The Ornithologist's Field Guide to Love (Love's Academic #1)

by India Holton

But he couldn’t resist sparing a moment to smile at Miss Pickering. He remembered her from a recent meeting in Berkshire, where he’d been utterly bored and had asked for an introduction to the pretty Oxford professor, intending to flirt a little to pass the time.

But dang it, she really was pretty, with eyes as blue as the Alaskan cat-catching warbler, a mouth as soft as a morning kiss, and a sweet, heart-shaped face—although it was also a rather sweaty face, and currently scowling at him as if she’d like to stab him with her furled parasol. He wished she would. Pretty was nice; naughty was ever so much better.

This defiance cast a lively flush upon her face, and Devon considered some flirtatious provocation, perhaps a blown kiss, just to see if he could tip her into truly bad manners.

All along the streets to the museum, Beth met no trouble. Her plain brown coat, accompanied by a small hat, gloves, and air of cultivated intelligence, triggered fear in any man who glanced her way: one catcall, and she might educate them.

A wise woman allows nothing to ruffle her feathers; she is the ruffler of feathers.

The woman might be pretty, but she was also a rival in the field, an academic foe, an associate of the unscrupulous Hippolyta Quirm, and so very pretty the air around her seemed to glow. The spectacles alone made him want to kiss her until they fell off invite her to dinner at a nice seafood restaurant. He could still feel her warm, soft lips against his palm from when he’d hushed her in the museum’s basement, and his nerves tingled, begging to touch her again.

The spectacles followed, and Devon looked around for some reading material so he could induce her to put them back on again.

He wanted to undress her brain, stroke her perspective, make her gasp out the most fascinating theory she hid from all other men. (He also wanted to kiss the hell out of her, but that went without saying.)

Ask me and I’ll tell you. Say my name and I’ll give you all you want.

Devon was only aware of this at the periphery of his attention, however, for he could not seem to look away from Beth. Nor, apparently, could she break whatever force kept them locked together.

Devon grasped her hand in a firm grip. With his other hand, he stroked her arm. Outrageous! Rakishly scandalous! Actually quite soothing!

Beth applied within for a witty response but came up blank. She was not used to playing with conversation—she was barely used to conversation at all. Unless a person was speaking about birds, or pointing to birds, or asking her to please tell them all the fascinating details she knew about birds, she generally avoided engaging. Moreover, inherent shyness, mixed with her attending university from a prodigiously young age, had not been conducive to her developing social skills. Even in Oxford’s ornithology department, as a female professor of twenty-four among predominantly old men, she seldom socialized beyond polite nods, observations of the weather, and joining in the occasional excitement about who stole Professor Humberton’s sandwich from the faculty lounge. And Hippolyta rarely required more than intermittent noises of agreement.

When she laughed with the fishermen, everything inside him sighed with a longing he could not repress.

In the dreaming twilight, he knew nothing but her.

He liked her. She was Sunday morning, a bird in the hand, fresh chalk for a clean blackboard.

Devon kissed her with such brash, cheerful vigor that all her senses were bowled over.

She wanted to climb into the kiss and build a home there, grow a bright garden, and wake every morning to joyful birdsong.

After all, fun was lovely and kisses were sweet, but tenure was forever.

ROMANCE TAKES FLIGHT IN BIRDER COMPETITION

He’s a villain; he pulled me out of my perfectly calm waters and disturbed me right through my very being…and I miss all of it: the hijinks and hassles and chaotic fun… I miss the me I was with him.

Beth found herself driven to the verge of frowning. Why people—?! (That was the full extent of the sentence. Extroverts need not trouble themselves asking for an explanation.)

All she saw was his gorgeous infuriating eyes looking down at her with dark intensity as he set a hand against the wall beside her head.

Devon stared out the window, thinking about reuniting with Beth catching the caladrius, kissing Beth presenting the caladrius to the IOS committee, and sinking himself into Beth’s warm soft depths like a man experiencing a little death and temporarily visiting heaven winning Birder of the Year and the best reward of all, Beth’s love tenure.

This was not fun anymore, Beth thought. This was falling in love.

Beth was the first person he’d met who truly spoke his language. Her presence made the world finally slide into place for him. She was beautiful, unconsciously sexy, and he was drawn to that, of course, but it was only a minor part of how he felt. His attraction to her was so intensely intellectual it affected his very brain function, until it seemed like he walked for her, breathed for her, got hard just hearing her say the words mandibular rostrum.

Intellectualism gave way to sweet goofiness, and by the time they settled together, Devon reckoned he’d never been so aroused. But Beth was lavender-scented softness in his arms, and he wanted that more than sexual release. He wanted her, his clever angel, his rival, his friend.

Had there ever been a more beautiful man in the existence of the world?

“However, if people insist on equating my ladylike manner with powerlessness, they are to blame for the consequences. I wouldn’t be an ornithologist—not to mention a woman who went through years of schooling with mostly male classmates—if I wasn’t able to defend myself.”

Taking her hand, he hurried along a path at the edge of Gladstone’s property, and she smiled secretly to herself, letting him lead her.

The wise ornithologist keeps her friends close and her enemies tied up somewhere they cannot trouble her.

“Just be aware,” he whispered, “that as soon as I can, I’m going to kiss you until your corset falls off.”

But he’d taken only a few steps before he simply had to look back, compelled by the gravity between them.

Devon laughed. Hooking a finger around two of hers, he lifted her hand and turned it so she found herself spinning beneath their raised arms like in a dance. Then he began walking backward, cajoling her, gently tugging her, until she was laughing and walking, with all her heart willing to go anywhere in the world he might lead.

“I like you. I like you a great deal. Frankly, anyone who doesn’t is a fucking idiot. And anyone who says cruel things, or uses silence as a weapon, is a bully who knows how to be violent without lifting a finger. Don’t blame yourself, sweetheart. It’s not your fault or your shame.”

Not that she didn’t intend to save herself, but a girl does like to have someone waiting in the wings, wanting to rescue her.

A woman felt she could do anything if she had pockets.

“I will always come for you, Beth. You are my sunlight.” She would have swooned, were it not for the present circumstances. Leaning into the warmth and comfort of his hand, she smiled at him in return. “You are my wild wind.”