Home > Mum's The Word : A forbidden romance inspired by Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice

Mum's The Word : A forbidden romance inspired by Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice
Author: Staci Hart

1

 

 

Thunder and Lightning

 

 

MARCUS

 

 

A peal of thunder split the sky open.

Rain fell in a sheet of fat drops, the deluge too sudden for a single person on Fifth Avenue to even reach for their umbrella, never mind open one. With a swear, I held my briefcase over my head in a useless attempt to protect my suit from the torrent.

The foot traffic scattered like ants in a scrambling, tumbling blitzkrieg for cover after the mound had been kicked. But I trucked on, winding my way through the erratic crowd, which required all of my attention to navigate. Scanning the sidewalk ahead of me, I calculated the fastest path to the subway station, the trajectory of the flow of people laid out before me like a map. The lady with the stroller running obliquely for a coffee shop up ahead. A businessman still on his phone, squinting through the rain as he beelined for a newspaper stand. A pack of kids playing hooky, trotting and laughing and horsing around, the rain just another thing to note on a day of freedom.

I was so busy looking in front of me, I didn’t have a chance to dodge the small body before we collided.

We spun from the impact, a whirl of arms and hands. My briefcase hit the ground, abandoned so I could grab her. At the same moment, her newspaper, which she’d been using for an umbrella, flew into the air and opened like a soggy bird with a broken wing before spiraling to the sidewalk.

They said it was adrenaline that sped up your brain in moments like these, a rapid firing of neurons to catalog every detail. And as the moment stretched on in slow motion, I noted each one.

She was soft and small, the sound of her surprise striking a chord of recognition in me. I felt every flex and release of her arms beneath my palms, felt the curves of her body locked against me, felt the shift of her legs in perfect time with mine, like we were caught in the tango and not in a matter of physics. But it was the scent of her that slipped over me like that incessant rain—delicate, velvety gardenia so perfectly feminine, I found myself momentarily lost in the luxury of it.

I stopped us with a well-placed bracing of my foot that once again mimicked the tango, her body flush with mine and my hands—now somehow around her waist—holding her to me, holding her still.

But when she looked up, a thunderbolt split my ribs open.

It wasn’t just the bottomless brown of her eyes or the button of her nose, dashed with almost imperceptible freckles. It wasn’t the gentle bow of her lips, full and pink and parted in wonder. It wasn’t the shape of her small face or the curve of her cheek that I somehow knew would fit exactly in my palm. It wasn’t her fair hair, made darker by the rain, curling and clinging to the gentle line of her jaw.

It was all of her.

Every cell, every molecule, the whole of her was so utterly right. Had we been in a room full of people or packed in a subway car, I had no doubt I would have seen her just as I did now.

With all of me.

I didn’t know how many breaths had passed that we stood motionless in the rain before she smiled, and lightning struck again.

Figuratively and literally.

She jolted in my arms, face turning up to the sky in shock. Instinctively, I held her closer.

“Are you all right?” I asked over the rumbling rain, leaning back to inspect her for injury.

“Yes, I-I think so. Just wet and embarrassed. Did I hurt you? Oh! Your briefcase!”

I glanced in the direction of her eyeline to see said briefcase—which was Italian and leather and more expensive than I’d ever admit aloud—as someone tripped over it, leaving a filthy boot print on its previously pristine surface.

With an infinite sense of loss as we separated, I righted us and let her go. “It’s not important. Come on. Let me get you out of the rain.”

She stood there uncertainly as I swept up my briefcase and swiped the side with my palm. I didn’t wait for her answer. Instead, I snagged her hand and towed her toward a coffee shop a few doors down.

As we trotted our way there, I arched over her with my briefcase to shelter her from the rain. The Bennets were a large breed where its men were concerned, and I towered over her by nearly a foot. A useful trait in many instances and, in this one, convenient.

I wanted to be as close to her as I could, for as long as I could.

It was strange and foreign, this feeling, an unlikely meeting with an improbable outcome. The rarity of such things happening to me was undefinable. My brothers would be the ones to stumble into a girl they immediately wanted to know. But I found most people tedious, and with my mother parading me around her garden club, its members salivating at the thought of yoking their single daughters to me, I generally questioned every woman in my acquaintance.

Some called it cynicism. I called it self-preservation. I knew no other way, having never been given a reason to consider an alternative. No woman had ever affected me. No one had ever stood out.

Not until a moment ago when I’d collided with the girl tucked into my side.

And I aimed to find out the why and the how of it. I wanted answers. I wanted logic and reason, an explanation as to why I felt like I’d woken from a long and deep sleep the moment I looked into her eyes.

I wondered if kissing her would give me the answer I was looking for.

My shock at the thought left me too curious to even consider caution.

We ducked into the crowded coffee shop, panting and shaking off the rain.

She laughed, self-consciously running a hand over her hair. “I must look like a cat that crawled out of the East River.”

“Not at all,” I answered a little too quietly, covering it with a smile. “I’ve never met a human cannon before. I think you might have dislocated one of my ribs.” I patted said ribs, which felt nothing more than the ghost of her body against me.

Her face softened. “Oh, I’m so sorry. Are you sure you’re all right?”

“I’m fine, just wet.”

A shiver racked her, and my smile slid into a frown.

“Let’s get coffee. Warm you up.”

Her brow furrowed, and she checked her watch. “I’m going to be late for a meeting.”

“You and me both. But running in, soaked and freezing, won’t help anyone. What do you say? Let me get you a cup of coffee as an apology.”

“For what?”

“For not seeing you coming.”

Again, she laughed, and again, I felt that fundamental familiarity. “No one ever does.”

“No, I don’t suspect they do.”

Her cheeks flushed, lips still smiling as we stepped into line. “It’s just that I’m so short,” she clarified without changing my mind. “I really am so sorry. Your poor briefcase.”

“This old thing?” I held it out to inspect it. “I was due for a new one anyway.”

“The newspaper might have done more harm than good—all I could see was my feet. I’m afraid the years I’ve been gone erased what I thought was concrete knowledge of Manhattan and how to navigate it, especially in the rain during rush hour.”

“Where were you?” I asked as we shuffled forward a step.

“England. Yorkshire, with my aunt. My mother sent me with the intent to teach me some sort of lesson, but luckily for me, my aunt doesn’t like to listen to her any more than I do. Mostly, I spent a couple years in the countryside, picking flowers,” she said on a laugh that died too quickly. “But I knew I’d have to come back.”

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