Page 94 of The Marriage Method

Her dimple emerged again. “Have I shocked you?”

“You can box?” he asked. “In addition to sword fighting?”

“Granted, I’m not as good at it as I am at fencing. Not in terms of pure power. But…I do have what you might call good science.”

Miles’s brows lowered. He was beginning to suspect she was quizzing him. “I’m to believe you’re an expert pugilist?”

“I’ve read the Oracle of the Ring.” She offered him what remained of her jam-covered toast.

Miles accepted it, absently taking a bite. He was familiar with the name of the old boxing text. “Is this another of your skills that’s more theory than practice?”

“Oh no.” She reached for her teacup again. “I’ve practiced.”

“I know they can defend themselves,” Gabriel had said.

And they could, apparently. With sword-canes, with razor-tipped parasols, with their fists.

Miles’s gaze dropped to Nell’s bare hand. It was pale and dainty, her slim fingers curled around her painted porcelain cup. It was decidedly not a hand meant for boxing.

“At the Academy?” Miles asked with studied casualness.

“Naturally.” She sipped her tea. “We prepare our girls for everything they might face in the real world.”

Miles temporarily ignored the we and the our in her statement. “You anticipate your graduates engaging in fisticuffs?”

“We’d be foolish to discount the possibility.” Nell lowered her cup. Her tone took on an edge. “Why? Do you imagine that females aren’t familiar with violence? That it doesn’t come our way regardless of our rank in society?”

Miles’s frown deepened. “No,” he said. “I’m aware how some men treat women.”

“What do you propose women do about it?” she asked. “Wait for a gentleman to rescue them? In many cases, it’s the gentlemen who are doing the offending.”

Miles knew that, too. Indeed, he’d long believed that his mother’s employer had been her seducer. Or possibly her ravisher. Why else would she have refused to tell Miles for whom she’d been working as a governess at the time she’d fallen pregnant with him?

“What I’d rather,” he said levelly, “is that my wife not court violence by venturing into the slum. Particularly after we’d already agreed that it was too dangerous.”

“I won’t apologize. Not when the result was the recovery of Miss Brent.” Nell picked up the orange.

Miles plucked it from her fingers. He peeled it for her. The sweet fragrance of fresh citrus permeated the air. “The end justifies the means, does it?”

“In this instance, yes. Besides,” she added, “I did tell you I wouldn’t give up looking for her.”

“You did.”

“And you said you wouldn’t ask me to.”

“I recall.”

“Anyway, it’s done now. Mr. and Mrs. Royce will be taking Miss Brent to the Academy today. She’ll be safe there.”

“What she’ll be is Miss Corvus’s responsibility.” Miles sectioned the orange. “And you’re mine. If you expect us to leave for the house party on Saturday, you’ll do as I say and rest for the next several days. And you’ll stay out of trouble. If anything were to happen to you…” The very possibility of her coming to further harm instantly darkened his mood.

Her mouth curved softly. “Are you growing fond of me?” she asked. “Is that it?”

He scowled at her. “If you don’t know the answer to that by now, you haven’t been paying attention.”

Nell’s smile reached her eyes. She beckoned him closer with a crook of her finger. Miles dutifully leaned toward her across the breakfast tray. His blood pumped furiously. She was going to kiss him, he knew, despite his scolding, despite his scowls. She wasn’t at all put off by him. It seemed a miracle somehow, that a creature like her should find him at all appealing.

But she did.