45

S tephen hauled himself up from his comfortable padded chair that lately felt like a bed of nails. He trudged down the hall and into his workroom. He'd been here for days, and still hadn't opened a single box after returning home from Castle Harbrook.

Three days of staring sullenly at an unlit fireplace while the forgotten tea cradled in his hands grew cold.

Three days of press-up after press-up after press-up. Anything to relieve his anxiety. None of it worked.

Three days of wishing he were still standing in for his cousin. That Reddington was still a puffed-up peacock determined to lay public siege on someone else's castle. That Elizabeth were there at Stephen's side, on the battlefield and in his bed.

Three days was an eternity.

It normally took Stephen less than three hours to unpack after a trip, no matter how many crates of new supplies he'd bought. He adored unpacking. Each item that passed through his hands sparked inspiration for a new contraption, a new trigger, a new outcome.

The problem was, he didn't want a new idea. He wanted the fantasy in his head to become real. Elizabeth was the one thing Stephen didn't want to build up or tear down or alter. He wanted to install her in this very room and keep her exactly as she was, forever and always.

But he didn't have her. He'd never truly had her. She wasn't a thing a man could have . She was someone who had to give herself willingly, who had to choose him , again and again, not just as a temporary diversion but as a permanent installation in her life.

But there had been no sign. No visit. No letter. Not even a messenger crow.

She'd made her choice. And the answer was no.

In defeat, he turned to the pile of boxes shipped home from the castle. He lifted a chisel from his worktable and forced himself to pry the lid from a wooden crate in a civilized manner, rather than take a hatchet to it as he'd prefer. There were no berserkers here. Only a reclusive tinker. He'd lost himself in his machines before, for decades at a time. He could do so again.

The contents of the box conspired against him. The wooden crate was not full of planks and pulleys and interlocking gears as he'd anticipated, but rather, the broken pieces of Elizabeth's sweetly hilarious attempt at making a machine for him as a gift. Her contraption had never worked. It had fallen apart at the first touch.

Much like Stephen felt now.

He dropped to his knees before the open crate and lifted out the topmost nonsensical piece. What had this crooked bar been for? Who knew? Did Elizabeth even know? A choking laugh garbled in his throat. He couldn't bear to repurpose the parts in some other machine. Nor could he bring himself to attempt to fix her creation himself, and make a working contraption of it.

The thing had barely been standing when Elizabeth presented her design to him, yet it was perfect just as it was. It wasn't her invention's function—or lack thereof—that meant so much to him. It was the intent to give him something that he did not have. Something he might like. He had filled the empty spaces in his heart with machines before. Her logic was sound. But it was not a lifeless wooden structure that he needed most.

He craved Elizabeth.

Slowly, Stephen removed each piece from the box and placed it in a row along the floor. If he was careful, perhaps he could rebuild it exactly as she'd had it. It wouldn't be quite like having her back—and if he so much as hiccupped, it would fall apart all over again—but it would make him feel like he still had some connection to her, no matter how gossamer.

Then again, it was a kiss-delivery machine. No matter how perfectly Stephen managed to reassemble it, without Elizabeth here… There would be no more kisses.

The empty room seemed to whisper, What did you think would happen?

Yes. A fair question. What had he thought would happen? A woman like that… A man like him… It had been foolish to fall in love. Of course she wouldn't stay. She was a transitory tempest, and he the empty land laid waste in her passing.

One could not reason with a tempest. One could love it from afar, and one could not blame it for its trail of destruction. He was the architect of his own loneliness. Always had been. Hanging back, holding his tongue, hiding himself away.

And then came Elizabeth. She had smashed her way past his barriers just like she'd done to the castle. And once his defenses were breached, to Stephen's surprise he discovered that he liked her there. That life with her was infinitely better than life without her.

So what was he going to do about it?

Stephen pushed to his feet. He wasn't just about to try something new. He was going to try his hardest . Prepare his best argument, in the event she ever actually did attempt to communicate with him in the future. He'd have the perfect gift on hand for the woman he hoped would be his bride.

Roses? Bah.

Stephen had a berserker to woo.