Page 12 of The Lady Sparks a Flame (The Damsels of Discovery #2)

12

Faraday’s First Law of Electrolysis: The mass of a substance deposited or liberated at an electrode is directly proportional to the charge.

“So, the m stands for mass. You see, the mass of elements is directly proportional to the charge, which we represent with Q .”

Sam stared at Phoebe’s mouth, willing the noises she made to turn into words he recognized.

m ∝ Q → m/Q = Z

She’d written the equation on the same paper where Lady Fallowshall had marked points from their card games. For some bizarre reason, Phoebe assumed writing it down would help him follow her explanation.

“That means there are a lot of them, right?” he asked.

Phoebe, having opened her mouth to continue her elucidation, now froze, giving him a view of the inside of her mouth, stunned into silence by the depth of his ignorance.

“A lot of masses. That Fermat believes is elemental,” Sam said. “The m there.”

One perfectly shaped eyebrow rose, wrinkling her forehead.

“Your sister was a finalist for the Rosewood Prize. Would have won if she were not a woman,” Phoebe said slowly.

“Yes.” Sam nodded. This was true. “Letty’s a genius.”

“At the supper table, does she discuss her work?” Phoebe asked.

“Oh, yes. She enjoys the math where you use letters instead of numbers. Taught m’sisters some of it. Now the younger ones are chatting about theories of color and prisms. Why blue is blue and whatnot.” Sam cleared his throat.

Why was she looking at him as though he’d sprouted horns? He’d tripped over, then broken a chair on his way into the parlor this evening after dinner. Karolina had quoted some dead Greek bloke at him, and he’d asked if it were Shakespeare. He had been staying at the manor for almost three weeks.

Hadn’t Phoebe already noticed he wasn’t the sharpest knife in the shop?

Karolina had. She’d taken to slowing down when she spoke with him and pointing out hazards when they walked together. Like grass.

And the floor.

The paper containing the equation lay on the chessboard. The chessboard where Jonas had trounced Sam’s arse.

Less bloody this time but still a massacre.

Karolina and her mother had gone to bed already, Karolina stopping to pat him gently on the shoulder and praise his progress, Phoebe hiding her laugh behind a cough.

Now they were alone in the parlor, a drafty room with high ceilings and hard chairs. A single fireplace lent flickering light but little heat to the room, and Phoebe had covered her out-of-date dinner dress with a tattered black knit shawl that looked older than her. Sam, knowing his place, had not unbent enough to replace his dinner jacket with a sweater, but he did wear two undershirts and an extra pair of socks.

The chessboard sat somewhat to the side of the fireplace, not close enough for a stray lick of heat to touch the players. If Sam played black and sat facing the back of the room, his neck was exposed. If he played white and faced the door, a window on the other side of the room could be seen out of the corner of his eye, and the curtains there would move on their own sometimes.

This was the third after-dinner chess game he and Jonas had fought. Once Sam’s demise became apparent, the Hunt women usually turned their attention to subjects less embarrassing.

Plumbing, for one. The manor needed updating to fetch a good price. With much hesitation the marchioness had finally agreed to Phoebe’s suggestion they add water pipes before the official sale.

Ha. As though anything could improve this house. Last night Sam heard children giggling in the corridor outside his room. He hadn’t looked because there was no such thing as ghosts. Also, if there were such things as ghosts, it would be downright unfair for them to be in the guise of children.

He shivered at the thought, and Phoebe, who had taken Jonas’s seat opposite him, let out a pfft of disappointment.

“How is it you are surrounded by scientists and yet claim to understand none of it?” she asked, the acid in her tone scratching at Sam’s ears.

Sitting back from the chessboard, he examined her face.

Phoebe Hunt was a beautiful woman. Beautiful and angry.

Damn him if that wasn’t an enticing combination.

“It is my theory a man’s brain can only hold a certain amount of information,” he said cheerfully, knowing full well it irritated her when he refused to take himself seriously.

When Phoebe became irritated, her irises darkened from amethyst to mauve. It woke Sam’s pulse. This, in turn, made Sam grumpy. He wasn’t supposed to be lusting after this villainess. He was supposed to be lusting after her sister.

Phoebe’s attention shifted to the chessboard. Her long, slim fingers moved the pieces into different configurations, the black bishops on the attack. The white queen in danger.

“You should pay attention,” said Phoebe. “My sister is intelligent and has an interest in science as well as for her books.”

“Well, I have an interest in neither,” he said, with the smallest snap in his t ’s. What was the matter with his brain tonight? It took all his willpower not to stare at the bridge of her nose or the long column of her neck.

