Page 27 of The Marriage Method

He stood there, so stoic and capable, an intrepid defender poised between her and an uncertain future. The urge rose up in Nell to confide in him. To lean on him a little.

She sensed that he wouldn’t think less of her for it. Wouldn’t see it as a sign that she was weak or lacking in some way.

And she wondered…

What if she did join her fate to his? Could it really be worse than forging ahead on her own? Or was it the only rational answer? The single, solitary course that would ultimately lead her back to the Academy, the one place in the world where she truly belonged?

She clasped her hands tight in her lap. The certainty she’d always possessed as a teacher had left her. In its place was only fear and indecision, and the desolate, dreadful feeling that she was completely and utterly on her own.

“It seems I was mistaken,” she said. “The situation is rather more serious than I’d allowed. Which is to say that you were right. Our happiness doesn’t matter. We must salvage our reputations, however we can. Both of our reputations.”

Miles regarded her steadily. His expression was as unreadable as it had often been in town. Then, Nell had born it because she’d had to. He’d been a stranger and an adversary. But not now.

“Don’t do that,” she said.

“What?”

“Don’t be so…so dashed inscrutable. This isn’t easy for me. And it’s more difficult still when I feel I’m alone in my distress—”

“I don’t mean to distress you.”

“Whether you mean to or not—”

“Nell,” he said gently.

Her throat clogged on an unexpected swell of emotion. She fought tears, reflecting that perhaps an unfathomable Miles was preferable if the barest kindness from him could provoke such an ill-timed reaction.

“Pettiman sent an express to Miss Corvus,” she told him. “She says that the Academy’s benefactors may soon call for my dismissal. If I remain, it will harm the school. Which I’ve no wish to do. I packed my things this morning. As I see it, I have but two choices. I can either go to Mrs. Royce in hopes that she’ll take me in or…or I can go to you.”

Miles drew closer to her, blocking out the tower window and the stone manor house, too, shielding her from everything and everyone but him. “To me,” he said. “Obviously.”

• • • • •

Miles waited for Nell to answer, his heart thudding with unusual heaviness in his chest. She’d accused him of being inscrutable. And he was. He knew he was. It was a skill he’d learned in hard school. Never showing his rivals what he was thinking. Never betraying weakness, or an excess of strength. Being, in short, something next door to invisible.

“It’s the work that matters,” his mother had taught him. “That’s where you must shine. It’s the only way for people of our class to excel—by being better than all the rest. You just keep your head down and forget about anything else.”

Miles had taken her words very much to heart. He’d seen the truth of them during his apprenticeship, and later when he’d signed on at the Courant as a junior reporter. Work was how he distinguished himself, not through physical intimidation of his enemies, eloquence with young ladies, or an overzealous investment in social causes. He’d learned to be cold, methodical, abstract.

None of which served him now.

Nell sat before him, eyes luminous with unshed tears and her plaited flaxen hair glinting with threads of gold in the sunlight that shimmered through the branches of the tree. Standing over her in that moment, Miles was entirely at the mercy of emotion—both hers, and his own. A baffling state, and one to which he was completely unaccustomed.

As ever, when confronted with anything he couldn’t rationalize, he reacted by over-rationalizing it.

He sank down on the stone bench beside her, close enough that he caught the elusive fragrance of her perfume. Some delicate floral something (gardenia, possibly?), applied so lightly as to be little more than a secret. It tickled at the back of his consciousness, faint but persistent, reminding him that this wasn’t a typical business contract he was negotiating.

“You can’t deny the logic of it,” he said. “The Royces are still abroad. But I’m here. I have a house. A carriage. Adequate means. And there’s the scandal itself to be addressed. Going to live with Mrs. Royce won’t quell it. While if you married me—”

“Yes,” she said softly.

“—we might begin to stanch some of the talk. We can start with my staff at the paper, and then…” Miles trailed off, belatedly registering her reply. He stared at her, his pulse thrumming in his ears. “I’m sorry, did you say yes?”

She gave him a stricken look. “Oh God. Were you not proposing?”

“I was,” he assured her. “I just…” He bent his head on a huff of incredulity. “I hadn’t anticipated you would accept me.”

Not so quickly. Not without a great deal more in the way of rhetorical persuasion.