“But that’s just it. I have been seized by a madness for weeks. I look at every room, and imagine it as you would arrange it with chairs facing the window, backs to the door.”
So that was why he turned her chair around. “I only do that at home.”
“But I want you to do that in my home. I have also broken completely with my grandfather, which everyone says is a mistake, but I cannot think that it is. And in a life with barely a schoolboy row, I have been in a duel and a fray. I’ve used a weapon, Mellie, short-sized though it may have been.”
“Actually,” inserted the duke from behind, “you didn’t so much use it as fall on top of it.”
Trevor shot an irritated look over her shoulder, but then refocused. “I brought you this bird too,” he said, pushing the creature forward. “It’s not a dodo bird, but it’s the nearest relative, we think. It’s called a Nicobar pigeon, and I’ve named him Ronnie because the first thing he did was shit on my shoes.”
Mellie looked down, and yes, right there was a telltale splotch on his boot. Then when he didn’t speak more, she looked up to realize he was offering her the bird.
“Oh!” she gasped, but she didn’t know how to take the thing. Plus it didn’t seem to like her either.
“Seelye, take him, would you?” ordered the duke.
“Take him, Your Grace? Where?”
“Well, we failed to eat Ronnie’s offering. Maybe we should try Trevor’s.”
“Oh no!” cried Mellie, her voice tight as she grabbed the bird. “We are not eating this Ronnie!”
“Well, I doubt we should eat the other one,” said Mr. Rausch. “Though I understand the desire.”
Neither Trevor nor Mellie commented. They were busy handing off the bird to the appalled butler. When Mellie turned back to Trevor, he was looking at her with eyes that seemed to be stretched unnaturally wide. It was clearly a strain for him. He blinked twice, but each time seemed to push his face toward her.
“What are you doing?”
“I’m trying to be bug-eyed for you, Mellie. I’m exaggerating it now, but honestly, I’ve been trying to do that since you first asked me.”
A giggle trembled up from inside her. She tried to hold it back because she could see he was in earnest. But he made her laugh, and she couldn’t stop it. “I was teasing you, Trevor.”
“I don’t care.” Then he opened his jacket and pulled out something from inside a pocket. “Hold out your hands.”
She did, and he carefully placed a small book in her palms. Then he added two feathers to the pile. Then three more, then as many as a dozen little feathers.
“As a rule, feathers make me sneeze,” he said. “I find them annoying, and they float everywhere, making a mess.”
“Oh,” she said.
“But these are from your dress. I have been on my knees since that day, collecting these things and sniffing them.”
She frowned. “You sniffed them?”
He nodded, his expression rueful. “Made me sneeze every time, but…Mellie, they were yours. You wore them. They smell like you.”
What could she say to that? She couldn’t think. She didn’t know what he was trying to tell her, and she couldn’t bring herself to guess for fear she’d be wrong.
“And look at the book. Don’t say anything. Just know that I think about that with you too.”
She frowned down at the untitled book. She opened the pages, then gasped in shock before coloring up to her ears. There were couples drawn there. In intimate poses. Instead of snapping the book shut as she ought to do, she paged through and imagined herself and Trevor doing every single picture.
“Trevor,” she whispered.
“There’s more.”
More? She didn’t think she could handle more. Already he’d said more than she’d ever hoped for except the one thing she wanted.
He dropped down onto one knee before her and reached into his pocket. Her heart lurched. He hadn’t said it.