Page 71 of The Gentlewoman Apprentice

The maid entered with a stiff bit of plaster and departed the room. Meg cut a small square and moistened her lips. She pressed the plaster to her mouth until she felt it soften, then extended her palm, feeling the intimacy of his eyes upon her and the charged air between them. Mr. Sloan set his hand over hers, sending a flush up the length of Meg’s arm, which settled deliciously in her chest. She cleared her throat. They were speaking of her valentine. Were her feelings in this moment traitorous?

“Everyone waits to be told by the valentine himself? Never in the history of this strange tradition has anyone broken that rule and sought the identity of her valentine through other means?” She pressed the plaster gently over the red bead on his forefinger. Their knees brushed, and Meg was aware of surrendering to his pull. Not ready to relinquish his touch, her fingers curled around his palm. Their hands fell to the sofa. His palm turned, pressed against hers, then retreated.

“Once. They are Mr. and Mrs. Jones and live in a cottage near the edge of town with ten young children. She bribed the postboy with an unbelievable sum of money. It was an outrage.”

Meg’s hand tingled. She was losing her focus. “Clearly, the method has much to recommend it. But I take your point. I am not in the market for a husband. Though I would like to know, especially if he doesn’t know that I know, you see? It is unfair he is aware of my person while I am ignorant of his.”

He made a noncommittal noise.

“You aren’t going to help me?” An idea entered her head. She narrowed in on his face, prepared to catch the merest twitch of his countenance. “It isn’t you, is it?”

He burst out laughing. “Can you imagine the impropriety of accepting such an assignment?”

Relief made her feel slightly limp. Good. Her life was complicated enough without that happenstance. Or had her heart dropped in disappointment?

“Perhaps we could strike a bargain,” he said.

“What do you propose?”

“If I tell you one thing, you must not ask me anymore.” His voice was gruff.

“But what if it’s utterly useless?”

“I think you’ll find this tidbit interesting. I happen to know your valentine, and you have made a conquest of him. He is utterly and completely lost to reason where you are concerned.” He returned to his sewing, deftly stringing thread through needle before sewing a perfect seam.

A thrill zipped up her spine, followed by a heavy snagging at her heart. Meg felt numb, her hands useless and heavy in her lap. Her valentine was utterly and completely lost to reason over her. A sort of half laugh coughed from her chest as her true wish materialized. She yearned for Mr. Sloan to make the confession on his own behalf, wished that he somehow had put his name in the valentine exchange box, and that her name had somehow found her way into his hand. He was real, generating heat beside her so it crept from his person through her body, and it was all too easy to imagine that he and her valentine were one and the same.

She needed to move. “I must stretch my legs. Do you fancy a look around the house? I can give you a tour.”

He met her gaze, trapping a vulnerable something before she fully captured it. “I’m intrigued.”

They wrapped the gown, and Meg led Mr. Sloan to the dining room, reciting as many arbitrary facts about the house as she could. “With all the molding, there are seven colors of paint, if you can believe it.”

He bent closer to examine the detail. “Subtle, but it certainly makes a statement.”

“And look at the rug.”

They both stepped back to appreciate the Turkish carpet, a crimson masterpiece with cerulean and royal blue accents.

“I never cared much for wealth,” Meg admitted, “but I love the textiles.”

Mr. Sloan looked at her, one of his penetrating gazes. It occurred to her that he might think she spoke of his home, simple but overflowing with gorgeous fabrics.

She cleared her throat. “Would you like to see chintz?” They entered an adjoining room. “I don’t know what they call this room, but I dubbed it Variation on a Theme of Turkish Rug.”

“For the colors?”

“Mm,” she assented. The cobalt of the dining room rug saturated the walls, while white Indian chintz covered in red florals served as window and sofa coverings. Large mirrors and windows prevented the room from succumbing to heaviness. Books adorned one wall, but this was not the library, which housed a much more impressive collection. “I believe Lady Halverton uses this room to study and entertain close friends.”

She took him to the salon looking over the garden where emerald walls held large birds and flowers in the foreground. Floor-to-ceiling windows without coverings flooded the room with light.

“The rain stopped,” he said.

They stepped toward the window and stood shoulder to shoulder, the sun warming their faces. She felt his proximity all along the side of her body. She wished to turn toward him as one might a glowing fire.

Finally she broke herself from the spell and led him to the portrait gallery for the amber chintz dressing the windows, cascading ceiling to floor in a leafy pattern.

Mr. Sloan picked up the fabric. “There are a dozen colors here, hours upon hours of work.”