“You buy the wine and champagne from now on,” interjected William.
They all laughed.
Just like that, the room was restored to its easy, happy mood.
Rightness bubbled through Jacob’s chest along with the champagne. He hadn’t realized how much being acknowledged would mean to him. How badly he’d needed to be seen, to be believed, to be valued. He never wanted this sensation to end.
In the end, he hadn’t needed anything more than his own words to prove himself. At least, not to his true friends. With the others, Jacob’s confession had failed spectacularly—but now that was over. The sutures, removed. His scars would heal, and he would emerge stronger than ever.
Or at least be able to limp off in a new direction.
19
When Jacob awoke the next morning at dawn, he still felt as though he were living a dream. He’d read to his poetry group! He had confessed his nom de plume! Some had been happy for him, and some had been furious, but the world had not ended. If anything, the day seemed brighter than ever.
In high spirits, he cared for his animals in record time, bathed, and checked the clock. Still two and a half hours before he and his polecats were expected on the morning’s first mission.
Normally, Jacob would have filled the time by scribbling in his poetry journal. But his nerves were still springing against his skin too much to allow him to sit alone in quiet contemplation.
He felt like celebrating. Like dancing. Like flying with his wings spread wide.
And he owed this new sensation to a single person. The one whose extremely annoying unsolicited opinions had driven him to push past his discomfort and risk being his true self, in front of witnesses, at least for a few moments.
Very well, his family had also been begging Jacob for years to share his poetry. But they didn’t fully understand what it was like to be someone like him in a profession like this.
Vivian more than understood. She lived it. She breathed it. She fought against it tooth and nail every single day, never once flagging, much less conceding defeat. Vivian shared her words and her identitywith pride. Damn the consequences, and to the devil with anyone who tried to keep her in the shadows.
Jacob hurried to the kitchen to pack a basket. He didn’t know what time she tended to rise, but he hoped to catch her before she broke her fast so that they could do so together.
He also hoped to smooth things over from their last argument. She’d called him a coward hiding behind anonymity. And she’d accused him of becoming as pampered and careless as the selfsame spoiled lords he chafed against.
As much as it galled him to admit it, she had not been entirely wrong.
He rode a horse to her home because it was faster. No need to ring for a carriage when he could fetch a mount himself. Though it did make an awkward ride, with the basket balancing on his lap and his hat clutched in his fist because the wind kept flinging it from his head.
After tying his horse to a post, Jacob paused outside Vivian’s door for a full minute to smooth the new wrinkles from his clothing and set his hat at a rakish angle. This gave him time to notice a small green leaf poking out from the thin crevice between the door and its jamb. He frowned. Only the edge was visible, and even that at ankle-height. Despite being low to the ground and almost out of sight, it did not seem a place a leaf would naturally find itself.
Which was why, when Vivian opened the door to welcome him in, Jacob’s first words weren’tGood morningas he had planned, but rather, “Why do you keep a leaf stuck in the crack of your door?”
“Habit,” she replied without hesitation, as though his was a perfectly ordinary greeting. “It’s to let me know if anyone has entered—or attempted to breach—my private space. In this case, I’m hoping to see if Quentin returns while I’m asleep or away.”
In this case. And her explanation made sense. But she’d saidhabit. Who else had Vivian hoped—or worried—would breach her private space? Jacob’s protective hackles rose.
“What’s in the basket?” she asked. “If it’s a badger, I must warn you, Rufus does not play well with others.”
“It’s not for Rufus,” he said. “It’s for you. For us. Something to break our fast, if you haven’t done so already.”
She looked at the basket as though his words made no sense.
It was at this point that Jacob realized he had indeed packed a receptacle capable of comfortably housing an entire family of wild badgers. Vivian could break her fast for the next three weeks with the contents of this basket.
“A light snack,” he said, leaning into her perception of him as coddled, and lacking awareness of how common folk lived. “A pre-breakfast, as one does. Something small to tide us over until the lazy servant wenches finally cook up something worth—”
She rolled her eyes and took the basket from him. “Sit down and stop ruining this for me.”
He sat. In the chair across from the attack badger. “Ruining what, exactly? You didn’t even know I’d be coming to call.”
Unless she’d somehow guessed that, too? Vivianwasdisturbingly perceptive.
