A Week to Be Wicked (Spindle Cove #2)(88)

“I’m not teasing you. I’m complimenting you.”

“That’s just it. I don’t want compliments. I’m not fanciful that way.”

“Not fanciful?” He laughed. “Min, you have the wildest imagination of anyone I know. You can look at a queer-shaped hole in the ground and see a vast, primeval landscape overrun with giant lizards. But it’s too much to believe you’re beautiful?”

She didn’t know what to say.

He mused, “Maybe ‘beautiful’ isn’t the proper word. It’s too common, and the way you look is . . . rare. You deserve a rare compliment. One sincerely meant, and crafted just for you. So there will be no doubt.”

“Really, you needn’t—”

“Hush. I’m going to compliment you. Honestly. No raven’s-wing nonsense. You needn’t say a word in return, but I will insist you stand there and take it.”

She watched him in the mirror as his brows drew into a frown of concentration.

“Once,” he said, “years ago, I heard this fellow speak at the Adventurers Club. He talked about his journeys into the Amazonian jungles.”

Minerva didn’t like where this excursion was headed. She had the dreadful feeling he was going to compare her to some strange carnivorous plant. One that lured its prey with garish red flowers and the scent of decaying meat.

“He was an entomologist, this fellow.”

Oh God. Worse! Insects. He was going to compare her to some giant hairy-legged jungle insect. One that spat venom, or ate small rodents.

Calm down, she told herself. It might be a butterfly. Butterflies were pretty. Even beautiful, depending on the variety. She heard they came big as dinner plates, in the Amazon.

“Anyhow, this fellow had spent all this time with the natives, in the thick of the jungles, hunting down hard-shelled beetles.”

“Beetles?” The word came out as a whimper.

“Can’t remember, to be honest. I slept through much of his talk, but what I recall is this: this native people he lived with, deep in the jungle—their language had dozens of words for rain. Because it was so common to them, you see. Where they lived, it rained almost constantly. Several times a day. So they had words for light rain, and heavy rain, and pounding rain. Something like eighteen different terms for storms, and a whole classification system for mist.”

“Why are you telling me this?”

His touch skimmed idly down her arm. “Because I’m standing here, wanting to give you a fitting compliment, but my paltry vocabulary fails me. I think what I need is a scientific excursion. I need to venture deep into some jungle where beauty takes the place of rain. Where loveliness itself falls from the sky at regular intervals. Dots every surface, saturates the ground, hangs like vapor in the air. Because the way you look, right now . . .” His gaze caught hers in the reflection. “They’d have a word for it there.”

Entranced by his touch and his warm, melting tone, she watched her own eyes go glassy in the mirror. She leaned back a fraction, resting against his chest. His heartbeat pounded against her spine, echoing through her chest like some distant drum.

“There’d be so many words for beauty there,” he went on, bringing his lips close to her ear and dropping his voice to a murmur. “Words for everyday showers of prettiness, and the kind of misty loveliness that disappears whenever you try to grasp it. Beauty that’s heralded by impressive thunder, but turns out to be all flash. And beyond all these, there’d be this word . . . a word that even the most grizzled, wizened elders might have uttered twice in their lifetimes, and in hushed, fearful tones at that. A word for a sudden, cataclysmic torrent of beauty with the power to change landscapes. Make plains out of valleys and alter the course of rivers and leave people clinging to trees, alive and resentful, shaking their fists at the heavens.”

A hint of sensual frustration roughened his voice. “And I will curse the gods along with them, Min. Some wild monsoon raged through me as I looked at you just now. It’s left me rearranged inside, and I don’t have a map.”

They stared into the mirror. At each other, at themselves.

“I’ve fallen in love with you,” she said, with quiet resignation. “If I appear changed somehow, I can only imagine that’s why.”

She watched him carefully for his reaction. His face became a mask, frozen in time. Eternally handsome and emotionless.

And then, finally . . . a hint of a roguish grin cracked at the corner of his mouth. “Oh, Min—”

“Stop.” She stood tall, putting distance between them. She just knew he was going to make some jesting remark to dispel the tension. Oh, Min, don’t fret. You’ll get over it soon. Or, Oh, Min, think of poor Sir Alisdair.

“Don’t you do that.” She turned away from the mirror, toward him. “Don’t you dare make a joke. It took a great deal of courage to say what I did. And you don’t have to speak a word in return, but I will insist you be man enough to take it. I won’t have you making light of my feelings, or making light of yourself—as if you’re not worthy of them. Because you are worthy, Colin. You’re a generous, good-hearted person, and you deserve to be loved. Deeply, truly, well, and often.”

He looked utterly bewildered. Well, what did he expect, after the power he’d given her? He couldn’t compare a woman to a torrentially beautiful monsoon, and then look surprised that he’d gotten wet.