man, who had always been notoriously proud when it came to mixing with the lower classes.
She bit her lip and twisted her hands together. “Well, not exactly... That is...”
Caleb groaned, leaning back against a tree. “Oh, don’t tell me. You weren’t one of his...” At her wide-eyed expression, Caleb cleared his throat and straightened. “Of course you weren’t. I shouldn’t have even suggested such a thing. I apologize.”
Something in her seemed to shift, and her face shuttered. “It doesn’t matter how or when I spoke to him,” she said with a defensive bite in her voice. “He said that the ledgers are in a lockbox, behind a false panel in the bottom drawer of his desk. He knows that you aren’t good at balancing the numbers, but hopes that with time will come diligence.” With this, she crouched back down and resumed her cleaning.
This caught his attention. Drawing closer, he bent and took her by the arm. “How did you know about the lockbox?” he asked, raising her up. After he had gone home the other day, he had turned his father’s study upside down, and sure enough, the ledgers had been in the bottom drawer of the desk. As for balancing them, he couldn’t imagine a scenario in which his father had even a sliver of faith in him.
“Please,” she said, twisting out of his grasp, “it doesn’t matter how I know of them. I only wanted to help you, but now I see I shouldn’t have bothered.”
Her answer didn’t satisfy him, but as he took her by the shoulders, studying the bitter disappointment, the earnestness on her face, he realized that he really didn’t give a damn how she had found out. Someone had wanted to help him. For the first time since his father died, he didn’t feel so utterly adrift. In fact, he felt rather calm and drowsy with the thin wool of her dress under his fingertips, and the sunlight cradling them in a hazy embrace.
“Mr. Bishop?”
Her tremulous voice tugged him out of his thoughts and when he looked down, he realized that he was still grasping her by the shoulders. He relaxed his grip, but just a little. She was looking up at him, her lips slightly parted, her eyes searching his. What did the world look like through those incredible eyes of hers? Did she see a foolish young man when she looked at him? Or something more? Did she feel the same inexplicable desire burning deep within her belly when they stood close?
Before he knew what he was doing, he murmured, “I think I will kiss you now.”
* * *
She surely hadn’t heard him right. Why on earth would he want to kiss her, here, now? His father’s body had been stolen, the grave violated. And never mind that he had already told her he was an engaged man. But then he was leaning in toward her, the trajectory of his lips unmistakable.
She knew that it was wrong, for so many reasons, but she was helpless to stop herself as her mouth parted and she went boneless in his arms. She’d never been kissed before, and the temptation to experience this strange and wonderful phenomenon for herself was too strong to resist. Then he was deepening the kiss, pulling her against the length of him as she automatically twined her hands behind his neck.
It was glorious. Parts of her she didn’t even know existed flared to life, her body flooding with warmth under his fingertips. There, amongst the carved death’s heads and rasping crows, she felt more alive than she ever had before.
But then reality came rushing back. What was she doing? The girl with the calloused heart didn’t fall into the arms of handsome young men. The girl with the curse of talking to the dead most certainly didn’t partake in such intimate gestures. And he was engaged, the cad.
She pulled back and, before she could think twice, slapped him clean across his cheek, the force smarting her palm. She’d never struck someone before. Reeling back, he gave a yelp.
She shouldn’t have hit him—it had been more to make herself stop than him—but he didn’t look angry or even surprised, only slightly sheepish, breathing heavily as if awakening from a dream.
“I suppose I had that coming,” he said with a crooked grin, and Tabby got the impression that this was not the first time he had found himself on the receiving end of a blow from a woman. But then his