There was a short silence. “You remember that?”
“I remember everything you’ve ever said to me, Vita.”
Faint color stole into her cheeks, but she said firmly, “My name is Zoë.”
“ ‘That which we call a rose, by any other name smells as sweet,’ ” he quoted softly.
“Stop it. I don’t want that kind of thing from you.”
“What do you want, then?”
She was silent for a minute, then folded her arms and said, “The truth, for a start.”
“I’ve never lied to you, Vita.”
She snorted. “Really? What about telling me you’d had Hamish drowned and sent Rocinante to the knackers?”
He spread his hands. “For that I apologize—again. As I said, I was angry at the time.”
He smiled and sat back in his chair, crossing one long leg over the other. He’d worn buckskin breeches and gleaming high boots—not at all the usual sort of attire for a morning call. Not that this was a morning call, exactly: he’d been invited.
He saw her eyeing his boots. “Do my boots offend you? I went riding this morning and came straight here afterward. There’s a boy holding my horse outside.”
She made an insouciant “don’t care” sort of gesture.
“Do you ride? Perhaps we could go riding together? I gather your sisters are fine horsewomen.”
“Mycousinsare, yes. I, however, do not ride at all.” Because orphans on the parish are not, of course, routinely given riding lessons.
“Pity. I think you’d enjoy it.”
“Don’t change the subject. I’m not finished discussing the lies you told me.”
He frowned. “But I apologized for that.”
“And what about the lies you told about those three wives?”
“But those wives are real.”
Her jaw dropped. “What?But you promised me, on your word of honor—”
“That I wasn’t married and never had been. Yes. And that’s the truth.”
“But you just said—”
“That the wives were real, and so they are.”
She shook her head, frustrated. “I don’t understand.”
“Then I shall explain.” He sat back, relaxed, not seeming the slightest bit discomfited. “As I think I told you before, the oldest wife is the bossiest. She thinks she has all of us—the other wives as well—under her thumb.”
“But not you?”
“No, not me.”
She eyed him thoughtfully. This was sounding familiar. “Go on.”
“In her youth she was never what you might call a beauty, but as she aged she has become…you might say handsome. A face full of character, not necessarily appealing, but strong and very definite. She does not tolerate fools lightly, and she considers most people fools.”
