He lifted her copy ofA Vindication, which she only now noticed had been beside him on the bed.
“I read your commentary. I assume this is your hand in the margins.” He opened the book and pointed to the ink scrawling down the sides of each page.
“Yes.” She rotated to face him again, wary. She had nearly forgotten about her fervent reactions to Wollstonecraft.
Or, rather, it had never crossed her mind that he would actuallyreadthem.
“I greatly enjoyed your droll insights,” he continued.
Was he being condescending now?
There, there, pretty, feather-brained debutante. How marvelous that you have an intelligent opinion.
Lottie edged away from the door and waited.
He studied her with those slate eyes. “I meant that sincerely. Perhapsdrollis the wrong adjective. I should have saidbrilliant.”
A breath snagged in her throat. Had he plucked the very thoughts from her brain?
She darted a glance at the door. She really should leave. No good would come of talking with him. Not really.
Hewasher adversary. He was the one who could snatch away Freddie’s future.
She would do well to remember that.
But . . .
“Which observation stood out to you most?” she asked, her tone frosty.
The faintest bit of humor touched his expression.
“Just one?” he asked.
Her eyebrows lifted. “For the now.”
“Very well.”
He flipped the book open.
Heavens. He had torn slips of paper and used them to mark pages, scribbling his own thoughts on them, engaging in a vigorous conversation with her.
The sight should not have lit a glowing coal in her chest.
It was just . . .
In French, the word for mind and spirit was the same—l’esprit. And so, for her, ideas and soul were locked into the same box.
When someone listened to her thoughts, they were also hearing the sound of her soul.
He had . . . listened.
Abruptly, she wanted to listen, too. To hear what his spirit had sensed of hers.
She sat in the chair beside his bed, hands clasped in her lap, her back straight.
His head was still bent over the book, that rogue lock of hair curling onto his forehead. He pushed it aside absently, as if vanity were too trivial a thing.
“This right here,” he said, pointing to a page. “Wollstonecraft says that Society calls a gentle, innocent female an angel but yet,” he continued, reading directly, “‘they are told, at the same time, that they are only like angels when they are young and beautiful. Consequently, it is their persons, not their virtues, that procure them this homage.’”
