Page 8 of The Blighter and the Bluestocking

Chapter 5

HEAVYBREATHSFILLEDTHEair. His palms still warmed her thighs. He told himself he maintained that grip to steady her, but in all truth, his knees were too weak to stand. As she pushed her body to a more upright position, he studied her movements. Fluid. Calm. Like the ocean. Just as he had seen and felt the first day when he met her in the park. Yet he knew that something magnificent had just raged beneath the surface.

“Who are you?” The question popped out.

A smile tugged at her lips, and he could see her struggling to keep it at bay.

“I’m Lady Bridget Harrington. Though I suspect you’re asking an altogether different kind of question, perhaps regarding the metaphysical nature of my being? Or maybe I’ve got it wrong, and you’re sustaining an epistemological crisis, and you’re unsure how it is that you’re come to know me, or anything? Am I correct?”

“Yes.”

“Which one is it?”

“Both.” Arthur found some strength in his legs and pulled himself into the desk chair. Noticing her legs still wide, he took his handkerchief and wiped her delicately.

“I can do that.” She tried to nab his square, but he pulled it out of reach.

“I’m sure you can,” he mumbled, thinking back to how she had directed him according to her own pleasure. A shiver crawled up his spine.

“There,” he said as he pulled her skirts over her legs. He needed to cover those up so he could think straight. Or least attempt to.

He watched as she pushed herself off of the table. She appeared to not be as affected as he was by the encounter, for she turned her back on him and began to search for his bag full of her papers.

When she placed it on the desk and opened it up, he stood up. He was so curious to see the treasured papers that he almost missed the quiver of her body as his chest pressed gently to her back.

So she was not unaffected. He smiled.

When she bent over her notes, he slipped a hand on her left hip, as if it were the most natural thing to do. “Tell me why they’re so important,” he whispered into her right ear, his body encased around her.

If he hadn’t seen the tremble a moment ago, he might have mistaken her pause for mild chagrin, but now he realized she was trying to compose herself. It was not vexation, but resolve.

Perchance, this woman who embodied a free mind and spirit could be attached to something.

“They’re just my notes.”

“I also write notes, but I doubt I would have risked my reputation to retrieve them.”

“Perhaps your notes are not as good as mine.” He saw the corner of her mouth curl.

“Ostensibly, my note taking abilities are deficient.”

She pulled out a few sheets, and he saw some drawings of the contraption she had been riding the other day.

“Where did you get those from? How did you hear about that thing?” It was nearly impossible for an unmarried woman to attend a conference or symposium of any kind where she could glean such knowledge as to draw that. Though he wouldn’t put it past her to dress as a man, he wasn’t sure she could get away with it.

“The Glider?”

“That death trap you were gliding around on should not be called something as innocent as a Glider.”

“That’s what I call it.” She tapped some papers into place. “And it’s not a death trap.”

“It nearly killed us both.”

“Hardly.” She shrugged her shoulders. “You just didn’t know I was coming, or you would have gotten out of the way.”

She had a point. Obviously a person would make way insofar as they knew the Glider was approaching.

“You didn’t answer my question though. How did you come about the knowledge for those drawings?”

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