She had already promised not to lie to him again, and she hadn’t been lying when she’d done it. And so long as she still held those cards in her hands, there was every chance she would never lie to him again—because there was every chance that she would never even speak to him again, let alone lie.
He said, “Your nose twitches.”
Her eyes widened, and she shifted her cards to one hand totouch her nose with the tips of her fingers. “Does it?”
“It’s adorable,” he admitted gloomily. “Or it would be, were it not accompanied by the lying.”
“I am sorry for that,” she said, her eyes lowering once more to her cards. “It’s just that I knew I would be going to the tavern anyway, and I didn’t want to argue about it.”
“I would always rather have an argument,” he said, “than have you lie to me. I would trust you with my life, but I must also be able to trust you at your word. And I know that it wasn’t mean-spirited. I know it must have seemed only like a means to an end. But the argument is worth having.”
“I don’t always think about such things,” she admitted, as she lifted one hand to toy with a lock of her hair. “I lived most of my life in a completely different sort of world than you. My childhood was full of such trickery; all lies and deceit and swindling. I learned it from the cradle.” A little shrug. “Perhaps my morals are more flexible than is preferable. I still steal upon occasion, when I feel it’s justified. I cheat at cards for the fun of it.”
“You don’t have to lie to me,” he said. “We could simply…talk.”
“Argue, you mean to say.”
“Yes; argue. Sometimes you’ve got to argue.”
“And you’ll expect to win,” she grumbled.
Henry felt a laugh rattle in his chest. “Against you? Oh, no. I think I’d expect to lose more often than not. But I still want to have the damned argument, Grace.”
She gave a nod so small, he wasn’t even certain it construed agreement. Perhaps it was more likely it was only acknowledgement, since she hadn’t agreed to anything just yet. And still she held those cards close to her chest and said, “It was…brave of you to come here this evening.”
“Not brave,” he said. “I’m certain your uncle, Mr. Moore, cansmell fear. And I’ve been terrified since the moment I walked through the door.”
For a fraction of a moment, a smile pulled at the corners of her lips. “I know,” she said. “And rather unfortunately for you, so does everyone else.”
He felt himself deflate on a sigh. “I thought as much.”
“My family intimidates you.”
“Of course they intimidate me,” he said. “There’s so damned many of them, and at least half of them despise me at present. When Mr. Moore dragged me out of the St. John ball, I was certain he was going to toss me into the Thames.”
“Hedidoffer, once.”
“So he said.” Henry folded his arms atop the table and leaned in. “They do intimidate me,” he said again. “But I think I could grow…accustomed to them. All of them. And perhaps eventually I would grow on them.”
“Like a fungus?” Grace suggested, with a tiny tilt of her head.
“I hope to God not like a fungus,” he chuckled. “But I love you. If that means I must endure a bit of unpleasantness—”
“And dried peas.”
“—Until I have proven myself to the rest of your family, then I will do it.” Henry rolled his shoulders, hoping to relieve a bit of the tension that had pulled them taut. “Grace,” he said softly, and stretched one hand across the table toward hers in the faint hope that she might take it. “When I knew I had lost everything, what I mourned most was you.”
She softened, just a little, as she glanced down at his ruined fingers. “You can’t go around beating the stuffing out of everyone you dislike,” she said. “At least my family usually restrains themselves to sharp words and dried peas.”
“Your uncle offered to throw me in the Thames.”
“I saidusually,” she sniffed.
“I didn’t plan on it,” he said. “But my uncle was there, and hewas rubbing my nose in what he’d done. And that—that didn’t upset me half so much as when he told me that Latimer had danced with you already, that there was the possibility he intended to court you again, and I just…lost my head entirely.”
“Still, you shouldn’t have hit him,” Grace said.
“Perhaps not, but it was satisfying.” He flexed his knuckles at the memory of introducing his fist to Latimer’s face. “He didn’t appreciate you as he ought to have done,” he said. “It made me beyond furious.”
