“What did you intend, Montgomery?”
She rolled the R in his name, making the name longer, giving it a flavor of Scotland.
When he didn’t answer, didn’t know what she wanted him to say, she folded her hands together and turned to look at him again, smiling pleasantly.
“To ensure I know my place? How could I not? You and my uncle have made it perfectly clear what my place is. I’m an imposition to be removed, an impediment that walks and talks. If it weren’t for Veronica, we wouldn’t be touched by scandal. Tuck her away, marry her off, place her somewhere she can do no more harm.”
“If you hadn’t attended the Society meeting, Veronica, none of this would have happened. Why the hell did you?”
“The Society of the Mercaii was reputed to be a legitimate organization seeking to study the occult,” she said.
“The Society of the Mercaii is an organization given up to the study of hedonism and sex.”
“I didn’t know that at the time,” she snapped. “I thought I was going to be engaged in intellectual inquiry.”
“Intellectual inquiry?”
“Yes.”
She looked away, which just annoyed him further.
“In what? What did you think the Society could do?”
She remained silent for a few moments. Finally, she spoke. “I feel things,” she said. “I have a Gift.”
He folded his arms, recalling her conversation with her uncle on the steps the night he’d rescued her. “A gift?”
“I feel what other people are feeling. I can sense their emotions. I wanted to know if the Society knew of any other people like me.”
“You can sense other people’s emotions?” he asked. He wondered if she couldfeelhis incredulity.
She frowned at him.
“A great many people mock what they don’t understand,” she said.
“You’ll find that the majority of the world mocks clairvoyance. Most of us are rational.”
“I’m not daft. I’m fey, but I’m not daft.”
“Then I needn’t bother telling you what I think,” he said. “Since you can feel it.”
“I don’t read minds,” she said.
“Tell me.”
She frowned at him again.
He smiled. Evidently, she was cross when her bluff was called.
“You’ve been grieving,” she said suddenly, her tone as flat as the look in her eyes. “Is that why you’re so angry? Because the woman you love isn’t here, and I am?”
The question was so unexpected it stole his breath.
Silence ticked between them, marked by the sounds of ordinary life. Another vehicle passed, and the horses seemed to greet each other. Inside, however, each was mute. Neither looked away, as if rooted to this place, this moment, by some tenuous connection.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he finally said.
She smiled slightly, the expression without humor. A simple curve of the lips that meant nothing and conveyed little. She tilted her head, studying him as if she were a curious bird.
