Part I, Chapter 1: Oxford
On the day she turned twenty, Philomena Lynton almost failed her first maths paper. She couldn’t say she’d been expecting it – she hadn’t – but it wasn’t entirely unexpected either. But she knew there was bad news when Mrs Cooper, her calculus instructor, set her paper facedown on her desk, forming the words See me after class soundlessly.
So Philomena did. She packed away her books slowly and carefully as the other girls – ten in total – tittered and shoved their things in their book bags with no organisation. The buzz must have been because it was Friday afternoon, when some of the Somerville girls left campus to go dancing.
“Miss Lynton,” Mrs Cooper said, beckoning her up to her desk when the classroom was quiet and they were the only two left. “Come here, please.”
Philomena pushed herself to her feet reluctantly, paper folded in half in her hand. She liked Mrs Cooper – strict but fair – but had never spoken to her privately like this.
“You are one of my brightest students, Miss Lynton,” Mrs Cooper said. “If not the brightest in here. Is there an explanation for why you’ve suddenly making these…errors?”
“N-no, ma’am,” Philomena answered, cringing at how she still stuttered. “D-distracted. I g-guess.”
Mrs Cooper’s eyebrows went up. “Distracted? By what?”
“I don’t…kn-know, ma’am.” Except she did – the other day she’d received a letter from Detective Barrow telling her that his wife Pippa suffered from a difficult pregnancy, her first, and she’d been admitted to hospital. And she’d received another, almost in the same time frame, from her aunt’s financier about the funds to send her to Oxford in the first place. “I g-guess…I’m just…”
“Miss Lynton,” Mrs Cooper said, the edge in her voice gone. “I’m only asking out of concern. In my eyes you’re not in trouble. My colleagues and I are well aware of your situation, your background, and your upbringing. We want you to succeed.”
“I-I know. Ma’am. I-it’s hard…to ad-adjust.”
“Undoubtedly,” Mrs Cooper said, her gaze thawing just a hair. “You’ve lived through things you’d rather not talk about, so I won’t make you. But I want you to know that there is help for you. It may not be in your nature to ask, because you’re the quiet type. However, we can’t help you if we don’t know you need it, Miss Lynton.”
She nodded. “Yes, m-ma’am.”
The end of the conversation was punctuated by a distant bell ringing, and Mrs Cooper standing up while she tidied the stack of papers on her desk.
“Now it’s a Friday afternoon, Miss Lynton. I hope you’re not planning on doing schoolwork,” Mrs Cooper said, once they were out in the hallway. “That would be its own form of torture.”
“No, m-ma’am. I’m not.”
“That’s a good girl.” Mrs Cooper gave her a surprisingly warm smile and a gentle arm squeeze. “Take care of yourself, my dear.”
Then she was straightening and walking briskly away.
Philomena took a deep breath and started off in the other direction. Since she’d started at Oxford she hadn’t been rapped with a ruler, a cane, or a hardback book once, nor had she been called names, reprimanded to sit up or speak louder or write faster, or glared at. In fact, the other girls had made an effort to include her, asking her if she’d care to come out window-shopping, or fly kites in the quad, or walk into town to a tea shop they liked.
“You don’t talk much, do you?” one called Vivian had said when they’d first invited her out.
“N-no,” she’d stammered, realising that was rhetorical as soon as she’d answered it.
“She’s not like you, Viv,” the second girl, named Georgina but preferred Georgie, had retorted, sliding an arm around Philomena’s shoulders. “You won’t shut up.”
Vivian had made a face at them, the lip-curling, eye-rolling one that said Fine, you caught me.
“Philomena!”
She spun on her heel, not even realising where her feet had taken her. Miles was just emerging from Trinity College, where he took a History of Religion course – although she had no idea what that meant.
“Hello, M-Miles.”
“Say, you feeling all right?” he asked, after he’d bent down and given her lips a peck, so comfortably she didn’t have the heart to tell him not to do it with others around. His brow furrowed, and his grey eyes turned serious. “You seem…preoccupied.”
“This,” Philomena said, barely above a whisper. The paper was still crumpled in her hand as she held it out to Miles, and confusion crossed his face as he took it.
“D?” He glanced from the paper to her face and back. “You’re upset over a passing mark?”
He didn’t understand. Typical. She snatched it back and shoved it into her book bag. “I m-make…A marks. Not those.”
“Oh.” He ran a hand over his curling dark hair – shorter than when she’d first met him, but still long enough in front to fall into his eyes. “Well…you got one on me. I can’t do maths to save my life.”
