“I wish her a trough of ice water to the bonnet! You’re fine just as you are, Stephen Lenox. Better than fine. You’re phenomenal. You have a big brain, and you’re not afraid to use it. In any manner you see fit. What could be more attractive than that?”
“And yet,” he said dryly, “the first decades of my life would indicate few others share your opinion.”
“Of course there are plenty of people who do. There is always someone for everyone. The trick is to go out there and find them. You can’t hibernate forever. Winter has to end sometime. Seize the summer. Find the pack who likes you exactly as you are.”
“Easy for you to say,” he muttered.
“Oh, I never said it was easy. But stepping out of the den and glancing about the forest is not any more difficult than”—she gestured wildly at the web of machines surrounding them—“this.”
His stomach fluttered as he gazed at her. She had him all twisted up inside. His normally orderly brain churned with smoke as it attempted to make sense out of his reaction to her.
She made him feel like… he didn’t know quite what. No, it was simpler than that. She made himfeel. She made him hope, and she made him want. She made him yearn to believe in possibilities he’d given up on long ago. Futures he’d never dared imagine.
“I adore your machines,” she said firmly. “In case it was unclear.”
“I’ll design you one,” he blurted out. “I’ll… I’ll fashion a sword-sharpening device.”
Elizabeth visibly recoiled. “No one touches my blades, thank you. I’m one hundred percent self-sufficient.”
Heat rushed up his neck and cheeks at the unequivocal rejection. He shouldn’t have hoped for otherwise. “Of course you don’t need my aid. My apologies. I didn’t mean to imply—”
“But do you know what would make the most marvelous keepsake ever?” she continued, green eyes shining with excitement. “Could you create a souvenir for one of my siblings?”
“I could create something for each of your siblings,” he offered.
“Huzzah!” She made a little dance with her sword stick. “I am going to be the favorite of my family. Your machines will be the best thing that’s happened to them all year.”
Shewas the best thing that had happened to him all year.
He kissed her. He couldn’t help it.
Maybe he was wrong to have pushed her away in the beginning. Maybe what he ought to have done was pull her close. Maybe a five-foot-tall berserker was exactly who should be tinkering with his shields.
A veritable tempest of energy and self-confidence, who somehow thoughthewas the amazing one. She not only delighted in the very things that made him peculiar, but even wished to share his oddity with others, so convinced was she that they would deem his inventions worthy. And, furthermore, that Stephen himself was worthy.
He did not want to drown in this exquisite kiss. She made him want tothrive. To build a life that was bigger than the cave he’d been closing off and closing in, making the space he took up in the world smaller and smaller so as not to risk coming face-to-face with his loved ones’ disapproval time and again.
Elizabeth was the opposite of disappointed in him. She looked as elated to experience his inventions as Stephen was while he created them.
Yet even that emotion did not compare to how he felt when her mouth was locked on his. It was as though all the disparate levers inside his body had been pressed at the same time, releasing a cacophony of chaos and clouding his well-worn path with new possibilities.
But like all the best moments in life, this was only temporary.
16
The next morning after breaking her fast, Elizabeth carefully ascended the slippery, uneven stairs to the rooms Miss Oak’s map indicated had been used as the nursery. She decided to begin by taking inventory of all the rooms young children were likely to have utilized. She didn’t know much about babies, but young ones had to be kept warm, right?
Today was an eighty percent day—practically peak Elizabeth!—but there was no sense risking her cherished limberness on a careless misstep. Castles were already designed for maximum inconvenience. Narrow, slippery stairs of differing heights in dark spirals wasn’t a flaw, but a defense mechanism against invading warriors.
And Elizabeth Wynchester.
Since her arrival, Stephen had blown hot and cold. Vexingly inconsistent about what, if anything, he wanted from her. As much as she wouldn’t mind a torrid affaire, neither the current case nor Reddington’s patience would last forever. She needed to find the will before he harmed the property. Which meant concentrating on the task at hand, not on the rock-hard chest shewishedwas under her hands.
As Elizabeth wandered through what had once been the current earl’s nursery, she kept detailed notes in a journal. She recounted each day’s search in her nightly reports home via messenger hawk, in case one of her clever siblings saw something she might have overlooked.
Thus far, their praise of her methods meant she was being depressingly thorough. How much easier it would be if someone would say, “Ah, but did you tap your toes three times on the third stone from the left?” and up would pop framed copies of the will and the deed, for her convenience.
Elizabeth rarely even managed to find a speck of dust. The servants in Castle Harbrook weregood.
