Unfortunately, Hollis couldn’t think how to say it.
His gaze flicked to the front door. She was pestering him now and had to speak up or lose him. “There is one more thing I have to tell you. Please,” she said, and unthinkingly, impulsively, grabbed his wrist.
Mr. Brendan very slowly looked down at her hand on his wrist. Hollis did, too. Why did she keep doing things like this—hugging him, and putting her hand on him? She should have let go immediately. But she didn’t. She stared at her hand on his wrist and imagined that her fingers couldn’t close all the way around it. She stared at the bit of hair that peeked out from his cuff, at his knuckles, and noticed one of them was scarred. When she did at last look up from his wrist, she found Mr. Brendan looking at her. And his gaze was incendiary.
She let go.
“It’s important,” she insisted. “And...you left your cake.” She tried to muster a laugh as she gestured lamely to the door of her dining room.
His gaze was still locked on her, and she wondered if her flesh was turning fiery red. “Lord Dromio will be expecting me shortly.”
“Mr. Brendan, please—it won’t take more than a minute. Or two. Possibly three.” She was hoping that was a lie. She was hoping he would stay and tell her everything. She wanted to know it all. “Do you remember what I told you about the London Philological Society?”
“How could I possibly forget it?”
She took a step backward, toward the door of her office. “And do you remember I told you that they meet every Tuesday and Thursday afternoon at the London Library?” She stepped into the dining room.
Mr. Brendan glanced at the front door, then at her. He followed her. “I do.”
She started toward the far end of the room, to the armchairs where she’d spent many afternoons with her needlework. She turned back to face him and spoke louder. “And do you remember that I said I wait for them every Tuesday and Thursday to press my case?”
He had taken a few more steps into the room, watching her. He nodded.
Hollis made it to the chairs and picked up his plate of cake. He’d taken only a bite of it. She held up the plate. He watched her set down the cake again near the chair he’d taken earlier. “I recall everything you said, Mrs. Honeycutt.” He walked to the chairs, looked at her, then at the cake.
Hollis sat. So did he. She hid her smile by looking at her lap a moment. “The short of it is, Mr. Brendan, that while I have not been able to persuade Mr. Shoreham to give me entrance, I have had a lot of time to study the history of Alucia and Wesloria.”
He picked up the plate. “I would hope that you would have used that time to engage in something far more pleasurable than reading dusty history books.” He took a generous bite of the cake and made a sound of approval.
“They’re not dusty books to me,” she said. “I find them fascinating. My sister will one day be queen of Alucia and I should like to know as much as I can about the country where she’ll live.”
“Yes, I suppose she will,” he said, nodding. He took another bite of cake. “Frankly, I had forgotten your relation.”
So had everyone around her, quite honestly. “The history of Alucia is terrible, what with all the betrayals and rebellions. It’s very encouraging to see the country move in a more productive direction, isn’t it? Or at least in the direction the duke will take it once he becomes king.”
Mr. Brendan shrugged. “That could be many years yet.”
“True.” She drew a breath, seeking her courage. “But I must say, it is the Weslorian history that fascinates me.”
His fork stilled on the plate. His gaze seemed to darken slightly. “How so?”
“It’s dark and bloody, too, isn’t it? So much fighting and many betrayals. At least until King Maksim took the throne.”
He eyed her warily as he put aside the plate of cake. Hollis tried to keep from fidgeting, but she felt like she was sitting on a hive of bees.
“The king’s father is the one who brought peace, such that it was, after years of rivalries between the lords,” Mr. Brendan said.
“Ah,” she said, because she couldn’t quite think with him looking at her so intently. But here, on the very tip of her tongue, the thing she wanted to broach. She hesitated, because for a very long time, she had behaved precisely in the way society expected a woman of her standing to behave. It was her duty to do the responsible, polite things—she was a married woman, after all. Caroline was lawless, and Eliza had spent the last several years before meeting her prince walking about the markets looking for clocks to repair. Who else would hold up the decorum of the Tricklebank family in the face of the world?
And then Eliza moved to Alucia, and Caroline moved to the country, and Hollis was left behind. She’d always been the one who could be relied upon to do the right thing, say the right thing,bethe right thing, and they’d gone off and left her to do all the right things on her own. She had nothing to occupy her. The gazette, as unusual as it was, was not the answer. The gazette was about a whole other life that really didn’t exist any longer. She wanted something more for herself. She wanted a life that had meaning. She wanted to put the past behind her and find her way forward.
Mr. Brendan was looking at her. He was frowning dubiously. Perhaps he thought she was having a stroke, or the cat had got her tongue. What made her hesitate was that what she was about to say was so rude and improper that her former self would have been ashamed of her. But the new Mrs. Honeycutt—the bored, lonely, I-need-more Mrs. Honeycutt—was sick of what she’d become. She cleared her throat. She smiled with empathy for the man who she was certain had once been destined to be a king.
“What I found most tragic in Weslorian history was the loss of the baby crown prince. Stolen from his cradle in the middle of the night and never seen again.”
The color drained from Mr. Brendan’s face. He braced his hands on his knees as if he expected to be struck.
“I can’t imagine the horror for his parents.”
