Page 72 of The Gentlewoman Apprentice

“Lovely.” Meg turned to keep herself from staring at him and came face to face with the portrait of her father. She stepped back and crunched Mr. Sloan’s foot with her heel. “Pardon me,” she said, tripping backward.

Mr. Sloan’ hands came around her waist, steadying. Once she obtained balance, his fingers retreated, sweeping across her ribcage, his touch imprinted in lingering warmth. How easy to forget the barriers she’d constructed between them. She wished them away, wished to pull down impediments that kept her from leaning into him, to erase her actions that made any further intimacy an impossibility.

That house, a place so grand and infused with love as to feel almost enchanted, tempted her to forget all contracts between them and the breaking of those bonds. Inside that moment, she could pretend they were not neighbors, not master and apprentice, merely a gentlewoman with a dear friend.

His attention fell to the portrait of her father. “Do you have family beyond Samuel?”

“Is this your attempt at subtlety, Mr. Sloan?” she asked, her tone teasing.

His laugh bloomed in her chest. “I apologize. I have no business asking.”

Recklessly, she wanted to share herself with him, impart the secret she could not confide in anyone else. “That is my father. I knew him but little. His son is the better man.”

Mr. Sloan tore his scrutiny from the portrait and stepped away.

“I do not mind,” she said. “Examine it to your heart’s content, compare me to my father as much as you please. You can return to town and put an end to the speculation.” She stood next to the portrait and turned to face Mr. Sloan. “I know you mark the resemblance.”

“No, no,” he said. “I am being impolite. I beg your forgiveness.”

But she did not want his apology. The relationship—or lack thereof with her father—no longer held a sting, something she owed to her half-brother. In fact, there was some relief in telling the blunt truth of it.

She lifted a shoulder. “I have nothing to hide.” She glanced at her father’s image. “Though I do not, I admit, like to look at him.”

“Let’s go, then.” He offered his arm, an unexpected gesture.

She took it, struck to be met with such acceptance. He’d seen a raw part of her and responded by offering a bit of himself in the steadiness of his arm.

“The billiard room next, I think,” she said, smiling.

They made their way through a series of hallways and rooms until arriving in a green room with more books, blue velvet and leather furnishings, and few windows. And, of course, the billiard table standing proudly in the middle of the room.

“Do you play?” Mr. Sloan picked up a long stick with a broad, flat, shoe-shaped head.

“Why not? But you must tell me the rules.” Meg had seen billiard tables before but never watched or played a game.

“You are red and I am white.” He rolled the red ball to her. “Using your ball, you try to strike mine. If your ball hits my ball, you receive a point. If your ball hits my ball and knocks it into a pocket, you earn two points. A turn lasts until the player misses their ball or they foul from double tapping or pushing the ball or knocking it off the table. Fouls result in the loss of a turn and one point.”

“Sounds simple enough.”

“It’s much harder than it may seem not to push the ball or miss it altogether.” He demonstrated, then handed her a stick. “Here’s your mace.”

Meg bent over the table and tried to strike without effect.

Mr. Sloan hit his ball, which collided with hers, gaining him a point. Meg tapped her foot on the carpet as Mr. Sloan earned three more points until he scraped the table, ending his turn with two points.

He straightened and grinned. “Miss Margaret, are you bored?”

At the mention of her name, the air around them closed in, everything beyond becoming distant and hazy. “Miss Margaret?”

His eyes widened. “I apologize. I keep hearing your Christian name, and it is stuck in my head. Pardon me, Miss Cooper.”

“You may as well call me Margaret.” She tried to sound casual, to move carelessly as she picked up her mace and struck her ball, which hit Mr. Sloan’s. It bounced off the cushion and into the opposite pocket. “Hah.”

“Well done. And you may call me Peter.”

This was too sharp a reminder of their relationship, one that she should have been pursuing with her valentine instead. “I do not think that would be appropriate given our relative positions.” Meg stabbed her mace in the direction of her ball but sent it flying off the table.

Peter—Mr. Sloan—swooped down and reached under a sofa to fetch the ball. He tossed the ball from hand to hand as he returned to her side and offered it to her. “Call me Peter only here, then.” The invitation, pronounced with feeling, seemed important to him. And hadn’t she imagined this magnificent estate stood as an island apart from their regular lives?