“That...is...a remarkable coincidence,” she breathed in mock amazement.
He laughed.
And what a good laugh! Another surprise. He'd seemed so verycontained, the few times she’d seen him. It had never occurred to her to wonder what his laugh sounded like. Or whether heeverlaughed.
“I hope I didn't startle you, Mr. Redmond,” she added, a little more shyly
“No. But youwerestaring at me rather loudly,” he accused.
She smiled at that.
Whereupon she discovered his own smile was comprised of a complete set of gleaming white teeth. It dazzled in every sense of the word.
Then faded.
“What were you thinking?” He asked swiftly.
She blinked, startled. “Just…now?”
He sounded genuinely—almost urgently—curious.
Good God. She didn’t mind a frank question. But she couldn't possibly tell him the truth.
So she hedged. “I'm flattered that you presumed that Iwasthinking. Men so often need reminding that women actually do that sort of thing.”
His smile was faint and fleeting. “It’s just…it’s just that your eyes. They are…they're very…”
He pressed his lips together as though the words had escaped before he could run them through a filter. And before her eyes, his cheeks flushed burgundy.
Her own cheeks immediately went hot in sympathy.
He'd thoroughly disconcerted the both of them.
Based on everything intimated by Jacob and her brother, she’d never imagined Isaiah Redmond could be awkward, or silly, or flustered. Let alone say or think things about her eyes.
Redmond enters rooms the way a smuggler glides into a cove,Jacob had once muttered bitterly to her brother George, within her earshot.
Jacob entered rooms like that first blast of sunlight when you part the curtains in the morning.
But Mr. Redmond’s blush made her feel tender toward him. Heaven only knewshe’dhad some experience blurting things.
“Well, Mr. Redmond,” she finally said gently, “sinceyou asked...I was wondering....how it would feel to be so important, and to have such important things to do, that I should need to refer to my watch at intervals of every few seconds. As if in so doing I could command time to do my bidding.”
This was when she realized she was officially flirting.
It was spring, she was a Sylvaine; he was very handsome; it could not be helped. It meant nothing, surely.
Mr. Redmond’s smile began at one corner of his mouth, and by the time it completed its slow journey to the other it had committed a robbery of both her breath and her senses.
She had lit him up entirely.
He studied her speculatively as he stretched up an arm and idly caressed the leaves dangling just above him. He knew what he was doing and why; handsome young men always did.Admire my fine form,the gesture suggested.
Subdued, she did. It seemed this could not be helped, either.
He languidly dropped his arm to thumb open his watch again. “My father gave the watch to me when I completed my education. It's a family tradition. It's even engraved.”
Every one of his words struck Isolde as uniquely fascinating. “Father” pulsed with warmth and pride and a curious sort of abstracted ruefulness. It was odd to hear affection associated with the haughty Redmond patriarch she’d seen in church.