She bit her lip. That was the biggest difference between them. Miles, although abandoned at birth and having lived the first eleven years of his life in a strict, dreary orphanage, had been rescued and then adopted by Lord Canterbury – famous for cracking cases most would be afraid to touch – and his wife. It was Lord Canterbury who had brought them together in the first place: he’d caught her father, a serial killer many knew as the Teddington Butcher. And he’d earned that name after he’d murdered her mother in cold blood, and had attempted the same thing on her.
But Miles never let his past define him. He’d assumed a new identity, that of a son of privilege: Harrow, then Oxford. He made average – sometimes below average – marks, and sailed through as if nothing was wrong. Philomena, by contrast, felt bound to her past. She dragged it around everywhere, the weight of her father’s evil dogging her. She knew she needed top marks, and had earned them fairly easily. Until now.
“Hang on a moment,” he said, as she started forward and he had to hurry to catch up. His hand slipped into her elbow and pulled her to a stop. “You’re not getting away from me that easily, birthday girl.”
In spite of herself, she blushed. “You re-remembered.”
“’Course I did.” He smiled in his signature crooked way. Then he reached into his own bag and took out something long, rectangular, and thin wrapped in white tissue paper and tied with a yellow ribbon. “Went out and got you this, ’cause you’re so organised and everything…”
It was a fountain pen, black and gold with such a high polish it looked like glass. There were three nibs, all different sizes, and a separate tin with refills.
“Miles…h-how did you…?” She glanced from the pen to him and back. “H-how did you…know…?”
“You’ve got exquisite handwriting, Philomena.” He shrugged. “Figured this would make it look more…official.”
Finally she let herself smile, one that shivered at the corners. “Thank you.”
“Yeah. ’Course.” He rubbed the back of his head, then his gaze drifted out over the roofs for a moment. “I wanted to give you something else too, but since you said we can’t do it in public…”
She dropped her eyes. She knew she shouldn’t have said anything, especially because she hadn’t cared about it back when they were both children with rampant hormones. But now that wasn’t the case anymore, and he being her first real relationship made her feel like she was groping around in a dark room.
“You c-can if…y-you walk me…to m-my hall.”
“Right.” He gave her his elbow. “Shall we?”
She slipped her hand through it and they began to walk. They often saw each other on the quads, where small groups of mixed boys and girls had picnics or revised together. If she came across one of the Somerville girls, she introduced him. Most of them were polite and courteous – except for Vivian, who’d shamelessly flirted with him until Philomena had to stake her claim a bit more overtly than she would have liked. She hadn’t ever thought she’d need to do that.
Outside the Somerville boardinghouse that served as the girls’ residence hall, they stopped and turned to each other. Miles’s brow furrowed and he bit down on his bottom lip, scuffing his foot on the ground. She swallowed hard, took in a deep breath, then let it out slowly. Being so involved in schoolwork and separated from each other had done nothing for the awkwardness she felt around him. Of course she still blushed and got butterflies in her stomach every time he smiled or slipped his hand into hers. But it certainly wasn’t the same as when she was sixteen.
“So…you want to go out tonight?” he asked after a short silence. “Just the two of us? For your birthday?”
“Miles, w-we don’t…don’t have t-to.”
“But do you want to?” He cocked his head slightly.
She did, that was just it. Last time they’d gone to the city centre, where they’d found a tea house that stayed open until the wee hours of the morning. They’d had the best sandwiches, she remembered.
“Yes,” she said.
“Really?” His eyebrows went up, and he grinned. “Brilliant. Want to…round seven? I still have another lecture.”
She nodded, this time without saying anything.
He leaned in then, his palm cool as it cupped her cheek, and kissed her gently. She’d always liked how he kissed, his lips soft, warm, and careful to cover every inch of hers. Sometimes he slid his hand back to weave his fingers in her hair, or down to rest on the curve of her neck. And if she really felt bold, she flattened her palms on his chest and pressed herself up against him ever so slightly to feel his response. They weren’t the hungry face mashes of their young relationship; by now they’d kissed many times, each one different. This one was tender, gentle, sensitive: everything he was around her.
“You’re cracking good at kissing, you know?” he said as he pulled away – not far, because his breath still brushed against her lips. “I can’t even describe it.”
“You t-taught me,” she said, allowing herself to smile.
He grinned, then kissed her again. Shorter, but more assertive. Then he was whispering a goodbye and jogging away down the path, saying something about how he’d be late for class.
