“So teach me something,” Maddie replied, low and teasing. “There are so many ways I could use nimble fingers. You’d be astonished.”
“I’d bedelighted,” Sophie retorted. Maddie’s answering snicker was ample reward. “Start with your hands like so,” she said, demonstrating on the lower keys.
Maddie tentatively reached out for the piano. Sophie showed her a simple melody, just a brief phrase. Then the same phrase, a third higher. Then the resolution that walked the melody down the scale again to its close. “Good,” Sophie said. “Just keep doing that—I’ll take care of the rest.” They started from the beginning, laughing and having to start over several times on account of missed notes and errors. Maddie was a quick study, though: before long she was banging away at the tune while Sophie filled in the more complicated lower parts. The bounce of the melody brought some of her usual good humor back, and chased away some of the shadows hanging over her.
It was a duet Sophie had known for ages; she took this chance to observe Maddie’s hands closely and at leisure.
Maddie Crewe’s hands were the furthest thing from delicate—they were sturdy, strongly muscular, callused in numerous places. If once they wrapped around your heart, those hands would never let go. Sophie could still feel the pleasing pressure of them. Her chest was tight with longing—and with fear.
The last time she’d wanted something this much—the last time she’d trusted someone this much—it had almost destroyed her.
Maddie Crewe was beautiful—but even apart from her beauty, Maddie Crewe could ruin a person. She was certainly set on ruining Mr. Giles. But she could ruin Sophie, too, even without intending to—especially now that Sophie knew how those hands felt on her skin.
Perhaps that was all just part of the game for Maddie. The thrill of breaking the rules could extend to far more than just the law. Perhaps Sophie was only a different kind of thrill. Someone to be enjoyed and then discarded when some new challenge beckoned.
It wouldn’t be the first time. And Sophie was so tired of being left behind.
Her father’s words ghosted through her mind:You cantellso much about a person by what they do, not by the flattering things they say.
So: What had Maddie actuallydone?
She had warned Sophie away at first—but she hadn’t threatened her. She had teased her and kissed her senseless and more—but she hadn’t done anything Sophie hadn’t wanted her to do. Maddie Crewe had seen a man profit from hurting others, and she had put together a band of people determined to do something about it. And yes, their solution was technically illegal—but the more Sophie learned about Mr. Giles, the more she came to realize that doing what was legal was not always the same thing as doing what was right.
Sophie realized she had already chosen. Law be damned: she was on Maddie Crewe’s side.
She slowed her hands and brought the duet to a close. Maddie was laughing, playfulness back in her eyes, making them sparkle. Sophie’s heart ached with joy to see it. “Come to dinner with me,” she blurted.
“Of course,” Maddie replied at once. “Where?”
“Here. I mean: home. I mean—come join us. All of us.” Sophie shook her head, cheeks heating. Why could she not be graceful, just this once? She tried again. “Have dinner with my family. Meet my parents, endure my siblings. Then ask me to walk you home.”
Maddie cocked her head. “But then you would have to walk home alone. In the dark. And so late at night...”
“Yes, it does sound a little alarming, doesn’t it? Perhaps I shall just stay the night with you to be safe. Come home in the morning.”
Maddie hummed with pleasure at that, but the crease between her brows said she wasn’t fully convinced yet. “Is this some sort of test?”
“Naturally.”
Maddie’s eyes narrowed.
Sophie chuckled. “Haven’t you ever met a lover’s family before?”
Maddie’s hand dove into her pocket and came up full of hairpins. “Just let me make myself respectable again,” she muttered, and began putting up her red hair into proper twists and coils.
“Not too respectable, I hope.”
Maddie let out a strangled noise.
Sophie laughed. Imagine: she had managed to flummox someone as self-possessed as Madeleine Crewe.
She immediately wanted to do it again.
Maddie’s reply was tart. “I suppose your family has met everyone you’ve beenfriendswith?”
Sophie leaned closer. This was going to be fun. “Actually, my father dropped a hint the other day that they’re both aware some of my friendships have been more...friendlythat others.” She heaved a heavy sigh. “And I thought I was hiding it all so cleverly.”
Maddie reached out and played her part of the duet again, slow and sad. “My mother never said a word about any of the girls I flirted with—though she must have heard rumors. It’s a small enough town that everyone knows pretty much everything. It was only when she was dying that she told me about her past with Jenny. I wish...” She sighed and pulled her hands to her lap again. “I wish I’d been able to talk about it with her sometimes, is all.” She glanced ruefully at Sophie. “I’d thought I was so daring and depraved a seductress, an innovator of perversity. And my mother’d been doing it all years before I was born!”
