Page 41 of My Darling Mr. Darling

It wasn’t, really. It was the very least that she should have expected. But he had a feeling Violet had not expected very much of anyone in quite a long time, and it made his chest ache in an alarming way.

“You need not await an invitation,” he said, stepping closer, gratified when she did not reflexively move away. “You can visit whenever you like.”

She gave an airy laugh, but it was devoid of the scathing sarcasm to which he had grown accustomed. “I know,” she said. “I have a key.”

“Do you?” he asked, and felt the corner of his mouth lift in a slow, lopsided grin. “If you’d like, I can arrange to be out of the house when you’re present. Just send round a note, and I shall—”

“You don’t have to do that,” she interrupted, her brows scrunching together. “It’s your house.”

“No,” he said. “It was always yours.”

And for some godforsaken reason, thatupsether. Her eyes glazed over, her lips pursed, and her chin quivered. She made a ragged sound deep in her throat, pressing her palm to her mouth as if to stifle it, and then, after she had successfully swallowed back the worst of her distress, said, “Mr. Darling—”

“John.” It hadn’t occurred to him until now that she had only ever called himMr. Darling, because while she was giving her lessons in proper deportment,Mr. Darlingwas entirely appropriate. “You can call me John, Vi. If anyone has that right, it’s you.”

She dashed at her eyes with the back of her hand, murmuring in a mildly sulky tone, “Nobody calls meVi.”

Except for him, it seemed, for she did not otherwise upbraid him for it, or take the opportunity to demand he refrain from using it. “I brought these,” he said, and held out the doll to her. “I thought you might want to take them with you.”

“Oh,” she said, and she reached for the doll with both hands, cradling it to her chest. “I do. Thank you.” Her teeth worried her bottom lip, as if her eagerness to snatch up the doll that had been a beloved childhood toy had embarrassed her.

“It’s yours, Vi. It’s all yours. You need not thank me for it.” Hands now freed, he pulled the frame from where it had been tucked beneath his arm. “And this,” he said. “I sent a message to the Picadilly office for it. I thought you might like to take it home with you tonight.”

Her lips trembled as she took the small portrait from him, staring down into the face of the woman painted there—her mother, Rosamund, rendered lovingly in oils. “Oh,” she said again, although her voice broke on the sound. “She was so beautiful.” Crushing the cloth doll in the crook of her elbow, she traced the line of her mother’s face with the pad of her index finger. “Her eyes were blue. I could never really tell in the miniature. And she’s smiling—Papa said she was always smiling.”

“You look just like her,” John said. “You’ve even got the same dimple.”

“What?” Violet’s head jerked up, and she touched her cheek as if she were feeling for the evidence of it there. “I don’t have a dimple—do I?”

“You do, when you smile.” Which John imagined had not been terribly often, if she did not know she had a dimple. “It’s just here.”

And she did not pull away when his fingers cupped her cheek, when his thumb gently pressed that small spot beside her mouth where, in moments of joy or humor, her solitary dimple appeared. Her fingers slid over his—he assumed to gauge the exact location of her dimple—but then they settled there, light and warm. For the first time of their acquaintance, her icy guard had dropped. Notshattered, per se, but—melted a bit.

It was madness. He was certain it would be a mistake, and he would not have put it past Grey to have placed spies in his household, but—damn it all, he was going to kiss her anyway. It took just the lightest pressure to lift her chin; just a small adjustment of his hand to sink his fingers into her hair and hold her there.

He saw the moment she realized his intentions, watched the thought play through her eyes with varying degrees of incredulity and anticipation. As he bent his head, her lips parted with a breathy gasp—then her breath sighed out, sweet and wine-scented. She had all the time in the world to protest, to jerk away, but instead her wide-eyed gaze fell to his lips, her lashes fluttered, and her lids drifted to half-mast.

There, a fraction of an inch away, he hesitated. She wasn’t going tostophim—but would she resent him later? Would she, tonight in her lonely bed, recount this moment and, in retrospect, consider that he had pressed his advantage? Lured her into his home for nefarious purposes? Would she—

“For the love of God,” she muttered irritably, and lifted herself onto her toes to press her lips to his.

Well. That tied it up neatly, then. He wasn’t evensurprised, really, when he considered it. The only thing predictable about Violet was herunpredictability—

With a muffled sound of annoyance, Violet drew away the scant few inches his hand buried in her hair would allow, and in the dim candlelight, her cheeks burned. “I apologize,” she said stiffly, “if I misread your intentions. You need not see me out; I’m certain Wentworth will let me know when the carriage is ready.”

“You can’t leave,” he said, flustered, scrambling desperately for something that might erase the singe of humiliated ire from her face. “I haven’t kissed you yet.”Damn. What was it about Violet in particular that made every ounce of charm to which he had ever laid claim desert him?

“Were yougoingto?” she snapped, her voice frosty, and if his hand hadn’t reflexively curled into her hair, he was certain she would have moved away.

“Yes.” With some effort, he managed to relax his hold, anchor her with his opposite arm around her waist. “I was…thinking.”

“Thinking?” she echoed, skeptical.

He nodded, slipping his hand down to the nape of her neck, where the muscles were tight and tense. But they went lax beneath the pressure of his fingers, and that pinched, guarded expression she had cobbled together faded by slow degrees.

“Well,” she said, “do you think you might…not?”

And he laughed. He couldn’t help it—she said it so waspishly, bristling with indignation. He was still laughing when he kissed her, and it was perfect, despite the fact that the pointed corners of the framed portrait she held in her arms jabbed him in the chest, despite the fact that the angle was awkward, owing to the fact that he could not pull her any closer, and despite the fact that the tartness of her words was still heavy on her tongue.