“Wotcher, Lynton,” Georgie said, as Philomena climbed the stairs to the top level. Hers was at the very end, right at the top of the stairs, and she almost always greeted Philomena this way, sticking her head around her door.
“Hello,” said Philomena.
“Say, wish I had me a bloke like that,” said Georgie. “If you hadn’t snogged him first, then I woulda.”
She blushed – not only her cheeks this time but her ears and her neck too. Miles was the only one to have this effect on her. “H-how’d you know? That I…s-snogged him?”
Georgie cocked her head as she emerged into the hall. “Window at the end o’ the hall, silly. Sit and do work there sometimes.”
“Sc-schoolwork? It’s F-Friday.”
The other girl grinned and slung an arm around Philomena’s shoulders, giving her a squeeze. She was tall and sturdily built, her blonde curls always in a perfect coif. A little like an older sister, Philomena thought, even though they were the same age.
“It’s code, luv. I was takin’ a peek. Saw th’ boy walk you up the path and then kiss you like ’e hasn’t seen you in months.”
“He d-does that,” she said.
“Right.” Georgie winked.
Once Georgie had let her go, saying Got to have a wee, Philomena wandered back to her room. It was a double, and she would have shared with another girl, if that other girl’s parents hadn’t taken one sniff around her background and found that it stank. But at least she had a second bed all to herself, and she’d started using it as a sort of couch.
She tried to keep herself busy waiting for Miles. He had a two-hour seminar halfway across campus with a literature professor who was especially fond of German writers. He’d told her that he didn’t really agree with everything he said, but apparently the man was an old friend of his father’s. She read for a little while, finished the book, and even though Mrs Cooper had said she shouldn’t, made a start on her schoolwork for the following week. When she started to get hungry, and the light outside was beginning to fade from the golden light of afternoon to the reddish light of evening, she scooped up the tin of biscuits from Lord and Lady Canterbury in London. She nibbled on one, enough to take the edge off her hunger. If she knew Miles, he’d take her somewhere with filling, hearty food. He was tall and thin, but he could certainly put away a meal.
At half-six, she put her schoolwork aside and began to get ready. She’d brought jackets, skirts, and jumpers for everyday school wear, and she’d been happy to see that most of the other girls dressed very similarly. No dresses except for one – Lady Canterbury had taken her out shortly before her departure, finding a lovely beaded black dress with three-quarter-length sleeves and a round neckline.
Black goes with everything, Lady Canterbury had said.
This was what she put on, and then she went about curling her hair with the curler Georgie had let her borrow. Georgie had pointed out a photo of the American actress Greta Garbo in a magazine a few weeks back and said Now that is a woman I wish I were. So she went to work attaining the Garbo.
That took almost the entire time. Philomena took in both sides of her hairstyle and called it good. Miles would probably appreciate it.
She waited at the window at the end of the hall, with a perfect view of the street. Georgie was right – you could see a lot from here. But the place was mostly deserted, most of the girls having left earlier in a big group. They’d been all dressed up and coiffed, headed to the dancing hall.
The clock struck seven. Philomena held her breath. Miles would be showing any minute now, and she could imagine him breaking into a run as the clock tower struck each tone.
Minutes ticked by, still no sign of him. Philomena checked her wristwatch – a going-away gift from the Barrows – seemingly only five minutes after her last glance. Perhaps he’d gotten tied up. This professor liked to ramble, and sometimes the lecture ran long.
She dropped her hand and clamped the other around her wrist, so she wouldn’t keep looking at the watch. She was being silly. He wouldn’t keep her waiting – he’d seemed so eager to take her out and give her a break from campus.
But seven-fifteen passed, then seven-thirty. Philomena sagged against the window and then slid to the floor, elbow propped on the sill. She was trying to keep her hopes up but had a feeling it would be no use. He wasn’t coming. He’d forgotten, or one of his mates had roped him into their mischief, or he was caught by his rambling professor and couldn’t leave. He was polite like that – wouldn’t tell anyone that he had to go.
Seven forty-five came and went, and eight o’clock did too. He wasn’t coming, she knew that now. Although it made her throat and her chest hurt, she had to accept that. She pushed herself to her feet, wincing when one of her knees popped. Then she trudged back to her room, slipped inside, and shucked her dress off, not bothering to pick it up or put it away. She slumped onto her bed and then collapsed sideways. She felt a sudden hot pressure behind her eyes, and knew tears were coming. This was ridiculous, crying like this. But combined with the events of the last week, she couldn’t hold it in anymore. She rolled over to bury her face in her pillow just before the first sobs came. Happy bloody birthday indeed.
