Page 54 of A Fearless Heart
“Yes, I know.”
“The hug is helping.”
“Good.”
“I’m going to cry in a moment.”
“I’ll live. Why will you cry?”
“I cry a lot. Sometimes I think it’s the only way I can get all the bad feelings out of my body. It’s not even sadness, it’s just…all the feelings I’m not supposed to have.”
“According to who?”
She shrugged, her shoulders pressing against his chest. “What does it matter?” she mumbled. “I am the way I am, and the way I am makes everyone hate me.”
He leaned back and tipped her head up to see her expression. The tears were there, not yet falling but all too close.
He kissed her, knowing he shouldn’t. This wasn’t strategic, this wasn’t a way to win her confidence so he could extract information from her. No, he just wanted to feel her, and be close to her, and revel in how soft she was, how alive and tender and altogether unhateable she was.
“Cady, you taste so good.”
“That’s the mint I put in my tooth powder.”
He nearly choked on a laugh. “Now who’s joking?”
“I’m trying desperately to not be serious, because if I were serious, then what’s happening between us could get serious, and…”
He kissed her again, partly to get her to stop talking. But mostly because he needed her. Her lips were just as soft and warm and yielding as before. After a moment’s hesitation, she slid her arms up his chest, and raised herself up on her toes for better access to his mouth. When she flicked her tongue against his, he nearly lost his mind.
Gabe pushed away all the thoughts and worries hounding him, and let his body tell him what it wanted.
And it wanted her, to a degree that was almost painful. But in this place, they were surrounded by poison, and the wrong move could possibly kill them. Not the best choice for what he had in mind.
He held her with one arm and ran his hand along the neckline of her gown, hooking one finger underneath to tease the skin he couldn’t see. Cady’s inhalation told him she was just as interested in continuing this as he was.
“Cady. Tell me where we can go. Right now. Where we’ll be alone and you’ll feel safe.”
She looked at him, and because she was so much smaller it meant that she had to peep through her thick lashes to see him. There were courtesans in London and Paris who would pay in gold to learn how to do that so well.
“I’m not sure there’s anywhere I’d feel safe,” she whispered.
“You’ll be safe with me,” he promised.
She took a breath, then sighed softly. “Follow me.”
Chapter 20
Realizing exactly what he wasoffering, Cady knew the only correct response for a lady was to swiftly reject the advance and tell him to leave her alone. But Cady didn’t feel like being correct, and she felt a pull toward him unlike anything she’d felt before.
So she led him outside into the chill night, and they went to the orangerie. She couldn’t take him to her rooms, and not simply because of the other servants in the house. Her bedroom was too important to her peace of mind to allow him in it again. Especially if they were going to do what she guessed they would do. His memory would linger in that room till the end of days. Cady couldn’t handle that.
But the orangerie was secluded and warm, and meant nothing to Cady’s peace of mind. Her life was in the workroom and the glasshouses.
She opened the door with a key from her ring, and Gabe pulled it shut as soon as they both slipped in. Cady locked it again, and took a breath.
Gabe was looking around in wonder. Well, the orangeriewasa sort of jewel box: stone columns and leaded glass windows and skylights to let the precious sunlight in. And instead of mere jewels, it contained lovely, slender trees that bore luscious fruits or heavy blossoms with rich scents: lemon, jasmine, neroli. The orangerie was not quite as damp as the glasshouses, but actually a few degrees warmer. It was dim, but the gloaming of the night sky filtered in enough to let them see.
“What do you think?” she asked.
