“Youhave no words? Now you’re copying me.” Edie didn’t realize how loud her screech was until the older man across the aisle turned to frown at her American lack of comportment. She lowered her voice to a harsh whisper. “Look, Cosima, how am I supposed to respond to something like that?”
“Not at all, if you’re going to offer up a lot of rationalization. Besides, I’m pretty sure if I’m thinking about it, it’s because you’re thinking about it, too. As much as I continue to enjoy our charming banter, I’d rather you gracefully receive my admission or tell me, of course, that you want to kissme.”
Without stopping, interjected Edie’s crush demon.Tell her you want to kiss her without stopping.
“Seriously?” Edie tried to cool her face with the backs of her hands. “Who wouldn’t want to kiss you, woman?”
That was what her mouth decided to go with. For fuck’s sake. She looked at the annoyed British man to see if he was hearing this, too. He was. He seemed disappointed in her. Same. “With the hair and the blue, blue eyes and the legs? You must know that your cold, imperious reserve only makes what you have on offer hotter.”
Cosima leaned forward and wrapped her hands around Edie’s wrists to tug them away from her face. She was so close, smelling as edibly expensive as a pastel pink buttercream rose on a two-thousand-dollar wedding cake.
Go wake up the princess.That was what Morag had said.
Now the princess was awake—very, very awake—and Edie seemed to remember there were a lot of rules about awake princesses and kissing.
“I want to kiss you.” Cosima’s voice emerged honey-smooth from her throat. “I don’t think it’s vacation, or grief, or the treasure hunt, orfriendship. I want to kissyou, Edie Whitelock.” Cosima shook her head as though amazed at herself before she continued. “I’ve never had anything like this to tell anyone. In fact, other than a revolting handful of minutes at a party where I was compelled by a game to kiss Leland Cronkite until an ice cube from the champagne bucket melted in my hand, I haven’t kissed anyone, and I haven’t wanted to, and I have always been content. Until now.”
Just when Edie had thought Cosima couldn’t layer on any more stakes, she’d frosted the entire situation with pastel swoops of demisexuality. Edie did not have the defenses. She would bestuck dreaming forever, trying not to beg for what she wanted most.
Which meant she couldn’t feint. Or lie. She only had to exercise some self-restraint, for the first time ever. “I mean, yes. Yeah. Of course I want to kiss you. Obviously.” Edie’s voice cracked like a twelve-year-old boy’s.
When Cosima smiled, her upper lip caught ever so slightly on an incisor, and Edie ached in such a delicious way that she could not think.
Cosima came closer, her hair brushing Edie’s cheek, her famous eyes searching. Edie’s heart kicked hard inside her chest. Cosimadidn’tkiss her, but Edie’s mouth could feel how little space had been between their lips before Cosima brushed past them and put them against Edie’s ear.
“Thank you,” she whispered. “I look forward to it.”
Then she pulled back, letting the warm air inside the train fill in the space between them. Edie’s heart still hadn’t found a rhythm when Cosima looked away, leaving Edie with at least a dozen more questions.
But the moment to ask them had dissolved—or hadn’t come yet, if it ever would.
A recorded voice told them their next stop was Sleaford, where they would transfer to the train that would take them to their castle.
Chapter Thirteen
Cosima watched as Edie shifted her weight from one foot to the other, wrapped her arms around herself, and twisted at the waist. With the exception of a small child who had just finished trying to use a chocolate Flake bar as a lipstick and hadn’t stayed in the lines, Edie was the only person in their group fidgeting to such a degree.
Cosima sympathized. She was having a hard time attending to the tour herself.
“The castle had fallen on harder times by the nineteenth century, when the Fortescue family allowed it to decline to near ruin. The stones you stand on were used as a cowshed.” Barnabus Dankworth, their volunteer tour guide, stroked his gray chinstrap with long fingers. “Then they sold out to an American syndicate, which had the castle’s magnificent fireplaces dismantled and shipped to London to be transported overseas. If you’ll please follow me to the next room, I’ll tell you the rest of that story about the heroics of Lord Curzon,who rescued the fireplaces and launched a preservation movement.”
“Maybe they could light a fire in it and we wouldn’t freeze to death while we stood around learning about fireplaces,” Edie whispered.
“I’d think you were warm enough from all the moving around you’re doing.” It was bitterly cold inside of Tattershall Castle. Since the castle was a National Trust landmark, not an occupied dwelling, that was to be expected.
Edie pressed close to Cosima’s side—a different kind of torture. “The Mars Cheese Castle in Kenosha back home is at least as impressive as this place, and it doesn’t cost twelve pounds just to get through the door. In fact, there are so many samples, you wouldn’t have to even buy a cheese to stay warm and well fed.”
“I thought you were vegan.”
“Not at Mars Cheese Castle.”
She tried not to laugh and snorted instead, which meant Edie grinned into her hand. After Cosima had nearly self-immolated on the train, she was having trouble with the smiles. And the wordless looks. The shiny hair. The tight jeans. All of it.
“Cosima.” Edie was on her tiptoes, whispering under the drone of Barnabus talking about Ralph, Third Baron Cromwell and King Henry VI’s Lord Treasurer, who’d built the castle. She curled her hand over Cosima’s shoulder to aid her balance.
“What?” She put a bit of steel in her voice so Edie couldn’t tell that she was annihilated with tenderness.
“We have to ditch. Wehaveto. It’s going to take hours to work out what clue we’re supposed to pay attention to in this pile. I’d rather visit every city in Italy, France, and Wales in alphabetical order than stay in this tour group and hope this guy will point out something that tells us where to go next.”
