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

by India Holton

It was a lie. She was flirting with him. Did this mean she liked him?

“You mean like a letter between Professor Gladstone and the IOS secretary, explaining everything?” “Seriously, there’s a letter?” he said, striding across. “What?” She looked up at him vaguely, then at the paper again. “Oh. No, this is just his grocery list. But I mean, such a letter would be the ideal proof.” Devon laughed. “My God, I love—” “Of course!” she exclaimed suddenly, snapping her fingers. Startled, confused, Devon felt himself actually blushing.

Beth drew in an audible breath of delight, and thus encouraged, he took another step. With the desk between them and the shadows looming like outspread wings behind her, he glimpsed what she must look like in a lecture theater: mesmerizing, and more beautiful than he could ever describe.

“You smell like lavender,” he murmured. She blinked, thrown off-balance, but did not retreat. “It calms birds.” It was doing the opposite to him. He’d tried being good, being restrained, but she was simply too delectable. “I’m going to kiss you,” he warned.

want you? I’m in love with you? I’m so impressed you won the Audubon Award for Academic Excellence three years in a row?

then Devon grinned at her, and etiquette collapsed beneath a rappelling squad of desires, all bedecked in hot-pink armor. “Ma’am?” he asked, sounding so American, the desires whipped out star-spangled flags and began fanning her into a high heat.

Devon slipped the glove into his trouser pocket, and suddenly Beth apprehended she was in danger—beautiful, luscious, very real danger that she did not particularly want to escape. His thumb stroked her naked fingers, and just like that she was conquered by desire, colonized, and had an embassy of lust erected beneath her heart. She gazed into Devon’s eyes, bespelled by the coppery glints amid the darkness. He did not look away from her, even as he bent his head slowly, wickedly, holding her and the crowd in a moment of awed anticipation… Then he kissed her hand.

As their eyes met, the wary, fragile truth leaped between them. Devon laid her hand to his heart, holding it there with his own. A silent thunder beat against her palm, and Beth swallowed heavily. He’d caught her. He’d pulled her from the aching, empty summer and offered a sanctuary for her in his midnight. Etiquette, wounded and bleeding out, urged her to move back from him. But she could no more do that than she could believe in a conclusion based on uncontrolled experiments. People forgotten, swan forgotten, they gazed at each other across a private, quiet sky.

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

I might, but that is irrelevant.” “I swear, when this competition is over, I am going to buy you a new dictionary.” Beth flicked him a disdainful sidelong look, but humor tugged at her mouth. “Villain,” she said lightly. “Angel,” he retorted.

It did feel a little dangerous to think about his appearances, however, especially since they currently retained the soft, lush-eyed look of sleep, and his lips glinted, wine-dewed, in the lamplight, and the way he stroked one finger slowly against the goblet as he listened to her created such a flutter in her stomach, she began to worry that the scallops were off. What would it feel like to have that finger stroke the source of those flutterings? Would she ever have the courage to suggest an experiment? And if she did, would he be willing? “Yes,” he said, and drank wine, smiling, as Beth’s intellect scattered to the winds. “I—um—I beg your p-pardon?” she stammered. “Whatever that dreamy expression on your face is about, yes.” “But you don’t know what I was thinking.” He set the wineglass down and leaned forward across the table. “I’ll always say yes to you, Miss Pickering.”

“The locals call it Little John,” Beth said, clutching at ornithology to keep her steady. “It’s the only one of its kind remaining and is too old now to endanger livestock. Professor Gladstone pays the farmers an annual stipend to not shoot it so he can come every summer to work on a longitudinal study of it.” “Where is his house?” Devon asked, entirely casual, but with a sidelong glance at her that conveyed, I want to do a longitudinal study of your body. Beth swallowed dryly. “About half a mile west of the village.”

Ancient Greek script was tattooed across his left pectoral major: the wind is blowing, adore the wind, she translated, tracing the letters. “Pythagoras,” she whispered, utterly seduced.

“It’s bangers and mash tonight.” Devon muttered something that sounded suspiciously like not anymore, it’s not,

Then she blinked, turning that heavenly look on him, and any control Devon felt he had over the conversation completely unraveled, becoming a tangle of emotion deep inside his heart. “Your eyes are like a sky spun by wild and beautiful wings,” he said. She stared at him with alarmed confusion. “My eyes are spinning?” He grinned. “No, spun as in weaving, magic weav— I’m trying to be charming here.”

“I trust you,” she insisted, proving that he’d corrupted her indeed, considering she was able to say something so villainous. His wretched, malnourished heart dropped to its knees and began weeping. He flinched, trying not to leap off the bed and run screaming into the night.

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.

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.

Devon could not have said exactly what he saw in Beth’s eyes that kept him absorbed, only that it felt like everything.

He’d never fallen so fast for a woman before. Or perhaps it was more accurate to say that she uplifted him, drawing him out of cynicism into a happiness he was enjoying wholeheartedly; a happiness that had taken him so off-guard, his usual defenses were useless against it. Then again, maybe he didn’t want to employ them anymore. Beth was welcome in.

