“Yes, they flyand yes, kind of like a bird, but more like a dragonfly,” Miss Darling told him while they sat together on the woolen blanket strewn beneath them before the hearth in his solar. “They have long, metal wings on either side and—”
Airplanes. They sounded fascinating to Gray’s ears, but Miss Darling’s soft, sweet voice began to sound more like music to him and he became less attentive to her words and more to the music of her.Aria.The more he basked in the pleasing shape of her face, illuminated in the firelight, framed by her glossy chestnut locks, the alluring curve of her jaw, the beguiling shape of her lips, the ocean blue of her fathomless eyes—
“Gray? Did you hear a word I said?”
He blinked and tried not to look too guilty.
She smiled.
His heart began to race.
“Am I boring you? You asked about my home.”
“No, of course you’re not boring me,” he defended. “I was just…” He remembered that she was bold and honest enough to call his bluff if he tried to veer her from the truth.… “I was just admiring you and how you look in my poor eyes.”
Her face turned pink, and she lowered her gaze shyly. He marveled at the difference in her from when he or someone else fired up her temper.
He ached to touch her, to run his hand over her hair, his fingers against her creamy cheek. It made him feel as if he’d just finished dancing and needed to catch his breath. He stared at her, not knowing what to say, not caring if he ever spoke again. Feelings didn’t need to be spoken, did they? They were passed one to another by thoughts, gazes, and actions. But his staring made people feel uncomfortable. Now he understood it was because words were usually useless with animals. But Aria Darling wasn’t an animal.
“Miss Darling?” He softened his tone to one he thought sounded most soothing. “May I touch you?”
She lifted her firelit gaze to his. “Touch me?”
He nodded, never taking his eyes from hers. He lifted his fingers to a strand of her hair falling down her cheek.
Watching her for a sign of her displeasure, he moved his outstretched fingers closer. When she still didn’t protest, he touched the tendril. Instead of clearing it away, he ran a fingertip down it, touching her cheek, her jaw, her bottom lip.
He didn’t breathe. He couldn’t think clearly enough to tell himself to stop. Don’t touch her. But even as alarms were blaring in his head, he leaned in closer, slowly, dipping his gaze slightly to take in the ravishing sight of her waiting mouth. He wanted to kiss her. He hadn’t wanted anything so badly in years. To draw her close and close his arms around her. “May I kiss you?” he whispered, slowly moving closer.
She closed her eyes. He could hear her breathing echoing in his ears, seeping into his bones, his heart. His breath mixed with hers, warming him for an instant. Her eyes shot open. She moved away on the blanket. “Don’t kiss me,” she pleaded, holding her fingers to her mouth. “I’m afraid I could fall for you, my lord—Gray. I could fall so hard that when I return home, I won’t heal.”
His heart thumped hard in his ears, replacing the sound of her sweet breath. Was she saying that she might fall in love with him? He didn’t want her to go home broken again because of him. No, never that.
He didn’t want her to go, to disappear without a trace. He feared he might break this time. But he couldn’t ask her to stay and abandon her family.
When she stood from the blanket and gave her skirts a pat, he leaped to his feet. She was correct to get herself away from him. He wouldn’t stop her from leaving.
“Let me walk you back to your room.”
“You don’t have to,” she said, holding up her palm.
“I know,” he told her. “But let me. Please. I won’t try to kiss you or anything like that. I agree that it would be more harmful for both of us when you return home.”
She paused to stare at him, biting a corner of her bottom lip. He glanced there and felt the mad urge to groan out loud. He fought the urge the way he fought not to beat Cavendish and Harry Gable and the rest of their friends to bloody pulps every time they opened their mouths.
“You do understand why I have to return, don’t you?” she asked, pausing before she turned for the door.
“Of course,” he assured her. “I find your loyalty to your family commendable. I’m even a little jealous of them.” He didn’t realize he was smiling until she grew somber.
“I’ll look for your mother. If she’s in my future, I’ll find her.”
His smile remained but grew darker. “What will you tell her?”
“I’ll tell her the boy she left has grown into a remarkable dancer with more passion in the tips of his toes than a hundred men on their wedding night—”
His brows lifted in surprise and humor.
—“and that he lives in the obscurity of abandonment. And I’ll ask Mrs. B., if I see her, why her seer sister didn’t see what would happen to you with the Gables and the animals. Why didn’t she stop it from happening?”