Destroyer gave a loud snort, tossing his head right then left, as if objecting to the title of Destroyer of women’s bonnets.
Slade found himself considering her as they drifted through the crowd. Did her dreary tastes in attire extend to every aspect of her life?
“You spoke of your enjoyment of reading. What are your favorite books?”
She chewed on her bottom lip, seeming to regard his question.
“While I do enjoy poetry quite a bit, philosophy is my first love. Voltaire for example, but my favorite is David Hume.”
He scrutinized her, flummoxed. He’d expected her to mention a French romance novel or perhaps a chapbook, not Voltaire and David Hume. Voltaire and David Hume weren’t dreary reads nor typical for lasses. These were men of modern religious, political, and scientific ideas. Possibly even dangerous ideas.
“Why David Hume?” Her choice to read the works of a philosopher and presumed atheist was the bigger mystery, Slade decided.
Her eyes sparked at his question.
“Since he lives in Glasgow, I think he has a firmer grasp of the Scots’ plight than Voltaire. I like his idea that without passions, one can avoid pain.” She paused thoughtfully then continued. “If I get too excited, or angry, or even happy over something I quell my energies, because I don’t want to do anything silly, or regrettable, which is often the case when one is impassioned.”
The conviction in her voice speared him down the middle. His heart squeezed and his head buzzed with countless questions. She spoke of pain like it was a familiar friend. Or enemy. He couldn’t tell.
“But surely that’s no way to live? Only halfway in,” he said.
“Being calm and reflective is safe.”
“Safe from what?”
“Hurt.”
Slade stopped and stared at her. She stopped as well, looking up at him with furrowed brows and a vulnerability that cut his heart with an invisible knife.
“Are you speaking of Alex’s death, Fifi?” His tone was soft.
Her throat muscles worked, and pain contorted her lovely face before she looked away.
“I am. But not only Alex’s death, life in general.” He didn’t miss the way her voice cracked with emotion.
“But that’s only half a life, Fifi. Alex wouldn’t want that for you.”
Her jaw muscles worked, but she remained silent.
Slade’s mind fell on his own plight. On his need for revenge and retribution. And on his familiarity with the two, like a second skin. Was he capable of approaching the general’s culpability with logic, calm and reflection? Without the passion of hatred? Without the pain of loss and the gut-wrenching guilt? Peter had told him to move beyond his past. To forgive. The idea caused spiders to crawl under his skin and cold shivers to run up his spine. If he forgave, what would happen to his redemption?
Slade’s fingers curled around Destroyer’s reins. “I fear humans are incapable of such advancement in thinking. We are all animal urges and instincts at the core. Passion is far too intertwined in our blood to be separate.”
For the next few minutes, they slowly walked side by side, in companionable and reflective silence, Slade seeing Fifi in a way he never had before.
“What other Hume ideas resonate with you?” he asked.
She was meditative before speaking. “The idea that society should approach with suspicion government’s need to change long-established customs,” she said.
Was she referring to the English monarchy and government? If she was a sympathizer, then why the heck was she working for an English general’s wife?
She’d tricked him. She wasn’t drab and dreary at all. She’d grown into an enigma, among other things.
The right side of his mouth lifted. “Are you a rebel sympathizer, Fifi?”
His tone was filled with mirth. But as the words left his lips, Slade felt their gravity. Everything faded into the background except his heartbeats as he waited for her reply.
She was about to answer him when Montgomery and Reddington rejoined them at that very moment.
