She blanched. All the color slipped from her cheeks as she visibly recoiled. For a moment, he thought she’d prevaricate. “My sister,” she said, her voice catching. “She loved it so damned much, and it was so very bad for her, but I could not deny her anything.” Julia sucked in a noisy breath. “Even if it was in her best interest.”
For a second time that day, the carriage rolled to a stop, and coward that he was, Harris found himself grateful for that interruption, one that allowed him to try to steady his disjointed thoughts and turbulent emotions.
Julia looked out the window. “What is this?”
“I thought you would enjoy a visit to Gunther’s.”
“Gunther’s,” she echoed dumbly.
“Ices.”
“No… I know. I’ve seen…” Her voice trailed off as she looked through the crystal pane once more. “I’ve never been,” she murmured.
Nay, she’d opened his eyes to how little she’d seen and known in life. That was, when it came to pleasure. And energized by the possibility of offering her some of the joy that she’d been so long without, he pushed the door open and jumped out.
“Come,” he urged. Waving off a besotted Stebbins, Harris caught Julia by the waist and lifted her down.
Only, the moment her feet touched the pavement, he remained frozen, his fingers still upon her. Uncaring about the gawking passersby. Captivated by the feel and heat of her.
She drifted closer. Or did he do that? Perhaps they both did, their bodies angling nearer.
God, she was magnificent in so many ways, a siren who tempted. A mermaid for whom he’d happily bash himself against jagged rocks.
Bang.
He and Julia both jolted as Stebbins brought the carriage door firmly shut, shattering the moment and clearing Harris’ head.
He held his elbow out. “Shall we?”
With the crowded London streets watching on, Harris led Julia inside.
Chapter 14
He’d taken her… to Gunther’s.
She, a guttersnipe born to the streets, was seated at a private table on the fringe of that famous, gleaming shop window. One Julia had passed enough times in the course of her life that she’d lost count. As a girl, she’d always stolen covetous looks at the lords and ladies seated within the shop. The children with their nursemaids or mothers.
Eventually, she’d stopped looking. It hadn’t been about envy. No, not that. Though there had certainly been some of those sentiments. She’d stopped looking because of the hunger that had come in seeing a treat and imagining what it would taste like.
Now, she found herself seated in front of that very window overlooking the London streets. She watched Harris speaking with the young man behind the counter.
And yet, as magical as this moment was, as wholly entranced as she was by the fact that a man such as him, would take a woman such as her, to a place such as this, it was not that which had stolen her heart this day. Or at least not this alone.
It was the fact that he’d knelt on the dirty cobblestones outside Covent Garden and spoken to those waifs, of which she’d recently been one, treating them as though they were equals. Then giving out enough money to have seen Julia secured for the whole of her life.
But then, that had been the man he’d proven to be when he’d been just a stranger rescuing a street waif—to his lover’s annoyance.
In this moment, with this stolen life, she could almost believe this was real. That someone like her could have a future with someone like him. Which was preposterous.
And yet, neither did it stop her from wanting him as she did, from wanting that future.
Her heart skittered several beats as he finished speaking to the shopkeeper and started for their table. With every step that brought him closer, a fresh wave of butterflies were released in her belly, and they fluttered and danced. She, cynical Julia Corbett, who hadn’t believed in love or thought herself capable of weakening for a man, found just how very wrong she’d been.
He reached the table and settled into the chair opposite her. “I have questions,” he said without preamble.
She stiffened, and just like that, her foolish musings burst like a fragile soap bubble.
“Do you prefer chocolate or muscadine?”
Of anything he could have said, this was it? “That is your question?” she blurted.
He gave her a skeptical look. “Yes. Was there something else…” Understanding lit his eyes. “You thought I intended to put questions to you about your identity.”
Her identity. Which was decidedly not Adairia. An impostor. She managed nothing more than a weak nod.
“No,” he said. “I’m not challenging you. Not anymore.”
Oh, God. Not anymore. And this, when he should.
This was too much. Guilt was a flavor that would surely spoil whatever treat he’d purchased for her.
As if on cue, a young woman appeared and set two etched crystal bowls before them.
She’d been wrong. Surely there was nothing more luxuriant, more resplendent a food than this. Her eyes slid closed as she let her tongue absorb all the taste and texture.
She opened her eyes to find Harris watching her, his gaze dark, though the darkness was different. It wasn’t the suspicious, cynical glint he’d worn during their earliest exchanges. But rather, it was the same heated one that had glinted in his eyes as he’d given her so much pleasure. And if she were the blushing debutante whom he’d undoubtedly one day wed, she’d have felt a proper shame for the yearnings that now consumed her, God forgive her as a wanton. However, in this moment, she could not hold any regrets. Not a one.
“You did so much for so many today.” And now he’d treat her to ices at
