She’d not made mention of it to him since he had left it in the library for her, but he supposed he could not blame her for assuming first that they had come from someone else. But he had noticed her sketching within it from time to time, and it had made him feel—strange. Good, but strange. He had neither wanted nor expected her gratitude for it, but it had pleased him to know that she had found it an acceptable replacement.
“Besides,” Mercy continued, with a breezy lilt to her voice, “I suppose it was my fault the old ones were bent. Really, I owed you the replacement of them.”
“How did you get these?” he asked, touching the frames of the new spectacles. “When?”
“Oh, well—” She gave a little shrug of her shoulders. “We went shopping earlier today, and the bookshop we patronized happened to be directly across the street from your oculist’s shop. Marina made mention of it.”
“And?” His eyes narrowed, instantly suspicious.
“And—while the girls were otherwise engaged in their search for a few new novels, I slipped out the front and went over. I simply asked the man if he had kept any notes on what sort of spectacles you might require, and he had, so—so I bought them. I retrieved them from my room when I put my slippers away. They’ve been in my pocket until now.” She patted the pocket sewn into her dressing gown.
“And you could not have given them to me before our game?”
“Thomas,” she chided over her glass, with an exaggerated roll of her eyes. “Ireallycould not have. You might have won if I had.”
Yes; he might well have done. With one hand he removed the spectacles from his face, held the frames close to his eyes, and squinted to bring them into focus. Silver, just as his old pair had been, but—finer, he thought. He’d never purchased anything but the most basic available, because they were meant to be functional, not ornamental. But Mercy had put thought into them, selecting a finer frame with delicate etching upon the earpieces, little furls and frills that reminded him rather of someone of the patterns she’d so carefully designed within her sketchbook. She’d chosen these with thought, with care. Not merely a replacement of an item she’d damaged, but agift.“Why?” he asked again as he replaced the spectacles upon his face. Because for all of her protests, they were too thoughtful a gift to have been given out of obligation.
Another shrug, this one marginally less comfortable, almost sheepish. “I suppose because…because you didn’t laugh at me,” she said. “For my little problem. Even Papa laughs at me sometimes, when I am particularly forgetful. I know he doesn’t mean anything by it, but…” Another shrug, tight and uncomfortable. “You saidwe.”
“Hmm?”
“We,” she repeated. “If it should fail, thenweshall try something else. As if you might also have this particular problem. And I think—I rather liked that. Even if it’s not precisely true, it makes me feel…not so very alone. Not quite so odd, or—or broken.”
“I see.” She couldn’t know it, but the words she’d chosen had been among those his father had often slung at him in the heat of anger over his persistent stammer. He was willing to bet that her father—who had always been indulgent and loving, in his experience—had never cast those word before her. That his mother and sisters would not have done, either. But who did that leave but Mercy herself who had judged herself so?
A little frown pursed her lips. “Haven’t you anything to say?”
“Yes, of course. You’re not to go sneaking out of or into shops in the future.” But the faint plea in her voice, like a child yearning for only a sliver of long-withheld approval, had sparked the realization at last.Hehad given her that impression. Even if he had not, to his knowledge, used those hated words in her hearing, probably he had made her feel that way for years now. Forced those thoughts into her head the very same way his father had done to him.
Mercy threw up her hands, nearly sloshing the remainder of her brandy straight out of her glass. “It was for a good purpose!”
“I know. I am appreciative. Don’t do it again.” He seized her shoulder when she would have turned, drawing her back toward him. “You’re not odd,” he said.
She did not shrug off his hand, but her shoulders hunched a bit as she scoffed. “I think there’s a fair few who would disagree with you there.”
“They might. They’d be wrong.” Just as he had been. “My stammer,” he said. “It’s not left me. I will likely struggle with it all of my life, to varying degrees. Does it make me broken?”
Still her eyes shied away from his. “No, of course not—”
“And these,” he said, touching the fingers of his free hand to the new spectacles upon his face. “Without these, I can hardly see more than a few inches before my face. My eyesight is truly terrible. Does that make me broken?”
“No.” Her teeth gnawed at her lower lip. “The spectacles, they’re just a—a—”
“A tool,” he said. “They don’t repair me. They simply help me to see clearly when I wear them. We will find you tools of your own,” he said. “Perhaps we won’t solve every problem. Perhaps those tools won’t always work. But we will find you your version of spectacles. It is worth the effort.Youare worth the effort.”
Her eyes widened, dark irises dramatically fringed by suchlong, thick lashes. Her lips parted as she sucked in a surprised breath. Even in the dim light, Thomas could see the slow creep of a blush—vibrant, brilliant—searing its way across her pale cheeks, down the long line of her throat.
He’d never seen her blush before, had never imagined her the sort of woman who could be moved to one. For one alarming, desperate moment, he wondered what it would be like to kiss her. To surrender to that maddening urge that afflicted him and just—kiss her. And for that one instant, which seemed to stretch into infinity as if it had been plucked straight out of time itself, he wanted it so badly that he imagined he could taste it already, the brandy-sweet flavor of her on his lips.
For that one instant, he thought she knew it. That there might be something in her that wanted it, too.
∞∞∞
Mercy skittered into her room as if the very flames of Hell had been licking at her feet on her wild race down the halls. Somehow, despite the trembling of her hands, she managed to close the door softly behind her and to brace her back against the cool wood, drawing in several deep breaths in what proved to be a futile attempt to quell the jitters that raced up her spine.
It hadn’t helped. Not even a little.
Damn it all, her heart had fluttered. Like something straight out of those romantic novels Marina and Juliet favored. Like she had once hoped would happen, all those years ago in her first Season, when she, too, had nurtured those foolish, romantic notions which had never come to pass. Which she had long ceased to hope ever would.
