Talk Sweetly to Me by Courtney Milan

Author:Courtney Milan [Milan, Courtney]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Tags: courtney milan, historical romance, enemies to lovers, victorian, victorian romance, sexy historical romance, doctor, african heroine, interracial romance
ISBN: 9781937248222
Publisher: Milan, Courtney

Chapter Five

ROSE WAS SWIFT. She had a head start on Stephen, darting up the stairs. By the time he’d entered the stair turret, he saw only a swirl of pink skirts as she turned, already on the landing ahead of him. He followed after, his mind a maelstrom of confusion.

She stopped halfway up the next short flight of stairs and turned to him. Her eyes were shining from the exercise—and then she reached back to him, holding out her hand.

“Well?” she said. “Come along.”

He stopped dead. For a moment, he wasn’t sure what she intended. Slowly, he climbed the steps that separated them until he stood just below her. That brought him on eye-level with her.

He held out his hand, palm up.

She took it, folding it in her own. “Hurry up,” she said.

Then she took off again. He was jogging up the stairs beside her, hand in hand. She had a smile on her face. Her fingers squeezed his, and he squeezed them back.

They came to the top of the turret. She fumbled the keys out, unlocking the final door. There were no easy stairs up the spire. Instead, a wooden ladder sat at the base, climbing to a final platform.

“Climb quickly,” she told him.

He did. He could feel her on the ladder behind him even though he couldn’t see her—feel her in the vibration of the ladder, sense her in his tingling nerves.

He came to the top, pulled himself onto the platform, and crouched down and held out his hand. She took it, and he helped her up.

There were two windows in the spire. One faced northeast; the other—the one he’d spent all morning setting the apparatus up in—faced south and west. She dropped his hand, inhaling, going to that one.

“Mr. Shaughnessy.” Her voice shook. “Did you do this?”

He’d had to talk with Barnstable about how to manage it.

“Well. Yes. I did.”

One couldn’t look at the sun directly, not without risking damage to the eyes. But with the proper telescope lens, it was no difficulty at all.

“You’ve mounted an entire theodolite telescope in the window. How did you get…” She shook her head in wonder. “No, never mind that. I can tell how. No one who owned a theodolite telescope would willingly loan it to you, not with the transit today. Never say you bought it just for this.”

“As you wish.” He smiled. “I won’t tell you that I bought it. But…”

She shook her head. “And were no doubt charged treble in light of the transit.” She reached out and touched the base lightly, almost reverently.

“Do you have a telescope, Miss Sweetly?”

“No.” Her voice was low and reverent. “I don’t.”

“Well, then. Do you want one?”

“Yes, Mr. Shaughnessy.” She bent over it, set her eye to the eyepiece. “I want one very much. But we both know you cannot make a present of this to me. It is too dear.”

“Then I won’t.”

“It seems an extravagant purchase on your part,” she said.

He’d had years of scrimping and saving before he’d come to prominence; it was not in his nature to make pointless expenditures.

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