She smiled warmly, and he felt like a hammer had struck his heart with the force required to make Big Ben sing. “I don’t know if I’ve ever known anyone who went by so many different names. Don’t you find it confusing?”
“No. The name used identifies who—what—they are to me. Lord Wyeth... usually an acquaintance. Rook... someone important to me. Johnny... someone with a closer association.” Someone for whom he’d lay down his life. Although in spite of the Chessmen calling him Rook, he’d lay down his life for them. Until that moment, he hadn’t realized he’d do the same for her. But it would merely complicate things between them if he confessed that.
“I’ve never heard anyone call you Johnny.”
“I’ve never heard anyone call you Nora—so it’s an even exchange.”
He wasn’t quite certain what it was they were exchanging. However, it seemed incredibly significant. A course change that a ship’s captain might make when he detected stormy seas ahead and calmer waters elsewhere. “The smaller bells will be ringing soon. Shall we delay our departure until they’ve chimed the quarter hour?”
“If you don’t mind.”
“Not at all.”
She turned back toward the tower, and he edged closer to her, but didn’t touch. For now, within the shadows of the night, it was enough.
As the carriage carried them through London, Leonora was as quiet as Johnny. The sharing of pet names created a bond that she didn’t know quite what to do with.
When those quarter-hour bells had finally chimed, as much as she’d wanted to listen to them clamoring through the night air, she’d been more focused on other things. The heat of him that eased into her even though he wasn’t touching her. The soughing of his breathing. His stillness. The tension radiating from him, like a tethered creature that wanted to breakfree of its restraints but forced itself to tamp down its needs in order to receive some reward.
She’d had the wild and absolutely ridiculous thought that perhaps she was the reward. That after delivering such a gentle press of his lips to hers, he’d decided it was to his advantage to keep to his promise of not touching her in order to gain more.
How was it so light a touch could make her chest feel as if it bore the weight of an elephant sitting upon it? She had yet to fully catch her breath.
While she watched the city passing by, she could feel his gaze homed in on her, halfway wished he’d cross over to her bench and give her a right proper kiss. Yet the one he’d gifted her with earlier seemed far more important. He’d given to her something he’d claimed to have never presented to anyone else. The sort of kiss he’d yet to label, that was presently hers and hers alone, that made it so precious, like cupping her hands around a hummingbird, its rapidly flapping wings matching the fluttering of her heart.
“I was wondering,” he began, his voice low and soft, signaling the sharing of a secret, “if you might be agreeable to meeting me tomorrow night.”
It was a terrible idea, and yet she obviously trusted him enough to be with him alone in his carriage. “You mean... clandestinely?”
“Yes. I’d like to take you someplace, show you something.”
She swallowed hard. Her breath had left her completely. “Are you going to show me what happens beyond a kiss?” The hushed words still seemed to clang through the carriage as loudly as Big Ben.
She’d had to ask, needed clarification regarding precisely what he was proposing. His perfectly straight, white teeth flashed quickly. “No, you’ll have to ask for that. I’d never presume...”
She refused to show her disappointment. It would no doubt require an entire bottle of absinthe to work up the courage to ask him to demonstrate how one fucked without fucking. “Then what are you going to show me?”
“I’d rather it be a surprise, but I promise you’ll not be disappointed.”
She doubted she’d be disappointed in the other either. “I’m not agreeing but if I did, where would you want to meet?”
“There’s a mews behind the bookstore I mentioned earlier. I’ll be waiting for you there.”
“I never know precisely when I can slip away.”
“I’ll arrive at eight and wait.”
“You might be there for hours before I could join you.”
“But you will join me? Eventually?”
Had she agreed without realizing she was agreeing? Although if she was honest with herself, from the beginning, she’d known her answer would be yes. Her hesitancy was merely an attempt to give the impression she hadn’t fallen under his spell. She couldn’t even imagine stopping to listen to the bells with Lord Falstone. He, no doubt, thought as she had earlier, that people in the Tower tugged on ropes, and the poor man would probably be confused by the knowledge that he had it wrong. He didn’t seem to even comprehend the notion of a screw being used to push lead out of a pencil. “I’ll try.” It was the best she could do, all she could promise.
“I can’t fathom, Nora, that you fail at anything youtry.”
She was failing right now, having no luck whatsoever intryingnot to fall for this man.
Chapter 13
