Page 13 of The Finest Print

12

Accounting Ledger of E. Fletcher

Week of 29 April 1848

Secrets of the Old Bailey Vol. 1, No. 4

Earnings less expenditures—￡7

Remaining debt owed—￡85

Belle Sinclair was going to save his sorry neck, if she didn’t kill him first.

So it would be the latter.

Her hopeful entreaty would be his undoing, the furrow in her brow a tiny grave for his resolve. He could hardly stand being around others, but he had no idea what he would do if he got her alone. All he could think through the entirety of dinner—with its fine china and expensive wine and tolerant, intelligent people—was that every good thing he had going for him was because of her.

And her confounding revelation was throwing all of it into turmoil.

Belle was still holding the pen she’d used to scrawl her earnest apology when a clock chimed somewhere deep inside the house.

Mrs. Sinclair looked up in surprise. “My, so late already?” She hesitated, studying her daughters before turning to her husband. “Gavin, you have an early morning, don’t you, darling?”

Justice Sinclair regarded his wife. “Not particularly early.”

“Early enough.” She nodded thoughtfully. “I don’t expect Mr. Fletcher or our daughters are quite so tired as we are. The vigor of youth and what have you.” She placed her hand on her husband’s. “Perhaps you’d like to read, and we can permit Belle and Helena to see Mr. Fletcher out.”

At this pronouncement, a series of silent conversations unfolded around the table, chiefly between Belle’s parents, which resulted in Justice Sinclair pushing back his chair and examining his pocket watch.

“For the next quarter hour, and not a minute longer, I will be in my upstairs sitting room, reading my overpriced newspaper.” He stood from the table. “Thereafter, I will retire, and so will the women in this house.”

He looked at Ethan for what seemed an inordinate amount of time before turning to Helena. “In the meantime, Helena, if you would like to sit with your sister and our guest, that would be fine.”

Ethan glanced around the table, nonplussed. It appeared Belle’s younger sister was about to be their chaperone.

The Sinclairs bid him adieu, and he grudgingly followed Belle and Helena toward the parlor, wondering how it was possible he could never catch a single goddamn break. It was unbearable, to be so close to her, unable to speak his mind.

In the lamplit corridor, Belle halted, peering anxiously between Ethan and Helena.

“Well,” she started. “I suppose we could all play?—”

“Belle,” Helena said suddenly. “I just had a terrible thought. I never finished my letter to Leo.” She turned gravely to Ethan. “Our cousin wrote to me last week, and I’ve been a beast about responding in a timely manner.”

“Oh.” Belle looked up at Ethan, who was by now roiling with agitation. “Well…”

“Would the two of you mind if I took a moment to finish it?” Helena smiled, honeyed and dangerous. “I expect it won’t take more than…fifteen minutes.” She paused. “I’ll be in the parlor, and I unfortunately do require complete quiet for correspondence. Perhaps you two might wait in Papa’s study?”

“Ah.” Belle paled at the heat emanating from Ethan’s gaze. “That’s not?—”

“Thank you, dearest, I appreciate your understanding.” Helena squeezed Belle’s arm. “Just watch the latch, you know.” She glanced at Ethan with something akin to warning. “The study doesn’t lock.”

And with a rustle of skirts, Helena slipped away.

Belle eyed the door to her father’s unlockable study. “I must apologize for my sister,” she said. “I’ll see you?—”

Before he could think better of it, Ethan was pulling her into the study, he was closing the door, and he was estimating he had twelve minutes until Justice Sinclair could reasonably have him thrown in jail.

“Ethan! What are you?—”

He spun her around to face him.

“ Why ?” he demanded quietly. He searched her face, his earlier aggravation clouded by something else, something peculiar and protective.

She didn’t need him to elaborate. “Please understand, the betrothal is not something I usually discuss.”

He clenched his jaw, newly wary. There was an edge to her expression, a downcast turn he didn’t know what to do with.

