A Dangerous Collaboration (Veronica Speedwell, #4)

by Deanna Raybourn

I turned my head and studied his profile, the proud thrust of the nose, the long, elegant line of the jaw as his head tipped back. A lock of black hair fell across his brow, curling just above his eye. His collar was undone and the pulse beat slow and steady in the hollow at the base of his throat. His hands rested lightly on the arms of the chair, strong, capable hands that had held my life within them more than once. They were the hands of an aristocrat, beautifully shaped with long, tapering fingers, but also the hands of a workingman, broad of palm and heavy with calluses. They were hands that had never failed me. I looked again to the pulse beating at the base of his throat and heard its echo in my own ears. I swallowed hard, my lips parted. Now, I realized. This very moment, when everything slowed and time itself seemed to hold its breath. This was the moment to mend whatever I had torn. I had only to say the word and declare myself. Three short syllables stood between this present wretchedness and the terrifying bliss of baring my soul to him. I had pushed him away for his own sake, I had convinced myself. I had taken my own cowardice and framed it as an act of generosity. I had told him he needed to exorcise Caroline, but I was the one she haunted, that monstrous beauty with a soul as dark as sin. I was the one who trembled at the thought of being compared to her, of being found lacking somehow.