“I’m not sure what this has to do with me.” Percy looked poised to bolt.
“Well, you’ll hold him, of course. Unless you can sew?”
“Nothing beyond a rudimentary stitch here and there.”
“Then it’s settled.”
“What precisely is settled?”
“You shall hold Ariel and walk him around to his heart’s content while I rework the bodice of a dress with new frilling.” As she closed the distance between them, a possibility occurred to her. “Have you never held a babe?”
Percy flinched, a subtle movement, but she caught it. “No.”
Unspoken was that he’d never held Lucy as a baby, his own flesh and blood, and it hurt him.
“Well,” Isabel began on a light note, “there is nothing to it. Simply hold your arms out and—” She began to transfer Ariel. The babe gave a warning squawk.
“This might not be a good idea.”
“Oh, pish. He will be quite contented once he discovers you have such a very nice chest to snuggle into.”
“Is that so?” There was no mistaking the humor in Percy’s voice, which had lowered by a suggestive octave.
It was only after he asked the question that Isabel heard her own words. A slow flush crept through her. As if he knew it, the side of his mouth tipped into a devilish smile. Dios mío.
“Now, let’s try again,” she instructed in a tone that she hoped was matter-of-fact. This time the transfer happened smoothly. “There you are. Only ensure his head is elevated properly.”
Percy scooched Ariel up a few inches. “Like so?”
Isabel nodded. Her insides went warm. It was the sight of Percy holding Ariel with such gentle care. For his part, Ariel seemed quite content to peer at the world from his newly elevated height.
“Follow me, good sirs.” Isabel pivoted on one heel. Behind her, Percy murmured to Ariel, “What say you, little man?”
Isabel’s heart performed one of those tidy flips that Percy tended to provoke as she found her favorite place on the sofa before the room’s great bow window and picked up her sewing. Tucked into a comfortable corner, from the periphery of her vision, she observed Percy perambulating the room with Ariel, pointing out this portrait of a long-deceased ancestor or that bronze statuette of a proud-chested stallion. The latter, Percy let Ariel grab.
“Careful,” Isabel advised, “he wants to snatch up everything and put it into his mouth.”
Percy lifted a playful eyebrow at the babe. “Is the world your apple tart?” He pulled away just before the babe swiped over a crystal vase of fresh-cut roses in full summer bloom. “All the flowers about the place, are they your handiwork?”
Isabel nodded. She’d taken to filling the vases in the cottage, small to large, with every variety of blossom she encountered on Gardencourt’s grounds.
“I thought so.”
She rather liked that he thought this about her. “Fresh flowers make a house a home.”
“Do you have a favorite flower?”
Isabel lifted a shoulder. “The rose. Expected, I concede, but I can’t help it. I like the idea of the rose.”
“What idea?”
“A rose can protect herself.”
He nodded, his serious eyes taking her in. “And a rose is beautiful.”
Of a sudden, Isabel didn’t think they were talking about roses anymore. What he could be saying, well, it quite stole her breath away and made her heart race. She gave a nervous, little laugh.
His gaze tightened intensely on her. “Isabel, you are a rose.”
Again, her nervous, little laugh sounded. “I’m hardly an English rose.” Quite simply, she was too dark, too foreign, and too Jewish. Facts she was certain Percy understood.
“Not the standard English sort. You’re of the wild rose variety. All the more precious for her rarity.”
What a thing to say. Isabel wasn’t sure she could ever draw breath again. Her gaze broke from his and stared unseeing at the needle and cloth in her hands. She had no response for such words. Even if she did, she wasn’t sure she could speak it around the lump that had formed in her throat.
“I imagine the flowers are difficult to come by in London,” he said.
He’d changed the subject, for which she was grateful, truly, even as another part of her, a part that must be given no leeway, craved the other talk. “I happen upon them sometimes.”
“In Cheapside?” He was fishing for information about her.
She nodded. No harm in giving him this.
“I take it you live above Galante: Dressmakers Extraordinaire?”
A sheepish laugh escaped Isabel, and she nodded. Eva had been so excited by the name that Isabel hadn’t a choice but to agree to it. It was quite grandiose.
“That is fine work,” he said, jerking his chin toward her lap.
Isabel stared down at the bodice she was reconstructing with velvet edging as if concentrated deeply on her work. In truth, she was hiding the gratification that surged through her at his praise, fearing he would see it in her eyes. “Are you an expert on ladies’ attire?”
Percy snorted. “Hardly.” He began to sway from side to side as Ariel had become fractious at standing still for too long. “I’m simply pointing to the fact that if this is an indication of the quality of your wares, then you must run a successful shop.”
“We do.” Her brow crinkled. “Or we did. We met with a few challenges this year.”
He grew utterly serious. Once again, he was the devastating man she had first encountered. She couldn’t help feeling he’d purposely maneuvered their conversation to this point. “Isabel, what were you doing in Number 9?”
“I think that’s been fairly established.” Oh, that she didn’t feel a hot blush pinking her cheeks.
The intensity within his gaze didn’t let up. “But how were you obliged to be there?”
Isabel broke from his gaze. She had to. He was hitting too close to the matter. She glanced at Ariel snugged safely in Percy’s arms. “He’s fallen asleep.”
Percy gazed down at the babe. The look in his eye softened, and Isabel’s heart contracted. The vision of a strong man holding a small babe with tenderness and care, well, it was too much. She set aside her sewing and came to her feet. “Here,” she began, crossing the room. “I’ll take him to his bassinet.”