“Oh, really? Do show him in. And please ask my aunt to join us forthwith.”
Jenkins raised a brow… Well, yes, it was an optimistic ask as Aunt Theo was endeavouring to bathe Valmont again. Still, one was required to keep up appearances in front of callers, so she cast a bright smile.
It…wilted somewhat as the man who entered was not the Miles from the exhibition.
This Miles was the grim and determined Captain Firth one. Eyes shadowed and stern. Indeed, one could almost say they’d darkened with diabolical intent.
“M-Miles, I mean, Lord Stonewold.” She stood, turned and dropped the book to the sofa. “Would you care for tea?”
Nothing better than tea in such circumstances.
“No, Miss Seymour, I would not care for tea.”
“Ah.” Verity refused to sit beneath such a glare, so she went to stand by the window that overlooked the garden, felt the comfort of the open space beyond. “N-not a social call then? Is something the matter?”
Slowly, he peeled off his leather gloves, which made her feel most peculiar indeed, and then proceeded to march the room. He was not unlike a spring that had been compressed. Released it would–
“Verity…” He paused, slapped his thigh with the gloves, which made her feel even more peculiar. Perhaps this was how a poor Frenchman felt when confronted by Miles in full battle mien, ferocious and most manly, and an innate sense told her not to move so much as breathe. “Verity, I know.”
“K-know what?”There was so much to know.
Stepping near to her, he stared down, no softness within his green gaze. “I know that you are The Witness.”
A chill dread swept through her as though some unseen hand had drawn dark blinds. She stood motionless.
“Or should I say, the Angel?”
She rammed her eyes shut.
Some of the soldiers called her that, in the hospitals, although she knew not why as she was far from a celestial being. Miles knew…
Her shoulders were grabbed and she flinched.
“Sit, Verity, before you fall.” She was guided back to the sofa and gently but determinedly lowered into it.
Wished it would swallow her up.
For to Miles, she must appear like some…some obsessed devotee who’d painted him over and over, and she did not know what to say.
So she kept her eyes closed, heard footsteps, the clink of a decanter stopper, before a glass was pressed into her hand.
Probably better than tea in this instance.
“Drink.”
She did as bid, the brandy burning its way to her heart, coating it in courage and warmth. Tentatively, she opened her lids.
Miles was kneeled before her like some knight of old.
But his eyes were no longer quite so dark with diabolical intent.
“You’re angry,” she found herself saying.
“No. Yes.” His shoulders sagged. “More at myself for I’ve been chasing my own tail when from the first one I saw, something tantalised, felt familiar.” He glanced up. “I should have known you’d paint more than cats.”
“I like cats.”
Yet he narrowed his eyes. “Why, Verity? Why paint those battlescapes? And why paint…me?”