She woke groggy, cranky, and ravenously hungry. Her eyes felt like they were full of sand, and her mouth tasted foul. She rolled off the bed and onto the floor, knees cracking against the boards and making her whimper.
After she’d pulled herself upright, she clung to the bedclothes, waiting for the pain in her stomach to pass. She felt wretched – achy, weak, like something had snapped inside her. It wasn’t just about Miles. It was everything else too, Detective Barrow’s letter and the financier’s letter and the exam mark. Then Miles. Her traitorous feelings for him were going to be the death of her.
She skipped the bathing part of the day. The other girls didn’t know about the scars on her torso, the only physical reminder of the night her father tried to kill her. It was better that way – they’d recognised the Lynton name, but by then it’d turned into local legend. Murdered his wife, didn’t he? Others too. Hacked them to pieces.
Once she was freshened up and changed into clean clothes, she stepped outside to prowl around for Miles. He’d hide, the way children did when they’d done something wrong. And it was a large campus, with plenty of hiding spots. But Philomena knew them, drifting about like a lost soul when she wasn’t at lecture, wandering through the ancient school buildings without destination.
She found him in Radcliffe Square, with a group of boys she’d seen him with before. He’d brought his love for Squash from Harrow, spending a lot of time with boys with similar backgrounds.
One of the boys she recognised – Alastair, maybe – nudged Miles in the arm when he spotted her. Miles had his back to her, and seemed to not pick up on the gesture. So she helped him out.
“Miles!”
He spun around, face blanching. “Philomena?”
She marched straight up to him, brushing away hair the breeze had tossed into her face, and before she could stop herself she raised her hand and slapped him across the face. His head snapped sideways, and a couple of the other boys snickered. A few more widened their eyes, saying Oooh Altham she got you good.
“W-where. Were. You?” she hissed, trying to keep the trembling in her voice under control. “I waited. Over a-an hour. For you!”
Miles still looked stunned, gingerly touching his reddening cheek, mouth open with no sound coming out.
“You c-could have…told me!” She plunged headlong down the steep hill of her rage. “Y-you might have…rung! S-said you might…not come! Y-you…said n-nothing! Nothing!”
“Philomena, just listen a moment, please—”
“Don’t,” she snapped, pushing his hand aside. “N-no excuses.”
“It’s not what you think,” Miles said, just as another boy hissed Mate, don’t say that, makes it worse.
“What do I…think, M-Miles?” Philomena backed away from him as he took a step towards her.
“I wanted to come,” he said. “Truly, I did. Told these punters it was your birthday and I didn’t want to miss it. But I…”
“Y-you gave in,” she said.
“No, wait, please.” He was running after her, stepping into her path and making her grind to a halt. “It’s really, really not what you think. I need to show you. Otherwise you wouldn’t believe me.”
“I a-already don’t. And y-you haven’t…even s-said anything.”
“Please, Philomena.” His grey eyes were pleading, almost panicked. “I need you to hear me out."
She wanted to hold out. And she almost refused, if it hadn’t been for the tug in her gut, the one that said Something’s wrong.
She took a deep breath, willed herself to calm down. If something truly was wrong, it must have had to do with why he hadn’t shown last night. He probably wouldn’t have said anything otherwise.
“Fine. S-show me,” she said.
The rambling, German-literature-loving professor had an office in Trinity College. It was a cluttered, cramped space, floor-to-ceiling bookshelves crammed tightly with books and papers in no order and more of them in stacks on the floor. She had to step over them to get to Miles standing next to the gilded, claw-foot desk in the middle. It was just as untidy: teetering piles of papers, nearly-empty cups of cold tea, half-finished cut-crystal tumblers of dark amber-coloured liquid, and dead cigars scattered across its top. She wrinkled her nose at the smell, as if it hadn’t been aired out in a while.
“I came here after lecture,” said Miles. “He rushed out ten minutes early. He doesn’t usually do that. Keeps us late, like I’ve told you. So I followed him…out of concern. Wasn’t himself…seemed nervous. Kept taking out his pocket watch without looking at it. I don’t think he realised he was doing it. But by the time I got here, he was gone. No trace.”
“P-people don’t…do that, M-Miles. Th-they don’t…just vanish.”
“He did, Philomena.” He shook his head. “I don’t understand. I didn’t even think to ask anyone if they’d seen him leave.”
“What did y-you…do instead?”
“I rung Father. I asked him if he’d heard from Dr Nolan. If he’d mentioned something to him about running away.”
