Page 97 of The Hollow of Fear

She settled a hand on his arm. “Let me tell you something. I met Roger Shrewsbury a year before I met you—and idly thought that perhaps someday I’d kiss him to see what it was like. But then I saw you and immediately knew that it would be you and never him.”

“Never?”

“Never. I didn’t permit him to kiss me at any point in our acquaintance. But that’s not all I’m going to tell you.”

He kissed her slowly. “Frankly, Holmes, I don’t know how you can possibly improve on what you have already told me.”

“Have some faith, Ash,” she admonished. “Now, when I said someday, at the time I thought that meant when I reached twenty, or some similar ripe old age. And then, do you remember the ink incident at your uncle’s estate?”

“What ink incident?”

“Two boys rigged up a device that could squirt ink a fair distance. They decided to try it on a girl. But things went awry, and they splattered ink all over themselves instead.”

“Oh, that ink incident. Yes, I remember.”

“I’d observed ink stains on the boys’ hands, in quantities too large to be attributable to any normal writing. And then, just before the ink incident, you, on whose hands I’d only seen traces of dirt from working on the Roman villa, also sported visible ink stains. And when the incident happened, when the boys were flailing about in shock and confusion, you were the only one, other than me, who didn’t laugh.”

“You didn’t admire my restraint?”

She had been rather lost for a moment, riveted by his aloof silhouette, of the gathering yet very much apart. “I was busy studying the device to see which girl they had targeted. Did you know it would have been Livia?”

“Had it been you, I wouldn’t have taken the trouble—re-engineering their device ruined my shirt.” He sighed. “I didn’t think Miss Olivia would have cared for the experience.”

“No, she would have been humiliated and traumatized. In any case, when I woke up the next morning, I found myself in an unholy hurry to kiss you. I couldn’t wait another week, let alone another seven years.”

He gazed at her for a while. And, with a murmured “Thank you,” wrapped his arms around her.

For precisely two minutes and not a second more.

“Stay a while longer,”she said. “Don’t go anywhere yet.”

Lord Ingram wasn’t sure he’d ever heard Holmes speaking in such a tone. She sounded almost... anxious. He snapped his braces in place and reached for his waistcoat. “I came with a citron tart and the shirt on my back. Somehow I don’t think Sherrinford Holmes’s clothes would fit me.”

“I can send for Dr. Watson’s—Mrs. Watson still has plenty of his things.”

He shook his head. “You didn’t even ask where the citron tart is. Who are you and what did you do with Holmes?”

She came off the bed and threw on a dressing gown. “So where’s the citron tart, then?”

“In the pantry.”

“Thank you.”

“You don’t need to thank me for the citron tart, since my motives are impure: I’m aiming to overtake Bancroft’s place as your favorite procurer of fine cakes and pastries.”

“Lord Bancroft’s motives were no more pristine than yours. And I wasn’t thinking of the citron tart, but the thing that they didn’t—or perhaps did—do in Sodom and Gomorrah.”

Her words might be interpreted as flirtatious; her tone, however, was anything but. Her expression too was tight and shuttered.

Briefly he cupped her face. “Still scared witless?”

Of course she was—he’d had to remind her that there was a citron tart on the premises.

She did not answer but only wandered about the room as he finished dressing.

“It’ll be all right. I’ll bring something back for supper. How does a basket from Harrod’s sound? Or would you prefer that I visit a greasy chop shop?”

She remained silent and followed him to the vestibule. They stood there for some time without speaking. Her silence became less tense and more wistful; he let out a breath.