He looked disgruntled, sleepy, rested for a change, and luscious. Wicked in the best possible way. “What time is it?”
“Early. You will not be late to work at Lambeth, but you will take the coach, and you will have some breakfast.”
He ambled into the bedroom, closing the door behind him. “Add to your list of faults that you are managing and devious.”
“Thank you. Hot wash water is on the hearth, and I’ll have breakfast served in my parlor. I can scare up Jacob’s shaving kit if you like.”
He rubbed a hand over a bristly jaw. “I cannot appear at the palace looking like a ruffian.”
The sight of Psyche’s flannel nightgown apparently discommoded Michael not one bit, though she admitted to a touch of self-consciousness.
“Ruffians will be in great demand among the ladies if they start resembling you, sir.”
He took Psyche’s dressing gown from a peg on the bed poster and held it open for her. She suspected he was trying as hard not to smile as she was.
“You need not feed me, madam.”
“Don’t presume to tell me what I need and need not.” She found the arms of the dressing gown, and he settled it around her shoulders. “I will extend the same courtesy to you.” She tried to flip her braid free of her clothing, but it caught on a button or crease or some such.
“Hold still. A thread is looped around…” Michael extricated her braid and stepped back. “I don’t want to impose.”
Even half dressed and with his hair sticking up, he exuded a certain gravity. Psyche smoothed that hair into a semblance of order with her fingers.
“I suspect it’s more the case that you don’t want to trust me, only to be disappointed when I fall short of expectations. One sympathizes with the dilemma, Mr. Delancey, but breakfast and the loan of a coach hardly bind you to me for life.”
Now he did smile, a half grin that went with his dishabille and attempted surliness. “Michael. If I’m barefoot in your bedroom when you scold me, you might as well use familiar address.”
Psyche rummaged in the drawer at the bottom of the wardrobe. “Jacob’s shaving kit,” she said, passing Michael a rolled-up length of chamois. “I’ll fetch the rest of your clothes from the studio.”
She left him holding the fancy shaving kit that Jacob had purchased in Berlin and stood for a moment in the chilly expanse of the studio. The first rays of morning sun would soon slant through the east-facing windows, a hard illumination that would be made brighter for all the new fallen snow.
The opposite of candlelight at midnight. A pitiless light, but good for revealing visual truths.
Psyche gathered up Michael’s clothing, allowing herself a sniff of his waistcoat. A hint of pine came through, and closer inspection revealed the need for some mending on a side seam. His boots would not last until spring without new heels, and tramping around on the worn variety had to be uncomfortable.
Left heel slightly more worn than the right. Jacob had pointed out to her that a gent never wore his heels down symmetrically, something her artist’s eye should have noticed.
She returned to the bedroom and found the banyan and Michael’s shirt draped over her reading chair. The man himself was behind the privacy screen.
“I’ll add your coat, cravat, and stockings to the pile on the chair,” she said. “I’m for breakfast in the parlor, and if you want so much as a cup of tea, you will not tarry over your toilette. Borrow the toothpowder if you’re so inclined.”
Michael stepped around the japanned screen, half his face covered in lather. “Steal the last cup of tea, and it will go hard for you. I have my limits.” He shook the razor at her in an admonitory fashion and returned to his shaving.
“I have my limits as well.” Psyche snatched the waistcoat back from the pile and made for the parlor, her mind awash in confusion.
She’d seen Michael without his shirt any number of times—without a stitch, in fact—but then he’d been Mr. Smith, a specimen recruited for life classes. Now he was Michael, who had little patience with holy hypocrites and who teased her when half his face was covered in shaving soap. He did not shy away from her embraces and confidences, and he expected nothing from her but the coin he’d earned.
“The problem,” she said, shoving her feet into a pair of slippers and getting out her sewing basket, “is that men and women are not supposed to be friends.” Hazel propounded that view, while Michael longed to emulate his parents, who’d apparently been very good friends.
Allies, partners, lovers. No bargain other than to love and be loved. The mind boggled.
“Have you stolen the last cup?” Michael asked, closing the bedroom door behind him. “Somebody purloined my waistcoat… And there sits the thief herself. What are you doing?”
He was all tidied up, cravat neatly knotted, hair damp-combed, cheeks gleaming, his coat folded over his arm. That he should be dressed while Psyche lounged about in her robe and slippers felt very informal indeed.
“Your side seam was coming undone,” she said. “Plenty of tea in the pot. You can pour out for us both.”
“Two cups,” he said, taking a seat at the table and surveying the tea tray. “The kitchen has noted that you have a guest.”
“Hazel has guests occasionally, particularly once the Season starts. Today, she will sleep until noon, though whether she’s sleeping alone or in company is her business. No untoward gossip will reach your superiors.” Psyche knotted off the thread, snipped the end, and passed over the waistcoat. “You are welcome.”
Michael studied the repaired seam, shrugged into the waistcoat, and buttoned up, but left off his coat. “Thank you. You made a much better job of it than I would have done. My superiors are very selective about which bits of untoward gossip they trouble over. Steal from the poor box, and you’re doomed. Keep a mistress in Chelsea, and as long as you’re a bachelor, they wink. You never did answer my question about supper with Dorcas and MacKay.”
He poured for them both. Psyche served up the ham and omelet, and the sun peeked above the horizon. Morning light likely did not flatter her, but Michael was the last man to judge anybody on the basis of appearances.
“Another dinner with the MacKays might be imprudent,” Psyche said. “I like them, and Hazel considers Dorcas a friend, but maintaining my reserve in your presence will be taxing. I might slip and call you Mr. Smith or pat your arm or smile at you.”
“Horrors. Such familiarity. Did you notice Mrs. Buckthorn patting Colonel Goddard’s arm?”
“I am not Mrs. Buckthorn, and you are not the happily married colonel.”
Michael ate with the polite dispatch of a man who appreciated his victuals, a man who had places to go and roles to play. Psyche liked seeing him half dressed, freshly shaved, and well rested.
Liked it too much.
“I am a bachelor who spends most of his waking hours in a cramped office scribbling away on such topics as whether a woman can chair a congregational pastoral committee when no men are willing to hold that office. I want to reply that yes, women are perfectly qualified for such responsibilities—we’ve had a female monarch serving as the head of our whole denomination, haven’t we? I must instead avoid alluding to that obvious historical fact and similarly avoid recalling that women led congregations rather than committees in the early church.”