No onetouched his bones. They were too difficult to obtain. Especially the one she currently held. He suppressed the urge to snatch it from her delicate fingers and forced himself to inhale. She ran a fingertip over an inverted rotation that raised bumps over him as if touching his person and not an inanimate object.
His skin quivered.
“This one is different from the other one. Why is that, do you suppose?”
With another deep breath, and an alert eye on her handling of his most prized possession, he answered slowly. “It’s a deformity—here, I’ll show you.” He took both taluses and moved down the table to where the tibia and fibula lay side by side. “These are the bones in your calves.” He watched her from the corner of his eye in a constant assessment, asking himself if her interest was genuine or artificial. “When I align the normal talus”—he held up one—“see this? How perfectly the pieces fit together. When I attempt to align the deformed bone, the discrepancy is quite obvious.”
She leaned close and he got a whiff of soft orange blossom. It was as if a burst of spring exploded over his senses. How the devil had he missed that before?
“Goodness,” she breathed. “I had no notion.”
“Not many do.” He ran his own fingers over the damaged talus. “This one grew inward. As such, it creates a misalignment that, depending on the severity, can impact an individual’s mobility and balance.”
Her eyes snapped to his. The intelligence he read there affected his own balance in that moment. “Miss Isabelle,” she whispered.
Noah frowned, damning himself for imparting so much information. The familiar tightness banded his chest and restricted his airflow. The recollections of that long-ago day crashed over him, stole the very breath from him in agonizing waves. His hands flattened on the table that weaved through a darkness he’d yet to completely conquer. That summer day when he’d taken his young cousin with him about the countryside. Ten years ago, when he’d been home from his studies and she’d surprised an adder sunning on a low rock. The recollections that still had occasion to haunt his nights.
What an idiot he’d been to invite Miss Wimbley into his private sanctuary. He didn’t evenknowthis woman. Suddenly, the impropriety of this visit to his lab twisted parts of his body, low in his abdomen. Quickly but carefully, he gathered up the bones, moving them back to their initial places. He was infuriated with himself. “I fear I must return upstairs.” He spoke sharply enough to draw her steady contemplation, feeling as if he resided on one of his own glass slides for study beneath his own microscope. “Lucius will pummel me if I leave him to deal with the incoming visitors arriving to view our father alone.” He guided Miss Wimbley to the door then taking her cloak from the peg, he held it out.
Shockingly, she refrained from arguing with him as that was surely her nature. She nodded, throwing him soundly off-balance. “Of course. Thank you for allowing me in,” she said softly. “It’s truly fascinating.”
“Yes, well, I’ve come a long way from my chemistry experimental days. Too much volatility,” he muttered, taking up his own cloak.
Her head tilted to one side. “What of the lamps? Don’t you fear—”
Blast it. Red-hot embarrassment covered his body, tempting him to dash up the stairs and back out the door for a dive off the cliff into the cold water below. “Of course. I’ll be just a minute.” He went about snuffing out each and every flame before leading her out the door, shutting and locking it behind them, chastising himself for getting caught up by the distraction of…her.
Chapter Seven
Geneva climbed thetwo flights to Abra’s and her suite. She entered and collapsed onto the settee in the sitting room with a sense of disequilibrium. Her head spun. Turmoil twisted her insides. She was the most insensitive person on the face of the earth. The image of Miss Isabelle sitting high above the ground on Julius’s shoulders and the careful handling by his next older brother, Noah lifting her down and setting her so gently to her feet plowed through her. Errg. When the devil would she learn to internalize her immediate impulses instead of blurting out the first thought that invaded her head?
The door opened and Abra strolled in from the corridor. “Oh, there you are.”
“Just as we returned, you’d left.” With concerted effort, Geneva pushed the unsettling images from her mind, which denigrated to the other disturbing incident of the morning.
“Miss Hale insisted I walk with her. You leftmebehind. You know I don’t walk as quickly as you. Besides, walking off alone with him is unwise,” Abra admonished her.
Geneva rolled her eyes. “Ugh. You sound like your father.”
“At least you didn’t say ‘stepmother,’” she returned, wrinkling her nose. “Wheredidyou get to?”
“If you must know, the wind nearly sent me flying over the cliffs to my demise. And that wasn’t the worst of it.”
“Mr. Oshea kissed you?” was her wry retort.
“What?” Geneva scowled at her friend. “No. What a ridiculous notion.” A vision that didn’t repulse her. She swallowed a groan. “Don’t say such things. I’m trying to tell you I almost fell to my death. Over. The. Cliffs.”
“Yet here you are.”
She couldn’t believe it. Abra didn’t believe her. She was tempted to raise her sleeve and see if there was a burn mark from his valiant grip on her. But if there were, she’d prefer to check it in private. She clamped her lips tightly.
Abra grinned. “Hmm. All right, then. I had an opportunity to speak with Mr.JuliusOshea. He’s very sweet.”
“Are you certain that was wise? What of your plans for Lord Ruskin? Andyoung. He can’t be over fifteen.”
“Nineteen. He’s nineteen. That’s almost of legal age.”
Geneva speared her with a quelling glance. “Oh, how you jest. Well,” she said, adopting a too-casual tone. “Your stepmother would adore you marrying into an earl’s family, would she not? I suggest you not entangle yourself with these people, Abra. It’s quite unfashionable to marry one so much younger than oneself.”
