Four footmen hurried to set up an elaborate spread in Christina’s room, complete with a small table, candles, and china. Oliver watched all this transpire with growing trepidation. The scene was intimate, designed for a new husband and wife. Not friends whose efforts to resist temptation were hanging on by a thread.

How was he to survive it?

Oliver narrowed his eyes at Gill. “I know what you are doing,” he signed.

“I have no idea what you mean,” Gill signed. “We are merely ensuring the master and his wife are comfortable.”

“Utter nonsense—and you know it,” he signed.

The butler’s mouth pressed together, eyes dancing, and Oliver knew the servant was attempting not to laugh. Bastard.

Gill departed, taking Apollo and the footmen with him, and Oliver and Christina were alone once more. He held out a chair at the table and she lowered herself into it. She wore a plain ivory shirtwaist with a navy skirt, nothing fancy, but she was the loveliest woman he had ever seen. A hint of roses teased his nose, the feminine scent stealing into his lungs and causing heat to unwind in his veins. Stop it. This is a meal, not a prelude to seduction.

Determined to keep this about the food, he reached for her round china plate. “I will fill your plate with a little bit of everything.” Without awaiting an answer, he walked to covered dishes on the sideboard. One of the benefits of being deaf was you could not hear someone wage an argument behind your back.

He set the full plate in front of her, piled high with a sampling of his cook’s finest dishes. Once he had his own plate he lowered himself into a chair. Christina sipped her wine, watching his forearms through her lashes. He glanced at himself, wondering what had her so mesmerized. Was she horrified at his rolled shirtsleeves? He hoped not. He’d rather attend Mrs. Astor’s Patriarch’s Ball than wear a coat while in his own home. “No need to wait on me,” he signed. “Please, begin.”

Her lips curved into a shy smile and she picked up her fork. He tried to focus on his own plate but it was difficult. The room was full of her, from the personal items on the dresser, the rumpled coverlet on the bed, to the brush of her skirts against his legs under the table.

Additionally, awareness buzzed between them now, one that had not existed before. He felt off-balance and powerless around her, which was why he had ignored her since the portrait gallery. She had not backed down then, merely stared up at him with excitement and longing in her gaze, no hesitation whatsoever. Indeed, the doubt and insecurity had belonged solely to him.

He absolutely hated that feeling.

Focus on something else. Like the reason he had decided to dine with her in the first place. He placed his fork on his plate. “Are you happy here?” he signed and said.

“Yes,” she said, her face emphatic. “I am very grateful, Oliver.”

“I do not mean gratitude. I mean happiness. Have you everything you need? Is there anything more the staff may do for you?”

“No, everyone here has been very kind.”

Her choice of words did not elude him. “Does that mean someone elsewhere was unkind?”

She looked down at her food, her bottom lip disappearing between her teeth. He gave her time by reaching for his wineglass and taking a sip. The Bordeaux was old and robust, one of his very favorites, and he savored the rich flavors before swallowing.

After a moment, she met his eyes. “No one was unkind. I am afraid I made a fool of myself, though.”

“How?” he signed.

The way her lips pressed together signaled she was reluctant to share, but she answered nonetheless. “I left a bit hurriedly from an outing today with Patricia and her friends. It was silly of me.”

He suspected she was making light of what happened. “Was something said to upset you?”

Color dotted her cheeks and she shook her head. “It was nothing.”

“I disagree. Gill said you were crying when you arrived home,” he signed/spoke. “You may tell me, you know.”

An idea occurred to him. He withdrew the ledger and pencil from his shirt pocket and slid them across the table. She stared at the items for a long second before picking them up.

Her shoulders rose and sank with a heavy sigh as she wrote. When she finished, she slid the ledger to him. Have you ever been surrounded by people but felt lonely?

“Frequently,” he signed. “Deaf, remember.”

She cocked her head. “What do you mean?”

So she would not feel alone in writing instead of talking, he took the ledger and pencil back. I tried for a long time to fit in, first at school with the other deaf students. But I was different in that I had not always been deaf. I was able to speak and remember sounds. That sometimes made it difficult to relate to someone who has no similar references.

He turned the page and kept writing. When I tried to join society, I hardly fit in better there. I was an oddity everywhere I went, treated no better than a sideshow act at times. I even had a gentleman ask if I would read J. P. Morgan’s lips from across the room in hopes of garnering a secret stock tip. Women tolerated my deafness because of my bank account. After a few years I grew cynical, no longer interested in merely being ‘tolerated.’

When she finished reading, there was shock and comprehension in her brown gaze. He recalled Patricia’s words the night he and Christina were married: She does not enjoy the society events. I found her hiding more often than not, off in a corner, miserable.

Had he found a woman who truly understood?

Indeed, he thought she might. There was an excellent chance this woman appreciated some of what he’d been through because of her own experiences in society.

