Page 9 of This Haunted Heart

I disliked him immediately. I made no response as I headed up the narrow stairs. Locating Rynn’s door, I knocked once before entering.

“Oh no, oh no, you’re not supposed to be here yet!” I caught a flash of her dashing into her bedroom, skirts whipping around her legs.

Chuckling, I balanced her flowers in one arm and checked my pocket watch. “It’s three past seven. You said seven sharp. If anything, I’m a little late. The crowd at the door slowed me.”

Her head popped back out of her boudoir. “Do you know nothing about women? Has no one told you how we keep time differently?” She shot me a smirk that sent a dart through my heart, then she vanished again.

I moved so that I could watch her ready through the archway. She studied herself in a standing mirror, smoothing her indigo dress down her thighs, fingering her raven curls.

“Four after seven,” I told her playfully.

“All right, all right.” She jogged back out of her bedroom and presented herself to me with a spirited curtsy. Her curls were pinned up in an elegant coiffure that accentuated the column of her throat. She was unchanged from when I’d seen her a moment ago, but she was right: I had in fact met women before and knew that some of their clocks ran on a different time.

Either way, her presentation was well worth waiting on. Already I was falling into her maelstrom of delightfulness, losing sight of my goal.

Smudges shadowed her deep brown eyes, evidence of her tortured sleep. The midnight blue of her dress brought out the sunshine undertones in her fawn skin. She was dressed like a woman who did very well for herself. Her sling matched thesilver ribbing that trimmed her long sleeves and low neckline.

“For you,” I said, holding out the bouquet of dark red roses and purple hyacinth.

“Rosa rubiginosa and hyacinthus orientalis.” She whispered their scientific names fondly, cradling the delicate blooms in her uninjured arm. Rynn carried them to the sofa with her and sat. She pressed the bouquet under her nose, smelling them.

“Careful. That sounded an awful lot like botany.” I followed behind her and lowered myself onto the nearest cushion.

“These are grief blooms,” she said, chuckling. “They’re for mourning.”

“Death flowers? But that won’t do.” I plucked them out of her fingers. She grabbed for the bouquet, mouth agape, but I was too quick. I tossed them behind the sofa.

Her head went back, and she laughed at the ceiling, clutching at her stomach. “Those poor flowers! I cannot believe you did that to them.”

It was too easy to forget myself around her, too easy to play with her. No one brought this side out in me—no one but Rynn. The fresh wine and citrus scent of the now mashed petals sweetened the air between us.

The smile she inspired stretched my cheeks, tugging at the numb, scarred skin on my face. “I thought they were pretty like you are. I didn’t know they were death flowers.”

“They are pretty. I still like them—I want them.” Coming up on her knees, she bent behind the sofa to retrieve them, reaching with her functioning arm.

She hadn’t presented her backside to me on purpose, but I appreciated the view all the same.

“No, no,” I said, coaxing her into returning to her cushion. “Let the death flowers go. I’ll do better next time.”

“There’s going to be a next time?” She bounced eagerly on her seat. “Are you sure? Even though I’ve already spouted off boring botany facts at you?”

“You’ll never be able to get rid of me,” I said lightly, but I meant my words. Every single syllable. I had plans for her, and no matter how lovely she still was, I wouldn’t be deterred from my path. “I have something else for you. I think I did all right with this one. I’ll let you be the judge, though.”

I removed the present concealed inside my sack coat.

She grabbed it up eagerly. The present was wrapped tightly in brown paper. She placed it in her lap, buzzing with glee. Her pleased expression sent a jolt through me that I immediately felt behind the buttoned seam of my trousers.

She peeled back the paper one-handed, gasping as the book was uncovered. The sound of her contentment warmed me just as pointedly as her pleasure, and I sunk even further down into her whirlpool of delight. Her gift was thick and leather-bound. The paper was fine. It had an excellent smell, like vellum and beeswax and “new book”.

She brought it immediately to her nose and breathed it in the same way she had the flowers.

This time I didn’t take it from her to fling behind the sofa, but I wanted to. My teeth ground together. Her happiness was so overpowering it grated. My heart should have been completely closed to her after all the grief she’d caused me, but once again the organ refused to be reasoned with.

“The Sea Adventures of Captain Van Draak,” she read, cracking open the book and flipping through the pages. “This is perfect.”

“Full of voyages and swashbucklers,andthere’s a maidstowaway turned sailor,” I told her. “It kept me up most of the night reading.”

“What a treasure you’ve brought me!” Squeezing the book to her chest, she raised a single brow at me archly. “But is there any kissing?”

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