Page 35 of Undercover with the Heiress
‘Blend in,’ she replied.
‘And rule number two?’
‘What does that matter?’
‘Just think on it.’ He pressed his forehead against hers. ‘It’s more important than the first, although comes after it. What could be more essential than blending in?’
Intense, cold, indifferent. Rosanna searched the unemotional angles of Phineas’s expression as the question turned in hermind. Blend in, he always said to her. She’d always craved the opposite, but how much of Phineas’s demeanour was about blending in, and what had he shown her that was different? How much was a facade to keep others at a distance? His closeness compressed her skirts, and she held his level stare in the low light, hands touching but not holding, just humming living energy into the small shard of space between them.
What did the efficient bank clerk obscure?
He let Spencer drink milk from his table every morning.
His sharp tongue was one edge to a perceptive mind.
He didn’t have to help her when Mrs Crofts accosted her in the park.
He listened to her body until she was both screaming and speechless.
‘Never be what they expect you are,’ she said.
His mouth twisted into a slight smirk of acknowledgement. ‘And beneath all the prattle and gowns, you are nothing like I expected.’ And he eased into her just a little more, so that his cheekbone pressed firm against her tingling skin. His lips skimmed the shell of her ear. A meandering hunger, a tingle of want tentatively fizzed and flickered through her. ‘We shouldn’t,’ he whispered.
Rosanna hooked a finger around his. ‘No, we shouldn’t.’
Phineas turned his cheek, and the bristle on his chin scuffed her lips. Stiff, unmoving, he retreated into himself, even though they remained pressed together. ‘Just the pipes,’ he said, then shook her free. ‘We have what we need.’
Rosanna slid the ledger back into the drawer. Phineas cast his gaze across the desk, and slightly adjusted the placement of the candle and a blotter. She waited for him by the door. Her heart beat out of sync in an odd patter, and she rubbed at her breastbone to try and quell its unease. When he ushered her out of the office and hunched to work at the lock, she lingered inthe finesse of his fingers as they twisted and adjusted his tools. The thin wisps of hair behind his ears needed a trim, but he’d probably have Felix eradicate them in the morning. Her heart stuttered again. She inhaled until it steadied.
Phineas stood and returned his tools to his coat pocket. Rosanna slid her hand into the crook of his arm. They walked in silence for some time. Argonauts had maintained the offices of Abberton Trading, which were a convenient walk away, and after a few blocks, they reached the far end of Honeysuckle Street. The lamps threw small circles of yellow onto the path, and their shadows merged and bunched as they shifted from light to dark.
‘That number upset you.’ Phineas said. The words were a statement, not a question. ‘Lord Richard’s investment.’
‘It was the same amount as my dowry, to the pound. Seeing it there, so stark, reminded me how foolish I was. I detest feeling like that.’
‘Why did you want to marry a lord? Of all the people in this world, why a noble? And why marry at all? Why not—’
‘Live my life on my own terms? Become my father’s protégé? Why not shun a life of domesticity for business?’ Rosanna tapped out the pithy arguments she’d heard before from women like Elise and Petunia or her own sister, Beatrice. ‘Why must I choose? I didn’t want to marry a lord, I wanted to be loved. I want a family. And I wanted to keep working withmyfamily, to continue to be a part of what I’ve helped to build at Aster. I wanted both those things. No one would ever ask Johannes to choose. Lord Richard said all the right things, had a good name, bought beautiful gifts. I was stupid enough to believe him.’
He patted the back of her hand, then flexed his palm to resting. He stroked the contour of her gloves, and when he burrowed his fingers beneath hers, she couldn’t tell if he was giving her solace or seeking a place to hide. They crossed the street before Number 8 and walked by the Hartrights and their bright pinkdoor. Then past Mrs Crofts’s home, the only door in the row that was still painted in its original black.
‘Mama told me during my first season that some nobles wouldn’t see past our name,’ she continued. ‘Not even the name, because it was fresher than a rosebud. I thought I understood, but I didn’t. I learnt fast, though. At my first ball, a viscount’s heir from a very old family tore my hem as he tried to compromise me in the bushes, and later that same evening, I received a declaration of eternal love from a man before we’d finished a cup of tea together. There were so many more after them. They weren’t even eager or rash. Just desperate. I was nothing more to them than a full purse. I still held hope that things might be different for me. That someone might love me. And I figured that the sort of man who might do so was one who did not need my money. Is that so terrible? To want love?’
‘That’s not how love works.’ Phineas kept his head bowed as he spoke. ‘Love is painful. It’s sacrifice.’
‘You are an expert, I suppose.’
‘Not at all. I don’t think I’ve ever…’ He looked up and met her eyes as his sentence trailed off. Dark and fathomless, she lost herself in their sparkle for too long until he focused on the path again. ‘I have no right to claim expertise on matters of the heart. But think what you’ve seen, just on this street.’ He kicked at a stone, and it rolled along the path before tipping into the gutter. ‘Your father puts his family above everything. Arley didn’t cut ties because it made his life easier. Iris and Hamish could commit Albert in a moment and retire to the Dalton estate, and no one would judge them. All of them have much simpler choices available. Yet they tread harder paths. And for what?’
Again her heart kicked and spluttered to that unfamiliar beat. Her skin felt so warm it almost itched, prickling despite the late summer breeze that met them at the edge of the park and greeted them as they reached the end of Honeysuckle Street.
‘Given that we’re both so terrible at matters of the heart, we should practice. Do you know how you could show the world you are an affectionate husband?’
Phineas slowed his step. ‘I do try, Rosanna. For appearances. I try to be kind and considerate of you. What more could I do?’ As soft as a kiss, a tender hesitancy caressed his confession. Her heart seemed to pause, suspended, before galloping in her chest. When they stopped in front of the stairs to Number 1, she drew him to face her, eyes level.
‘Let me paint the entryway. I was thinking bright yellow. And maybe hang some prints. It would be so much more welcoming to step into a room like that at the end of the day.’
Phineas grumbled, threw his hands in the air, and stomped ahead, shaking his head and muttering to himself as he trudged up the stairs. Spencer leapt from the bushes onto the landing, and Phineas shooed him away. Spencer flicked an ear. Rosanna chuckled to herself. She’d always thought him emotionless, but now she could read the discomfort that sat so close beneath his skin, and the agitation that circled him like the cat winding around his legs until Phineas ushered him over the threshold. He kept everyone at a distance, yet she’d been the one to see past his stiffness to raise his hackles and make him laugh. A flick of memory teased her mind, and with a shudder, she relished the thought of his fingers working at her, of the burning he’d both stoked and quenched.
