you are not walking London’s streets alone at night.” He gestured to the fine carriage up ahead.
His offer would help a lot, but a little caution sounded in her instincts. “Mrs. Ludlow will probably ignore my escape if you are my escort,” she said. “She is the sort to assume your sort should have their privileges, and our trust.”
“She is? How convenient.” Charming creases framed his smile.
“All the same, it would be better if I found my own transportation.”
“I will not hear of it.”
He opened the carriage door and handed her into the carriage. He set the glove box beside her after he settled himself across from her, and the books next to himself. Seeing the box took her mind back to the letters inside. She set the box on her lap and tipped the cover up on its hinges.
A few trinkets had been left inside with the letters. She poked down and pulled a small handkerchief out. It was her mother’s. She lifted it to her nose, and a familiar scent filled her head. Memories popped up, all from her childhood, when she was still of an age that a mother holds and embraces one for no reason other than love.
She had not expected a handkerchief to move her so deeply. Did her father sometimes of a night hold this so he could smell her again? Her eyes blurred and stung.
She stretched toward the books on Ives’s bench, reaching. He moved to aid her at the same moment,and his hand came to rest on top of hers. He did not lift it, but kept her hand under his fingers.
He angled much as she did, toward her, until their faces were mere inches apart.
“You are weeping.” The thumb of his free hand brushed at a tear. “Why?”
She opened her other hand to reveal the handkerchief. “It was my mother’s. I recognize it. It still...” Her voice caught. “I thought I would slip it inside one of the books, for him to discover. I thought it might give him comfort.”
Without releasing her hand, he pulled out the top book, and opened it. He offered it to her. She placed the handkerchief inside. He closed it and set it aside.
“Your loyalty to him is impressive, especially considering that he all but abandoned you, from what you have said.”
“I have been angry at him for that. I read things in these letters that explain some of it, however. I had forgotten that he was not always the strange man that you see now. When I was young, he still showed the remnants of ambition and potential. Had the drudgery of life not been forced on him—on both of them—who knows what might have been.”
“I think that you consider yourself part of that drudgery. I hope not.”
She could not reply. Tears choked her too much.
His hand took hers more completely. With the other he crooked a finger under her chin and tilted up herhead. “What a loss if you have not been born, Padua. To the world, but mostly to them. He would have had no one fighting for him now. Your mother would have had no one to charge with his care, and would have passed less peacefully. And I would have never met the rarity that is Padua Belvoir.”
His gaze mesmerized her. His words moved her deeply. She could barely breathe. She waited, and knew a shocking anticipation. A reckless hope.
The slightest movement, as if he pulled away an inch. That disappointed the magical excitement in her heart and head. And so it still surprised her when he leaned just far enough to kiss her. A sound kiss, not some brief connection of pity or kindness. A kiss of unmistakable passion. The excitement in her body began a pagan dance.
She should not allow it, but she did. There could be no logic to this man wanting to kiss her, yet it felt inevitable that he did. That kiss gave expression to an intimacy that had arched between them from the first, and right now, with her emotions raw from those letters, she needed to feel close to someone.
It did not last too long, even if it seemed it went on a good while. Long enough for him to cup her face in both his hands. Long enough for the kiss to turn into more than a gentle press. She did nothing to encourage him, but nothing to stop him either. She accepted and allowed the riot of emotions he evoked to have their way.
