8. In Which Luke Picks an Orange

May 13, 1822

4 days to the opening

Luke had a feeling Grace Chetwood was avoiding him. She’d been on her way out of the breakfast room by the time he arrived. She’d worked all morning, but somehow, she was never in the library when he walked through it. Perhaps it was a coincidence. Or perhaps the woman was simply wise enough to avoid distraction.

In the exhibition hall, they’d been making excellent progress. Mid-afternoon , Luke set about inventorying a stack of crates that had not been touched by the fire—but had been removed from the building hastily enough that it was possible every jar within was smashed.

He’d just crowbarred open a crate to discover everything within it intact. He felt almost giddy as he took stock of the contents. The final jar he unwrapped contained a small, bright yellow and black-striped snake. Bungarus fasciatus —a banded krait. As he was due a break, he decided to take it outside with him, to examine it in the sunlight.

Grace Chetwood was in the entrance hall reaching for an orange on the tree. A pile of paper sat nearby, on the floor near the taxidermied tiger. So this was where she’d been working.

Her slippers were sliding off her heels as she strained on tiptoe. The bodice of her dress stretched tight, cutting into the flesh of her décolletage. He could make out the seams of her stays against the fabric as she inhaled, the roundness of her lower belly.

He could have predicted his body would respond—he was alive , after all. But he wasn’t prepared for the intensity of it. For how much it hurt , the sudden constriction of breath, the rush of blood to his cock. Rather like being bitten, and feeling venom flood into one’s system.

God , he irritated himself. There was nothing revolutionary about a voluptuous woman reaching for an orange. Most of Western art was voluptuous bloody women reaching for fruit. He was a very ordinary, boring man for responding to such a reliably sensual image.

The force of it, though, felt like his body punishing his mind. You started it last night, with all that talk of touching herself.

A sound of frustration escaped her as she gave a hop, trying to reach the orange.

“May I offer assistance?” he asked, startling her.

Her eyes went wary. Which irked, as he was trying to be nice.

Don’t say a word. Just get the bloody orange and leave.

She took a step back as Luke plucked the orange from the branch—he was tall enough that he did not have to stretch. He held it out to her, and she took it from his palm without touching him.

“My gratitude,” she said, in a voice clearly communicating that she would like their interaction to come to an immediate close.

He nodded—politely, he hoped—and turned to go.

“Lord mercy,” she blurted out, on a surprised inhale.

When he turned back, he saw that she was staring at the jar in his hand. She immediately colored; she had not meant to say it out loud. “It’s only ... what a shockingly bold little snake,” she explained, the blush deepening. “It’s rather lovely, isn’t it?”

It was lovely, he supposed. “Lovelier than kind,” he said. “It did try to kill me.”

Her eyes widened. “It bit you?”

He nodded. “It is potently venomous. As the most vibrantly-colored creatures of the animal kingdom so often are,” he could not resist adding, allowing his eyes to very briefly land upon her hair.

“Well then, they do play fair, don’t they,” she said evenly. “They broadcast the danger. It’s hardly their fault if you are unwise enough to provoke them regardless.”

He laughed in spite of himself. “A strong point. Two points. One for each entendre.”

She looked a bit taken aback. “Are you quite well? I’m sure I’ve never heard you concede a single one. ”

He shrugged. “You have the right of it. I was devastatingly unwise. In my encounter with the snake.” Her eyes narrowed, waiting for him to twist it into an insult. But her distrustful look wavered as he continued, “I felt wildly embarrassed about it all when I was confined to bed, in agony, panting like a cur, hallucinating that Christ himself stood listening as I prayed that the paralysis of my limbs was temporary.” He smirked at the memory. “He was wearing a sailor’s hat with the robes and whatnot.”

She gave a shocked laugh. Turned the orange around and around in her hands. “Were you ... afraid?”

“Terrified.” It seemed funny now, as brushes with death from which one emerges relatively unscathed tend to. “Hadn’t accomplished nearly enough in life to be sanguine about it ending because I was, once, clumsy in the protocol of my approach.”

“Well then, now you must do every single thing you felt regret that you hadn’t,” she said, with a sun-bright smile.

Abruptly, her unexpected, genuine warmth wiped his mind entirely clean of a response.

He always had a response. She inspired one, effortlessly. Just the sight of her, glaring at him, would bring an insult to his lips.

B ut she wasn’t glaring now. Her gaze was perceptive, and open, and waiting with interest to hear what he might say next.

He seemed not to have words at all. It lasted the length of three breaths.

