He laughed. “I should argue with what feels oddly like an insult, but I cannot. I find myself sad often these days.”
“Is sadness an epidemic?” she whispered, almost to herself. Then slightly louder, her face tilted toward him, she said, “I wandered outside for fresh air. To help me think. I, too, like to disappear from time to time.”
“Take all the fresh air you need. You are safe with me. I am too pitiful to pose a danger, remember.” He scooted an inch farther away from her—evidence of his good intentions. “I’ll even pretend you are not here, entirely invisible.”
“I believe you. But… I do not wish to be invisible right now. I’ve had quite enough of that recently.”
“I am sorry to hear that, moon maiden. I am also worried you trust too easily.” Because if he weren’t a gentleman, he’d never be able to resist touching the pale oval of her face, kissing the dark slash of curving lip. But he was.
“Perhaps I do.” She pulled her cloak more tightly around her. “Shall we think together in entirely visible silence?”
He did not want to think. He wanted to talk and to listen to her make familiar words new again in that lovely voice. “What is it your brain is chewing over so thoroughly it needs fresh air to continue?”
She hesitated, a long stretch of silence where she became as still as old George above them. The rustle of her cloak and skirts preceded her answer. “My sisters. I have four of them. Three unwed.” She saidunwedas if it were the most debilitating of diseases.
She’d been made for him. Some star had peeked down at him and forged a woman who could understand his woes. “I have unwed sisters, too.”
“You understand, then. It is quite concerning.”
“A veritable plague.”
“They are so very… vulnerable.”
“Yes.” Exactly. He could care for their bodies, keep them well clothed and well-fed, and give them everything money could buy. Yet still the world could shred them like a sharp blade against a sheer length of muslin. And their hearts… little he could do to protect those. They would give them as they saw fit with no input from him, and even if the men they trusted did not deserve it.
More rustling as she slid closer to him, halving the distance between them. He inhaled to steady his nerves, which seemed to leap at her closeness, and along with the night air, he caughtthe scent of something sweeter. Something cinnamon and something floral. Her? He inhaled again, deeper, dragging it in as if doing so could drag her even closer.
“Who are you?” she asked. She faced him, and he could see the whites of her eyes, see when she blinked, but her face was shadows still beneath the hidden moon at the dim edges of the gas lamps surrounding the garden. So must his face be to her—nothing more than hazy lips moving within a pale oval.
“I am a man with many sisters.Unwedsisters.”
“I was looking for a name, but that tells me more. Even though Ialreadyknew that.” The last bit she grumbled as if she was half a breath away from chastising him.
He scooted into the disappearing space between them. “No names, moon maiden. Not tonight.” Moon madness. Him? Fanciful? Not in years. Decades, it seemed. Another life when he roamed wild over the fields and forests surrounding Clearford Castle, a gaggle of sisters at his back, stick swords strapped to their waists, paper crowns topping their hair.
When he realized he was lifting his hand, reaching out, it was too late to stop it. That’s what he told himself, at least, as he pushed a curl behind her ear. He’d never touched anything quite so soft.
“Aye.” The word a breath. “No names tonight.”
“You understand.”
“I think I do. Tomorrow the work begins. But tonight… right now—”
“Just the moon.”
“And us.” She shook her head. “Madness.”
“You read my mind. How do you do it?”
Her tiny shrug somehow brought them even closer together. He flattened his palm against the ground right at his side. Only the width of another hand would fit between her body and his.
Her hand dropped from her lap, fell into that sliver of a space. “I have long believed souls come in pairs. It is the lucky pair who find one another.”
“A romantic notion.” If he flicked his pinky outward, he might touch her. Did she wear gloves?
“Not always. Sometimes two practical souls meet and bond for reasons other than romance.”
“I pity those souls.” A truth he should not have put into the air. He did not have the luxury to pity himself.
