Violet may not give much credence to fate, but he was becoming a believer.
The floorboard outside his room creaked again, but this time, a barely audible rapping followed it. James would have laughed had he seen how quickly Callum swung to open the door, only to jump back with a shriek of terror.
Violet’s glare was hardly visible beneath the brim of the gigantic, feathered monstrosity on her head. “You needn’t react like that,”she hissed as she pushed past him and snapped the door shut behind her.
“Were ye channeling Kevin, or did ye want to resemble a different oversized bird tonight?”
She stroked the clump of feathers protruding from the emerald-green turban. “I borrowed it from Aunt Margaret. I thought it might be a good disguise.”
“Disguise?” He chuckled, shaking his head as he stepped forward, pressing a lingering kiss to her lips. Hearing her voice, seeing her hale and hearty, soothed his soul. “No one will miss ye in that.”
“Yes, but they’d be paying so much attention to the hat that they wouldn’t notice the woman beneath it.”
He nipped her bottom lip and she whimpered. “Ye’d be a terrible spy.”
Her smile broke through like the first rays of sunlight on a winter morning as she pulled the turban off her head, setting loose a cascade of chestnut curls. “That’s what I thought as well!”
Something in his chest burst free at her expression, the mischievous sparkle in her eye. What would it be like tolaughwith her every day? Already he’d learned to decode her smiles, the false ones that dug in at the edges or the real ones that made the corners of her eyes crease. He recognized when her laughter was forced and when it was genuine, if she trusted someone or held them at arm’s length.
She trusted him. Christ,she trusted him. Part of him recoiled at the notion, because he wasn’t worthy of her and was destined tohurt her. But he wanted it, he wantedher, so much more than he’d ever wanted anything, and it terrified him.
“I got you something,” he croaked, breaking away to cross to his dressing table.
He felt like a child at Christmas, holding his breath while he watched his adopted family opening the gifts he’d made them, animals whittled from a block of wood or pretty shells he’d found along the waterfront.
He swallowed the memory and handed the small box to Violet. Her lips parted as she turned it in her hands, her delicate fingers smoothing the velvet ribbon. “What is it?”
“Ye’ll have to open it.” Warmth spread through his chest, bubbling up and filling him with something like… joy?
Strange, but he liked it. The space between them seemed eerily fragile, as though they were treading across the ice and waiting for it to break, for catastrophe to rush in. But somehow it hadn’t yet.
Violet bit her lower lip and tugged at the ribbon, then put it on his dressing table. He held his breath as she opened the lid and withdrew the glass sculpture, turning it gingerly in her hand.
“A goose?” Her fingertips traced the curve of neck, the wings spread as though yearning to take flight.
His breath escaped in a rush that was remarkably close to a laugh. “A swan. Cygnus. I thought it was appropriate for yer transformation.”
She chuckled without mirth. “From debutante to spinster.”
“No.” He stepped forward, too close to maintain his sanity, and wrapped his arms around her waist. “From the girl you were to the woman ye want to be.”
“You didn’t have to do this.”
“I didnae. But I wanted to.”
She shook her head. “This isn’t what we’re doing.”
“What isnae?”
“Gifts,” she breathed. “Remembrances. This is temporary. Until you leave England.”
The nagging thought in the back of his mind grew stronger, an ache that had been pestering him for days, a question that begged to be answered.
Did he have to leave England? Hell, if he moved his business to France, would Violet come with him?
He twisted one of her curls around his finger, leaned close and heard her breath catch as he brushed his lips over her temple.This doesn’t have to be temporary, his mouth longed to whisper. But it would take months of grueling labor in the Americas before he’d pay the debts, even longer before he settled in one place.
His hands drifted down her arms, caught the glass swan and put it on his dressing table. “Come to bed with me,” he murmured against her ear.