A blasted eternity, though, three inhales, three exhales. He schooled his eyes to keep from moving to her still-smiling lips five separate times. They were suddenly all he could think about, and they’d rendered his mind utterly useless.

And then he was angry at her. For doing this to him.

“What is on your list? Besides collecting more crawling things, I mean.” She was teasing him now, not unfriendly, and he was starting to feel alarm racing through all his limbs.

“Y ou’d find it boring.” The cool words felt as though they were coming from somewhere outside of him. “No shopping , reading scandal sheets, or indiscriminate flirting.”

Her gaze slammed shut like a door.

“Yes. I am bored just standing here,” she said, acid-sweet . “I believe you were headed outside? Enjoy your stroll, Mr. Ashburton, and do look out for snakes, I’d hate for some little inconsequential thing to fell you again.”

She walked away, back erect, shoulders tense, before he had a chance to respond.

Christ, what is wrong with you, Ashburton?

Suddenly, he imagined Bexley, seeing him now. The disappointment the man would feel at witnessing Luke—for reasons entirely to do with the stupidity of the human male—continually revert to treating Grace Chetwood as his nemesis rather than a partner in the effort to save this museum. Watching him take low swipes at the same gifted mathematician Bexley had befriended as a girl of twelve. That’s what Bexley had done with his energy, while lesser men were distracted by things like lust and fury: see overlooked potential, and gently mentor it.

He’d done it for Luke, come to think of it.

For the love of Coleoptera, Bexley would say, unsmiling, because he would have seen Luke’s failing as a serious one. Remind your pride and your prick that you’re a scientist, and do better, Ash.

But if Luke was honest, he was not certain how to rise above his weakness.

He recalled the night before, when she met his taunt— please tell me you know how to give yourself release —with that wicked glint in her eye. Easily besting him simply by answering his question in casual, devastating detail.

Sometimes I have to bite my own hand to keep quiet.

Even recalling the words sent the blood to his cock.

And he remembered what happened next: her gaze moving over him, dipping south. When she swept her eyes across the arousal he could not hide, the color darkened in her cheeks, and her breath caught, and the triumph on her face mixed with surprise and curiosity and—did he imagine it?— want .

It did give him some miniscule solace. To consider that Grace Chetwood might desire him with even a tenth of the wretched intensity he felt for her. At least he wasn’t alone in suffering the ridiculous incongruity of furiously wanting to rid himself of the same person he badly wished to press bodily against the wall, to kiss until their mouths were bruised .

For a shimmering moment, he allowed himself to imagine it. Touching her. Running his mouth over every freckle of her clavicle. Her guardedness melting away. Never mind the human mind, that overwrought, tail-chasing thing. The human body was, by blessed contrast, simple and direct, focused on the present.

Their bodies, Luke thought dryly, stood a far better chance of brokering a peace treaty than he and Grace did.

Pity she was more inclined to rip out his throat than offer hers. And rightly so.

As Grace sat by the fireplace, eating her orange and ruminating on the cipher, she admitted to herself that she was not sure who was winning the war, she or Luke Ashburton.

She was not even sure what victory was meant to look like. When he’d insulted her, she’d wanted to feel the familiar surge of fury. But she felt mostly disappointment. A tinge of hurt.

And before that ... it had been strange, that little stretch in which they conversed in earnest. It had been ... extremely pleasant. And that felt risky.

If he hadn’t said something harsh and asinine, she very well might have.

Would calling a truce be so bad?

Don’t be na?ve. Do not forget what he called you when he did not know you were listening.

T hat rude awakening at Dawnridge House still tightened her throat. She wished she’d never gone to that wretched ball.

Earlier that night— the night of the slap —she’d slipped away to kiss a poet. The kiss was passable, but his words were trite and unoriginal. It smothered Grace’s interest immediately, and she had returned to the ballroom.

She had seen Luke Ashburton at three separate events now, including when she arrived tonight. Now, she scanned the crowd for him. It was time, she decided, for the two of them to finally converse.

Despite their lack of interaction, Grace had begun to form a picture of the scientist. Thoughtful. Slow to smile, but when he did, it was genuine. Unfailingly polite, if bad at concealing boredom. Well-liked by the men of the ton, but the women seemed intimidated by him—understandable, given the aloofness of his mien. Every item of clothing he wore was gray. Tedious, but it did bring out the unusual tones in his eyes. His whimsical hair plagued him—many times, he’d smooth an errant curl, only to have it wander back onto his forehead.

No, she thought. She wouldn’t change a thing about him. He was trying to be naught but what he was. She liked that.