“Why did you say nice things about me the other day? Before you pushed me into the stream?” Sam asked.

Not that the compliments made him examine Phoebe more closely during meals or when they cataloged books together in the dim candlelight of the dusty library. They didn’t make her seem softer around the edges. Accessible.

So damn beautiful.

···

“Beautiful? You are a blockhead,” Phoebe snapped.

Sam’s mouth made an O as if he hadn’t meant to say those last three words out loud. His gaze darted side to side as if someone else had called her beautiful and was hiding behind his chair.

“Asking you an innocent question makes me a blockhead?” he asked.

“No,” she said. “Well, yes. Yes it does.”

He wasn’t a blockhead. Sam Fenley was a good man. However, Phoebe wanted to fight. She needed to feel something after Moti surprised her with the rescued books this morning.

No.

She needed to feel something other than the guilt and grief her mother’s gesture laid upon her. Phoebe’s fingers tightened around the ivory carving in her hand, breathing with relief at the pain where its sharp edges cut into her skin.

Not pleasure. Simply relief.

Phoebe had no taste for pain in bedsport. Although she never wanted to be responsible for another person’s death, if a man were to hurt her physically ever again, she would fight back with all the weapons at her disposal. Right now, for example, she had a knife in her pocket.

Why had Sam called her beautiful?

“Phoebe…” Sam said from far away. Her eyes followed his lips again as they formed her name.

Phoebe had watched him, tonight, watching her. The line of his shoulders, the arc of his arm, the way he smiled, like cups of sunlight he spilled heedlessly about him.

“Phoebe?”

Why had she let him come here and melt the edges of everything?

“Phoebe! What are you doing?”

Taking hold of her hand, Sam pried her fingers open. The points of the queen’s crown had punctured her skin and the blood looked black in the dim light.

“It’s nothing. It doesn’t…”

Her center of gravity plummeted from below her ribs to her core when he put the tips of her first two fingers in his mouth and gently sucked.

Idiocy.

Sheer idiocy to allow it, but when had Phoebe ever made the safe choice?

Sam pulled her up from the chair as she was standing, and she fell flush against him. Both moved toward each other, and in the end, she didn’t know who kissed whom first; it didn’t matter because finally Sam’s mouth was on hers and it was everything she’d wanted.

Holding her throbbing hand over her head, Sam walked her back until her shoulder blades hit the wall, never stopping the kiss, pressing the evidence of his arousal right where her body craved friction, and a raw, red ache of lust pulsed through her.

If Phoebe knew anything about Sam Fenley, it was that he could be sweet and gentle.

Not here, though.

Not now.

Sam kissed her as though he needed the air from her lungs to breathe. As if he could crawl inside her skin if he kissed her hard enough, deep enough. If she could, she’d figure out how to stop wanting him, but she suckled his tongue, and he tasted like caramel and tea and beeswax candles and sunlit corners and everything she’d mocked yet secretly desired.

Sam set a hand next to her head, holding up the wall, holding himself back. Like soft strokes, his warm breath slid up and down the slope of her neck.

All Phoebe knew was the pounding of blood at her temples, in her chest, between her thighs. When he bit lightly on her earlobe, his silken hair brushed her chin, and she wanted that silk across her breasts and down her belly.

“Say the word, and I will take you upstairs and take such good care of you .” The last four words were a crooning plea that touched Phoebe over the whole of her body.

“Say a different word and I will put this out of my mind,” he breathed. “As ever, it is your choice.”

As ever?

When had anything ever been Phoebe’s choice?

The tiny sparks of relief after cutting herself with the ivory chess piece were nothing, were drops of mist compared to the ocean of pleasure this man gave her. Every inch of her skin had shrunk so tight her bones might burst through at any moment, and the hardest part of him surged against her as his hips rolled ever so slightly. Just the once.

Phoebe wanted and because she wanted, she hated herself.

“Oh, it is I who am to blame if we continue? You have no say in the matter?” she whispered, arching her neck to allow him access.

Sam laughed, the warm air tickling her skin. “If I could walk away from you, I would be in Sussex by now.”

The kisses stopped, his lips hovering above the curve where her neck met her shoulder while he waited for her to surrender.

It was this notion of surrender that sent a wave of fear through her, frost smothering the fire of desire. Phoebe pulled Sam’s hands away from her face, ready to hurt him, ready to rend herself as well when he let out a gasp. His palm was streaked with her blood.

“Your hand,” he muttered, and reached for her, but Phoebe was already gone, pushing herself past him and through the door, ignoring the whispers behind the curtains, the scratching at the windowpanes, and the unfilled need at the center of her.