Bertie tried to peer out into the darkness, but could see little beyond her own reflection. She had just dropped the curtain when her door snapped open behind her and Sinclair stepped inside.
He didn’t smell of smoke—he smelled like the night, as though he’d walked to the end of the train to watch the track unfold behind them. He said nothing, only gazed in silence at her, his hair glinting in the lamplight, his hands in gloves closing to fists.
“Teach me about the delights,” Sinclair said after a time, his voice low. “I can’t see the wonders anymore. Show me what you see, Bertie. Please.”
Chapter 19
Bertie’s lips parted, her dark blue eyes taking him in. The top button of her bodice was undone, as though he’d interrupted her undressing. The thought of her in here alone, slowly unbuttoning and drawing off her clothes, was enough to kill him.
“I don’t see much different than you do,” Bertie answered, sounding nervous.
Sinclair shut the door behind him and locked it. “Yes, you do, or you would never have said that to me.”
“I was rude. My father once had a kind mistress, name of Sophie, who tried to teach me good manners, but I wasn’t always best at it.”
“I don’t give a damn about your manners.” Sinclair let the motion of the train ease him onto the edge of the bed, and he pulled Bertie to sit beside him. “Show me what you see.”
Bertie stared at him as though he’d run mad, and Sinclair likely had. He’d made his way to the back of the train, standing alone on the observation platform in the freezing cold, but it hadn’t cooled his need for her.
He realized tonight he’d been trying to hold on to his control and his life when it was nothing. His grief had made him into an automaton, going through the motions of living, stopping when there was nothing to do. If not for Andrew and Cat, he’d have told Macaulay long ago to prop him up in a square somewhere for pigeons to land on.
Sinclair had told Bertie that she was a flickering light in his life. Now he wanted her to fan that flicker and build it to a roaring blaze.
“What do you mean, what I see?” she asked him, mystified.
Sinclair waved his hand around the close room. “Show me anything.”
“Right.” Bertie continued to stare at him then she jolted herself and looked around. “Um.” She touched the wall next to her. “I think this is beautiful. All these little flowers made of tiny pieces of wood woven together. Took some skill to fashion that, and polish it all nice.”
Sinclair took in the marquetry. It was fine, with excellent workmanship, but it didn’t make him want to leap up and sing. “What else?”
“Well, the whole compartment. Everything exactly in its place, everything fitting together like a puzzle.”
True, but Sinclair had been on so many different trains, from elegant to indifferent to downright squalid. A train’s engineering might be precise, but he’d seen too much of it.
“What else?”
Bertie pursed her lips. “You’re a hard one to please. There’s this.” She took his hand, her touch firing his nerves, and drew her finger along his palm. “These gloves fit you perfectly, like a second skin. Your clothes are always well done. And there’s this.” Bertie released his hand to lift a fold of his plaid. “Never seen a man wearing a skirt before.”
Sinclair grew warm. “It’s a kilt.”
“Yeah.” Bertie’s smile went wicked. “And don’t it look fine on you?”
There it was—the delight snapping its way into him. Not from the manufactured things around them, from Bertie herself.
She rubbed the wool between her fingers, the warmth of her hand touching his bare knee.
“It’s McBride plaid,” Sinclair said, or thought he said. “The secret of the pattern was kept alive in our clan when traditional dress was banned after the ’45.”
“Bonnie Prince Charlie and the uprising,” Bertie said, looking triumphant. “I’ve been reading. Your family a part of that?”
“In the thick. My brother Patrick knows the stories. He’s the keeper of all things McBride.”
“Can’t wait to meet him.”
Sinclair thought about his rather dour older brother, but decided Patrick would like Bertie. She’d be interested in Patrick’s stories, listening with that wonder she was showing to Sinclair. Patrick would enjoy it.
Sinclair leaned closer. “What else?”
Bertie’s cheeks went pink. “You trying to make me spill all my secrets?”
“Yes, I am. What else do you find amazing?”
“You,” Bertie said, smiles gone, eyes quiet.
Sinclair stilled. “There’s not much amazing about me.”
“Mmm, I wouldn’t say that.”
“I would.”
Bertie cocked her head. “Are you trying to get me to flatter you?”
Sinclair closed his gloved hands over both her bare ones. “I want to feel again, Bertie. Help me to do that. You started. I want more.”
She looked uncertain. “But I don’t know how.”
“Yes, you do.” Sinclair released her, stripped off his gloves, and dropped them to the table. Then he reached for the black buttons of her bodice. “I want to see the wonder of you.”
Bertie’s lower lip shook once, but she reached out and pushed his coat open. “Two can play at that.”