Page 71 of The Marriage Method

But no.

That would imply that anyone would have done. Any man. Any friend. Anyone who might help to keep the storm of emotion at bay. But it hadn’t been just anyone she’d wanted as she’d departed Lady Belwood’s house this afternoon. It had been Miles.

She turned her face into the curve of his palm. “I want you, too,” she told him. “I’m sorry I was so clumsy about it.”

“Not clumsy,” he said. “Wonderful.”

Her mouth lifted in a tremulous smile. “After all but mauling you in your library?”

“Mauling me,” he repeated with a trace of husky amusement. “Is that what you did?”

“I fear I did.”

He stroked her cheek with the pad of his thumb. His expression grew serious. “What I don’t understand is why.”

“Must there be a reason?”

“No, but I suspect there is one.” He smoothed a lock of her hair from her face. “What happened today, Nell?”

Nell’s eyes burned with the threat of tears. She slowly pulled away from him. He made no effort to stop her. His hand dropped from her cheek and his arm loosened at her waist. She took a limping step back. She was at once colder. More alone. Just as she’d been when she’d stood in Lady Belwood’s drawing room, staring at her ladyship’s retreating figure in stunned silence.

A tremor went through Nell to recall it. Her voice cracked. “The silliest thing,” she said. “I believe I met my mother.”

• • • • •

Miles settled Nell back in her chair by the waning fire. He pressed a snifter of brandy into her hand. “Lady Belwood?” he said. “Are you certain?”

“As certain as I can be.” Nell’s slim fingers curled around the bowl of the glass. “I don’t resemble her. Not enough that anyone would notice. But I know that perfume. And she was familiar. It’s the only explanation—”

“Drink,” he urged her.

Nell took a grudging sip. She grimaced as she lowered the snifter. “I’m not distraught,” she said. “Only unsettled.”

“I should say so,” Miles replied.

He was rather unsettled himself. Not five minutes ago, he’d been kissing her like a madman. His body was still coiled tight, his blood still surging in a dangerous simmer.

It shouldn’t have happened. Not any of it. But it had, to his amazement. She’d kissed him. And just like that, he’d abandoned his reason, cast aside restraint, and given in to the impulses he’d been battling since the moment they’d met. There had been no more room for logical argument. There had only been Nell. Her soft mouth and body, and the feel of her fingers twining insistently in his hair.

She was, indeed, the heavy artillery. Once she’d turned her sights on him, Miles hadn’t stood a chance.

“Lady Belwood sponsored Mrs. Royce’s entrance into society, did she not?” he asked.

“She did.”

“Then she’s a connection of hers?”

“Not of hers, no. Of Miss Corvus’s. It was she who provided Effie with an introduction to Lady Belwood.”

Effie. The former Euphemia Flite. Now Euphemia Royce.

Miles had always suspected the woman was trouble. And if she was, the mysterious Miss Corvus must be doubly so. It was she who had sent Mrs. Royce to London to ruin Lord Compton. She who had directed Nell to come to Miles’s office to put his questions about the Academy to rest.

A woman who was recruiting girls with natural talent. Girls who grew into formidable ladies like Nell and Mrs. Royce and God knew how many others that were even now embedded in fashionable households, well-to-do schools, and perhaps even married to powerful men.

“I don’t believe I was ever supposed to meet her,” Nell said. “If Effie had severed the contact, I never would have done. But now…I can’t simply pretend I didn’t see her. That I don’t know who she is.”

“Of course not,” Miles said. “What about her? Lady Belwood? Did she show any sign of recognition?”