Page 44 of The Marriage Method

“Possibly. However, they didn’t ask my name. They didn’t seem to know me by sight, either. It was only you who sparked their interest.” He smiled slightly. “Penelope Trewlove, renegade schoolteacher.”

“Schoolteacher no longer,” she reminded him. “I don’t know what I am now.”

Miles’s gaze came to rest on her face. For the first time since they’d departed the railway station, he gave her his complete and undivided attention. “My wife, obviously.”

Nell lowered her eyes from his. She didn’t want to think about being his wife. Not when she was already near to panicking at the prospect of being married to him. Of taking up residence in his home. Losing her rights, her status, her very purpose in life.

“Nell,” he said.

“Tell me about your house,” she said abruptly.

Miles was silent for the space of a heartbeat. And then: “There are cats. Four of them—five if you include Shadow. I brought her home last night. She wasn’t entirely prepared for it, but it seemed the best thing for her after everything that’s happened.”

“Five cats,” Nell said. “I can little imagine so many.”

“I’ve a housekeeper, too—Mrs. Bright. There are other servants as well, sufficient to keep things in order. Most came with the house.”

She glanced up at him in reluctant interest. “The house isn’t yours?”

“It belonged to my predecessor, Charles Pelham, the former editor of the Courant. He left England two years ago for America. He aims to write a book on their civil war. I took on the lease in his absence.”

“What will you do when he comes back?”

“Find somewhere else, I suppose, if Pelham still wants the place. I doubt he will. He’s like most inveterate newspapermen. We have no deep attachments.”

Nell smoothed a crease in her skirt with unnecessary attention. “Your housekeeper will be shocked that you’ve come home with a wife.”

“It will be no surprise. I wired her from the railway station after we wed. I told her to have all in readiness.”

Nell gave him a startled look. “But I thought…” She trailed off, realizing her error.

At the time, he’d said he was wiring one of his staff. She’d assumed he meant at the newspaper, not at his home. And certainly not in relation to her or her comfort.

But he’d organized it all, hadn’t he? From the special license he’d brought this morning to his visit to the telegraph office, all the way to this moment.

He regarded her steadily from across the hackney. His own thoughts were as unreadable as ever, yet he seemed to fathom hers easily enough. “I won’t tell you that you needn’t be nervous,” he said. “It won’t do any good. But trust me a little, won’t you? Trust that I’m not careless with the things that are important to me.”

Her bruised heart latched on to his gruffly spoken words. Was she important to him now? Simply by virtue of being his wife? Was that how all this worked?

And yet, only a moment ago, he’d owned to having no deep attachments.

It was confusing. Disconcerting. She had no idea of where she stood in this new life of hers. The ground was every second shifting beneath her feet.

“I am nervous,” she admitted.

“You’re tired. And you’ve scarcely eaten all day, except for that stale Bath bun you had in the refreshment room at the railway station.”

Nell hadn’t been aware he’d noticed what she’d eaten. She’d barely noticed it herself. They’d been married but fifteen minutes before, and her mind had been in chaos. She vaguely recalled the bun tasting like sawdust.

Miles’s mouth ticked up briefly at one corner in wry acknowledgment of the attention he’d been paying, even when she hadn’t been aware of it. “I’m not romantic, as you so aptly noted earlier. But I can see to practical matters. There’ll be dinner when we arrive, and Mrs. Bright will have made up a room for you.”

Nell gripped her hands together in her lap, suddenly afraid she might cry. “I’ve lost everything,” she whispered.

His analytical expression softened infinitesimally. “I know,” he said. “Let me take care of you.”

Her eyes welled with tears. She bit her lip to keep them from falling. Turning to stare out the window, she managed a small nod. Yes. Take care of me. Because I don’t know where I’m at or what I’m to do. And I’m so desperately frightened of facing it all on my own.

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