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Blast.
She forced herself to smile encouragingly as Sebastian came forward, edging Rotherby aside.
Sebastian stood less than two feet from her. And then the world went still as he looked at her. He was motionless as he dipped his chin slightly so that he regarded her with thrilling intensity. It was as though the speed of her pulse was somehow tied to the steadiness in his gaze. The longer he looked at her, the faster her heartbeat raced.
She couldn’t break from his gaze, held in place by the warmth and depth of his crystal blue eyes.
Be here with me now, he said wordlessly. You and I exist alone together. I want to be with you and you only.
Her fear shifted into pleasure. She fell into that pleasure without cessation, without caring if she stopped. She wanted this sensation to last forever, to be, at last, the center of someone’s universe.
“How is that, madam?” the duke said with a hint of irritation.
“It’s . . .” Terrifying. Wonderful. Mystifying. “. . . Nice.”
Rotherby clapped his hand on Sebastian’s shoulder, who seemed to surface from the depth of his focus. “Nice is better than nothing. Felicitations, old man. You’re well on your way to becoming a rake.”
“Thank you,” Sebastian said, but his voice sounded far away. As though he was still in that secret, special place with Grace, occupied by him and her.
She had to walk away. Had to go to the window and look out at empty space to collect herself, because all that she knew or understood was changing.
Sebastian was her friend. But their friendship had slipped its bonds and now ran free in the open field of possibility. Yet she had no idea where it would go, and her own heart offered no guidance or restraint.
This might be a problem.
Chapter 8
The distance between Seb’s rooms on Howland Street to Grace’s Marylebone home was far enough to necessitate a carriage ride, but the day was relatively fair, so instead of the expense of a hired cab, he again decided to walk.
He needed practice maneuvering through the world without his spectacles, so he kept them in his pocket. Since he wasn’t conducting any field research, when his observational powers had to be perfect, it was easy to forgo them. The mild afternoon air held a hint of future heat. A fresh breeze, untainted by smoke or the scent of the street, blew up into his face and he breathed in deeply.
Until this moment, he hadn’t realized how much his spectacles acted as a barrier between him and the world. Without them, though, perception heightened—the sound of a woman on a stoop beating the dust from a rug, the warm feel of watery sunlight on his shoulders—and his thoughts loosened from his body.
He simply was, no longer trapped within his head. The sensation freed him, as though he could take flight over the city and see below him the pitched roofs, the smoking chimneys, the patches of green, and the shining, sludgy Thames cleaving through London.
If nothing else, this attempt to transform him into a rake had already given him a gift. He’d learned that he needed to take off his spectacles more. It opened the world to him.
And . . . he’d been able to spend more time with Grace. His whole self felt lighter, looser, just to think of her, and the way she’d looked at him yesterday. As though she’d liked what she’d seen. She had called him handsome, and there’d been a moment when he’d forgotten about Rotherby, forgotten about everything, and had been secluded in a private, intimate corner of the world with him and Grace as the sole occupants.
Had she . . . was it possible . . . she’d been attracted to him?
His body suddenly hummed with energy. If he attempted to pry a tree from the earth, it would yield easily in his hands.
“Good afternoon, sir.”
He blinked, coming back to himself. A young woman holding a broom stood on the step of a milliner’s shop. She smiled. He glanced behind him to see who she addressed, but no one was there.
She’s smiling at me.
The familiar choking panic rose up in a rush, and his face felt burning hot. All the fears that had haunted him for most of his life swelled within him.
Did this woman judge him as he fought to speak? Would she hurry into her shop and tell her fellow milliners that she’d just encountered a big blond oaf, and would the other hatmakers rush out to point and laugh at him?