“If you must know,” she said haltingly, “I didn’t say anything because I didn’t want it to matter.”

She brought her gaze only as high as his shoulder, that faint muscle bunching in her cheek.

“To you?” He stared hard. “Or to me?”

“Both. Neither.” She released a small, unhappy laugh. “It certainly matters to everyone else. Gossip’s claws cut deep. Outside this home, there are very few places where I am free of it.” She finally put her eyes on him. “I’m free of it with you.”

“Belle.” His lungs constricted. He had a hundred questions, but none would form into any coherence.

“Did he…” Hurt you. Touch you.

“ Do you…” Care for him. Miss him.

He shook his head, muted by confusion. What he could ask her, what he couldn’t.

“I was twenty when he asked for my hand.” She folded her arms over her stomach, speaking very quickly. “My mother and father warned me there was no rush. I didn’t think I was rushing. I thought I was simply moving forward, the way one does. It’s not as though I had other offers. I was always a bit of a wallflower. At least back then, I was in the room.”

She looked down, and he had never wanted to put his fist into a man’s face as much as he did right now.

“At some point during the betrothal, I realized I wasn’t moving forward. I was staying still. He was holding me there, in place. He ruined my first manuscript—he called it an accident. But it wasn’t . He was showing me what he thought of me. Thank God I listened . I heeded the warning with my eyes wide open. Unfortunately, everyone else listened to him too, but what they heard about me was nothing good.”

“Belle—”

He was reeling, hit by a jab and hook of resentment and regret.

The women who snubbed her on the street…

Belle, alone outside her father’s courtroom…

Goddamn it .

He should have known.

“I didn’t intend to tell you this evening,” she said, her face cast in wounded frustration. “At least not like that, not so abruptly.”

“Then why the hell did you?” He grasped her biceps. Her skin was warm beneath the soft fabric of her sleeves, and he instinctively let go, raking his hand through his hair.

“I suppose…I was about to stumble into a lie, and I didn’t want to. I thought of what you said, the first day in the shop, and I wanted you to understand.”

His pulse pounded painfully in his neck. “What did I say?”

She held his burning gaze. “We could be honest with each other.”

The swift, shallow hope on her face pierced him. She was trying to let him in. If she were smart, she’d bar the door.

He couldn’t make things better for her.

He couldn’t make anything for her.

“Ethan…” She trailed off. “I can see you’re upset.”

“I am.”

“Don’t be.” She surprised them both by taking his hand and holding fast. Her eyes gleamed with unshed tears. “Don’t be upset. Not you.”

She opened his fingers and slipped hers between them, putting her smaller hand inside his. He tightened reflexively, twining their fingers together.

“I’m not upset you were engaged,” he said gruffly, hating the hurt on her face, hating everyone who put it there, including himself. “The last thing I’m bothered about is your past.”

Her heart was in her eyes. “Then what?”

My future .

“This isn’t wise,” he muttered. His eyes fell to the hand he wasn’t holding. She was twisting her fingers in her fine skirts, and for a wretched moment, all he could see was his mother’s knuckles, bleeding and raw from the hard life his father dragged her into.

Once more, the question rattled through him, born of confusion and ambition and shame. What the hell was he doing here?

“You told me there’s no pretense between us.” She cautiously stepped nearer, refusing to let him look away. “Is that not true?”

“Belle.” His discomfort sharpened in flares of warning. “There is so much more than pretense between us. Hell, your father’s whisky costs more than my monthly rent. Look at this study. Look at this house .”

“What if…what if you don’t look at the whisky?” she whispered. “What if you don’t look at the house?”

“Belle...”

Her voice hitched.

“Ethan, what if you just look at me ?”

His hand was lifting before he thought to lift it, reaching for her, cradling her beautiful face in his calloused palm.

“Do you think I’m not looking at you?” he breathed.

