Page 28 of The Marriage Method

“Neither had I,” she admitted. “But circumstances being what they are—”

“Quite,” he agreed.

“It’s the logical course, as you say.”

“Eminently logical.”

Her mouth trembled. “I only wish…”

Miles impulsively took her hand. Feeling her fingers curving tentatively around his in return, he was overcome by a feeling he couldn’t begin to interpret. It was some bewildering mix of protectiveness and possessiveness. A fierce and powerful elixir that tightened his muscles and deepened his voice.

“Social pressure may have precipitated this match,” he said, “but it needn’t define it. Our marriage can be anything we want it to be. You need only dictate the terms and I will respect them.”

Her brows knit. “Do you mean that?”

“Try me,” he said.

She looked at him for a long while. “There is one thing.”

“Name it.”

“Miss Corvus has indicated that, in time, I may resume my teaching duties. When that day comes, you wouldn’t object, would you?”

Miles sensed an unspoken question within her question. A hidden catch he couldn’t yet discern. He studied her face. She was still so much a mystery to him. It didn’t put him off. Rather the opposite, much to his consternation. “No,” he said. “I wouldn’t object.”

Relief glimmered in her eyes.

“Anything else?” he asked.

She shook her head. “I don’t know. I can’t think now. Not clearly.”

“There’s no expiration on my offer,” he said.

He meant it. Despite his imposing size and his frequent bouts of bad-tempered impatience, he wasn’t a brute. Once they wed, Nell could remain safe in her box and Miles in his. He spent most of his time at the office. She need hardly see him if she didn’t want to.

It was the normal way of fashionable marriages. Each party existing in their individual spheres. Only meeting at night, and sometimes not even then.

Why should his marriage to Nell be any different? Indeed, once they got over the initial upheaval of the arrangement, they could both go on with their separate lives, as countless other couples did.

Except that Nell wasn’t a typical society bride. She was a member of the same secretive organization as Mrs. Royce. And not only a member. Until now, Nell had been deputy headmistress of Miss Corvus’s Academy.

Miles had an idea of what that might mean. His research into the place hadn’t been completely unproductive. He’d learned enough to understand that the Academy wasn’t just a charity school, raising orphan girls to exceed their expectations. It was, he suspected, a training ground for formidable females intent on upending the patriarchy one uncooperative man at a time.

They had begun with Viscount Compton. Who knew where they might end?

And now Miles was proposing to marry one of them.

Nell seemed to read his thoughts, and to echo them in her own uncertainty. Her gaze fell to their clasped hands—his encased in a large black glove and hers small and bare and vulnerable. A frown worked its way across her brow. “I don’t know anything about you outside of your work.”

“Nor I you,” he said.

A thoughtful line etched her forehead. Several seconds passed. “It was here I fell,” she said.

“Fell? When?”

“When I was a girl. I was there, on the roof of the tower, helping a friend down, when I lost my grip.”

Miles followed her gaze to the roof’s edge. Understanding came, and with it a swift sense of dismay. Was this the cause of her limp? A four-floor drop to the ground? His hand tightened instinctively on hers. “Good God, Nell. What in blazes were you doing on the roof? You might have been killed.”