Page 10 of A Delicate Deception
He opened his satchel and handed her the flask, then placed the bread and cheese on a flat part of the log. “Thank you,” she said, handing the flask back as she wiped her mouth on the back of her hand. The wind picked up again and she clutched at her shawl.
“Come here,” he said. “The way you have that thing, it’s a wonder it hasn’t blown away yet.”
“This is my fourth shawl this year,” she admitted. “I daresay the previous three are being used to line songbird nests.”
Later on he would be sure to reflect on how wasteful that was, just as he would reflect on how the levity of her manner was surely a sign of poor character, a sign of precisely the sort of carelessness and irresponsibility he expected from people of her class. For now, he wrapped the shawl around her shoulders, careful not to touch her. “Arms up and turn around,” he said. He knotted the tails of the shawl at the small of her back, the way his mother had always done. “There. That’ll stay put.”
“Thank you,” she said, turning back around to face him. They were very close now, but she made no move to step away. Instead she looked at his lips, then back up to his eyes, then to his lips again.
His thoughts stuttered to a halt. There was no mistaking what she had done and what it meant. She was letting him see this, letting him know that she was—attracted? Interested in something more? She usually kept her expression so neutral, so composed, but she was choosing to let him see this. He could turn away, pretend none of this was happening. That would be safe. That was what he ought to do.
Instead he hitched an eyebrow. A corner of her mouth quirked up in acknowledgment.
He stood there a moment, not moving, neither touching her nor stepping away, but letting himself sit with the knowledge that he could ask to press his lips to that asymmetrical smile, that he could maybe rest his hand on the nip of her waist. Sydney really hadn’t expected to get seduced in a woodland clearing this afternoon. Not that he was opposed on principle, not to the location or the act. But neither was he looking for an anonymous tumble in the grass. “Amelia,” he said, pitching his voice low. “I think I’d better tell you about steam engines.”
She let out that gurgle of laughter that made him think of bells and running streams and everything bright and clean in the world. “Sydney,” she said, leaning in fractionally, “it would be my pleasure.”
Amelia was fairly certain that nothing could be less relevant than physical attraction. The world was filled with people for whom she had vague longings to drag into dimly lit passageways and do regrettable things with and upon. But as she had never met someone for whom she was willing to endure the sad tedium of afterwards, her amorous experiments had not yet progressed beyond kissing. She had kissed Richard Davenheim at the Grantham Ball and Justine Broissard everywhere and every time she had an opportunity for the duration of an entire season. She had found both Mr. Davenheim and Miss Broissard pleasant to look at and enjoyable to talk to; miracle of miracles, they seemed to return the compliment; so she had kissed them. Those kisses had been pleasant, and she could have imagined things progressing. But it had never seemed worth the bother.
Kissing Sydney seemed like it would be very much worth any bother she could name. To start, there was his beard. He had plainly not shaved at any point since she had first encountered him, and now his jaw was covered in stubble. Then there was his accent. It was, she supposed, a perfectly straightforward northern accent, but his voice was so low and rumbly that it sent shivers down her spine. Those qualities she could have disregarded, perhaps. What she could not disregard was the way his cheeks reddened at the slightest provocation. He didn’t even seem aware he was doing it. She caught herself trying to coax a blush out of him. His eyebrows might be grim slashes across his forehead; his mouth might set itself into a grim and stern line; but when he blushed he seemed... sweet.
For his part, he did not seem averse to kissing her. She saw the way he looked at her mouth, the way he leaned close before startling himself back to a safe distance.
Some would argue that Amelia had been raised according to no principles whatsoever, given the fact that she was even considering kissing strange men. But the truth was that Amelia’s mother had tried to balance the pragmatic need for maidenly innocence with the utter demystification of everything to do with sex. The result was that Amelia was not under the impression that going to bed with a lover was either blissful or depraved. It was merely a thing that most people did, for varying reasons and with varying results.
As Sydney crouched in the grass, using sticks to show her the path of a railway, Amelia watched the fabric of his trousers strain across his thighs, watched the muscles of his arms and shoulders move under the thin linen of his shirt.
She was very aware of wanting to touch him. But she also had the sense that he was a safe person to be around. Maybe it was that he had tied her shawl around her without so much as touching her, maybe it was that he had acted like her dog’s attack was a matter of course.
Now he added a few stones to the railway map he was laying out before her. “This here, Amelia, is a bog—a pit that leads straight to hell—” He looked up at her with wide brown eyes. “I beg your pardon.”
