Page 48 of The Marriage Method

Nell’s already surging pulse skittered wildly. She’d thought herself at a disadvantage sitting. It was nothing to meeting him face-to-face. He must be several inches over six feet tall at least. It wasn’t as noticeable when she was in her boots and bonnet, but it was painfully obvious now.

“It was done for myself as much as for you,” he said.

“Still, you didn’t have to be so kind about it all. The special license, the gardenias, the welcome I’ve received from Mrs. Bright and the other servants. As well as the first-class railway fare. That was all for my benefit, I suppose, though I was too blind to see it at the time.”

His brows notched. “I’m not an unfeeling monster, Nell. I’m aware this isn’t what you wanted. Being here like this, with me. But…” He shook his head. “Since it couldn’t be helped…”

“Since I ruined you, you mean.”

His eyes met hers. The expression in them was solemn. “Perchance we ruined each other.”

Butterflies fluttered in Nell’s stomach as she returned his gaze. She felt the same bewildering swell of uneasy longing she’d felt in the dining room before they’d bid each other good night. She didn’t understand it.

“Perhaps we did,” she said. “For better or for worse.”

“As the vicar so appropriately put it.”

There was an interminable pause.

Nell was the first to break it. “Miles…” she began softly. She didn’t sound at all like herself.

Miles’s throat contracted on a swallow. “Yes?” His own voice was a husky rasp.

“Doesn’t it seem strange that…that this is our wedding night?” she asked.

“No,” he said. “Given that we were married this morning.”

“I wasn’t talking about the logic of it. I meant—”

“I know what you meant.”

“Then—”

“That isn’t why I came to your room,” he said.

Heat bloomed in her cheeks. “I wasn’t implying that it was.”

“I truly did just want to check on you. I’ve been…concerned.”

She bent her head, recollecting how many times she’d been near tears in his presence today. First in the garden beneath the tower, then during the hackney ride from Whitechapel. He must think her the veriest watering pot. It wasn’t her. It never had been. She was as strong as any of her Academy sisters. Stronger.

“You needn’t be,” she told him.

“Hazard of the job,” he said.

She gave him a dubious look. “Newspaper editor?”

“Husband,” he replied.

The butterflies’ wings beat faster. She felt a trifle breathless. “Are you implying that the mere fact of being married can change how a person feels about another person?”

“It seems to be the case.”

“And that’s all it is? Some ingrained sense of societal convention?”

“Very likely,” he said.

Nell didn’t believe it. She wasn’t a conventional person. Rather the opposite. “I’m not convinced.”