“Right. Because…they’re c-close.”
Miles nodded. “He had no idea what I was talking about. Told me he probably had some kind of meeting he’d forgotten about. Could've rushed out in a hurry because he was late.”
“Y-you believe that?” It could have been true. Lord Canterbury was usually right about things like this. But something didn’t sit right. Nolan had kept taking out his pocket watch. How could he have forgotten a meeting if he’d kept meaning to check the time? And if he thought he was going to be late, he probably would have cancelled entirely.
Miles sighed, plowing one hand through his hair. “No idea.”
“He kn-knew about this…t-thing he had to…get to. H-he knew. Exactly wh-when he…had to l-leave.”
“But he hasn’t been back,” Miles said. “Asked around to every professor I saw this morning. No one knows where he’s gone.”
“L-long weekend?” Philomena raised an eyebrow. “It is S-Saturday.”
“They say he’s a workaholic,” Miles said, with a head shake. “He’s always here.”
“Y-you think something’s…happened. To h-him.”
At that he just nodded. She had to agree – that was suspicious. No one just disappeared for no reason. And as far as anyone knew, he wasn’t dead, and no one had been out to kill him. Which left one other possibility: he’d simply picked up and left. Sight unseen.
There was a knock on the open door before she could say anything else. She spun, coming face-to-face with a thin balding man in spectacles and a long, dark-blue robe over his pinstripe suit.
“Oh, sorry,” said the man, looking surprised and a little alarmed. “I was looking for Dr Nolan.”
“S-so were we,” Philomena said.
“Heard he disappeared, Dr Flint,” Miles said. “Last night.”
“Disappeared?” Dr Flint’s eyebrows went up. “That’s unlike him.”
“H-he never…s-said anything…to you?” Philomena asked. “Before?”
Dr Flint shook his head. “Afraid not. Doesn’t talk much, Nolan. Keeps himself to himself, if you know what I mean. Spends all his time in the library, though. I’ve no idea what he does in there.”
“We’ll check,” Miles said. “See if he didn’t sneak in early this morning.”
“He’s been known to do that,” said Dr Flint. “Usually the first one in.”
“Right, well…” She felt Miles coming up behind her, quickly, and then he took her hand. “We’ll go there now.”
“You were looking for him,” Dr Flint said, back out in the hallway. “It’s not anything I can answer, is it?”
“Unless you know why he disappeared, I don’t think so,” Miles said. “Thank you, Dr Flint.”
Then he was tugging at her hand, and she followed. And she’d thought she’d left her mystery-solving days behind.
Dr Nolan wasn’t there. While Miles lingered at the circulation desk, asking questions that barely passed as veiled curiosity, she wandered the stacks, checking the nooks. She’d spent all her first term in here, feeling at home among the old books. Even if she didn’t know what he looked like, she already sensed she wouldn’t find him here. The library was deserted, except for the two of them and the old woman at the desk.
“Mrs Mobley says she saw him yesterday,” Miles said, when she’d wandered back to join him. “Headed towards the illuminated manuscripts.”
Once again she was following him, this time through the whispering stacks.
“I d-didn’t mean to…slap you,” she said on the way.
“You had good reason,” said Miles. “You're right…I should have told you. Given you some notice.”
“I d-don’t know. W-what I’m doing. You’re m-my first.”
“Neither do I.” He shrugged. “But at least we’re learning together.”
“I r-really do…c-care about you. I…just thought, w-when…you didn’t s-show…”
“I know,” he said. “I’m sorry.”
“Me too.”
The illuminated manuscripts, in the back, weren’t shelved like the other books. They were displayed on stands or in glass cases, opened to intricately decorated pages. In her first weeks of term she’d come here to look at them, squinting down to see the tiny leaves and animals twining around the letters.
“This is impressive,” said Miles, his eyebrows going up. “You say you’ve seen these before?”
“Yes,” she answered. “They’re b-beautiful.”
They wandered around for a few minutes, working their way up opposite walls. Philomena’s favourite was one of a unicorn, its mane, tail, beard, and horn the smallest pieces of gold leaf, rearing up on its hind legs in front of a small dog-like creature also covered in gold. It had tiny black dots for eyes and a red mouth open in a snarl, with flecks of white for teeth. An intricately-painted H separated them, but she couldn’t read any of it – Latin, probably.
“Hang on,” Miles said from across the room. “Philomena, you ought to see this.”
Reluctantly she tore herself away from the book she’d been looking at. It was a new one, a stylised design of a row of houses around the border. Each one had windowpanes and a unique door, all painted in red ink.
