Page 54 of The Trick of It

“Is this like Ruby and Errol?” he asked, muffled against the heel of his own hand. “Everyone placing bets and rolling their eyes?”

“No,” said Libba, drawing out the word as she considered the question. “It’s just me, mostly, I think. No one else has really spent much time with Seph one to one. But I’ve never asked. We all agree the two of you are odd, but as to anyone else’s suspicions, you’d have to ask them.”

“What’s the point?” he groused. “They know. Hattie knows.”

“Hattie understands, whether she knows or not,” Libba corrected. “Don’t you think?”

He lifted one narrowed eye from between his fingers to glare at her. “Because Elias was a little beast to her when we were twelve?”

“More or less,” Libba said with a shrug.

He heaved a sigh and dropped his hand, but only to expose his mouth long enough to swig down the rest of the glass of expensive wine. He smacked his lips, setting the glass down, and shook himself. “Right,” he said. “Well, we’re going to Lewes for a few weeks. She’s going to need someone to mind the shop. Don’t sell the new birds.”

“I beg your absolute pardon?” Libba managed, gripping the arm of her seat as though it might steady her through this turn in the conversation. “I’m no shopgirl.”

“No, you’re an actress without a production,” he agreed. “You can mind a till. Malcolm’s the Marvelous Human Abacus, but I’ve seen you run a box office. It’ll be fine.”

“But I have things to—”

“No, you don’t,” he said, raising his brows. “Not things you can’t do from the shop. Hell, it might actually be easier to source your props and costumes and so on from there. Shall I pick you up at daybreak or just drop the key off on my way out?”

She was still gaping, her glass dangling in her fingertips. “You forgot the third option,” she said thinly, “where you piss all the way off back to Newport.”

“Daybreak, then,” he decided, pushing himself to stand. “If you say a word of any of this to the others, I’ll tell everyone about that freak show gent you dallied with in London.”

“What!” she screeched, following him to his feet. “You will do no such thing.”

“It’s up to you,” he said, wiggling his eyebrows. “Jasper must be so disappointingly void of tattoos in comparison.”

“Rhys!” she warned, following him to the door. “I will set you on fire.”

“Good night, chwear,” he said, turning and smacking a kiss on her cheek. “See you in the morning.”

After that, he felt much better about it all and walked home decidedly grinning rather than screaming.

Chapter Seventeen

Seph hadn’t gotten much sleep.

At first, she had told herself it was the stress of packing again, of preparing for a longer time away. She had tried to lose herself in digging out the old props, the trunk she’d kept buried in the very back of her storage, despite telling herself a thousand times she was going to throw it out, burn it, break it to bits.

It wasn’t even rusty. It didn’t squeak or protest at all when she opened it. And inside, none of the things from an eon past had gone dusty or ragged or moth-eaten.

She shook out the costume, the new one she had never gotten a chance to wear through a full performance, gold and deep blue, cut for easy movement in the style of a medieval damsel’s.

“Does it flatter me?”

“Couldn’t tell you one way or the other. Just don’t see you that way, is all.”

She blinked, holding the silky fabric to her chest, and let her eyes flutter shut, the sensation of his fingers trailing down the delicate bones of her throat rising like phantom touch in the room. The heat of his body against her back, the feel of his … Well.

She coughed, shaking her head and dropping the dress.

She was a grown woman, for goodness’s sake. She knew what parts men had. She knew what they did with them. And she’d spent a lifetime imagining Rhys looking at her like that. Kissing her. Wanting her.

So why hadn’t she ever really considered that he had that particular body part? That it could be so … so heavy and thick with want? That it might swell and grind against her?

She had kicked the trunk away and stood, pacing and shaking her hands out as her face heated to burning. She’d attempted to banish that thought and failed, and had climbed into bed to try to surrender to sleep instead of continuing to dwell upon it.