Page 18 of Crying Wolfe
She made him forget himself.
And in offering a slight smile, damned if she didn’t steal his breath twice in as many minutes.
He glanced away, his gaze finding the table upon which the treasure was kept, covered now since her last intrusion. The cover was undisturbed, the trap he’d set still in place.
She truly just wanted to use the telescope. It made sense, he supposed. She came from a wealthy, titled family. Granted, not as wealthy as him, but she needed for nothing.
Perhaps she was different than—
“Do you want to see?” she asked, eyes sparkling.
He blinked. “See what?”
“The meteor shower.” Motioning to the telescope, she bustled back over to it, bending slightly to press her eye to the lens and to fiddle with a few knobs. “I just have to position the lens back in the right place.”
Eli had never lived with a woman before. Had never stood still long enough to watch one go about her business. Sure, he’d enjoyed a romp with a few—okay, dozens. And he’d had friendly interactions with almost all of them.
But this was different.
He wasn’t kicking open a door with his belt half undone, ready for a romp; he was looking at his fiancée.
He enjoyed the way the slight train of her skirt swished along the shiny wood floors. He liked the wide belt she’d cinched around her startlingly small waist. The little gather of frills at the cuffs of her shock-white blouse. He was arrested by how her feet never really seemed to touch the ground, and the graceful way her wrists and hands moved with deft skill. Like every gesture was a dance.
She reminded him of a hummingbird. Quick bursts of motion interspersed by floating, ethereal pauses. A creature so tiny and shy she was easy to overlook, but if you were allowed close enough, you discovered feathers and features unmatched in exceptional and vivid beauty.
Lord, if she turned him into a poet, he’d eat his own bullets.
And yet…was it a terrible idea to introduce himself to the woman he was about to marry?
To learn about her, as well?
“Never seen more than a shooting star,” he muttered, shoving his fists in his pockets to hide the evidence of violence as he meandered to the dais.
“Then you’ve observed a meteor,” she explained, her back still to him as she focused on the contraption. “They’re chunks of rock and metal believed to be broken off large asteroids and burned up in our atmosphere. So they’re closer to us than even the moon. Some of them find their way to the earth’s surface and those are called—” Suddenly she straightened as if someone had poked her in the back, whirling to face him. “Oh dear. Forgive me. It wasn’t my intention to condescend. I—I forget myself sometimes.”
Eli cocked his head. “Forget what?”
“That…” She hesitated, her eyes darting quickly as if searching for the right words. “That men aren’t fond of being instructed by a woman. Of course, you knew about meteors already.”
“I don’t know anything about meteors.” Eyes narrowing, Eli wondered why she looked so pale. So panicky. “I’ve spent most of my life under the ground, picking the earth apart to find her alloys. Never had much use for the sky other than to know the time of day or night or the weather, I guess.”
“Oh, Mr. Wolfe, that’s so sad.”
Where he came from, you punched a man for pitying you. It was something to avoid at all costs. But the look of pure compassion onherface melted some sort of tight, hard tension from his shoulders and tugged at something beneath his ribs.
“Well anyway…” He rested one foot on the step of the dais, leaning on the railing that encapsulated the telescope’s domain. “Most of the useful shi—er—stuff I know, I learned from women. So, I’m not particular about where my information comes from, gender-wise, anyhow.”
She regarded him warily. “Then you are very different from the men in my family, sir.”
“You mean Morley?”
She tugged at the lace cuff of her sleeve, worrying it idly. “I don’t know Morley terribly well. I—I wasn’t raised with his wife. He seems to know just about everything there is to know about everything, so I can’t say I’ve ever tried to explain much to him. I was more referring to my father and…and my uncle who raised us after Mother passed.”
A prurient curiosity tempted him to ask, “Your father’s death caused quite a scandal, I hear. Bigamy and fraud. Two families kept secret from each other. How many siblings do you have, exactly, and where do you fit into the equation?”
At his query, all that was open and vibrant about her changed. She shuttered the windows and closed the storm doors, her eyes opaque and her features devoid of expression as she stared past him. “I’m the youngest of seven.”
He let out a low whistle, trying to keep it nonchalant. “Always wondered what a big family was like, guess I’m going to learn quickly. Tell me about them. What would we have in common?”
