Chapter Text
The evening air in the printshop smelled of fresh parchment and wet ink. Lingering at hints of all the ideas of the day floating around them as they schemed. Eloise and Theo had stopped to light candles so they could continue reading Lady Whistledown’s pamphlets. They were friends, doing whip smart detective work under cover of night— and the smiles they flashed one another were conspiratorial, nothing more, Eloise told herself. She felt so alive, so far from Mayfair and the expectations of her family and society. Theo understood her as no one else did. She could trust him. Defer to him? Never. But he was a kindred spirit, even he saw that now. She felt that she might be so free here, so perfectly herself, and so far from Mayfair. How could she have ever believed she could stay away?
Then he knocked all the papers to the floor and everything changed. As she knelt to help him pick up the pamphlets and felt his ungloved hand grip the bare skin of her fingers. With that touch, her conscious mind was plunged beneath a rip tide of longing, waves crashing down to wash away every thought in her head. His skin—the feel of it, the roughness of it sent electric shocks straight to her belly. The soft middle of her, bound tight within her corset began to sizzle with barely contained energy. She froze when his eyes shot down to where their hands were touching, shock flashing across his features in turn.
He was not used to being this far on his back foot, she realized, as they both slowly rose to their feet. This was a boy who was always sure of himself, who always knew himself to be the smartest in the room, but now he was speechless. Even as panic flooded through her, she took a touch of pride in that.
Her mind was a wild riot of blankness, not one thought she could grasp on to until the he leaned forward, and with that one tiny movement, her instincts took over and she drew sharply away.
He stammered, “forgive me – I’m”
Eloise closed her eyes, shaking her head, then finally breathed out “This is absurd.”
backing away.
He held the papers in one hand tightly, gesturing with his other between them, shaking his head nervously “I would never..”
She looked up at him then, and saw his fear written openly across his face. She stared back at him, stunned at this swaggering boy, this brilliant, radical man with a tongue sharp as her own, who was terrified in this moment of losing face.
She didn’t want the upper hand like this, but she wasn’t going to flee from it like a scandalized schoolgirl either. She drew in a breath, and squared her shoulders,
“Wouldn’t you?”