She laughed. This man not knowing how belonging feels? Yes, he was a bastard, but he’d been accepted by his father, loved by his brothers. He must mean, perhaps, belonging with a woman. With her. Cheeks hotter now, her heart thumping. She felt it, too, the belonging. Rightness rang in the silence. She’d never been able to work with anyone in the room with her before. But with Richard…
Dangerous, Bea. Beware.
She turned back to her work, trying to ignore the shuffles and squeaks behind her. Trying to ignore the warm weight settling at her shoulder. Dipping her quill in the ink pot, she said, “Yes?”
“Can you teach me?”
“I could. But could you learn?” Sharp. Like a needle, it popped the sweet silence they’d been belonging in.
He chuckled, unbothered, building back up the sweetness if not the silence. “I would try, hellcat.”
“Miss Bell.”
Were those—she swallowed the rising lump in her throat—his bare knuckles on the back of her neck?Do not moan, do not lean into them, and do not sigh wistfully!She scooted her chair away from him, closer to the table’s edge.
“Read it to me, then? The Spanish version first, then your translation.”
“You do not want that. It will bore you.”
“I’ve never found anything you’ve said the least bit boring.” That was his hand settling on her shoulder. “Please, Beatrice?”
She melted right into the pages ofQuixote, reading them aloud as if in a dream. A dangerous dream. Men were not to be trusted. Smooth, charming men should be avoided. But without knowing, he was giving her everything she’d ever ached for. A man who cared for her opinion, who admired her talents, whose very presence offered solace—an impossibility. Experience had taught her such men were rare. Nearly extinct. Yet Richard…
Finished reading the original and her translation, she peeked up at him, stopped breathing.
His hand still curled warmly on her shoulder, his eyes were pools of fired whisky, golden brown and burning. For her?
No man had ever wanted her. Not even the ones who were supposed to.
She should not trust this. Must be a trick.
Yet…
His hand skimmed up her neck and settled beneath her jaw, warm and welcome. “You’re a wonder, Beatrice Bell. How do you do it?”
“I-I… it is important to understand the entire meaning of a paragraph, a page, a chapter. The symbolic, the literal, the metaphorical. You cannot merely plod along one word at a time. Seeing the whole first… it’s necessary to create a proper— Apologies.” She turned from him, pulling away from his touch. “Now Iamboring you.”
He eased around her, sat on the edge of the table, his large hand finding her chin again, lifting it. “Not bored a bit. Intrigued beyond measure. Will you teach me? I’ll do my best to understand the words as you do. I cannot promise proficiency, but?—”
“Yes. I’ll teach you.” Mad decision, dangerous idea. But no other possible reaction, to his admiration, to his touch. Maybe she could trust this man. Maybe she could, with him, sink into soft silence without worry. She closed her eyes and leaned her cheek into his palm.
Beatrice cuffed her hand around her neck. Sobs were rising there, and she was not alone, in no place to reveal her weaknesses to the world.
She wanted Peterson in her bed, not her heart. No man had entrance there. Not since…
She squeezed a bit harder, closing her eyes. Then she dropped her hand and shook off the sadness, returned once more to her translations.
“Miss Bell.” Peterson stood behind her, but not close enough to feel his heat.
She spoke without looking up from her work, only dipping her quill into the ink pot. “Yes, my lord?”
“Most everyone is gone.”
She rolled her eyes, set the nib to the paper. “I’m aware.” What was the correct translation forbore?
He cleared his throat. “Two people, alone, may do as they please. With only the servants to see. And Prescott’s are a silent lot.”
“Mmm.”
