“Lady Lillias... my mother could shoot a deer from the front porch of our cabin. She could load a musket as fast as my father could. She could skin any animal, though my father was better at it, and I’m better than both of them—and turn it into a delicious dinner. There wasn’t one thing she was afraid of, unless it was harm befalling any of us.”
He said words like “cabin” and “skin” and “shoot” deliberately. He laid them down like fortifications between her station in life and his.
She remained wordless and watchful.
“The ladies of The Grand Palace on the Thames created all of this”—he gestured to both buildings—“from what was essentially a ruin. That takes guts and wits and resourcefulness to spare, especially when you start out with nothing to begin with. Inother words, some of the smartest, bravest people I know are women. But even my mother with a musket would be no match for a man truly intent on harming her. That is just the way of the world. You could shout ‘I’m the daughter of an earl’ all you want in the dark down below but that isn’t going to save you. The dark has a way of equalizing everyone, same as death.”
She shifted and brought her knees up, wrapped her arms around them. And still she didn’t speak.
“So it’s a man’s duty and privilege to keep women safe in every way until or if a day comes when that is no longer necessary. Even when a woman happens to make a special effort to put herself, and therefore maybe others, in harm’s way. I just... it just isn’t in me to let it be.”
Her expression was oddly intent now. The breeze caught hold of her shawl and attempted to tug it from her, and she maintained her grip. It was the strangest thing, but she lookedrightup here. Right and happy. She was clearly reviewing everything he’d just said, and he appreciated it. She was difficult, but she was no fool.
“Lillias,” he said softly.
It was difficult to align the complicated things he felt with the proper words. So he said the truest thing he could, slowly and softly.
“I should hate for any harm to ever come to you.”
She studied him in silence. By lamplight, by moonlight, by any light, she was enthralled.
“All right,” she said gently, finally. “I’m sorry to worry you.”
It surprised him. He released the breath he didn’t know he was holding as though it was a burden.
“Do you mind if we stay a few moments longer?” she asked evenly.
“No.”
She turned her head toward where the spires of ships rose darker than the night, and he got the sense that she was drinking it in, the strangeness, the newness. As if it were nourishment of which she’d been deprived.
The wind found nooks to howl and whistle through, turning the city into its own eerily beautiful orchestra. It rose and fell again, yanking at her shawl, inflating his shirt a little, boring of them, moving on. The half-moon was an opalescent arch above them, like the doorway to another world.
“Mr. Cassidy...”
“Mmm?”
“Can your mother still do that? Shoot from the porch?”
“My mother is dead.”
She went still. “I’m so very sorry.”
“Thank you,” he said shortly. “So am I.”
She was thoughtful for a moment. “You tend to use words like bludgeons, Mr. Cassidy. ‘Dead.’ ‘Naked.’ Don’t you think it would be kinder, sometimes, to use a euphemism, to ease people into the blow of the revelation? Because wordsdoconjure.”
“I’d like to point out the irony of someone perched on a roof wishing to be eased into a blow. A stiff wind would make a kite of you.”
To his surprise she laughed. It was the loveliestsound, like bloody spring bursting out all at once. “I’dloveto see the city that way, from way up above.” She sounded wistful.
He couldn’t argue with that. “So would I. I imagine it would be extraordinary.”
“What does a gyrfalcon look like?”
“A bit like the daughter of an earl in flight in a night rail.”
She turned to him and smiled, radiantly, unguardedly delighted.
