“A simple one,” he replied. “Turn around.”
“No.” The word came fast, almost childish. She steadied it. “Tell me why.”
“So that the night will belong to us alone,” he explained. “So that when we walk, you will not see a window that may or may not be open. So that when I speak, you will not be measuring the distance to the gate. You will measure my voice instead, and the ground beneath your feet, and the limits of your wish to stay.”
“You ask a great deal.”
“I offer more,” he said. “I offer to carry the fear that belongs to the street. I cannot carry the fear that belongs to your history.”
She had not told him a single name. He had nonetheless put his finger on the place where her heart bruised when the air turnedwrong. She hated that he could do it. She liked that he did it without the spice of triumph.
“If I do not agree,” she asked, “what then?”
“You walk away,” he murmured. “Our deal ends. You may keep the money I have sent; I will accept the loss.”
She studied his face. The lamps at the far edge of the square left him in a wash of soft shadow. She saw the line of his mouth. She saw the green that looked almost black at night.
She did not see a man who lied for pleasure. She saw a man who had learned to sit very still in order not to break what he held.
“And if I agree?”
“Then you will have thirty minutes without looking over your shoulder,” he answered. “You will find that the world grows larger when it is narrowed for a while.”
“You are very sure of your metaphors,” she said.
“I am very sure of my methods,” he returned.
She thought of the velvet pouch that he had slid into her hidden pocket at the garden party after they shared a dance. She thought of her mother sitting by the window in the coldsun, pretending to sew, pretending not to listen for the click that meant her stepfather had set his temper aside for the day.
She could not waste what had been bought.
“Very well,” she sighed. “I will try your art.”
He inclined his head as if she had solved a proof. “Turn around.”
She did.
The hedge cooled her cheek. She lifted her chin to free the column of her throat. Her hands folded in front of her, then unfolded, then folded again.
Do not fidget. He will notice it. He will think he has won a point.
The silk touched her brow. He did not seize or startle. He set the fabric in place as a valet might smooth a collar, competent and without heat.
She might have found it intimate. She found it almost professional. That steadied her more than a compliment would have.
“Too tight?” he asked.
The nearness of his voice unsettled her more than the dark ever could.
Foolish girl, she scolded herself inwardly. Yet the warm coil low in her belly refused to obey.
“No,” she answered.
The Duke drew the ends once and made a neat knot that sat lightly at her temple.
The world went slightly dark. Not black. Brown, perhaps, like tea poured into a cup and held to the light. She could feel the air, cool and damp. She could hear the faint rustle of leaves. She could not see the houses.
The relief arrived like a tide she had not expected.