It struck her then that he lived a comparatively modest lifestyle. Perhaps he had not sought her out because he believed she would not entertain him as a prospect.

But what harm in setting aside prospects, for the duration of a conversation? She was curious to talk to Luke Ashburton, and she suspected he wanted to talk to her. But where was he? Not on the dance floor.

Dawnridge Hall was renowned for its library, and Grace imagined bookish Ashburton might have slipped away to tour it. She followed the corridor, passing an ajar door. Male voices inside, the clink of glasses.

She did not stop to eavesdrop. Truly. Her right slipper had been bothering her, and this was her first private moment to bend and refasten it.

A very droll man was saying, “At this rate, she’ll be living in a palace by fall.”

“It’s like this every year,” a milder voice said. “Some siren entrances the lot of us, only to leave us slain by disappointment.”

“I was a fool,” another said, with a chuckle. “I thought she had eyes for me.”

“Poor, poor Freddie,” the droll one said. “Heart crushed once again by a red-haired Delilah.”

Oh dear. There were other redheaded ladies in attendance, but the hair on the nape of her neck had already begun to rise before the mild one added, “If it’s any consolation, you are far from the first man whose hopes were dashed on the rocks of Miss Grace Chetwood.”

The sensible part of Grace issued stern instruction to walk away. They sounded lubricated enough to say something she would not enjoy hearing. Yes. She would go.

But then, a voice she recognized. Quieter, cooler that the rest. “Poor Freddie ought to send up his thanks in church this Sunday. He was spared.”

Grace peeked through the ajar door, to see that every man in the circle—there were perhaps eight of them—was leaning in to listen to Luke Ashburton.

The one called Freddie— short-statured , ruddy-faced —punched Ashburton on the shoulder. Grace realized she had danced with this Freddie, but could not now recall his full name. Or much about the encounter. “You needn’t protect my tender heart, Ash.”

“You stood no chance,” Ashburton informed him. “Because despite your deep pockets, you will inherit no title. Or had you not noticed the lady moving up the ranks so methodically, one could draw up an official chart of the peerage from her dance card?”

Grac e felt bewildered. She certainly hasn’t been methodical. Only ... popular, and with the ability to pick any dance partner, why would she not select the most eligible?

The droll one—soft around the middle, beautiful clothes, terrible posture—shook his head as he sipped bourbon. “If I had a kingdom, I’d give it to tear that gown off her body.”

“I’d give it just to see the top half,” a man who could be his blonder twin chimed in.

Her face burned, and a hopeless sort of frustration filled her. The others were trying to top one another now, describing what they’d give in exchange for a tour of the mysteries of her body.

“ Is it so mysterious?” Ashburton asked, and again, everyone got quiet. “Do you mean to imply that she dresses to conceal?”

Ashburton had turned to share a smirk with the droll one, and now Grace could see his face better. There was an intensity to his expression that took her aback. He spoke as though the topic bored him. But his eyes were so sharp. “Observation tells us all, gentlemen.”

“Enlighten us, Professor,” the mild one said, and brought a decanter to Ashburton to top up his glass.

Ashburton made a faux-humble gesture, as if to say his observations were nothing special. “Grace Chetwood,” he said, “would make any man’s life a waking nightmare. She is a provocateur in the guise of an innocent princess—one need look no further than her extravagant gowns—”

“Oh, I need look further ,” someone joked lasciviously.

“Yes, she embellishes herself cannily to ensure you look nowhere else. Much like the plumage of brightly-colored birds desperate to mate.”

“I am a simple man. I like a bird with nice, fat feathers,” the blond one said.

Ashburton ticked a shoulder. “There is a point beyond which, vulgarity. But to each his own.”

“The bigger the better,” the droll one said. “I want a soft place to rest my head.”

“Visit a brothel, then, paperskull, and keep your kingdom for a wife who won’t drive you insane with the sound of her giggle,” Ashburton said, and they all laughed harder.

Grace did not laugh. She was of a mind never to laugh again. Her body felt filled with sand. She somehow managed to propel herself away.

To think. She’d gone to find Luke Ashburton. Because she had imagined she liked him.

She had promised a dance to ... she could not recall. But suddenly, she could not bear the thought of a crowd. And so, instead, Grace ducked through the heavy, carved door of the library. It was warm, cozily lit, and blessedly empty.

She didn’t realize she was crying until she looked down and saw dark spots on her gown.

Sitting by the fire now in the library, her work in her lap, Grace realized she was tearing up again, recalling the night. Frustrated, she reminded herself that she was not sad about Ashburton. She was angry.

Rage was energizing. And she needed energy to crack this blasted cipher.