Page 40 of Mr. Eastwood’s Match

His voice in her ear said, “I will warn you, his voice is nothing to the cannon fire, my lady.” A soft squeeze. Then his fingers withdrew.

Emily found herself hoping the cannons began firing quickly. Because, perhaps, he would reach out to calm her again. It was foolish, but she longed for any excuse to feel his hand on hers once more.

Lyness had not come to the exhibition intending to plant himself at Lady Emily Sterling’s side. Truly, he had not. He had meant to accompany his mother and brother, make himself available should need arise, and stand somewhere unobtrusive.

Unobtrusive, however, proved impossible the moment Christopher Holly murmured that Lady Emily was among the company.

His feet changed direction before he consciously made the decision, before Holly had even invited him to join them. A poor showing of restraint, but he could not bring himself to regret it. He joined their perfectly respectable little party. Respectable enough that no one should question his presence.

Except himself. He questioned a lot of things about himself.

He bowed and murmured his greetings, and she looked at him with that gentle, incandescent smile that undid his good intentions quicker than any artillery barrage. When she answered that she could think of no one better to share the spectacle with, he thought he might never recover his wits.

He ought to have stood several inches farther back. He ought to have kept a careful, gentlemanly distance. He ought to have stopped himself from leaning near enough that his breath stirred the loose curls at her neck when he warned her about the cymbals.

But he did none of those things. He stood too close. He spoke too softly. He indulged himself shamelessly.

And when the first crash of cymbals split the air, sharp enough to rattle the floorboards, she flinched—only slightly, but he saw it.

Before he could think better of it, his fingers closed warmly around hers a second time.

Too familiar. Far too familiar. And yet stopping himself felt impossible. His entire life had been governed by restraint and measured behavior; he could not recall a single moment of impulse that had ever rewarded him. Besides those that had made her smile, such as offering his hat for the canary, his calligraphy for her bottles, and now this.

This felt like stepping into sunlight after standing in shadows.

“Forgive me,” he murmured near her ear, barely a breath of sound. “Perhaps a warning was not enough.”

She turned her head, eyes wide, lips parted slightly in surprise. The soft lamplight caught against her lashes, and for one reckless heartbeat he imagined lowering his lips to hers.

Madness.

Though he released her hand at once, his palm tingled with the memory of her warmth.

He folded his hands behind his back where they could do no more mischief, and he stared straight ahead at the rolling canvas of Algiers. He heard none of the narration. His entire awareness remained fixed on the woman standing barely in front of him—the slight tremor she tried to hide, the way her shoulders stiffened at each loud report, the delicate brush of her curls on the back of her neck.

He was too familiar by half.

And yet… If another crash came, he knew, with a sinking certainty, he would take her hand again. Unless he put distance between them. The crowd around them made such a thing difficult. He could see no easy way to slide through the audience without drawing attention or causing irritation.

Somehow, Lyness had trapped himself in a position of blissful torture.

The panorama canvas continued to move before him, the mechanism employed wrapping the already viewed scenes to one side while the other uncurled to present new images of ships firing upon each other in a harbor. People around him gasped and exclaimed at the brightly painted water and smoke rising from the ships’ guns.

Lady Emily’s hand reached back at the same moment his reached forward, and he held on to her, gently, as the drums rolled and cymbals punctuated the narration of the battle. Others in the crowd covered their ears. A few stepped backward. Mrs. Elgin had squeezed her eyes shut and covered her ears when mirrored light flashed across the audience.

Aware of it all, Lyness’s focus remained on Lady Emily’s slender fingers in his grasp. His whole focus narrowed to that touch of their gloved hands. He wished he had the right to hold her hand always, and not only here, where no one would see in the dimly lit room and between the press of bodies.

Somewhere behind him, along the wall, Roman stood with their mother. Lyness knew this. Roman could likely see Lyness’s head and shoulders, his position relative to Lady Emily’s, and his older brother would suspect nothing amiss. He would never think that Lyness harbored feelings for a woman Roman wished to court. And how would it be, if Roman made a formal request of courtship? And if he succeeded in drawing Lady Emily’s affection, how would Lyness stamp out his own attraction to her?

“This is incredible,” she whispered over her shoulder to him, eyes wide with wonder.

“Yes. Incredible.” That one word meant something entirely different to him as red lamplight shone, the canvas moving to bring the flicker of fire to mind. He barely heard the final words the master of ceremonies spoke.

“When Lord Exmouth considered that he had accomplished the objects of his mission, he ordered the ships to retire as before mentioned, which, from their crippled state, they did with great difficulty. The enemy, upon their withdrawing, opened, with fresh vigor, a tremendous discharge of shells, which was answered by showers of rockets from the boats. At this moment a violent thunder-storm began, accompanied with lightning, which swept along the ships in vivid streams; whilst the pealing of the thunder far exceeded in loudness the ‘cannon’s deafening roar.’ The combined effect of the thunder, the lightning, the noise of the loud-mouthed cannon, and the arsenal and the ships, now in flames, was at once terrific, overwhelming, and sublime.”

The roar of the imagined cannon fire died away, leaving the room in a vibrating hush. Lyness exhaled, slow and quiet, as Lady Emily’s fingers slipped from his. He let his hand fall, let his shoulders return to their proper posture, let the mask of polite interest settle once more across features that felt far too warm.

What was he doing?