Chapter Twenty #2
his fingers tapping against the table in time to the singing men. Above us, a light pattering of rain became a torrent, thundering
through even the riotous song.
“Did you find what you were looking for?” I asked him.
He nodded, frustration creeping into his expression. “It was exactly what the informant claimed. Gallian wine and a few antiques.
Nothing in such great quantity that it would pass as payment.”
“Did Reddy give you the name?” I pressed. When he held up the folded foolscap, I asked, “Did you recognize it?”
“I’m not certain,” Foxcourt said, the line of his jaw tensing. “There are any number of people with the name Dobbin in our kingdom, let alone Linden.”
“Dobbin?” I echoed. The name tickled my memory, but it was a moment before I recalled why. “Spelt with two b’s and an i?”
The list in Mama’s journal, of the shops and vendors she had purchased oils from in the past. Or had it been mentioned elsewhere,
with one of the formulations? Damn it all, I’d read it enough times. Why couldn’t I remember?
He set his empty glass down. “You know of a Dobbin?”
“I might,” I said. “I’d need to check my mother’s journal to be sure. We’ll . . . we’ll need to go to my boardinghouse to
retrieve it.”
A few days ago, the thought of Foxcourt in my home would have filled me with revulsion, if it had crossed my mind at all.
The thought of bringing anyone there did. And so I hadn’t. I had never wanted to bare that part of myself to anyone.
Foxcourt’s cool, assessing gaze would see it all: the way I lived, my oils, how very few possessions I had to my name, and
no doubt countless other little tells about myself.
Why—why—then did it feel safe to do so?
“All right,” he agreed. His eyes drifted up to the roof, where the passing storm was drumming in time to the music. “But perhaps . . .
after the rain?”
“No sense in drowning ourselves,” I concurred, reluctant to surrender the warmth in my chest to the damp night air. Besides,
a summer storm tired itself out in minutes, not hours. We could wait a few moments more, especially now that we had a lead
on the nectar.
It was worth it to see Foxcourt like this—at ease, almost leisurely. I wouldn’t have believed the uptight toff capable of
relaxing, if I hadn’t witnessed it with my own eyes. The change was so remarkable, it felt as if he were someone else entirely.
Or maybe that was only a product of my earlier conversation with Reddy, who had given me a different lens to see him through.
“Reddy thinks that the duke’s actions are to punish you for surviving,” I said softly, “for denying him what he desires.”
Foxcourt’s lips compressed. “Reddy needs to keep his thoughts to himself.”
“Do you agree with him?” I asked.
“Not entirely,” Foxcourt said. “I don’t think it’s as simple as him resenting my existence, because by all accounts, he’s been like this since he was a child.
His key has always been a need to be admired as superior to all others.
It would be ridiculous and far less frightening if he possessed empathy. ”
“His key?” Something in the way he had said it had nudged at my curiosity.
Foxcourt had been rubbing his thumb along the edge of the empty glass, slowly teasing out unwelcome images in my mind of where
else he might draw those lazy circles. At that, he paused, licking at his lips, as if inwardly repeating the words he’d spoken
back to himself.
I leaned over the table, whispering playfully, “Your secret is safe with me.”
“I know,” he said, softly. “It’s only that you’ll hate it.”
“Well, now you simply must tell me,” I said. “I find I need a new reason to hate you.”
“Because you’ve forgiven me of the first?” he asked. It might have been the drink softening the edges of my thought, but I
could have sworn he sounded almost . . . hopeful.
“No, but you are chipping away at my resolve there,” I admitted.
He didn’t smile, as I might have expected—might have hoped, because I found I rather liked that smile when it was unguarded.
No more rum, I ordered myself. Ever. Ever.
Foxcourt braced his arms on the table and leaned forward, until our faces were mere inches apart, and I could see the slivers
of blue in his eyes.
“Every person I encounter is like a letter written in code, waiting to be deciphered,” he said. “Most code breaking involves
looking for a pattern or a key that unlocks the contents in their entirety. People are very much the same. In time, they learn
how to disguise their pain and longings, but there’s always something that explains why they are the way they are—some event
or belief. Once you find it, you can often predict how they’ll respond to any situation.”
Forgoing manners entirely, I set my elbow on the table, resting my chin on my palm as I studied him, disarmed by the wary
hope in his face as he drew in a breath and held it, waiting to see if I would understand.
Wanting me to.
