“Are you hungry?” Oliver asks, drawing her attention from the paper.
He nods toward a particularly loud makeshift tent standing on the ice behind them. She follows him inside, though referring to it as “inside” is a generous use of the term. The tent is nothing more than a ship’s sail propped up by oars.
If Beatrix still picked pockets, this would be the type of place she’dfrequent. Everyone is more than a little drunk, and there are so many people crammed together they can’t help bumping and jostling each other. And it is dark. It would be easy to slip in and out of the shadows, with no one taking any notice. She’d make a killing.
Beatrix takes Oliver’s hand, and his fingers tighten around hers. When she was a thief, she always went for single marks. They were easier to predict than pairs or groups. “Mind your pockets,” she says under her breath.
When they reach the counter, Oliver buys them each a slice of gingerbread and a drink, even haggles the price down to something less outrageous, a far cry from the man she saved from the gutter. They find a seat on a pair of overturned crates. Beatrix takes a bite of her warm, spiced cake. Oliver passes her a drink.
“What is it?” she asks, taking the mug from him.
“Gin. It will warm you up.”
Beatrix takes a swig of the clear alcohol. She pulls a face that makes Oliver burst out laughing, and he nearly chokes on his gingerbread.
“It tastes like pine needles,” she coughs. “How can you drink this?”
Oliver takes a swig of his own and coughs into his elbow. Beatrix raises an eyebrow at him. “It’s stronger than what I’m used to. Maybe try it in, say, fifty to a hundred years?”
Beatrix shakes her head and hands him her mug. “No, thank you.”
Her gaze falls to the page in her lap. The ink has dried and only slightly smudged. She hands it to Oliver and rests her chin on her hand. “What does it say?”
He holds the page close to his face so he can read it in the dim light. “?‘This frozen clime, and endless track of snow, the northern blast some streams forbid to flow. This was printed on the ice of the River Thames, on Wednesday, February 2, 1814, opposite Queenhithe Stairs, for Miss Beatrix Lancourt, born July the 19th, 1790.’?”
When he’s finished, he offers her the page.
She doesn’t take it. “You keep it.”
“Don’t you want it as a souvenir? It has your name on it.”
Beatrix shrugs. “It’s not like I can read it.”
He looks down at the poem in his hand, thoughtful. “I could teach you. I mean, I’ve never taught anyone to read before, but I can try.”
Beatrix’s heart skips a beat. “You’d do that?”
“Come on.” Oliver takes her hand.
She follows him out of the dark tent and into the glittering night, her heart threatening to burst.
Oliver rents a room at an inn near the river. It’s nothing fancy—a full bed, a small round table, and a faded armchair that’s been stuck in the corner—but it’s warm and it’s dry. It takes only half an hour for Beatrix to feel her toes again.
She lies on the worn floral rug, propped up on her elbows in front of the fire, kicking her stockinged feet in the air as she studies a page in Oliver’s journal. She barely registers him lying on the floor across from her, all her attention focused on the words printed in his neat, blocky handwriting.
“The great what?” She points to a long word scrawled across the top of the page.
Oliver glances down at it. “?‘Exhibition.’?” His brow furrows. “You know what? Maybe we should start with something easier.”
He takes the poem from the Frost Fair, flips it to the blank side, and pulls the stub of a charcoal pencil from his jacket pocket. He starts at the top, filling the page with the alphabet—in upper- and lowercase letters—her name, and a list of words.
“Do your name, too,” she urges. He does.
He turns the sheet of paper to face her. “You should probably learn to read ‘cat’ before ‘Great Exhibition.’?”
Beatrix sighs. “?‘Great Exhibition’ sounds more interesting.”
“I’m sure it is,” Oliver says. “But ‘cat’ is more useful. At least for the next thirty-seven years.”
