She cocked her head to one side, squinting. “’Tis a funny one, it’s true,” she retorted, setting Davina off again.
“I’m getting back in the carriage now,” I grumbled with a performative frown.
Davina trailed after me, not in any particular hurry and in short order the door was buckled back on.
Having learned my lesson, I sat next to her in the place I’d occupied yesterday, and the carriage rumbled across the cobblestones.
Davina wore her amusement all over, in her crinkled eyes, in her upturned lips, in the occasional full-body, silent huff.
“You don’t really believe I look sullen all the time, do you?” I asked.
“I’m sorry, I didn’t intend to offend you.” Her grin belied her sincere tone.
“You didn’t. I just… you think I’m sullen?”
“Sometimes, you’re downright surly.”
“I’m—that is just the way my face is.”
“Perhaps,” she agreed with some hesitation.
“Tell me.”
“The day we met, in Hyde Park?” At my nod she continued. “You were laughing and teasing your sister when we came upon you. Of course, the dowager Lady Grayson was herself and insulted you both. I think that was the last time I saw you smile, truly smile.”
“I smile,” I protested.
“You do, but they’re half smiles. Or the ghost of one.”
“I suppose I’m usually cross with you. Often you’ve flung yourself into danger.”
“Yes, but if I didn’t fling myself into danger, you would have no employment. And then where would you be?”
I felt the corner of my lip lift instinctively. “Less likely to die in a fit of apoplexy at the youthful age of six and twenty.”
“Six and twenty? Such an old man,” she tutted, sardonic. “No wonder life has lost its joy.”
“Is it so different from one and twenty?”
“You would know better than I. Though I suppose one’s gender must play a greater role.”
“I feel older, since my father passed.”
“I didn’t feel much of anything when my father passed,” she said, then dipped her gaze to her lap.
“No?”
“Perhaps relief. He was—he made life difficult.”
“How so?”
She sighed, her lovely dark gaze meeting mine. “Did you know Gabriel?”
DAVINA
The question hung between us for a moment, or perhaps that was merely Gabriel’s ghost, lingering over the entire family to this day.
“By reputation only,” Kit said.
