Chapter Twenty

A lfie returned to the kitchen to boil water and clean his beakers when he heard dishes clattering. As soon as he walked in, he knew he should turn around and leave her alone before she saw him.

“Oh, hello!” Bea looked over her shoulder with a shy smile, one so sweet Alfie’s insides cringed as his body went hard, and his brain liquefied as if she’d melted his resolve. She was irresistible, and he wanted to be close to her as much as he wanted to breathe air.

Pippa had warned him, and he knew he should speak with her, but this wasn’t like the other times. He couldn’t find a few smooth lines to convince her to let him kiss her. If he did kiss her, he’d lose his heart forever. Perhaps he already had. He wasn’t sure, but he knew this was unchartered territory for him.

“Bea!” Alfie said, immediately chastising himself for not being more courteous. What he should do was bow to her and return to his apothecary. Or better, lock himself in his bedchamber until she was gone so he wouldn’t have wicked thoughts near the virtuous and most definitely virginal aristocratic lady who was—what was she doing?

“I wanted to put these back,” Bea said as she used the hand towel to wipe the rims of the teacups. Did she know how to dry dishes?

She has servants for these tasks.

“Why are you cleaning the cups in our kitchen?” Alfie asked, and she flinched.

She closed her eyes momentarily and inhaled as if she had to restore her courage. Then she sniffled. “I spoke to Pippa, and then she had to leave. Given that there were no maids or footmen to call on, I thought I should tidy the kitchen up before I leave.”

Alfie didn’t believe her. A lady didn’t just clean up other people’s kitchens; they didn’t even clean their own. Judging from most ladies of the Ton he’d met—and he knew many, including their secrets—they probably didn’t know where their teacups went after use.

“Why are you still here?” he asked.

Bea looked intently at a cup in her hand, polishing the handle as if it were a diamond set in gold. “Perhaps Pippa will need me for the wedding plans when she returns.”

“Didn’t she go to the new house with Nick?”

“ Yes-s-s ?” Bea drew the word out as if she dragged her feet toward a poorly conceived lie.

“So they won’t be back today.”

Reading between the lines was one of the skills an apothecary honed over the years. When patients spoke of symptoms, they tended to leave out the most embarrassing bits or lie about the sources of the infection or injury. Simply put, Alfie could detect when people lied to him, and Bea was not telling him the truth about why she was there.

“Lady Beatrice?” Alfie stepped closer. “Bea?” She was “Bea” in his mind, especially when they were alone, and he had a sinking feeling that her title and station were the source of her distress.

“I was hoping to see you,” she whispered, her back turned toward him.

She was so preciously shy.

You can trust me. But you should stay away from me because I don’t trust myself around you.

“There are workers at Cloverdale House. They’ve come to retrieve some of Pippa’s things for the new townhouse on Harley Street.” Bea turned her head as she spoke, raising her brows and taking on a placid expression. It was an act of pretending to be stronger than she was.

“Pippa will move out, which upsets you,” Alfie said.

Bea’s lips flattened into a line but quickly drooped into a frown. “You must think me a terribly selfish person. I apologize if I disappoint you.” She said it with such ease as if she’d often been told… wait !

“How could you ever disappoint anyone?” Alfie asked.

She faced him now, waved in the air, and inhaled. “I disappoint everyone. I’m not good enough. It’s why my parents left, why Stan doesn’t want me or else he would have called on me or sent flowers, and it’s probably why you will leave me alone, too.”

Alfie took another step toward her, still keeping a safe distance so he wouldn’t wrap himself around her and kiss this nonsense out of her mind.

“Why did your parents leave for China?”

“Singapore.” She corrected him. “It’s not part of China.”

“Why Singapore?”

“They are representing the Crown’s interest. It’s supposed to be a trading post to expand the tea trade routes and other goods.” They’re trying to multiply our fortune and avoid me at the same time.

Opium came to mind. It was the most coveted good the English wanted to import, even though tea masked the shipments perfectly. Alfie knew this well from his apprenticeships in India, which was a frequented port for the English ships on their return.

“They are ashamed of me,” Bea murmured.

“Ashamed. Of you.” Alfie felt the bitterness in her voice like a punch in the stomach, yet his mind could not grasp the absurdity.

“It’s because of the beast. The inner fury, Mother says. No virtue can mask it when it comes out, and they think it’s why I haven’t had any offers yet.”

Ridiculous . It was nothing but a rash. It wasn’t a punishment or a result of her lack of…whatever it was that her parents thought she lacked. But that’s what she had been told, enough times that she believed she was at fault for the affliction that plagued her. “But you have, haven’t you?”

“Four-and-twenty. Mother doesn’t know I turned them all down, but Father won’t allow me to turn another down when he returns. Which will be soon, and I’m not wed.” And I’d rather run away than accept one of the aristocrats at Almack’s who’d lock me up when I have the hives — perhaps even when I don’t. I won’t let them keep me in a gilded cage.

Alfie’s heart plummeted. She was so far out of his reach; he’d known it all along. But the beauty of the Ton had already rejected several titled men, most of them probably handsome, young, and rich—there just wasn’t any ground for Alfie to compete.

“Can I help you?” Alfie asked when Bea dragged a chair to the cupboard.

“Yes, tell me where this plate goes, please.” She juggled three cups, precariously perched atop a tower of saucers in her hand. When she stretched, the hem of her dress rode up, and Alfie could see her slim ankles as Bea raised up on her toes to reach the shelf. The fabric of her dress lay in folds over her bottom, accentuating the perfect curve in a way that left little to the imagination and yet stimulated the most tantalizing thoughts in Alfie’s mind.