“I love you,” he whispered, closing his eyes, sinking into dreams. And behind her own closed eyes, Beth lay awake, holding her heart tight, trying not to break into a thousand bright pieces.

He loved her. It was astonishing; he’d had longer relationships with a block of cheese, but there it was—he

“Sleep well?” “Adequately,” she replied. But then her good heart had her adding in a softer tone, “And you?” He loved her, loved her. “Blissfully, thank you.” “I’m glad. However, before we continue, I must clarify something. Last night was a temporary aberration induced by the peculiar stresses of the competition, and the experience will not be replicated. I trust you agree?” “I do,” he said easily. Then he bent to whisper close to her ear. “After all, I never kiss a woman the same way twice.” She did gasp then, looking up at him with an outrage that wavered when she discovered how near their faces were to each other, then melted completely as she gazed into his eyes. Devon knew he could have kissed her right then and won her surrender. But instead, he offered his arm. She laid her hand on it as if mesmerized, and he escorted her gentlemanlike into the dining room.

“Pickering and Lockley are from different universities. You can’t have a romance between an Oxonian and a Cantabrigian; it’s unnatural.” “They’re rivals who become lovers,” Mr. Fettick explained.

“Mrs. Grant!” the woman called out. “I think there’s someone hiding in the closet!” “Nonsense!” came a distant voice. “What a silly idea! It’ll be the ghost.” “That makes sense,” the woman said with relief. “All right, I’ll dust the library instead.”

“To the library?” Beth whispered. “Yes,” Devon said. He opened the door— Then closed it and spun back to her, reaching out to cup her face with a barely restrained desperation. He bent until his lips hovered inches above hers, and Beth went so still she did not even breathe. “Just be aware,” he whispered, “that as soon as I can, I’m going to kiss you until your corset falls off.” “Understood,” she said shakily. A smile flicked across his mouth. A thread of desire knotted around Beth’s heart. Her attraction to this man was so deep, it was practically geological.

His voice was grim, his expression devoid of its usual ease, and Beth knew suddenly, unequivocally, that she loved him. Not even necessarily in a romantic vein; she loved him for who he was, and how he cared about birds, and the fact that he’d assessed the caladrius so confidently with just a quick look.

(There was also the matter of his strong forearms and gorgeous, skilled mouth, but she didn’t want to spoil the high-minded moment by mentioning them.)

“We could climb down using the window ledges, but only if we left the bird behind. And I’m not doing that.” Beth had never heard anything more sexy in her life. I really do adore him, her heart sighed. I could kiss him all over this very moment. (Which was not a particularly helpful suggestion either, but she couldn’t blame herself.)

The adventuring woman should not just expect the unexpected, but be the unexpected. Birds Through a Sherry Glass, H.A. Quirm

but immediately set a hand against her back as he guided her toward the ticket booth. “I can walk under my own power, you know,” she said with wry humor. “You’re keeping me steady,” he answered, flashing a grin to hide the fact that he meant it seriously, and far more soulfully than a licentious rake ought. Somehow over the past few days, Beth Pickering had become the center of his personal gravity. Whenever he left her side for long, it felt like his heart was spinning out into darkness. He had to appreciate the irony: after all, he was only in this situation now because he’d been so aghast at his head of department’s matchmaking endeavors, and so determined to remain single.

“You’ve become quite the liar,” he teased, smiling at her. “Your corruption of me is complete,” she said with a valiant attempt at banter. “Not quite yet,” he answered, his banter so on point it might even be described as penetrating. Beth blinked, and flushed, and altogether made Devon adore her a hundred times over.

And while her brain was trying to cope with that, her heart hyperventilating, and her memory preparing a full-on flood of tears, he added: “I promise I will never, ever want to hurt you.” The words made such a warm glow within her, she saw it like stars in her eyes against the night landscape.

“You’re like a night full of bird stars and magical dreaming. I am so in love with you.”

“Good morning,” he said again, wanting to reconnect with the feeling of intimacy they’d shared last night, the togetherness, before they faced the rest of the world. Really, just wanting her, with an intensity he felt might never diminish. Beth seemed bemused for a moment, then understanding lit her eyes. She smiled—a smile just for him, one he could wrap up, tuck inside his heart, and keep forever. “Good morning, Devon,” she said. And putting down the birdcage, she hugged him. Oh gosh, he thought dazedly. So this was what true comfort felt like.

“I beg your pardon,” Beth said coolly. “But I have just about had enough. Put your gun down and get some bloody manners, or I swear I will expel you.” The gun dropped with a thunk to the table. Immediately, Devon snatched it, flipped it in his hand, and aimed it right back at Oberhufter. “Apologize to the lady for annoying her,” he said.

When she let herself sink into them, she understood why she’d so rapidly fallen in love with Devon. He was extraordinarily lovable.

“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.”

“You need courage?” she asked, amazed. His smile wavered. “More than you know.”

Beth grinned. “Yes, please. I love you, Devon. I will most definitely marry you.” Instantly, he was on his feet, grasping her head and manhandling her into a fierce kiss.