“He cares for your aunt a great deal. That is clear.”
“You truly think so?” She turned back to him, and for the first time he noticed a dusting of cinnamon-colored freckles on her nose and cheeks.
“He offered to buy Invermere for her.”
She reared back at that, and her green eyes widened.
“Will he?” She’d let go of his arm and laid a hand briefly on his thigh. “That would solve everything, wouldn’t it?”
“According to Blackwood, your aunt would never allow such a thing.”
She let out a long sigh. “She is a stubborn lady.”
“That’s what he said.” James chuckled. “He thought perhaps you take after her in that respect.” He side-eyed her and smiled when she let out a little gasp of outrage.
“I’mnotstubborn,” she said through gritted teeth. Stubbornly.
James let out a laugh too loud for politeness and several of the passengers nearby stared and some offered loudly whispered condemnations. As soon as he got himself under control, Lucy started, pressing a hand to her mouth to stop from making as much noise as he had.
Afterward, she smiled up at him, her shoulder nudging his slightly. He made the mistake of noticing her lips. Her gorgeous expressive lips. Then hergaze dropped to his mouth, and the desire between them became a tangible thing.
He hadn’t been able to kiss her properly last night, and he wanted to make up for it now.
Reaching out, he stroked his fingers along her cheek, her skin petal soft and warmed by the sun.
Ignoring all the reasons he shouldn’t, he slid his hand along her neck, cupping her nape to draw her closer.
“No!” A man’s voice rose above the din of chatter in the train car. “Someone, please—”
When the passengers in front of them turned to see what caused the commotion, James turned too, still holding on to Lucy.
At the same moment, she slipped from his grasp and landed in his lap. He let out a half gasp, half groan at the feel of her sweet, round backside sliding across his groin, but then she was gone. She’d climbed over him to get out into the aisle, where dozens of documents fluttered from a suitcase on the rail across from them.
“Forgive me,” she whispered to James. “I need to help him.
“Let me,” she said to a bespectacled older man who was trying unsuccessfully to capture the falling papers in his arms, especially when the ladies seated around him barked at him when he tried to retrieve papers that had fallen on or near them.
The lady sitting below the railing, where the burst suitcase sat, shrieked when a tied bundle knocked her hat askew before falling into the aisle.
A few other passengers stood but weren’t doing much to aid the unfortunate man.
James leaned into the aisle and scooped up what he could, then tried to assemble them into a neat pile, though whatever order they’d been in was completely lost.
“Here are these,” he told Lucy, who’d knelt in the aisle to scoop stray documents from under the train benches and collect those that had drifted further up the aisle.
He helped her as much as he could, though the aisle was narrow and the minute he stepped into it, he trod on a few papers and felt like a menace.
It took a good quarter of an hour to collect every last piece they could find, and Lucy wouldn’t stop attending to the man until he was settled back in his seat, busy sorting his collection, his suitcase secured as well as it could be with a broken latch.
When she approached their bench, James slid out to let her reclaim her place by the window.
“I’ve only seen one other person react to someone in need that quickly.”
“Really? Who was that?” For the first time since they’d met, she seemed uncomfortable with his regard. As if she feared he was judging her harshly, when the opposite was true.
“She was a nurse at an East End clinic.”
“I’d be an awful nurse. Blood makes me queasy, as you’ll recall.”