“I told you that you’d hate it,” he said, lowering his dark, spiky lashes.
“No,” I countered. “I see the truth of it. I was thinking it’s similar to what I think of as a person’s essence—there’s often something in that scent that reveals something deeper about them. It’s usually only an impression, though, and not especially helpful.”
His gaze sharpened, intrigued. “Impression?”
“Well, for instance—Fleming plays the violin, doesn’t he?”
“Yes,” Foxcourt answered, surprise flickering over his face. “He plays once a month with a quartet and for us on holidays.”
“I can smell the strings of his instrument. That’s definable,” I said. “But then you have someone like Reddy.”
All at once, Foxcourt’s entire bearing turned cautious. He managed an interested “Oh?”
“I know he buys his boots from that shop on Terrace Street and that he prefers his cheroots with a hint of clove and so on,”
I said. “But then there’s a heaviness that underscores it—something churning, like a midnight storm. Whatever it represents,
that’s his key, isn’t it?”
The earl was momentarily speechless, his throat working as if to swallow the secret back into the vault of his heart. “I couldn’t
betray his trust,” he said, finally. “Ask, and he may tell you.”
“I just might. Perhaps I’ll try your tactic of remaining aloof,” I said. “It’s an effective way to unnerve someone and get
them to prattle on and fill that silence with clues about themselves while you protect your own key.”
And I suspected I knew exactly what event had created Foxcourt’s key. The reason he fought so hard to control everything around
him, to anticipate every need. It had to be connected to Glenmoor, and to his mother.
Where did you go those months when you vanished as a boy? I was desperate to ask him. Who decodes you?
Foxcourt chuckled, looking a little too pleased. “Noticed that, did you?”
“I fear you’ve become predictable, my lord,” I said, that little laugh rocking me like a wave beneath a boat. “What do you
think caused the duke’s key?”
“I don’t know that it was any one thing,” Foxcourt said. “My father was frequently away, and his first wife had little interest
in children, especially after her first and only nearly killed her. Monsters have been born from less, I suppose, though few
are as conceited.”
“Are you so certain it actually is pride and arrogance?” I asked, curious. “It strikes me that someone with that sort of key—needing validation from others—might actually be quite emotionally fragile underneath it all.”
“Not fragile enough,” Foxcourt said dryly.
There was much I could have said to that, including that it must have rattled Glenmoor to see another son—a rival—born to
a woman who wanted that child. Afraid he might pull back if I tried to dig deeper, I changed tack.
“I suppose you’ve already figured out my key,” I said.
His smile returned, warm and intimate. “Every time I think I have it, you surprise me.”
Neither of us seemed to want to acknowledge that our hands were a scant hair from each other on the table. I’d need only to
let my smallest finger drift just that little bit to the right to hook over his. There was a healing scab on it, I saw. Bruising
on the others. I didn’t know why I was surprised; he might have been a toff, but he was a man who courted fights. Relished
them.
“Yes, well,” I said, after I’d mustered a bit of steadiness, “I live to confound and torment.”
“On the contrary,” he murmured. “I find you endlessly fascinating. Maddening.” The edge of his finger ghosted along mine.
“Enthralling.”
Had he—had he breathed out the last, or had I only imagined it? My thoughts vanished like watercolors soaked with rain. That
heat was winding through me again, dark tendrils of it spreading out over my skin in sinuous paths. Over my breasts. Over
the soft skin of my thighs.
Emotion had built to a nearly intolerable degree, shuddering with promise as he leaned that little bit closer—or had I? One
moment I’d been part of the world, and now it was only the two of us, sharing breath. His knee pressed against mine below
the table. His pupils flared as his gaze lowered to my lips.
A frightening stab of yearning overwhelmed me, and I was powerless against it. The thought blazed through my mind like a star.
I want you.
But the words that emerged from my trembling lips were “I hate you.”
He smiled, pulling back, neatly tearing through the moment that had settled over us. “Then we are in accord, madam.”
I wondered if the disorientation I felt now was what I would have felt, had I been able to drink myself into oblivion. I surfaced
roughly, as confused as if I had found myself in a new world. Even the air felt different against my flushed, sensitive skin.
It was a moment before I realized he’d been speaking of his feelings for himself, not me. I floundered, fighting the absurd
instinct to disagree despite having been the one to voice it first. Because of course I didn’t hate him. Not in the way I
should have. I hated my changing feelings and what it did to my pride to admit that my body responded to his as surely as