Page 37 of The Wolf of Mayfair
“Forgive me,” he said drolly. “Of course. Your nasty cousin. Never tell me? He locked you in your rooms and denied you meals until you consented to be his bride.”
“He didn’t d-deny me m-meals on a-account—”
She swayed slightly, then steadied herself. “O-on account, he—”
Helia tottered on her feet once more.
Wingrave frowned. “What—”
He shot an arm about her waist just as she would have this time fallen.
His words trailed off as he took in the specks of perspiration at her damp brow, the inordinate red of her cheeks he’d previously taken for stamps made by the cold, the glazed look in her feverish eyes.
“You are ill,” he said sharply, those three words an accusation.
“N-no. I do not g-get ill.” Her assurances came so threadbare, the north wind nearly swallowed it whole. “I g-got you this.”
Puzzling his brow, he followed his gaze to the twig of berries she proffered. “A stick,” he said flatly. “You came outside to fetch a stick with berries.”
“Aye. And it isn’t a stick. And n-not just any branch. ’T-tis a rowan twig.”
“Oh, forgive me. Not a stick, but a twig,” he said, keeping his face expressionless.
Yes, she was decidedly mad, after all.
But then again,hewas out here debating over the terms “stick,” “branches,” and “twigs.” What did that makehim?
Helia frowned. “I-I can detect sarcasm, you ken. As I was saying—”
Another sharp wind whipped around them, sending whorls of snowflakes spattering against their faces.
“Might you say it later, when we are safely indoors?”
That elvish glitter in her eyes deepened. “Afraid of the cold, are you, Wingrave?”
“I’m not afraid of anything.”
“Everyone is afraid of someth—”
“Your s-stick, Miss Wallace,” he snapped, his own teeth beginning to chatter incessantly in the cold. “Y-your stick.” He ground those two words out.
“Och, forgive me. Ye see, in Scotland, burning thetwigof a rowan tree is a tradition during the festive s-season. The l-lore has it that in doing so, a-any bad f-feelings of m-mistrust between f-friends will be cleared away.”
She smiled widely, looking so very pleased with herself and her story.
“Really?” he finally said.
The imp nodded.
He stared incredulously, searching her cherry-red cheeks for a hint of a jest. And found ... none. Since his brother’s death, Wingrave had subsisted on a diet of logic and sharp rationality. He’d apparently found the one person, however, who made hogwash her main course.
“Miss Wallace,” he said, looking down the length of his nose, “that is the silliest thing I’ve ever—”
“Helia,” she corrected him.
“Very well. That is the silliest thing I’ve ever heard,Heli—”
She pressed a palm against his chest. Not just any palm, but the one filled with that rowan twig and berries.
