Page 16 of The Misfortunate Miss Farthington
His lips twitched with a smile. “I never bothered about getting older, either, until I met you. But meeting you made me all too aware of just how unworthy I am to call upon a young lady such as yourself.”
Her throat grew too tight and her lungs felt heavy. She adored the fact that he was thinking about this at all—it meant he felt just as strongly as she and was already thinking about their future.
And she loved that he worried about her needs and wants.
But she dreaded the thought that he might let those worries stop him. Stopthem.
“Perhaps,” she started slowly as they walked once more. “Perhaps you ought to ask me what I want.”
“Of course,” he said quickly. “That’s all that matters to me. Actually, there’s a great deal I’d like to know. I want to know everything there is to know about you.”
She smiled. “Right now?”
He smiled and those creases around his eyes deepened. “I’m hoping we’ll have more time than that. But for today, I’d settle for knowing what you dream of when you envision the future.”
“You first,” she shot back.
At his arched brows, she laughed. “I’m sorry, it’s just…” She dipped her head as the truth slipped out. “I’m nervous, that’s all. I’ve never…that is, I haven’t…” Oh drat. How her girls from the finishing school would laugh if they saw her like this. “I’ve never felt like this before.”
He stopped walking and clasped her gloved hand in his. “Miss Farthington…”
“Tessa,” she reminded him. “Please.”
“Tessa,” he said, his gaze meeting hers. “You have my heart in your hands, you know.”
Her smile felt tremulous as she fought the silly urge to cry from sheer happiness. “What a very fanciful thing for a man of science to say,” she teased in a watery voice.
He chuckled and squeezed her hand before letting it go as passersby approached. “So, you wish to know what I want, hmm?” His voice grew a little louder, no doubt for the sake of their chaperones and the small crowd they passed. “I’ll admit, science has always been my passion, but I learned at a young age that it wasn’t the experiments that made me come alive.”
“No?”
He shook his head. “What I truly enjoy is to bring that knowledge to others. To people who might never know of it. To explain it in a way that it’s just as magical to them as it is to me.”
Her heart swelled because in a way she understood that completely. “So, you are a teacher at heart then.”
He grinned down at her as if this had never occurred to him. “I suppose I am. Though I have little interest in teaching in a school setting. Those young lords already have knowledge at their fingertips. They’re not the students I wish to teach.”
She nodded eagerly. “I understand completely.”
His smile softened, his eyes so tender it made her heart hurt. “Something tells me you truly do understand. Why is that?”
“Maybe because I feel the same. Not about science, of course,” she added quickly. “But ever since I took the position at the School of Charm, I’ve felt like…like I’ve discovered where I fit in the world. I found a sense of purpose I never knew I could have.”
“Tell me more,” he said. He sounded so desperate to hear more, she found herself smiling like a fool.
But she met his every question with a thoughtful answer, and lobbed questions back to him in turn. Before she knew it they were at the garden where they’d had their adventurous evening—well, where they’d watched their friends Lydia and Luke have an adventure as they trapped a spy and caught a traitor.
“Back where it all began,” he murmured. “I knew I was smitten the day I met you,” he said. “But it was that moonlit night filled with such activity that it became abundantly clear to me…”
“What did?” she asked, her voice breathless and high with emotion.
He reached out a hand and his thumb grazed her cheek. “That was the moment I knew that nothing meant more to me than you. Not national security, not danger or death, not even my lack of title and wealth.” He smiled wryly at that, and she let out a huff of laughter.
“I knew then and there that I couldn’t let you go,” he continued. “And I don’t mean to.”
Her lips wobbled dangerously as she smiled. “I like the sound of that.”
His voice turned gruff as the others approached slowly. “Tessa, I’m going to speak to your father.”