“I’ve heard worse,” she assured him. “In any event, pits that lead straight to hell don’t sound like solid foundations for pylons or what have you.”
“Exactly,” he said, pointing triumphantly at her with a stick. When he talked about railways and engines and bottomless bogs, his expression transformed from stern dismay or reluctant amusement to radiant delight. “The problem is that routing the railway around the bog increases the cost by nearly twenty percent. And they won’t hire me on as head of engineering without some way of getting over that bog.”
Sydney looked up and scrubbed his hands across his jaw. Something about his beard made his lips look especially soft. She wanted to run her thumb across them, an urge she was quite certain she had never felt before. “And you really want that post, do you?”
“I do.” His voice was gravelly and low. “I’ve worked on other railway projects but this would be mine. It would be a chance to make sure things got done right.” He passed a hand over his jaw. “The railway is going to be built one way or another, you see? But it might be a small, inconsequential operation. Or it could change everything.” He leaned forward, his eyes sparkling, his hands moving animatedly as he spoke. “Imagine how different life would be if we could move things—and people!—around cheaply and safely. People could purchase goods for fair prices, or could seek work and experiences that suits them. People could seeone another.” He swallowed, and she could see his throat work above the collar of his hastily tied neck cloth. “I apologize for boring you.”
“You’re not boring me,” she said, and her voice came out higher and more breathless than she had intended. “Far from it.” She cleared her throat. Amelia was a lot of things, but bashful wasn’t one of them. “Are you married, Sydney? Or promised to anyone?”
He looked at her for a long moment, and she knew he understood what she really was asking. “No, I’m free. And you, Amelia?”
“Decidedly unattached.” She crossed her legs at the ankle and saw his gaze flicker to the hem of her skirt. Good. “Very well, then.”
“But nor am I looking for a dalliance.” He spoke softly, with the hint of a rueful smile, and Amelia was left uncertain about whether she had been rejected or asked to make her intentions clear.
Maybe it hadn’t been either. Maybe he had just spoken the truth, without hidden layers of nuance or misdirection. That possibility was one of the reasons he was a relief to be around.
He went back to telling her about railways, and she watched his big hands and listened to his rumbling northern voice, and reveled in the feeling of having an entire afternoon of conversation without feeling like she needed to claw her way out of her own skin.
Chapter Four
Driven by sheer boredom and restlessness, Sydney began exploring Pelham Hall, seeing how deep the damage ran. At first it was just prodding a bruise, deliberately stirring up grief and regret. But then he started to see the building not as a ruin but as a thing to be fixed. He was increasingly certain that the roof was solid, the structure sound. He hauled out debris, found tools, bought lumber and nails, and set about repairing a handful of rooms. The east wing would need to be taken down, but the west wing could be preserved. He told himself he did not care about the structure of Pelham Hall except insofar as he could not resist poking about at the inner workings of things, seeing how they were broken and how they might be made whole again. It didn’t matter: all he knew was that he was no good at sitting idle, and pulling down rotten woodwork and measuring window openings kept his mind and his body busy. He gave up his room at the inn, instead bedding down before a smoking fire.
During a trip up the rickety attic steps, his arms laden with mousetraps, his foot plunged through a rotten floorboard, and he cursed himself for not having tested the stairs. This was the sort of thing he had used to scold Andrew for doing: testing staircases by climbing them, figuring out whether a bog was solid or quicksand by means of attempting to walk across it. Andrew had always taken the risks, charmed the investors, and figured how to explain their plans and inventions in a way that made people care. Sydney had been the voice of reason and caution, the one who made sure every measurement was correct to the last decimal point and that the survey had been checked and rechecked to a certainty. Maybe after years of trying and failing to embody both halves of the partnership, something of Andrew’s influence had finally penetrated Sydney’s skull. Naturally it would result in his boot being stuck in the attic steps and not, say, actually becoming likable.
He dropped the mousetraps, listening to them clatter down the steps. Then, extricating his boot, he gingerly climbed the rest of the way up and surveyed the attic. At the top of the steps he took out his handkerchief and wiped the dust off a small, circular window that was placed in such a way as to throw light on the attic. It was badly situated, Sydney could not help but notice; given his druthers, he would put in a skylight and a strategically placed mirror. There was no reason on earth why he couldn’t hire a carpenter and a glazier and do precisely that. He could kit the whole place out in logically arranged windows and sensible lighting arrangements.
