Warmth suffused Jacob’s body. The mere sight of her made him so happy, he had to tamp down the urge to grin like a loon. “Back from the Faircliffes already?”
“Parliament started. Chloe talked me into watching part of the session from a ghastly hole in the attic, and I barely escaped with my sanity intact.” Vivian stepped inside the barn. “What are you doing?”
“I was about to feed the snakes. They’re calmer when they have full bellies.”
“Poisonous snakes?”
“Not all of them.” At her crestfallen expression, he added wryly, “Hoping to attack me with them for meddling in your career, unsolicited?”
“It would have a certain poetic justice,” she replied.
She was teasing.
He hoped.
“I really am sorry,” he began again.
“And I really am trying to forgive you,” she interrupted. “You need to understand that my frustration stems from more than one thoughtless act. I was born apossession. For two long decades, I didn’t have therightto live a life I wanted.”
He was horrified. “I don’t think of you as—”
“You and your family have a long history of not thinking at all. You’re so busy saving the day for the clientdu jour, there’s no room in your brains or your lives to consider everyone else in the periphery. Starry-eyed people like Quentin try to be just like you, and we see how that went.”
“That’s…” True.
“As for my career,” she continued, “you Wynchesters are so enamored with your heroic personas that you swept in to wreak destruction without pausing to ask or to even wonder what it was that I wanted.”
“I shouldn’t have had to wonder,” he admitted. “You told me, out loud, time and again. I didn’t listen.”
“Exactly.” Her lip trembled. “I may be your client, but please remember that the case is rescuing Quentin, not overruling my free will. If we’re to be friends after this is over—”
He took her hands. “I hope to be more than friends.”
“Then you have to accept me as a whole human, not as a project. To your eyes, I might have been taking the long way, but it wasmypath to take.”
“You’re right,” he said. “I really am sorry.”
“I accept your apology.” She paused. “We’ll drop the topic now that we’ve discussed it, but please understand… If my autonomy is trampled again, I shall not keep having this same argument with you. I’d rather forge a new path than entrust my heart to someone who doesn’t care enough to listen to me.”
“That’s fair,” he agreed. “And I vow to be fairer in the future as well. I can’t promise to be perfect, but Icanswear that I value your dreams and goals and brain, and will never be so carelessly highhanded again. Youshouldhave the right to live your life as you please, not in the manner someone else imposes on you.”
“Thank you,” she said softly. “I wish everyone had that luxury.”
“I’ll fight for that, too,” he promised. “And as for lads like your cousin, I wondered if we might—” Jacob cut off mid-thought when he glimpsed the edge of a book tucked beneath her arm. “Don’t tell me you’re part of my family’s secret poetry cabal, too!”
“Their what?” Vivian stared at him, then seemed to recall the leather volume nestled in her armpit. “Oh, you mean this? It’s the latest collection by—”
“Jallow, yes, I have eyes. But why are you carrying it around? I thought you didn’t even read that drivel.”
“I hadn’t, until today. On my way here, I passed three different bookshops with lines out the door as long as the Serpentine. All eagerly waiting to get their hands on this book.”
“You stood in one of those queues?” he asked in disbelief.
“I didn’t have to,” she admitted. “I told Philippa I was curious to know what all the fuss was about, and she said she’d ordered more than enough for her entire reading circle, and she would be happy to give one of the extras to me.”
“Of course she did,” Jacob muttered. Philippa had probably ordered enough copies to replace every cobblestone in London with a copy of Jallow’s poems.
Perhaps the contents would be improved with a few hoof marks and horse droppings.
