Page 88 of The Marriage Method

She brushed his cheek with the edge of her finger. “I’m muddled.”

“The laudanum,” he said. “You’ll be clearer headed tomorrow.”

She gazed into his eyes. “Did you undress me?”

He looked steadily back at her. “I did.”

She touched his cheek again, feeling oddly unconstrained by self-consciousness or doubt. “You didn’t cut away my crinoline, I hope.”

His mouth tipped briefly. “Very nearly. It’s a confounding article.”

“I’m a confounding article,” she informed him.

His smiled lingered. “You’re lucky you’re not in your right mind at the moment. I’d planned to scold you afterward.”

“Hmm.” Somehow, the notion didn’t trouble her. “You should congratulate me.”

“Should I?”

“I saved her.”

Miles’s expression reverted to solemn lines. “You did,” he acknowledged. “At great peril to yourself.”

Nell made an effort to marshal her thoughts. They were drifting like vapor in every direction. “She isn’t our daughter,” she told him.

He gave her a look that was hard to read. “No. She isn’t.”

“We haven’t a daughter. But if we did…no peril would be too great.”

“Is that why you went back to Whitechapel in search of Miss Brent?” he asked. “You wanted to prove something to yourself?”

Nell didn’t know. She couldn’t recall what she’d been thinking of when she’d returned to Whitechapel so impulsively, except that it had had something to do with Lady Belwood.

“Nobody came for me,” Nell said. “But I came for her.”

Miles’s black brows dipped with sudden fierceness. “I would have come for you. Had I known what you intended, nothing on earth could have stopped me.”

Her gaze fell away. “You say that—”

“I don’t say things I don’t mean.” He held her hand to his lips. A note of gruffness entered his voice. “We’re partners, aren’t we? A fact you seem to forget when it suits you.”

“I don’t forget.”

“After last night, I thought we—” He didn’t finish.

Nell brought her eyes back to his. Last night she had kissed him. Passionately kissed him.

Their gazes held for an aching moment. Outside, the rain continued to fall in an endless drumbeat. Along with the crackling of the fire, it was, for those few taut seconds, the only sound in the room save the uneven thump of her heart.

Miles abruptly released her hand. His coat was draped over the back of his chair. He retrieved something from the pocket. Turning back to her, the candlelight glinted across the item in his fingers. It was a gold ring.

No. Not a ring. A wedding band.

“I bought it today in Bond Street.” He picked up her hand again with exquisite care, as though she were a fine, delicate lady for whom he cherished some tender affection and not the troublesome creature he’d married out of duty. “If I may?”

A lump formed in Nell’s throat. The day they’d wed, he had promised to purchase her a ring at the first opportunity. It was a purely practical matter. Which did nothing to explain why her hand quaked as he slipped it onto her finger.

His hand was unsteady, too. Or so she thought. She couldn’t be completely sure. Her perception was off. It felt as though she’d stepped into a hazy painting—the colors indistinct and the edges all blurred.