“You see,” her cousin continued, riding directly over her words. “Your eyes are a kind of mink color in darkness—”
“You can’t see them in the dark,” she said. Exactly what Trevor would have said.
“In shadow then. But in the sun…” He twisted her head such that the light fell directly on her face. Then he exhaled as one might breathe when in the Sistine Chapel—with awe and amazement. “I was thinking mahogany, but that’s not it, not it at all. They’re like cat’s eyes.”
Miss Smithson pursed her lips. “Yellow and slitted?”
“Not a real cat. The stone. Cat’s eye stones. Brown, but with striations of gold, not in a slitted line, but more like in a circle. A radiating circle. No, that’s not right.” He dropped his hands with a huff. “It’s most difficult.”
Finally released from her cousin’s grip, Miss Smithson took a deep breath and straightened upright. She wasn’t that tall, but she did have a fierce expression in her eyes—her golden-brown eyes, he reluctantly noted—as she glared at her cousin.
“Ronnie, you didn’t have to grab me like that. You could have just asked me to step into the sunlight.”
“What?” her cousin said, his brow furrowed in thought. “Your eyes are most difficult, you know. I would just call them cat’s eye brown, but that’s a double metaphor, you know. The stone is a metaphor for the animal. And the stone would be a metaphor for your eyes. Bad poetry, that.”
“Yes,” Miss Smithson said, obviously not caring in the least. “Very bad.”
“I’d use the chrysoberyl and say damn to the boys who’d have to look up the word, but it would be impossible to rhyme. And besides, the word looks so odd on the page. No one would know how to pronounce it, and the moment they’re thinking of that, they’ve lost the beauty of the poetry.” Then he looked back at her. “Though, of course, you know what chrysoberyl is, and the poem is for you—”
“I also know what color my eyes are,” she said as she turned to the house. Then she paused to shoot her cousin an irritated glower. “May I go inside now?”
Her sarcasm was lost on the bear suddenly looking at her bonnet. “There’s a hole in your bonnet. Did you not notice?”
Which is the exact moment that Miss Smithson’s anger shifted right back to Trevor. Her gaze caught his, and he would swear those gold and mahogany eyes shot darts at him. “Yes, Ronnie, I knew.”
“Oh. Is it a new female style? To punch holes—”
“No, Ronnie.” Stomping past Trevor, she ripped off her broken bonnet and handed it to the butler. “Come inside, Ronnie. You’ve seen what…” And then she took a quick step forward, her gaze shooting down the hall. “No, Papa! You promised I could be there!”
It took a moment for Trevor to realize what had happened. Looking far down the hallway, he saw Miss Smithson’s father and uncle as they headed for the laboratory.
“You children amuse yourselves for a bit, will you?” came her father’s answer.
Meanwhile, Trevor naturally took steps to follow them. After all, the happiest days of his life had been spent in Mr. Smithson’s laboratory. Not here, of course. The Smithsons hadn’t come into their money until recently. But years ago, Mr. Smithson had been his tutor, and the laboratory had been on Trevor’s estate. But here or there, the principle was the same: science, experimentation, and a place where a man could cut or boil or blow things up in perfect peace. And Mr. Smithson had said he was welcome at any time.
“Don’t you dare,” hissed the lady from beside him.
“But—”
“If you abandon me to Ronnie, then I swear I shall find a way to pour itching powder onto all your clothes. I’ll bleach your cravats white. And…and I’ll—”
He held up his hand before she could think of more dastardly things to do with his attire. “I believe your father said we should amuse ourselves.”
She folded her arms right beneath her bosom. It would have been quite attractive if she weren’t glaring at him. “Do not leave—”
“And I, for one, believe I shall be best amused in the laboratory.”
“Of all the selfish—”
“You as well, I think. Isn’t that what you wanted, Miss Smithson? To go into the laboratory with your father and uncle? To explain something to them, I believe. About a frippery?”
“It’s not a frippery!”
He held up his hands, seeing that she had completely lost her temper. And no wonder, what with being manhandled by her cousin for her eye color. “Whatever it is, you will best be entertained in the laboratory, yes?” He held out his arm. “Shall we go?”
She hesitated, biting her lip before looking at him with disturbingly real tears in her eyes. “Please, sir. Please, I beg of you. Can you not just leave and come back tomorrow? You have overset everything!”
He huffed, disturbed that she seemed sincere in her distress. “What exactly have I overset?”