Miles was hunched over one in a glass case, hands clenched on the frame like he was about to tear it apart. She stopped slightly behind him and tapped his elbow, making him glance back at her.
“W-what did…you find?”
“That." He tapped the glass lid.
She leaned forward, slightly past him, and saw it right away – it was a postcard, addressed to Dr T. Nolan, with one line written on the message side.
The white bird flies.
She read it once, then again, then a third time. It didn’t matter. It made no sense.
“T-that was w-why…he w-was here? Yesterday?” She squinted at it, but no more meaning came out of it. “For t-this?”
“I suppose?” Miles shrugged, pushing himself off the case and stepping back to rub at his head. “I don’t get it. What does it mean?”
She bellied up to it and leaned closer. The handwriting was sweeping and graceful, probably done with a fountain pen. The postcard looked new, no creases, spots, or other marks. The stamp showed the King in profile, in his ermine cape, medals, and crown. And the postmark…
“The p-postmark,” she said then. “It was d-delivered here…two days a-ago.”
He was up next to her just as fast, bending down to look. “Cripes. You’re right.”
“H-his disappearance…it has to d-do…with this. Those w-words.” She wasn’t sure what told her that. But it wasn’t something you’d write on a postcard and send as a casual message. Greetings from old London.
“You mean…like a code?” Miles’s eyes widened. “Or a riddle?”
“Code,” Philomena said, with a nod. “Yes.”
“You reckon that’s where he is? London?”
“Possibly.”
“Well…” Miles looked away, out the window. “Only one way to find out.”
It was just a weekend trip. A day trip. That was what she told herself, packing enough clothes for an overnight stay. And this was Miles. She knew him well enough to know he was a good travelling companion. If they found Dr Nolan within the day, then all of this would just be a memory. But if not—
She shook that thought away. It wasn’t as if she hadn’t done something like this before, but she’d been hoping she wouldn’t have to again.
“Goin’ somewhere, Lynton?”
Philomena spun around. Georgie was sitting by the window, a cup of strong-smelling coffee in her hands. She appeared to have had a few drinks the night before, eyes and cheeks still red.
“London,” she said. “With M-Miles.”
“Weekend in the big city?” Georgie stretched languidly, like a cat. “Doing anythin’ fun?”
“We…w-well…” She swallowed hard. She wasn’t the only Somerville girl with a man on campus, but she was perhaps the most inexperienced. Many of the girls called them conquests or suitors. Some of them had been with a few, and were on their third or fourth. But Philomena wasn’t sure what she and Miles were, even if he called her my girl in social situations. She’d had to get used to being anyone’s girl.
“That’s all right, you don’t need to tell me now, luv.” Georgie winked. “Maybe when you get back.”
Philomena blushed. She didn’t know how long it’d take to get to what Georgie referred to, what more experienced – and married – couples did.
She met Miles out on Little Clarendon Street, where he’d somehow managed to secure a car – not a cab this time – with one of his Squash teammates in the driver’s seat. She couldn’t remember his name, but was familiar with how relentlessly he flirted with her.
“Him?” she hissed, as Miles took her bag.
“What’s wrong with him?” Miles glanced over his shoulder, then back at her. “Bram’s a good bloke.”
“He…f-flirts,” she said. “A-always winks…at me. S-stares.”
Possibly Miles wouldn’t think anything of it. After all, with boys of a certain age, that was what they did. But she decided to test it. He tended to puff up and turn protective if he sensed there was a threat.
Bram turned partway in his seat and winked, followed by a wolf whistle. “Pretty little piece there, Mi.”
“You’re talking about my girl, Bram?” She heard the edge in Miles’s tone. Yes. There it was.
“Nothin’ wrong with admiring your taste,” said Bram. That set off his eyes, wandering up and down her body. Lingering on her legs and chest. He whistled again. “Still impeccable as always.”
Miles tossed their bags in the back seat, then marched over to Bram, seizing his chin in his hand. “You keep your eyes here on my face, Bram, and read my lips. Touch her, and you’ll get this.”
He held up a fist in the other boy’s line of sight. Bram nodded. Miles released Bram’s jaw with a shove, then in a split-second he was back to his manners, opening the car door for her.
“Your carriage awaits,” he said.
“Thank you.” She gave him a smile and a kiss on the cheek as she climbed in. She was no longer angry at him, now that she’d seen him come to her defence. He was very hard to stay angry with. Perhaps that was why she felt the way she did about him.