In a near fugue, he watched himself touch her, trailing his knuckles over the curve of her jaw, relishing the downy softness of her cheek. He stroked along the shell of her ear, and she gasped, her mouth falling open, and he put his finger there too, compulsively tracing the corner of her lip, taking in the sweet slackening, the way her bottom lip dragged against his thumb.

If she hadn’t closed her eyes, he might not have done it.

But— oh God —she did, her lashes lowering on a sigh, such yearning, a wild possession cracking inside his chest. He couldn’t tolerate Belle wanting for anything, even if she wanted a man as limited as him.

In something like apology, he found the curve in her neck and finally, finally put his lips to the tantalizing stretch of skin. She keened, and he did it again, sucking gently on her racing pulse for one perfect, wavering breath.

And then he was drawing his mouth up her throat, letting himself savor the full weight of this looming mistake.

“Belle,” he murmured. “The entire damn problem is that I’m looking at you.”

He brought his thumb to her chin. One slow stroke, tugging her mouth open—she moaned faintly, he would never unhear it—then he sealed his lips over hers.

The relief was instantaneous. Her lips were soft and pliant, and he kissed her as if they’d always been kissing, as if his mouth had been learning hers this whole time, a thousand exchanges, a hundred pushes, a hundred pulls. There was no hesitance, no coaxing. Ethan groaned—rough, low—his tongue moving against hers, his hand flexing in her hair, and it was exactly as sweet and punishing as he’d imagined it would be, yet nothing like he’d imagined at all.

He was burning, burning .

Belle moaned again, the prettiest plea, ruinous in her asking. He kissed a feverish arc from her swollen lips to the tender curve of her jaw, and she clutched his sleeve, stumbling into him. He found her hand and loosened her fingers from his coat, drawing her arm around his neck. And she was cleaving to him, pressing against the jagged ache inside him, and Christ , he had to keep her here. Helplessly, he planted his palm on the small of her back, holding her just so, for he was a grasping, selfish bastard and he wanted her. He wanted it all—her fantastical musings, her maddening fluster, her steadfast, hopeful heart.

He tilted her head, sensing the abrasion of his beard on her soft skin, but she only tunneled her free hand in his hair, accepting his searing onslaught, meeting him in turn. He couldn’t believe how good her mouth felt against his, how every one of her gasps brushed damp and needy against his lips, like they belonged there.

“Ethan…”

She wrenched away, her ribs shuddering beneath his palm. She buried her face in his shoulder, blushing and breathless, and only then did Ethan realize he had a fistful of her skirts, that his thigh was between hers.

Enough—

Enough .

He braced one arm on the door above her, fighting to control himself.

“We can’t,” he murmured raggedly, his entire body rioting with arousal and guilt. “Belle, it’s too far.”

A lie; it wasn’t far enough. But her family was on the other side of the door, and so were about eighty-five pounds sterling worth of reasons he needed to take a goddamn step back.

“Don’t say that.” Her voice was very soft; she held his face between her hands. Her thumbs lightly stroked his beard, testing the shreds of his self-possession.

He looked down at her, glassy and flushed, stubborn and afraid. His cock ached; his lungs ached. It was inconceivable that hardly a month ago, he’d thought her to be his good news, when in fact, she seemed likely to be his imminent downfall. In the span of a single evening, Belle had neatly, sweetly, torn their tenuous professionalism asunder, and though Ethan usually faced his problems head-on, he wasn’t certain this could be fixed. He wasn’t certain he wanted to fix it.

But he sure as hell had to try.

“Our work…” With forced effort, he put his lips not back on hers but just above her ear. Her hair was soft against his nose, and it felt so good, he closed his eyes. “Our work is vital. The serial cannot be jeopardized. We can’t…Belle, we can’t do this.”

“Ethan.”

“I’m sorry.” Gently, gently, he smoothed her hair. He had to put her to rights, in case her father’s clock was fast. “This was careless of me.”

“It wasn’t,” she insisted. “I know what you’re doing. Don’t build this wall higher.”

“Sweetheart.” He laughed humorlessly. “I can’t even afford the bricks.”