I pretend to be offended. “It’s rather rude to ask a lady what’s in her handbag.”
“But you’re not a typical lady. Is it money for passage? Are you leaving me so soon?” he jokes.
I take the bag and pull out the worn deck of tarot cards my governess gave me for my thirteenth birthday. I was worried we might have nothing to talk about, and the cards are good for conversation. It’s easier than talking about myself.
“Will you read for me?” he asks. “We have oracles in my homeland, but they live mostly in trees and caves. I much prefer your company.”
I pass him the deck and have him shuffle, then pull a card. The devil smiles up at us from the table. Bram tuts his tongue. “Oh, I don’t like the look of him.”
My heart stutters in my chest, the affection I feel for Bram catching me off my guard. “It means someone is going to betray you.”
A look of worry flashes across his face, but he replaces it just as fast with that kind smile. “You now.”
I don’t need to bother, it’ll be the same card it’s been for months now. No matter how many times I shuffle, it’s always the same. The world.
“What does that mean?” he asks after I draw the card.
It means I’m going to leave. “That I can have everything I want, if only I’m brave enough to take it.” Looking at Bram in the flickering candlelight, I’m struck with the feeling that for the first time, I may have something I want to stay for.
Countess Tribley is napping in her armchair, so Bram walks me back to the cottage alone.
He leaves me at the front door with a gentle kiss to my hand. I suddenly understand what people mean when they say something has given them butterflies. There’s a riot of them in my stomach. “It’s been a pleasure, Lady Ito.”
“For me as well,” I say, and I’m surprised to find I mean it.
He turns just in time to miss the flash of movement from the side door, but I see it: his brother, sneaking out of the cottage and fleeing into the night.
Chapter Eighteen
I have a vague recollection of Marion reading at my bedside by candlelight. Then, of Greer rebandaging my hands. “This is what you get for jumping into the Thames with open wounds,” she lectures, but her voice is gentle, her face etched with concern.
Will the Crown pay my family if I die like this, or will I become just another Benton girl sacrificed to the gossip mill? It is a little funny, I suppose, to attempt a coup against the queen and die of an infection instead.
The dreams set in, places where the colors bend all wrong. I’m at a coronation, a crown on my head. I’m at a tea party, and the walls are melting like chocolate left out in the sun. I’m cantering on the back of a horse through a land that looks nothing like this one.
There’s a strong, calloused hand against my forehead, soothing, like he could brush away the fever.
Brown hair. Sharp eyes.
That one feels the most real.
When I wake again, it’s Olive who is keeping watch. She gasps from where she sits on the chair placed next to my bed and drops her book to the floor.
“You’re up!” she exclaims.
I’m more lucid than I’ve been in days, though still too weak to lift my head.
“We thought you were going to die for certain!” she continues, and I wonder if Olive has ever had a thought she didn’t immediately voice aloud.
Emmy appears in the doorway, leaning casually against the doorjamb. “Don’t say that.” She turns to call down the staircase. “Ivy is awake!”
There’s a flurry of footsteps, then a pile of girls tripping into my room. They’re wearing silk gowns, diamonds in their hair, dressed for a ball. Greer drops her fan of albatross feathers as she rushes to me. “I thought you were dead.”
“I’m sorry to disappoint,” I croak. The other girls laugh, but something brittle and sorrowful crosses Greer’s beautiful face.
Lottie pushes past where everyone is congregated in the doorway. “Give her space!” she calls as she wipes away the hair plastered to my forehead and props me up with pillows. My bones feel one hundred years old, but the burning of the fever has receded. I test the joints of my fingers and find them less swollen. I’m past the worst of it.
“How long have I been out?” I ask.
