Page 14 of Murder on Cold Street

Present-day Lord Ingram leaned down toward her.

The faint scar by his temple that he had acquired after a trip abroad two years ago. The gleam of the tiny antique coin that adorned his favorite stickpin. The beginning of stubble on a jaw that had been closely shaven that morning.

Heat.

Pressure.

Incitement.

He straightened.

She panted, as if she’d just finished a session ofcanne de combattraining. Her face felt hot. The soles of her feet tingled. Andstillshe could only recall bits and pieces of the kiss—the texture of his hair between her fingers, the slight roughness of wool under her other hand, the slide of the tip of his tongue across the inside of her upper lip—as if she’d dreamt of it and most of the dream had evaporated upon waking up.

Silence.

Not a fraught silence, full of undertow and that asphyxiated feeling in the chest. Nor an easy, relaxed silence. More as if... as if they were two travelers who found themselves in a place not marked on any map, and were looking about for their bearings.

“So this is what you came to see me for,” she murmured. “Does it have something to do with Mr. Stephen Marbleton’s involuntary return to Château Vaudrieu?”

“Yes.”

She gazed at him. “You gave in to an impulse. This is unlike you, Ash.”

He made no response.

She, for all that she was often thought of as cold-blooded and unemotional, was rather free with her impulses—as much as possible, she preferred to indulge herself. Lord Ingram, on the other hand, felt intensely, yet kept a stranglehold on his emotions and his desires.

“You taste good,” she said.

Another indulged impulse on her part, to give voice to this particular thought.

Was he carefully weighing his words, making sure that he did not answer rashly, impetuously?

He kissed her again.

The heat of his palm against her cheek.

The pressure on her chin, held firmly between his thumb and forefinger.

The incitement of being pulled up from her chair and set against the wall.

And then he was no longer kissing her, but gazing into her eyes. An entire minute passed before he said softly, “I didn’t give in to an impulse, Holmes. I made a choice.”

Her eyes were large and wide set, ringed with long dark lashes tipped with a hint of gold. Her irises were the vivid cool blue of northern skies in autumn—and sometimes they reminded Lord Ingram exactly of a transparent, impersonal sky, unclouded by emotions.

They were not quite as impersonal today. But they remained deceptively guileless, as if she had never experienced kisses—or even proximity to a man—before this moment.

She exhaled.

Into the silence came the enthusiastic cries of a prepubescentboy, somewhat muffled by wind and rain. “Scotland Yard inspector accused of murder! Read all about it! Read all about the murdering copper!”

They broke apart and rushed to the window. She knelt on the deep, cushioned sill, opened a casement, and asked the paperboy if he could toss one up at her. He did and caught a coin she dropped down in return.

“Keep the change!”

She closed the window and spread open the rain-speckled paper on the desk. They stood over it, reading, hands braced against the side of the desk, arms almost but not quite touching.

The Metropolitan Police has acknowledged that Inspector Robert Treadles, of the Criminal Investigation Department, has been arrested on suspicion of murder.