Page 20 of The Truth Serum (My Lady’s Potions #2)

N ate cursed as he secured his rope on Becca’s rooftop.

It had been touch and go getting up here.

This was an elite neighborhood, so the rooftops were spaced further apart, which meant that he’d had to jump a large span before he could land safely up here.

“Safe” meaning he didn’t plummet to his death, but his feet were an aching, throbbing mess. Not to mention his ribs.

A few years ago, he’d run ratlines in a storm without thinking. Today, he felt every year of his life as if it had been a decade. Nevertheless, he’d take ten times the pain if it meant he could talk to Becca without interference.

God, he prayed tonight would finally be his moment.

He tied off his rope and carefully climbed down.

He’d left his shoes on, even though he was more secure on ropes barefoot.

The calluses on his feet were fading. He needed the dubious protection of the leather.

And his right toes were wrapped and braced with pieces of wood to prevent the bones from re-breaking.

So he secured himself as best he could and wondered what had happened to the devil-may-care boy he’d once been. Right now, he was a knot of anxiety.

Nevertheless, he descended to her window, taking a long moment to watch her reading there.

Her hair was down, gathered to the side in a mahogany cascade of silk that would smell like summer.

Or at least it used to. Her head was bowed, but he still saw the curve of her shoulder half hidden by her worn cotton shift.

No silk for her. She was a simple cotton girl.

Then she smiled as she turned a page, and his breath caught at the sheer beauty of her. Pleasure in a book. Sweetly innocent. And so damned sensual that he was rock hard just looking.

He tried to see the book but couldn’t manage it. Still, he guessed it was a scandalous tome of adventure, read only at night. During the day, she pulled out scientific inquiries or treatises on household management. But night was when Becca let her real self shine, if only in the pages of a book.

God, how he wanted to touch her.

He tapped the window instead and her head shot up, her blue eyes jumping to meet his.

He waved and tried to look dashing. Then he tried not to be disappointed when her expression shifted to chagrin.

At least that was what he labelled it in his mind.

It could just have easily been “annoyance” or “anger.” He countered by putting his hands together in a prayer position and mouthing, “Please, please.” Unfortunately, that loosened his grip on the rope, and he slipped.

He didn’t go far. The hemp was tight around his good foot and shin, but the burn as he slid ripped his pants. Worse, the act of stopping tore at his hands. He should have worn gloves. That would be his usual practice, but he had so few left, he’d thought he could go without them.

It was fear of his death that had her springing to the window. She jerked it open with a hard pull, then leaned out and reached for his shirt. He let her, wanting the comfort of her grip even though it would not stop a fall.

“Are you mad?” she cried.

Quite possibly.

“Let me in, Becca. Please, I want to talk.”

“I will not!” she said, her tone prim.

“I’m not going to accost you,” he grumbled. “But this is harder than it looks. I’m not a teenager anymore, and there’s hard cobblestone beneath me, not soft grass.”

“You shouldn’t be here!”

He held his tongue, reminding himself that he wasn’t the only one who had changed in the last decade. She was different. He couldn’t prattle nonsense and expect her to give in. But he didn’t really know the woman she’d become. He didn’t know how to persuade her to talk to him.

“Five minutes. Please. I just want to see that you’re all right.”

She lifted her hands. “I’m fine! I was fine before! I’m—”

“Are you going to marry him?”

She frowned. “Who? The baron?”

“Has anyone else offered for you?”

“Besides you? No.”

“Then yes, the baron.”

“No.”

That was a relief. “But Fletcher—”

“I know,” she said with a sigh. “I’m not sure how to manage him. He’s gotten worse.”

How sweet that they could still understand each other in abbreviated sentences. Even so, there was a lot unspoken here, and he wanted details. Just exactly how had Fletcher gotten worse? Was she in danger?

“Let me in, Becca. My ribs are killing me.”

Her gaze dropped to his torso as she quickly backed up. At least she was still tenderhearted. She hated for anyone to be in pain, him included. She helped him inside, and within moments, he set his feet lightly on her floor before sliding the rest of the way inside.

Relief.

The scent of her was everywhere. He smiled as he inhaled deeply.

“Can you breathe?” she pressed. “Without pain? And your feet—how bad are they?”

He smiled. It was good to see she cared. “I’m better now that I’m here.”

“No, you’re not! You’re being very bad.”

