Page 7 of The Marriage Method

And yet, despite all precaution, that’s exactly where she’d found herself.

Closing her fingers around the handle of her cane, she took a deep, steadying breath. Nothing could be gained by losing her composure. This was a catastrophe, to be sure. And one of epic proportions. But it wasn’t beyond mending. All she had to do was think rationally, and—more importantly—behave rationally.

“I don’t suppose you have any sherry?” she inquired.

Miles didn’t blink at the request. He went behind his desk. Opening a drawer, he extracted a small silver flask. “Will brandy suffice?”

“It will do nicely, thank you.” She held out her hand to him. “If you please?”

He passed her the flask, watching her with that same inscrutable expression as she uncapped it and took a swig straight from the spout. It scorched down her throat like wildfire, setting her midsection alight.

She grimaced mightily. “Ugh.”

“Better?”

“Quite.” She screwed the top back onto the flask and returned it to him. “Now, if you wouldn’t mind fetching Reverend Pettiman?”

Again, Miles obeyed. If Nell didn’t know better, she’d suspect he was humoring her.

He crossed to the door and opened it. “Higgins!”

The same clerk who had escorted Nell to Miles’s office, and who had burst in on them mere moments ago, trotted forward. He was a stocky young man, with neatly pomaded hair and a highly polished pocket watch. “Yes, sir?”

“Where did you put my next appointment?” Miles asked.

“The gentleman in the beaver hat? He left, sir.”

“Left?” Miles echoed flatly.

“I did explain things to him,” Mr. Higgins replied. “Said as how the lady must have come over in a faint, and that we keep the door closed on account of the feral cat, and how you’re a gentleman of the utmost integrity. But the man wasn’t interested in facts, sir. He asked if I took him for a fool, then he hurried off, muttering something about needing to write a letter before the next post went out.”

Nell’s stomach sank. Good gracious. The reverend wasted no time, did he? And to think, she might have been being ravished in this room!

With an effort, she stood from her chair. Her leg was still throbbing, but she could manage with her cane. Just.

Miles flashed her a piercing glance. “A moment, Higgins.”

“Yes, sir.” The newspaper clerk dutifully remained in the doorway, pointedly avoiding Nell’s gaze as he awaited his orders.

Miles returned to Nell. His deep voice lowered, pitched for her ears alone. “You’re going?”

“I must,” she replied under her breath. “If Reverend Pettiman is thinking to report me for wanton conduct—”

Miles made a scoffing sound. “Hardly that. It was an innocent encounter. Wholly explainable, though admittedly embarrassing to all parties involved. The reverend must have realized that on some level.”

She gave him an incredulous look. “How do you come to that conclusion?”

“If he thought your virtue was in danger, he’d have stormed in to rescue you. He’d never have left while we were still…doing whatever it was he imagined we were doing.”

Nell was beyond blushing. “Yes,” she said emphatically, “he would.”

“I disagree,” Miles said. “It makes no sense.”

“Not if you understand his motivating force. These suffocating rules of behavior that men like Pettiman espouse aren’t about protecting women. They’re about punishing them. He’s more concerned with me being held to account for some imagined moral crime than he is in saving me from being ravished.”

“I can hardly call what happened—”

“You might have been doing anything, and rather than burst in and demand you unhand me, he rushed off to telegraph my crimes to…whom? The other members of the council? The gentlewomen who contribute funds to the school? Miss Corvus herself?”