Chapter 14

Chapter

Fourteen

Nigel

N igel lowered the one candle to the table and crossed the room, hurrying toward the door as quickly as he could. Opening it a fraction, he peered out into the darkness of the hallway. Only a little of the light from his candle fell on her face.

Miss Fitzroy stood before him with her cloak lowered around her shoulders, smiling at him in an almost giddy fashion. The sight of such a smile made his stomach coil, with a sort of excitement that lodged deep inside of him.

I should not be feeling such things.

Without speaking, he pushed the door open wide, urging her to come inside. She stepped in, and he closed the door hurriedly, checking just once down the stairs to ensure that this evening no one had heard her coming.

Leaning against the closed wood, he sighed and stared at her, trying to get control of the excitement fluttering within his stomach. Miss Fitzroy should not be here, should not be alone with him, yet this yearning seemed to want to keep her around. Had he not waited all evening for the possibility of her turning up? Had he not hoped for it, fidgeting constantly and repeatedly glancing at the door?

"What dark apartments," Miss Fitzroy said with a sudden giggle, moving to the table. "Do you just have the one candle to keep you company in the evening? Curious." She fiddled with the brass plate beneath the candlestick.

"Miss Fitzroy, you and I must talk about this." He stepped away from the door, thoroughly believing now that his hope of seeing her was a foolish one indeed. Every wise thought in him knew it was bad for her to be here.

"Good evening to you too," she murmured with an easy smile. She took off her cloak and dropped it over the back of a chair.

She wore the same peach gown he had seen her wear that first day, yet now it was not dappled with dirt. It suited her well, flattered her figure so much that Nigel's eyes went where they shouldn't.

What is wrong with me?

He adjusted his waistcoat and crossed the room, keeping as much distance between them as he possibly could.

"I wanted to thank you for your gift today," she said in a rush as he reached for a cabinet and opened it wide. "The book…I found it in the hall." She smiled sweetly as he glanced back at her. He had no idea such a simple act of giving a book would cause such happiness, but with Miss Fitzroy, it had done. "I cannot thank you enough."

"You're welcome," he murmured as he poured himself a glass of brandy, hoping to dull the burning feeling in his stomach when he looked at her. He gestured to another glass, uncertain why he offered her one when he was intent on making her leave again.

"Yes please." She crossed toward him.

He poured out a second glass and left it for her to take, raising his own and crossing the room once more, keeping as much distance between them as he possibly could.

"Miss Fitzroy, I am not sure this is a wise idea." He rubbed his brow and his temple, feeling the beginning of a headache lodge deep within. He could only presume it came from overthinking so much.

"Why is it you have just one candle, Doctor?" she asked, raising her glass between her two palms as she returned to stand by the table and nodded down at it. "It leaves this place rather dark, does it not?"

"What?" He looked sharply at her, confused by the line of her questioning.

"Do you eat here too?" She motioned at the table. "I did not realize. There must be something nice about taking your meals amongst your work. Goodness, if I had ever tried to bring a book to the dining table, my mother would have snatched it away instantly."

"Parents can be like that," Nigel muttered, more to himself as he took a sip of his brandy. He could remember all too easily taking books about human biology to the dining table and his father's look of horror when he had looked over and seen the books. It had grated on him, his father's curling of his nose, and the press of his thin lips together.

"You are such a well-dressed doctor," Miss Fitzroy declared suddenly and walked around the table, her eyes dancing across his things.

Nigel suddenly felt self-conscious of his rooms, in a way he had never bothered to be before. He liked this place. It might be small, poky, hardly what he was used to growing up, and the last time his father had come here, he'd pressed a scented posy to his nose throughout. Yet it was his own space, and he loved to fill it with candles. Looking to the side of the room, he saw a small tray where he'd left a tobacco pipe still smoking. He stepped toward it and turned the tobacco out, putting out the burning. The scent leapt into the air.

"What of it?" Nigel asked, glancing back at her. She ran a hand across one of his stacks of books, and he feared for a minute that she could be checking for dust.

"These apartments are just not what I was expecting the first time I came here. They are rather small, and I just thought…" She looked at him, squarely this time, and Nigel stared back, raising a solitary eyebrow.

"Enough," he said, his voice dark.

"I am sorry?"

"Enough." His voice was sharper this time. "If the wealthy daughter of a baron has merely come here to disparage my situation, I will have no part in it."

"What?" She took a step back, her jaw falling slack. "That is not what I meant?—"

"No? From where I am standing, it appeared very much as if your haughty manners were making you look down on my things. Look at the way you search for dust on my books." He used his brandy glass to point toward her hand resting on a stack of books.

"God's wounds. Are you so prepared and ready to be insulted that you see insult where there is none?" She shook her head, clearly bewildered by him.

"I beg your pardon?" He stepped toward her. Something in her inspired an energy in him. Something that he was no longer sure was annoyance, frustration, or just attraction. He moved around the table, coming close to her. She held her ground, no longer holding onto his books but taking a sip from her brandy. "What did you mean by that?"

"What did you mean by your own words?" She nodded at him. "I meant no insult by asking you about your candle, or these rooms. They are justified questions, questions of interest, that is all. If you perceive ignorance in them, that is your own fault. You seek fault where there is none."

"I am not that sort of person."

"No? Are you not?" She frowned deeply. "As far as I can see, between the pair of us, you are the one who has been disparaging ever since we have met."

"I have not been!" he declared with abrupt vigor, aware that they had stepped very close to one another now. It didn't seem to matter that he knew it was inappropriate. Arguing with her was natural and being close to her even more so.

