“Oh.” Interest lit her eyes. “Do you see him often?”
“Not as often as I probably should. We’re both busy with work, besides which he has a wife and three children.”
She was quiet a moment but Peter could sense a new question forming. Considering what he’d just told her, he also had an inkling of what it might be.
He wasn’t wrong.
“You never married?” She toyed with the cord from her reticule. An indication that posing the question made her self-conscious. Nervous. Yet she’d done it — thrown the question into the space between them in anticipation of getting an answer.
He sighed. “No.”
“Why not?” Another probing question though this one stilled her movements.
Peter considered how best to respond. The last thing he wanted from her was pity, and yet, he wanted to give her the truth. So he took a deep breath and pushed the air from his lungs before confessing, “Because the woman I wanted picked someone else.”
A quick beat and then, “Was she cracked in the head?”
Peter snorted with amusement. The seriousness with which Miss Hastings asked the question was simply too… He wasn’t sure what, but it made something deep inside him — something that had always felt out of place — realign.
“I don’t believe so,” he told her. “This was over two decades ago, you understand. I didn’t have much to offer. No home of my own or the kind of income required to support a wife, never mind children. Catherine Davies made the right choice for herself at the time by marrying the vicar. And in so doing, she put me on this path. I left Berkshire and came to London. Became a Runner and worked my way up from there.”
“Then it would seem I owe Miss Davies my thanks. Had you wed her, you probably wouldn’t be here right now.”
Although she failed to add with me, the implication was there. Was it not? Peter barely dared breathe. It was the closest she’d ever come to suggesting his feelings for her were reciprocated. Unless he was choosing to think in such terms because it was what he wished for.
Wouldn’t be the first time he’d fallen prey to such an error, and when it came to Miss Hastings, he dared not risk it. Asking her to elaborate, to tell him exactly what she meant, would be like laying his own heart bare when there was every chance she might say that Bow Street was lucky to have him — that London was safer for it.
So he merely responded with a bland smile and asked, “What of you, Miss Hastings? Did none of your beaus strike your fancy?”
She drew back, like a tortoise trying to hide inside its shell, as though she hoped the bench on which she sat might swallow her whole. After a second however, she deigned to say, “For that to occur, I’d have had to have at least one.”
It was Peter’s turn to stare at her in mute silence. “That can’t be right.”
She tightened her jaw and tilted her chin up a fraction, the bob of her throat as she swallowed conveying her discomfort. “Well, it is. My sisters were all pursued by numerous gentlemen, but I think I was always considered too great a challenge. At least that’s what Miranda tells me. She’s my oldest sister and happily married these past ten years to a barrister named Tom.”
Peter took a tentative step onto the proverbial ice. “There’s something to be said about challenges. They tend to test our capabilities and mental faculties, which is far more engaging than the alternative.”
“You don’t have to placate me, Kendrick.”
Her sharp tone was proof of an underlying insecurity he’d never noticed in her before. It made him want to cross to the opposite bench and pull her into his arms. As he’d been tempted to do before. Especially when she’d confessed her fears of underground spaces.
Astonished by the vulnerability of such an otherwise confident woman, he could think of nothing else to say besides, “I wouldn’t dare.”
A moment passed before she huffed a breath. “I think you’ll agree that I can be difficult.”
“Because you constantly voice your disapproval of my smoking?” When she merely flattened her lips in response, he shrugged one shoulder. “I’d rather you did that than put up with something you hate. It’s more open and honest.”
“Hmm…”
He couldn’t tell if she agreed or not and decided to let the matter rest. As it was, he’d conveyed his admiration for her much more than was probably wise. If he weren’t careful, she’d—
“How old are you, if you don’t mind my asking.”
Peter tensed, the muscles in his stomach compressing under the weight of her unexpected question. His heart was once again banging against his chest as if to remind him that this was dangerous territory.
Intent on demanding as much from her as she did from him, he chose to respond with another question. “Why do you ask?”
“I, um…” She gave her head a swift shake, averting her gaze. Although the light within the carriage was dim, he could tell she’d turned a deep shade of crimson. “I’m not sure what I was thinking. Please forgive me. That’s far too personal and not my business and—”
