“I can’t imagine why. The place is full of demon dogs, murderous ghosts, highwaymen, and mysterious strangers on enormous black horses…”
Amelia smiled. “Only in novels.”
“And populist newspapers.” Caleb joined her in tracing the holes of the lacework, and their fingers gently tangled and twisted together, the way they had so often over the years.
“Ah, well, if you are going to cite suchexcellentsources,” Amelia remarked wryly, “what can I do but submit to you?”
Caleb went still, fingers and breath and even, it seemed, his very pulse. Then he exhaled and began to brush his thumb to and fro across the back of her hand. Amelia’s breath shivered delightfully. “You never submit to anyone,” he said.
“Just Professor Ottersock,” she amended, despite a swarm of flutters threatening to sweep her voice away, along with whatever intelligence she had remaining after her decision to knock on a gentleman’s bedroom door near midnight.
“We’re sitting together in bed,” Caleb said, as if she needed a reminder. “That doesn’t look much like submission to Ottersock.”
“Only because he’ll never know what we’re doing. Should he find out, I’ll have no choice but to take that job in Heidelberg, regardless of my mother’s prejudice.” She sighed as if it were a foregone conclusion. “I’d never see you again.”
“Of course you would,” he answered at once, lightly scoffing.“No man could keep me from you, Amelia. And no sea is so vast that I would not cross it to reach you.”
Amelia straightened so she could arch an eyebrow at him. “Is that from a poem? Or have you been reading a seduction manual?”
He laughed and choked simultaneously. “Have I— A what?”
“A seduction manual. I’ve confiscated more than one from my students during class. Actually…” She paused, pondering her recollections. “They mentioned submission too.”
Caleb appeared to be in immediate danger of perishing from asphyxiation. “Amelia!” he managed to gasp. “You’re not supposed to read books like that!”
“There was nothing else to do at the time,” she answered with such dignity, her chin lifted of its own accord. “The class was busy with a snap quiz.”
“A snap quiz you set so you could read the book,” Caleb accused.
His big-brother attitude abruptly annoyed her. “For goodness’ sake, Caleb, I’m all grown up—”
“Oh, I’mveryaware.”
The rest of Amelia’s sentence devolved into an unblinking look. The atmosphere reeled with shock. Caleb, belatedly having realized what he’d said, went more ghost white than King John. The safety he’d promised now vanished as if it had fallen off the precipice on which their relationship suddenly found itself. Although, to be fair, Amelia knew deep down that they’d been edging toward this point ever since they began fake hating. Caleb might have been the first to make a verbal slip, but she herself was sure to have done so, given a little more time. Evidently there was nothing like forbidding a romance to make one obsess over the attractions of the veryperson one was not allowed to consider. Poor Ottersock; had he but known, he’d have left well enough alone.
It will be fine,Amelia thought, trying to soothe herself.If I work quickly, I can fix this situation and get us back to our comfortable normalcy.
Or…
“It’s very late,” she said with a coolness she absolutely did not feel. “Let’s stop talking, all right?”
Caleb nodded, still looking stunned. “All right,” he agreed.
“Excellent.” She nodded too, unconsciously copying him. “Now kiss me good night.”
Chapter Eleven
Everyone believes they are the hero of their own story.
I, on the Past, Cornelius Ottersock
Caleb was asleepand dreaming. He could think of no other explanation for the magic that was unfurling in the strange, gothic heart of this stormy night. First, Amelia had appeared at his door, looking like an angel come to rescue him from his usual nightmares. Second…Actually, no, he would not count as second the fact that her nightgown was practically transparent in the lantern light, because he did not so much as even glance at it. His eyes merely twitched downward, that was all, due to the lateness of the hour.
Besides, there never was asecondwhen it came to Amelia Tarrant.
He might not have peeked at her body (really, trust him on this, he was a completely reliable narrator) but he did notice the way she peeked at his, and he came so perilously close to hardening that he had to hastily don a shirt in case his self-control failed. This hadn’t stopped him from folding up its sleeves, though, because he couldn’t quite resist making those long, black eyelashes of hers flutter. He’d not spent years in thecompany of a female best friend without learning just how much women appreciated men’s forearms. And he certainly wasn’t above exploiting that knowledge.
What he’d most honestly wanted to do was rip off the shirt, and the underwear, and invite her to feast her eyes, or whatever else she chose, on the entirety of his naked body. But he loved that she’d come to his door, trusting him to shelter her in the haunted night, and he’d never betray that trust, not even as every muscle in him strained with the desire to feast on her naked body too.