"No? Then remind me, who showed haughtiness that first day of our meeting? To choose your specific synonym for ‘pride'. You were the one, Doctor. You insinuated I was a maid." She motioned to him with her brandy glass, coming dangerously close to sloshing the golden-brown liquid over the rim of the glass. He reached out and laid a hand to the spindle of the glass, stopping that liquid from falling. She stared down at his hand on the glass, their fingers mere inches away from one another.

"That was a genuine mistake. I meant no ill will in my statement," he explained hurriedly. "My focus when I am with a patient is them. I was hardly looking around and taking much notice of you."

"So I see." She retracted her hand back, pulling the glass from him. When she looked down at the glass, her face blushing a deep red, he realized how his words had sounded.

"That is not what I meant?—"

"You said it, Doctor," she said simply, raising her head to reveal a rather amused smirk, though he wondered if it was forced.

Have I hurt your feelings? God's wounds, I have lost the ability to talk clearly around Miss Fitzroy!

"You took no notice of me. It's a wonder you have noticed me at all by now. I suppose you cannot avoid it when I keep turning up in your apartments."

"It's a matter of focus, that is all," he explained hurriedly, moving toward her once again. They were so close now; it was very inappropriate. Her scent wafter around him, the honeysuckle lingering under his nose, and he wondered if she could smell the brandy and tobacco on him. "I was not focused on you. I was focused on my patient."

"And now?"

"Well, it would be hard not to be focused on you, would it? No matter how much I drink this to try to dull that feeling." He held up his own brandy glass between them.

"What do you mean by that?" Her brows quirked together.

"Nothing." His voice deepened. He feared just how much he had said and revealed to her. Would she understand from that conversation that he was drawn to her, inexplicably so, even when he tried to pull back from her? "I am merely frustrated by your questioning of my situation. Is it so poor compared to your own? Do you wish to disparage it?"

"Come off your high horse, would you?" She laughed this time. The sudden sound shocked him, and he stared at her. "I was not being proud but enquiring as to your situation. Once again, Doctor, you see fault and insult where there is none. Why is that?" She tilted her head to the side. He felt strangely watched, in the same way he imagined some of his patients felt examined by him when he came to see them. Her eyes were penetrating, staring straight at him.

"You baffle me." The words were out of his lips before he could stop them. Her brows shot up in surprise. "For someone so intrigued about the idea of helping people, you do seem a little proud." He raised his hand and held up his fingers a short distance apart. "It is a natural assumption based on the things you have said."

"Proud? This from the man who has lectured me in practically all of our meetings?" she asked, stepping toward him. She was now so close she had to tilt her head up to look at him.

"Is that what I have done?"

"Without fault! Every single time," she spoke with vigor.

"That was not my intention. These are merely spirited debates," he said hurriedly, bending down a little toward her.

"Is that what they are?" She laughed once more, almost scoffing at the idea. "For they sound like arguments to me."

He said nothing. Abruptly, their argument ended, and they stared at one another, their chests rising and falling.

What am I doing?

He was so close to Miss Fitzroy that he could have given in to a longing. He could have kissed her, and his eyes even flitted down to her full lips, imagining what it could be like. Would she taste like honeysuckle? Just like her scent?

Do not be a fool.

He returned his eyes to meet her own, knowing he had to back up from her now.

"See? This is why even considering your proposal to teach you is a poor idea indeed." He backed up from her, watching as she blinked. It was as if she had come out of a trance the way she looked at him, shaken at the sudden distance there.

"What do you mean?" she asked, clutching tighter to her brandy glass.

"I mean that we debate or argue continuously. How could I even be your teacher, Miss Fitzroy, if we cannot keep the peace between us in a simple discussion over a brandy?" He walked around the table and kept himself on the other side, so many of his books were between them.

"Very well, I see that I must offer something more if I am to persuade you to even consider my offer seriously." She stood taller and lifted her wrist. Nigel noticed for the first time there was a small reticule latched around her hand. She dropped it to the table between them with a small thud. "I can pay you for your lessons to me."

"What did you say?" He nearly choked on his brandy.

"It is customary, is it not? If one is a tutor, they are paid." She slid the reticule toward him across the table, but he didn't reach for it to look inside and see what money she had brought with her. "This is why I was asking before about your situation, the candle, the small apartments…" She winced, gesturing to the apartments as she seemed to realize just how it had sounded. "I was trying to gauge whether you were in need of money and if you would be open to such an offer, Doctor."

"Ah." He looked down at the reticule. That was hardly the act of a proud woman, but a practical one. He had misjudged her conversation entirely.

"What do you think?" she asked, nodding at the reticule. "I can pay you fairly, and this way it is simply a business deal. You and I both obtain something we need or desire."

Her use of the word ‘desire' made his spine stiffen. As he stared at her, he realized that was exactly what he did feel. Yet it had nothing to do with the money, and everything to do with Miss Fitzroy.

"You can earn a little money, and I can learn what I need to learn. Now, what is so awful about that idea?" she asked, a small smile appearing.

"Firstly," he reached for the reticule, holding it up and grimacing when he found it so heavy, "walking alone in this part of London with so much in your reticule is an ill idea indeed. What if someone realized what you were carrying?"

"And how would they know that? Unless they could look through silk." She snatched the reticule from him with a triumphant smile. "Well, Doctor? What do you think of my proposal?"

Nigel's jaw slackened.

I do not know what to say.