Chapter Twenty-Three
What I learned from birds in love: turn your heart into a dance.
Birds Through a Sherry Glass, H.A. Quirm
They went togetherinto the deepening night. But after only a few yards Devon stopped, whistling an ethereal song Beth did not recognize. Then he turned back to her, smiling.
And behind him, a score of tiny stars blossomed in the dark.
Beth stared in wonder.Linaria ignis fatuus.The will-o’-the-wisp linnet, a vanishingly rare thaumaturgic species she’d only ever dreamed about. They danced around each other in silence, the disk of cartilage on their foreheads glimmering with beautiful, eerie magic. Devon stood beneath the near-invisible flutter of their night-colored wings, like a sorcerer who had roused them from the secret heart of England. His face seemed part of the magic: a moon to the avian stars. He looked at her with an expression Beth had never seen from another person before.
She remembered the first moment she laid eyes on him, a mere month ago, at the most boring birders’ meeting ever held. She’d glanced up from a dusty raisin scone and there he was, trying not to yawn as Professor Singh rambled on at him aboutmousetwitter claws. Something had stirred beneath her heart. She’d assumed it to be the one mouthful of scone she’d been foolish enough to eat, but now she understood it was the magic ofthismoment, reaching back through time to claim her.
Devon offered his hand, and she took it, stepping toward him like she was stepping into a spell. “Watch,” he whispered. And turning her gently, he wrapped his arms around her, keeping her snug as she observed the dreamy swooping dance of the birds all around them.
At first Beth stood rigid, unused to such treatment, but gradually she relaxed, leaning back against the strength of Devon’s body, inhaling its warm, musky scent. He tilted his head to rest it against hers, and she felt the drift of a sigh across her cheek.
They stood quietly, absorbed in beautiful magic. One half of Beth’s brain, the half that stored her education and considered tweed the height of fashion, wanted to fetch her field journal and begin making observational notes about the linnets. Luckily, the wiser half knew a romantic moment when it encountered one and refused to budge.
Devon began to stroke her arm, heating her through the cotton sleeve of her shirtwaist. The cozy atmosphere molted its feathery softness, revealing something far more provocative beneath. As Beth stirred restively, Devon slid a hand across her breastbone, then down the shirtwaist’s row of pearl buttons. Her skin beneath began to tingle. The places he did not touch began to ache with yearning.
“You’re not wearing a corset,” he said, surprised.
“I left it off today. It’s hard enough to breathe around Professor Gladstone without being tight-laced as well.”
“That’s very…”
“Practical?” she suggested.
“Tantalizing. Knowing there’s nothing more than fine cloth between me and your naked skin.”
There was only one adequate response to that: “Oh. Gosh.”
She felt his smile against her cheek. He tucked his fingers beneath the waistband of her skirt, then paused. “Yes?” he asked.
It would have sounded like the enchanted song ofLothario podiceps, had her brain not become so swathed in white lace wedding veils that it barely heard him. Her heart, however, was more perceptive.
“Have you ever seen a ghost owl?” she asked.
There followed a moment of silence. “I beg your pardon?” he said uncertainly.
“Do you have a large family?”
“Um.”
“What is your stance on the general enmity between museum ornithologists and field naturalists?”
“I say the more information about birds, the better. My family is a fairly normal size, my mother dead, my father retired back to Devonshire, from where he continues to attempt running the Cambridge physics department and my career, and I have no siblings—but I do have cousins who are aggravating enough to compensate, as well as the usual assortment of grandparents, uncles, and aunts. And yes, I’ve encountered a ghost owl, just once, in the hinterland of Peru. Fabulous bird, gave me hideous nightmares for a week.”
“Interesting. Very well, my answer to your question is yes.”
“Ask me anything, anytime you want,” he said, one finger stroking her belly and electrifying her so much they could have boiled water on her and made tea. “I’m happy to slake your curiosity.”
Beth reddened, for his words seemed as risqué as his behavior. He continued to slide his fingers farther down—then stopped, his progress thwarted by the unrelenting nature of her waistband. Silently cursing women’s fashions, Beth reached behind to unfasten a hook, loosening the band.
“Thank you kindly,” Devon said, and proceeded on course.
As he reached between her legs, Beth inhaled air that tingled with linnet magic, imbuing her senses with an exquisite sensitivity. “Oh my holy hens,” she gasped.
