He gave her half a grin, coming to lean next to her against the trunk of the tree, his shoulder brushing hers. “I had an errand to run first,” he said easily. “I’d been coveting something from a shop window and decided that I ought to go purchase it before someone else beat me to it.”
“A shop window?” she said, turning her head in surprise. “How fanciful. Whatever was it that caught your eye?”
“Nothing grand,” he said with a shrug. “A little paperweight. Just a trinket.”
She popped another bite of pork into her mouth and chewed as he fished around in his waistcoat pocket and withdrew a little red sachet, which he took his time unfastening and reaching into. He withdrew a little golden figurine, perching it on his palm and holding it up to the sun, where the rays of light glinted off the carefully shaped back of a duck wrought in weighted pewter and plated with gold.
Mae swallowed with a bit of effort, her eyes narrowing as she beheld the little golden duckling.
“Isn’t it fine?” he said, turning to regard her reaction. “Authentic Ashanti goldcraft, you know.”
“Asante,” she corrected, narrowing her eyes. “You think you’re very clever.”
“Do I?” he asked, chuckling in earnest. “I thought a nice little counterweight was in order, and look how symbolically convenient this little fellow is. Now I’ve met your father too. And your brother besides, which I figure is only fair, as you have Sybil to compensate.”
She was at a loss for words for a moment, still staring at the little duckling. “It is a goldweight,” she said, absurdly. “Not a paperweight.”
“I suspect it is a versatile duck,” he said, smugness soaking each word.
She sighed. “Did you introduce yourself?” she asked. “Tell them who you were?”
“Of course,” he answered, closing his hand around the duckling and turning to face her, with only his shoulder now resting against the tree as his shadow fell over her body. “I repeated their surname back to them with wonder, and asked if they were any relation, and then we shared a few anecdotes and niceties. Dinner was mentioned.”
“Dinner,” she repeated, raising her brows. “Careful, Roland, you are going to tip the scales and collect more than you were owed.”
“Oh, I think not,” he replied, his voice gone soft and dark as he tilted his face down to watch hers. “You are the one with that blasted thimble, after all.”
“The thimble,” she said, giving a little laugh. “Objectively inferior to a golden calf.”
“Duck,” he said, grinning so wide, his canines flashed.
“Hm,” she replied. “And I believe, Mr. Reed—”
“Roland,” he said, reaching out to toy with the curl of hair that hung over her ear, making her tongue trip over the next word so that she was forced to start over.
She swatted at his hand, her mouth dry, and glared at him. “I believe,Roland,” she corrected, “that only one of us has followedthe other home under cover of darkness. If anyone still owes a debt, it is you, not me.”
“Is that so?” he asked, laughing openly at her swat and holding his hand just above her head, planted on the tree, until she lowered her defending arm again, at which point he went right back to toying with the curl. “Do you want to follow me home, Mae? Will you discover where my flat is hidden and report it back to everyone like you did about my father?”
“Perhaps I will,” she snapped, holding herself still as his finger traced the path of the curl. “Are you going to threaten to stop me again?”
“I might,” he said thoughtfully. “Do you want me to?”
She made a frustrated little sound in her throat, her eyes tilted up at him.
Honestly, she didn’t know what she wanted, except perhaps for him to kiss her again, the way he had in his father’s study. Again and again and again, if he would be so kind.
But she couldn’t say that.
“There is also the matter of your debt of distaste,” she said, lifting her chin. “Your resistance to my appeal based on principle, I suspect. I still take umbrage with that.”
He laughed, pausing mid-coil on a strand of her hair, those turquoise eyes glinting in the sunlight. “What the hell are you on about?” he said, so directly, she narrowed her eyes at him.
“You expected a white man that day in the brothel,” she said. “You didn’t like finding me.”
“No,” he agreed, smile still in place. “I did not. I don’t like being surprised, and you, Miss Casper, are nothing but surprises. I apologize that it wounded my pride.”
“It wounds your pride?” she returned, her heart thundering so fast, she thought it might clog or lodge between her ribs if she didn’t spit the rest of the words out immediately. “To be attracted to a healer? A Black healer?”
