Monster,my companion said.Just like you.
I frowned as I stepped inside, choosing not to examine that assessment too closely.
Warmth struck me at once, overwhelming after the bitter cold. I blinked into the dimness as Hawthorne closed the door behind me.
The entrance hall was grand but unexpectedly ordinary. Dark wood paneling stretched toward a sweeping staircase that curved upward into shadow. A few landscape paintings adorned the walls, competently rendered yet wholly unremarkable. The floor had been polished to a dull gleam, the runner worn in the center from years of foot traffic. A halltable held a simple vase of dried flowers, their petals brown and papery with age. They leaned toward the window with such foolish hope that I almost pitied them.
The interior held little of interest—no visible trace of Dr. Ambrose's controversial research, no cluttered chaos belonging to a bachelor scientist's dwelling. This orderly domesticity was almost disappointing in its conventionality.
The air smelled of wood smoke and beeswax polish, underlaid with notes of greenery—sweet and floral, out of place so early in the season. The scent tugged at the back of my mind, but before I had the opportunity to pursue the thought, Dr. Nicholas Ambrose appeared at the top of the stairs.
As he descended into the pale light filtering through the entrance hall windows, I forgot how to breathe.
He was tall and broad-shouldered, with the capable build of a man who worked with his hands as much as his mind. Dark hair, thick and unruly, fell over his brow in a way that made him look perpetually disheveled despite the quality of his clothes. His skin carried a warm, golden tone that spoke of long hours beneath glass and sun. He looked nothing like the distant, controversial figure I had constructed from his published works—and far too much like someone I had no business reacting to so strongly.
Then I met his eyes.
Amber. Warm as honey held to lamplight.
The cold, bitter loneliness I knew so well surged through me without warning. It rose so sharply that I nearly staggered beneath it. I had no reason to miss him with suchaching desperation, no reason to believe any essential part of me recognized him.
But I did.
The certainty terrified me almost as much as it confused me.
I stared, speechless, and rude, and entirely unable to stop myself.
He was handsome, undeniably so, a face that belonged in society portraits rather than dusty laboratories. I had expected him to be older, perhaps, more eccentric. It unsettled me, the disconnect between the man I had imagined and the one before me.
"Miss Reed," he said, his voice drawing me from my thoughts. "You are late."
"Yes,” I replied, disturbingly breathless. “I apologize. The storm—"
"Made travel difficult," he finished, lifting one hand in careless dismissal. "I assumed as much."
He reached the bottom of the stairs, never taking his attention from me. "Hawthorne, please take her coat."
The peculiar servant moved behind me, and I startled when cool hands touched my shoulders, helping me free of the heavy wool. Dr. Ambrose tracked the movement, pausing momentarily on my gloved hands as I pulled them from the sleeves.
Would he think it odd that I refused to remove them?
I groaned inwardly, wishing I had thought to layer my silks beneath the thick leathers.
His expression gave nothing away, though his gaze lingered there a moment too long before lifting to the ribbon around my throat. The instinct to cover it came swift and involuntary, a reflex I barely managed to suppress.
Dr. Ambrose's jaw tightened almost imperceptibly, betraying the emotion caught behind his composure. There was a faint nick along the curve of his bone, I noticed, perhaps from shaving. I had the sudden urge to press my thumb against it until the wound opened again.
You want to know if he opens as beautifully as a flower,my companion mused, tasting the thought and appreciating the morbid detail.
"This way," he said, already turning down a corridor and scattering the image in his wake. "We will speak in my study."
I followed, aware of Hawthorne's soundless presence behind me and the quiet sorrow that seemed to deepen the farther we went.
The corridor maintained the same bland normalcy as the entrance hall. There were more paintings, a few pieces of antique, but well-kept furniture—nothing to suggest the occupant spent his days working with deadly botanical specimens.
Then he opened the door, and my opinion changed.
The study was everything I had imagined a scholar's sanctuary should be.
