Scandal Meets Its Match (The May Flowers #7) - Merry Farmer Page 0,38

on its way to Yorkshire. She always had slept like a baby on trains.

She awoke an undetermined amount of time later to find that at least half of her problems were still staring her in the eyes. Quite literally, as it turned out. Phineas sat on the seat across from her, wedged against the side of their compartment in a way that suggested he, too, had been trying to sleep but had opted for watching her instead. Their compartment was dim, as the sun had long-since set outside and the single lantern swinging in the corner did little to brighten the space. But the moment Lenore opened her eyes, Phin smiled.

That smile was as painful as a bullet. There was nothing artful or calculated about it. The clever, rakish Phineas with whom she’d plotted on Phoebe Long’s behalf, who wrote salacious stories that bordered on ruining the lives of London socialites, who bantered with her on walks through Hyde Park, as if daring people to comment, was gone. In his place was a simple man wearing glasses who had a heart that beat for her. The transformation made him a thousand times handsomer and more desirable than he already was, and it crushed Lenore’s heart in the process. He was everything she’d always wanted—handsome, clever, a bit naughty, but good at heart—but she could never have him.

“Are we there yet?” she asked in a gravelly voice, sitting straight and stretching.

Phin sucked in a breath and straightened as well, righting his glasses with a deliberate gesture, his eyes raking her body as though he enjoyed every tiny movement and every second of her stretch. “Almost,” he said. “You slept through the entire trip, which means you won’t sleep well tonight.”

Lenore let out a wry laugh. She wouldn’t sleep well that night for far more reasons than her nap on the train. She glanced out the window, scanning the dots of light scattered through the darkness. They must have been near a city to see any lights at all.

“How far from the city is your family’s home?” she asked, turning back to Phin.

He was still watching her, his eyes bright with thought. “An hour or so by wagon,” he said, shifting in his seat as the train’s whistle sounded and its brakes began to squeal. The heated calculation in his eyes melted away into tired practicality.

“I assume we’ll be staying in a hotel of some sort tonight instead of heading straight to your family estate,” Lenore said, searching for the gloves she’d taken off when she settled into her seat earlier.

Phin laughed. “It’s charming that you think I could afford a night in a hotel, or that my family’s home is an estate.” When Lenore paused her search to raise her eyebrows at him, he went on with, “Hazel, my eldest sister, will likely be waiting for us with the wagon at the station.”

“At this hour?” Lenore asked as the train slowed even more and the city itself slid past the window. His use of the word “wagon” instead of “carriage” caught her attention.

“Hazel is a harridan who believes in punctuality, self-reliance, and frugality,” Phin said, his mouth twitching into a fond grin. “If we so much as thought of staying in the city instead of going straight home, she would march up to our hotel room, grab us by the collars, and drag us home if she had to walk the whole way to do so.”

Lenore blinked. His suggestion that they would have stayed in a single hotel room aside, she was intrigued by the description of his sister. Images of a strapping country girl built like some of the cow pokes she’d known back home came to mind. Phin wasn’t as delicate as his brother, but Lenore found herself wondering with a grin if the girls in the Mercer family had inherited the brawn while the men inherited the refinement.

“We’d better behave, then,” she said, standing when the train came to a full stop in the relatively well-lit station.

“Who said anything about behaving?” Phin stood with her, using the excuse of reaching above her to the rack that held her traveling bag to stand close to her.

As soon as he’d grabbed hold of her bag and brought it down to rest on the seat, he leaned into her, bringing his mouth to within a whisper of hers. Lenore held her breath, parting her lips in anticipation of a kiss. Her body thrummed with expectation and her heart sped up. Her