How splendid they were! Dropping her shawl on the table, Thea bent to examine the flowers more closely. She reached out, eager to know the texture of those unusual yellow—
“Hands off!”
With a yelp and a jolt, Thea snatched her hands back close to her throat and spun around, heart pounding.
It was Lord Luxborough, of course, a large looming silhouette of tousled hair and broad shoulders and impatient legs. As he advanced, his face came into view. He looked tired and annoyed.
Annoyed with her, she supposed.
Well, she was annoyed with him, lurking in shadows and scaring her like that.
With an effort, Thea lowered her hands, straightened, and tried to behave as if this was perfectly normal. But nothing about this man was normal, not given his inexplicable words back at the inn and the haunting questions of what he knew and what damage he might wreak.
“You startled me. My lord. Um.”
“Do not touch that flower,” he said, in his low, rough voice, its smoky edges sliding down her spine.
He prowled closer and she managed to stand still, but such was the intensity in his eyes that she had to look away, back to the flowers, whose delightfully odd faces surprised her all over again.
“Is it a flower, then?” A silly sentence, but a coherent one at least, and her voice was not quite a squeak.
“No, it’s a monkey. Of course it’s a blasted flower.”
“I’ve never seen a flower like it in all the world.”
“And you’ve seen all the world, have you? You just happened to be passing through Bahia?”
“Bahia? Yes, I see, Bahia, yes,” said Thea, nodding and ignoring his horrid sarcasm.
“Have you ever even heard of Bahia, Miss Knight?”
“Of course I have.”
“When?”
“You mentioned it just now.”
He leaned a hip against the table, arms folded like a sentry, and examined her as if she, too, were a specimen he had never before seen.
Defiantly, Thea examined him back. Despite everything, she liked looking at him. Something about his surly roughness appealed, the way he was battered and worn, yet strong nonetheless. Like a castle that had endured storms and sieges and battles, yet remained impervious and indifferent, a place one could seek shelter, if one but dared to draw near.
She would not draw near. They should not be alone together, here in the fading light, but she could not leave, not until she discovered what he knew. As she sought the words to ask, her eyes strayed back to the flowers. The purplish petals at the back were ruffled, puckered like sewing when one pulled the thread too tight. She reached out and—
“I said, don’t touch!”
She snatched back her hand. “Sorry. I forgot.”
“Forgot? I told you barely a minute ago.”
“It was a very crowded minute.”
Despite his scowl, he seemed perplexed, as though he did not know what to do with her.
He might think you are a mouse and pounce.
He might rub up against me and purr.
Thea whirled about and put a few steps between them before facing him again. She was growing used to him, and that made it easier to speak.
“I wouldn’t hurt it,” she said.
“Orchids are delicate. It does not need you poking at it.”
“What did you call it? An awkward…what?”
“An orchid.”
“Orchid.” She tried out the word, savoring its shape in her mouth. “What an odd name. Orchid.”
“It’s from an ancient Greek word,” he said irritably. “Orkhis.”
“Oh. You’re going to educate me. Very well.”
She folded her hands and waited politely.
“You don’t sound thrilled,” he remarked.
“On the contrary, my lord. I’m always thrilled when a man wants to tell me all the important things he knows.” His brows hitched a fraction. “I suppose now you will tell me what the word means and where the plant comes from, and if I’m very lucky, you’ll explain at length how you know more about it than anyone else.”
That little half smile curled his lips. The scars on his cheek twisted slightly to accommodate it.
“No, I wasn’t going to tell you what the word means, actually.”
He shoved off from the table and strolled around her, coming to a stop by a pillar. He fell back against it, arms folded again, and regarded her as patiently as if he had all night.
Thea waited. He added nothing. She looked about, looked back at him, studied her hands, glanced up to meet his eyes. Still he said nothing.
She would not speak first. She would not speak first. She would not speak—
“You have to tell me now,” she said.
“Hmm?”
“One cannot throw a foreign word into the conversation and not explain it. That’s bad manners.”