Suddenly, the dishes crashed onto the tiled floor with a merciless clatter, shards of porcelain scattering on the dark tiles. As each piece skidded before Alfie’s feet, the jarring crash echoed off the walls—a harsh reminder of how easily something whole could come apart, leaving nothing but scattered pieces in its wake. That’s what would happen if he laid his hand on Lady Beatrice. Bea.

No! He mustn’t think of her as Bea. But since he’d kissed her, he couldn’t help it. She was as out of reach as the cups on the top shelf, and if he overreached, shards with sharp edges would make him bleed.

One saucer spun away, twirled on the tiles, rolled on its edge, and fell over.

“Oh, look!” Bea darted toward it, probably attempting to retrieve it. But she stepped on a sharp piece of porcelain and slipped.

With the spontaneous surge of a lion jumping to catch an antelope in mid-air, Alfie lunged forward, wrapped his arms around her, and pulled her close and away from the broken dishes.

The safety of his hold contrasted sharply with the chaos around them. Holding her felt so right that order was restored. They stood around the ruins of their mishap, her breath quick in the silence that followed. In that moment, amidst the shards of their accident, something fragile yet unbroken passed between them.

“I’m so sorry,” she whispered, her breath light and sweet.

Only then did Alfie realize that his hands were on the small of her back and his arms closely wrapped around her body. It would have been scandalous if anyone had found them like this. Nick would probably never speak to him again if he knew how little restraint Alfie showed around Pippa’s cousin.

But then, why did she relax in his grasp?

Alfie felt more complete and at ease with her in his arms than when she was out of reach.

Like burned sugar turning into caramel, the moment thickened, and the sweetness of their contact developed a unique flavor that neither had until they came together—sweetness and heat that became a sticky mess—yet one that was delicious and irresistible.

Alfie flexed his biceps, and Bea met his gaze, making no effort to escape his grasp. Although she blushed and batted her lashes quickly, she remained in his arms.

Several of the curly flyaways that framed her face as a rose-golden halo had fallen in her face, and Alfie shifted her weight in his left arm, let go with his right, and brushed a strand of her soft hair out of her face, along her left cheeks, and then he tucked it behind her ear.

She sucked in her lower lip, and her gaze fell to his mouth.

She wants another kiss.

I want to kiss you, too.

*

Bea’s heart beat so fast in her chest it was as if it were an orchestra of percussions. It wasn’t until his gaze fell to her mouth that the cymbals slammed together.

Now that she knew how he kissed, she didn’t dare breathe lest she miss the moment his lips met hers.

His eyes, deep pools of longing, lingered on her lips, tracing the curve as if committing it to memory. Bea’s breath hitched, anticipation tightening its grip. She stood frozen, a statue poised on the brink of an awakening when Alfie leaned in again, erasing the distance.

Just as their lips hovered on the edge of touching, a voice cut through the kitchen’s enchanted silence.

“Alfie!” Wendy’s insistent and urgent call from the other room pierced the magic bubble they’d wrapped themselves in. It spoke of reality crashing back, of duty and demands that waited for no one, not even for two hearts teetering on the cusp of surrender.

Alfie’s response, a murmur barely audible, carried a weight heavier than the words themselves. “She can wait,” he said if he were speaking about his little sister and not Nick’s. Determination laced his tone, a declaration that nothing would drag him from this precipice—not duty nor expectation, for this sliver of time.

“Alfie, quick!” Wendy’s voice sounded closer.

Bea’s pulse soared. His words, a vow in the quiet of the evening, promised her everything. That she mattered more than the call of responsibilities, that this moment—they—were worth every second stolen from the world outside.

Their eyes locked, and the unspoken understanding of the kiss that didn’t happen flooded her senses like a rapid opening of a floodgate of emotion. In Alfie’s gaze, Bea saw the reflection of her resolve. She no longer saw the girl who hesitated and feared the fall. Instead, she recognized the woman who dared to leap, heart first, into forbidden pleasures.

With courage fueled by his assurance, Bea closed the gap. She didn’t care if she got caught, she was burning for Alfie. Her lips met his in a kiss that spoke of yearning held at bay, whispers shared in the quiet, and promises made under the cloak of night. It was a kiss that defied interruptions and honored the truth in their hearts.

In that kiss, time ceased to exist. There were no calls to answer, no world beyond the space they occupied in the kitchen. There was only Alfie and Bea and the realization that some moments were worth every risk.

“Alfie!” Wendy’s voice was an exhale as she arrived at the door.

Bea tore herself from Alfie’s mouth and dropped her head.

To her astonishment, instead of stepping away from her, Alfie held her and placed a kiss on her forehead.

“Yes, Wendy?” he grumbled when he finally melted away from Bea, his reluctance as obvious as the broken cups on the floor.

Wendy frowned, but Bea didn’t dare hold her gaze. She’d been found out.

Perhaps Wendy would tell Pippa.

Bea should be ashamed—but she wasn’t. Kissing Alfie was as necessary as letting her heart beat. It was the elixir of her essence, and when she was near Alfie, she was more herself than she’d ever been. No love potion or truth serum was necessary, for Alfie brought her nature to the surface without any chemistry support.

And she liked that version of herself.

Even if Wendy gave them a stern look.

They were caught.