His lips quirked as he looked at her. She sounded like his old matron at Eton, but she was far lovelier.

“You used to like me when I was bad,” he teased.

She crossed her arms, and he couldn’t help but appreciate the way her bosom plumped. “Stop looking at me like that! I’m not sixteen anymore. I’m not going to swoon just because you’re being scandalous.”

“You never swooned.”

“I never…” She abruptly cut off her words, her lips pressed tight.

“What?” he pressed. “Don’t hold back. You know I hate that.”

She dropped back into her chair with a heavy sigh.

“I never stood up to you either. I never stopped you—” She glared at him.

“I never stopped us from being insanely daring. I look back on that girl, and I think, what a fool she was.” She lifted her chin.

“So I didn’t swoon, but I might as well have. ”

There wasn’t another chair in the room, so he pulled out the footstool and sat upon it. That put her at a higher eye level than him, but he liked looking up at her.

“I remember you very differently,” he said quietly. “You stopped me from so much idiocy. If it weren’t for you, I would have tried swinging from tree to tree like a monkey.”

“You would have fallen to your death.”

Maybe. “Probably just broken a leg.” Though he’d seen a sailor fall from the lowest spar once. It was a small height, one that he’d often jumped. But there’d been water on the deck, the man had hit his head, and the result had been gruesome. And fatal.

“You also kept me from stealing chickens to release in church,” he continued. “From blowing peas at people through a blow gun, and baking sawdust into tarts.”

“You stopped yourself with the tarts,” she corrected.

Had he? “Oh yes! Too much work to make something I couldn’t eat.”

“No.” She relaxed back in her chair as she chided him. “You couldn’t manage the oven. Burned everything into an ugly mess.”

Oh yes. “Cook made me clean all the pots as punishment.”

He chuckled at the memory as did she. It was a softening of her attitude, and he touched her bare foot at the sound. He had to touch her somewhere, and this was the most polite thing he could do from down here.

Still she stiffened. “Nate—”

“You stopped me from doing so many things,” he said, trying to distract her from his touch. “Many, many stupid things.”

“And we still did so much.” She bit her lip, her gaze skittering away in shame.

“Yes. We read books, taught the village children their letters, and fought over economics.”

She snorted. “You encouraged me to read things that no girl should learn,” she said. “Just so I could argue with you.”

He shook his head. Didn’t she remember? “You read them because I had to study them in school. You kept asking me what I had learned, what did I think.” As if he wanted to remember any part of his education during the summer months.

But she had been interested, and so for her, he’d looked back at his textbooks.

He’d remembered them enough to teach her.

“The only reason I know anything now is because of you.”

She frowned as if trying to reconcile what he said with her own memories. “I did want to know,” she said softly.

That was why he’d worked hard to learn things he could teach her. Her mind was always active, always seeking something more than what her family allowed. It was a damn shame that women weren’t educated better. If she’d been given a decent education, she’d be an Oxford don by now.

Instead, she was waiting hand and foot on her mother while trying to avoid Fletcher’s insanity.

“Why haven’t you married before now?” he asked.

Her brows shot up. “What a question!”

“You’re attractive, titled, and an heiress. You should have taken in your first Season.”

“I couldn’t go to London until after we were out of mourning. That was a blessing, I think. I was so young then.”

He’d spent that time learning how to sail on the Thames as a waterman. And then he was sailing back and forth to Spain, learning too much about war, and trailing after Sir Benedict so he could ferry messages to the Foreign Office.

“I wasn’t in London during your come-out. What happened then?”

She shook her head. “I don’t know. There was attention, of course.” Her expression softened. “There was a boy I really liked, but then he lost interest.”

“Who?” The word came out harder than he intended, but he was jealous. He didn’t want her to have that expression for anyone but him.

“Jonas Gaynesford. He ended up marrying my friend Eunice. They’re very happy now.”

She didn’t sound particularly upset. “Did you ever ask him what happened?”

“Goodness, no. That would be rude. But of course, Mama says it’s always the same thing.”

“The same what?”

She shot him a heavy look. “My purity is in question,” she said.

His mouth dropped open. “We never… I didn’t…”

“No one believes me. I even have a letter from my doctor, but still…”

“You got a doctor’s letter?” Good God, what had she endured just to get that? And the necessity of it shocked him.

“I did. Doesn’t seem to matter.”