They stared at one another, neither looking away. He could see her chest expanding rapidly, his own exhalations coming just as fast. Blood pumped hard, his skin alive with craving. He had been fighting the current between them, denying this connection he felt to her, but he could not do it any longer. Resisting this attraction was like attempting to keep the opposite ends of a magnet from coming together.

He was done fighting.

If she did not desire him, then so be it. He would not pressure or try to convince her. However, if there was a chance for them to occasionally enjoy each other physically during the next few months, he was dashed well going to take it.

Then she could find a normal man, one without Oliver’s quirks and stubbornness.

Until then, she was his.

Mouth gone dry, he licked his lips. “May I ask you a question?” She nodded, so he went back to the ledger and wrote, The night in the gallery, were you disappointed I did not kiss you?

Her brows rose slightly as she read, clearly taken aback by his question, but she did not look at him. Instead, she took the pencil from his hand and turned over a new page in the book. A bit.

Heart pounding in his chest, he wrote, And if I asked to kiss you now, what would be your answer?

Her fingers gripped the pencil so tightly while writing that her fingertips went white. She bit her lip as she turned the ledger toward him.

I would say yes.

She had actually written it.

Christina could scarcely believe she’d done it. Yet somehow it was easier to be truthful on paper than speaking aloud.

And it had been the truth. She wanted to kiss him. Badly.

Oliver placed his napkin on the table, pushed his chair back, and stood. Nerves skittered throughout her chest, making it hard to breathe as he approached. The lines of his face had sharpened, the green of his irises dark and intense. It was impossible to look away.

When he reached her side, he held out his hand. She stared at it, beyond grateful that he was giving her a choice instead of pressuring her. Oliver was the most considerate man she’d ever met, and she knew in that moment this was the right decision.

She wiped her damp palm on her skirts and then took his hand. His skin was warm and rough, and he gently pulled her to her feet. Then he stepped closer, his hands sliding to cup her jaw on both sides. He surrounded her, so close that she could see the late-day whiskers on the lower half of his face, the faint lines at the corner of his eyes. His handsomeness stole her breath away.

He lowered his head and she waited, anticipating. When his lips brushed hers, a touch so faint she barely felt it, a shiver of excitement worked its way down her spine. His lids fell, dark lashes resting like crescents on his cheekbones, and she let her eyes close as well. Another featherlight touch swept the corner of her mouth before he continued over the bow of her lip and to the other side. When he finished, he finally—finally!—kissed her on the mouth, and she almost sighed in relief at the firm touch of his lips.

It was slow and sweet, an intimate joining of their mouths. His lips moved purposefully, coaxing as their breath mingled, and the world was reduced to just the two of them. This one single moment.

She tried to match his movements, to fit her lips perfectly to his, and he gripped her tighter. Her heart thrummed inside her chest, a beat that seemed to resonate everywhere in her body, her skin buzzing with a secret rhythm as the kiss deepened. The heat and strength of his body made her dizzy, and her hands found purchase on his chest. She held on, feeling his heart pound beneath her palms, the rapid rise and fall of his breathing. His reaction thrilled her, blatant proof she was not alone in this.

When his tongue flicked her lips, she jerked in surprise. Her mouth parted slightly and Oliver’s tongue drove inside. He filled her mouth, his tongue gliding against hers, twining and stroking, and then it made sense. This was what her cousin had meant, this deep connection, this intimacy as necessary as air. She felt drunk on his taste, desperate for more.

Her tongue touched his and the kiss turned eager, greedy. He tilted his head to change the angle, dipping farther into her mouth, while one hand moved around her waist to bring her flush to his body. Without thinking, she tried to get closer, moving her hands around his neck and into the soft hair at his nape.

He kissed her for a long time—at least she assumed it was a long time. Long enough she could hardly breathe, with the ache between her legs growing urgent as her insides tingled and burned. Finally, he broke off from her mouth and rested his forehead against hers, both of them panting hard.

They stood, pressed together, for a long moment. Was this it, then? She was strangely unsatisfied, every cell in her body straining for more. She clung to him, unsure what would happen next.

“I should go,” he said and placed a soft kiss on her forehead.

He started to step away but she curled her hands into the edge of his waistcoat to stop him. “Wait.”

“I should leave. I—” He started signing as he spoke. “I do not wish to overwhelm you. We have plenty of time to explore this.”

“Please. Stay.”

“Why?”

She glanced away, too unnerved to answer, but he held on to her chin to hold her gaze. “Christina, why?”

“Because I would like you to stay.” It was the best answer she could give at the moment. She had no knowledge of the specifics of what happened between a man and a woman in the bedroom but she knew enough to want this to continue. “Unless . . . unless you do not want to stay with—”

He pounced, grasping her shoulders, and his mouth took hers in a hard kiss. When they broke, he said, “I want to stay. I want to do every wicked and pleasurable thing under the sun to you.”

Leaning back so he could see her face clearly, she said, “Then you had best begin.”