Chapter Twenty-Four
The great doors to the building rose before them like a fortress of power and possibility, all stern stone and soaring arches.Bea had seen it from the outside countless times, but never like this, never while being ushered through its private entrance by a man who strode as though he belonged to every chamber, every echoing corridor, every whisper of influence that traveled through those walls.
Nicholas offered his arm.She took it, her heart still beating so quickly she thought she might need assistance.
“Try not to look so nervous,” he murmured as they crossed the threshold.
“Nervous?”she scoffed.“I’m perfectly— Oh.”Her breath caught.
The interior was a cathedral of political history.The scent of ink and old wood.The low murmur of distant voices behind closed doors.The weight of decisions made centuries before her birth.
It was magnificent.
As Nicholas watched her take it all in, his expression softened into something unbearably warm.He knew.He knew exactly what this would do to her.
Blast him.
“You brought me here on purpose,” she said under her breath.
“Of course,” he replied lightly.“Why else does one bring Lady Beatrix Winslow anywhere?”
“Usually to irritate her,” she said with a laugh.
“Irritating you is a privilege, not a purpose,” he said with a smile that saidI know precisely what I’m doing.
“Here,” he continued, guiding her to the first gallery.“Members’ Entrance.You’ll want to remember it for the day you take over Parliament yourself.”
She blinked.“Pardon?”
He nodded seriously.“I’ve no doubt you will run the place someday.”
She eyed him carefully.
“You think I haven’t noticed the way you watch debates at your father’s salon?Or the way you listen, not for rhetoric, but for subtext?The way you analyze who holds which opinion and why?”
Her pulse skipped.She hoped it did not show.“You notice far too much,” she muttered.
“I notice precisely enough.”
He gestured her through the doorway, his hand hovering politely at the small of her back, close but not touching.It sent a line of heat along her spine, regardless.
“This,” he continued, “is the antechamber outside the Lords.Here is where the real arguments occur.Quiet ones, between men who pretend to be on the same side.”
She inhaled sharply.This was the heart of the world she’d studied in secret.The place behind all the doors she’d only imagined.The place where the reform bill would be voted upon in only a matter of days.
Nicholas leaned closer, his voice brushing her ear.“Would you like to see the voting records?”
Her breath stilled.
Was he teasing her?Mocking her?She studied him.No, he was looking at her with the same keen, knowing awareness he always did.
“Very much,” she said before she could stop herself.
Nicholas smiled—slow and pleased—and led her deeper into Parliament.
Parliament was not in session today, but as they walked, she noticed the way he nodded respectfully to clerks, how some bowed slightly, how others greeted him with quiet deference.He belonged here.He thrived here.
And somehow, impossibly, he had broughther.
