Page 18 of A Daring Pursuit

With a sure hand on her arm, Noah led her through the rubble to the one door that led to his laboratory. Conundrum that she was, it would be fascinating to gauge her reaction to the various charts and skeletal bones lying about. He pulled the key from his waistcoat pocket, unlocked the door, and lit a candle from one of the sconces.

“What is this place?” Curiosity, not fear, shaded her voice. “It’s cold.”

“The stairs down lead to my laboratory,” he said, assessing her carefully.

To his surprise, her lips twitched. “Dr. Frankenstein?”

His response mirrored hers and then, he couldn’t refrain—he grinned outright. “Not quite.”

“I’ve never been in a laboratory. Might I see?”

The stairs were original to Stonemare. Concrete and cold. As a safety measure, he descended before her. “Take hold of the rail, please. The descent is treacherous.” His boots echoed compared to the scuff of her kid-leather-booted heels. She was light onher feet. That was a surprise because despite Miss Wimbley’s ethereal and waiflike appearance, her presence seemed larger than life. She did not present to him as someone prone to fading into unpainted wainscoting.

He opened the door then went about lighting the lamps within, feeling the heat of her gaze with his movements about. Heneverleft candles burning, not a single one and not for a single moment. Too much could go wrong. He’d learned much from the turret distastefulness. The thought touched him with a wry smile. He returned near the door. “Do you wish to remove your cloak?”

In response, she slipped it off and handed it to him.

Noah hung it on a peg near the door, then slipped off his own. He leaned against the wall with one ankle crossed over the other, his arms folded over his chest, and observed her. She kept her hands clasped at the lower back of the cheap, muslin frock she wore. Its dark-blue color matched her eyes to perfection. She moved around the chamber like a graceful woodland nymph, stopping and leaning in when he reached Isabelle’s infamous—amongfamily only, of course—Bug Board. Frankly, some of the species sent shivers up his spine.

“This area seems different,” she said.

“Isabelle’s interests lean toward entomology.” He smiled. “I gave her an entire corner.”

“Unusual for normal girls.”

The truth had finally revealed itself. Disappointment crashed over him. “She is a normal girl,” he ground out.

Her face raised, her eyes darting to his. Her brows lifted, her expression questioning, before her eyes widened and then narrowed on him. “You misunderstand me, sir. I attended school with a group of young, overprivileged women whose only accomplishments were stitching a straight line in theirembroidery or painting a presentable landscape. Neither of which I ever perfected.”

“Oh.”

Her boldness would drive him mad, he decided, if he dissected every statement uttered from her. With a deep breath he let out slowly, vowing to listen and to restrain his assumptions. She was different. He just had to work out the rhythms and directness rather than assigning subtext to her. “Isabelle wishes to become a doctor.”

A soft smile tilted her full lips. The sight blasted him with unbridled desire. “I have no doubt she shall succeed. It’s a daunting path she is choosing for herself. Dorothea Erxleben is the only woman physician I’ve heard of and she hailed from Quedlinburg of the Holy Roman Empire. And that was years ago. She received her medical degree in 1754.”

“My, you are a fount of knowledge,” he murmured, stunned.

She flashed him a quick grin. “I remember because it was the same year Lord Hardwicke’s Act was enacted. You know, the one where a marriage was not allowed unless parental consent had been obtained for anyone under the age of twenty-one? Since Scotland did not adopt that law, a man could hie off with an heiress and force her to marry him. Hence, Gretna Green.” She wrinkled her nose and went back to her perfusing. “As I said, ’tis a difficult path that lay ahead. I, however, greatly admire such aspirations.” The genuineness coming from her set forth a rush of something ancient in his blood.

“It sounds as if you have a few aspirations of your own,” he said.

“Mmm,” was her only response before pausing near his microscope and examining the bottles of various chemicals. Miss Wimbley then moved on to the middle area before coming to an abrupt halt.

Her eyes flashed to him literally sparkling. “Tell me these bones are not human.”

“I guess I couldtellyou that,” he hedged.

“Oh, my,” she breathed. She brought up an index finger and traced the line of one of two talus bones that lay side by side. “What is it?”

His skin tingled, and he could swear he felt the heat of that breath from across the chamber. The very large chamber. “They are ankle bones.”

“May I hold one?”

In an instant, he was crossing the room. “No, er, I mean—”

“I’ll be gentle,” she said with a smile directed at the table, not at him, that nonetheless had the ability of stealing his breath.

With the forthright audacity she’d already exhibited on at least two previous occasions, she lifted one of his bones.

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