Her amusement drew Lord Winterly’s notice, for he peered down his nose at her with a puzzled arch to his brows. “Something amiss?”
“You must forgive me, sir, I find that I talk to myself quite often.”
He nodded, a quirk appearing to chip at his granite lips. “And what, pray, was the subject of this inner monologue?”
“You.”
He seemed both taken aback and slightly perturbed by the idea. “Me?”
“Yes, I was just remarking to myself how incredibly lively I find your society to be. Or I did, when you were a monk.”
He snorted at this, neither mistaking her irony nor, surprisingly, taking any insult from it. Scratching his jaw thoughtfully, he said, “There’s an asylum in Chelsea with beds to spare, Miss Rose.”
“Been there, have you?” Emma shot him a brazen smirk.
“I imagine the aimless palaver of the inmates to be rather more intelligent than what is to be had in most refined London drawing rooms, madam. But if you do end up being a habitué of that fine establishment, rest assured that I will visit you there.”
“If only to laugh at my maddened ramblings, eh?”
Lord Winterly merely inclined his head. “Just so.” He lowered his gaze and tilted his head so as to read the title of the book she had purchased from the bookstore earlier. “That is an interesting choice of reading material you have there, Miss Rose.” He held his hand out for it and she obliged him at once, placing the volume in his large palm.
She bit her lip to keep from laughing, for his brow was furrowed in a most delightful way. The effect upon her heart was wholly unexpected. “You are not a fan of gothic romance, I take it?”
“I did not say that.” He briefly leafed through the first few chapters. “Books like this give a woman peculiar impulses.”
“Of what impulses do you speak?” she asked, her dander already mounting in anticipation of what he might say to vex her.
“They might take it into their heads to go traipsing in the fog where gypsies and witches and wicked monks tend to lurk.” His eyes gleamed obsidian. “That is to say nothing of the vampyres.”
Chapter Eight
Midnight Fairytales
Emma pulled out the little cross dangling from her neck chain, her brow arching. “I am sure if I ever met a vampyre, he’d not trouble himself with me.”
Lord Winterly stroked his chin with a look of devilish arrière-pensée. “It is easy to be brave in the daylight.”
Emma looked up at the black clouds with a shrug. “Easier still to have no fear of what isn’t real.”
He inclined his head, but forbore offering agreement. Instead, he considered her book again with knit brows. “You seem to delight in what is unreal. This delightful little piece of tosh, for example.”
“Ah, yes, and I believe you were declaiming against the influences of gothic romances on the female brain.”
“Indeed, the notion of young ladies flitting off into wild countrysides, exploring gloomy castles in the middle of the night, fending off noisy ghosts, and escaping evil counts and monks is preposterous. A lady’s place is to be safe within the bosom of her family, married off as soon as may be arranged, attending endless soirees and insipid engagements, and thereafter raising her ten strapping children in perfect apathy. And only a subversive would think otherwise.” There was something of a voluptuous glint in his gaze that occasioned her to believe he was only teasing, and that his comment was not a faithful representation of his own opinion. “At any rate, reality is usually far darker.”
“Upon my honor, you take a dour view!” She darted a sly smile at him. “Then you do not hold with happy endings?”
He gave a cavalier shrug. “Fantastic rubbish.”
“Certainly not, I intend to have a happy one! And I am exceedingly glad to know you are not the arbiter of my destiny.”
“Do not be so sure of that, Miss Rose.” His smile became flinty. “One never knows when one has met one’s destiny.”
She looked away, unsettled.
“In fact,” he said, “I believe Hades met Persephone in a sunless fog.”
“Did they really?”
“No, not really.” He chuckled as her mouth fell. “Persephone was not one to go about adventuring in the fog at night; she was an obedient girl, her abduction no fault of her own. For my part, I much admire an adventuress who, by her own design, succumbs to folly and danger.”
“Well, I am not she. And—” looking at her book, still in his grasp “—I doubt very much that I shall be running amok in an ancient castle and fending off evil counts in the middle of the night.”
“What about evil viscounts?”
She pursed her lips to keep from smiling. “I have heard they are far more villainous than counts and quite as bad as wicked monks.”
His eyes darkened. “I can heartily confirm that.”
“At all events, I have no desire for a life of soirees and childbearing.”
“What is your desire?”
Blushing, she said, “I feel compelled to admit that, in truth, I really had much rather flit about some wild hinterland, exploring ancient castles. But Little Snoring is rather lacking in wildness and completely devoid of haunted castles.” She gave a sigh.
“You desire intrigue and excitement then. I think we may make an adventuress of you yet.”
“But the vampyres and wicked viscounts I can happily do without.”
“How disappointing. A castle is hardly a worthy setting for a gothic romance without its vampyres and wicked viscounts. I defy you to find a single qualified castle without one or the other in residence.” His voice lowered of a sudden. “In fact, I predict you shall find just such a place soon enough…”
“Then I consider myself duly cautioned.”
“And what shall you do with that caution, Miss Rose? Avoid the castles and monsters in your head at all costs? Or will your lion heart press on regardless?”
She faltered, finding herself transfixed by those primitive black eyes. “I think I would rue a life lived in fear.”
“Yes,” he said, his voice like a cobra charmer. “I think you want a little danger in your life. Or so your literary preferences would have me believe.”
“I only want a happy ending, Lord Winterly.” She turned her gaze from him and continued walking. When had this conversation taken such an unnerving and unnatural digression? “I want only to best the dragons of the world and to live a very long life thereafter. Preferably in a castle with my ten cats—certainly not ten children.”
“Then I wish you the best of luck, for I understand dragons are worthy opponents.”
“I am equal to the challenge, my lord.”
“We shall see…”
“Emma!”
Startled, Emma looked across the street to see Milli already at their front door, gesturing for her to make haste.
Emma waved back, eager enough to escape Lord Winterly and the very strange interlude they had shared. She was intrigued by his smiles, amused by his wit, and enamored of his animal beauty; there was never a moment in which she wasn’t somehow disturbed by him—a perfectly thrilling sensory confusion when she was in his sphere. A woman might be driven mad by such indwelling conflict.