Chapter Twenty #3
if they were connected by some unseen tether. Even as one of us pulled away, it only brought the other nearer. It was utterly
provoking.
Fascinating. Maddening. Enthralling. Exactly what I might have said about him.
My gaze slid away as I muttered, “Cunning bastard.”
“Clever chit,” he answered good-naturedly.
That was exactly what we were, having stripped ourselves of the expectations and rigorous, inane rules of society. The fact
that those rules were now starting to make an alarming amount of sense only made me resent him more.
A woman could be told a thousand times that God and man alike measured her value in the purity of her body and heart, and
forget every instance when faced with a charming smile. I understood now why courting built in a protective distance; with
your body burning with desire, it was nearly impossible to remember the consequences of drawing dangerously closer, of giving
in to temptation.
A handsome man was a temptation. A handsome man with a sly smile and a ruthless edge was an enemy to virtue.
Virtue is nothing but another way for men to leash a woman, Mama’s voice rose in my mind.
I had never once desired to be kept, having seen what happened when a woman surrendered her autonomy for the supposed protection
of marriage. Society was a garden in which no unruly flowers would be allowed to grow. But to be wanted . . . to be seen . . .
to be known . . .
That was something else entirely, wasn’t it?
Finally, after nearly ten minutes of the Black Needle killing his way across Gallia and the Narrow Sea, the fiddler collapsed
into a seat to rapturous applause and calls for an encore.
It occurred to me that one of us should have suggested venturing out, given the late hour and the way the occupants of the
pub were growing restless, each small jostle and slurring word a spark that threatened to explode. But neither of us did.
The music spun up again at a thumping, stomping pace, and empty tankards were replaced with fresh offerings, and the loamy dark ale spilled forth to stain shirts and the already sticky floor.
“What does happiness smell of?” Foxcourt asked suddenly.
“Are you asking out of genuine curiosity or to find a new line of mocking?” I asked.
He gave a wry smile. “Call it professional interest.”
“As an avid collector of secrets?” I finished for him. Some of the defensive tightness in my chest eased.
Foxcourt didn’t protest that characterization. If anything, he seemed to have taken it as a compliment.
This was far safer ground for us to dwell on, at least.
“Like honeysuckle,” I said, “or sun-warmed grass. It’s lovely.”
His expression softened. “I meant to you. I seem to recall a lady giving me a rather impassioned, if not slightly nauseated, speech about the connection between scent
and memory.”
And just like that, the safe ground crumbled beneath my feet.
“Violets,” I heard myself say. “It smells of violets. They were growing in the window box of the boarding room I took. It
felt like a sign from Mama it was meant to be mine. And it was.”
“But you don’t wear that scent as a perfume,” Foxcourt said, his brows drawing together. “In fact, you don’t wear perfume
at all.”
“Noticed that, did you?” I said, trying and failing to capture his arrogant tone from earlier.
Noticed. He noticed.
“I’ll use coffee grounds or a mask or even a small posy like this one as a temporary measure to help with overpowering scents,”
I said, softly touching the flowers. “But wearing perfume, even a strongly scented soap, can inhibit the purity of other scents
while I’m working. It also can interfere with my ability to pick up on what others are feeling.”
He nodded. “Entirely reasonable.”
“Even if I wanted to wear it, a violet is what you might call a ‘silent’ flower,” I added. “It cannot be distilled into an
oil by current methods, it can only be replicated using a blend of other flowers. And yes, I acknowledge the irony of my mother
naming me after a mute flower.”
“Perhaps she was thinking of its other traits,” Foxcourt said, leaning back against his chair as he regarded me. “They’re
resilient things, violets. As persistent in growing up through the cracks of a street as they are in woodlands and gardens.
They survive even the harshest winters.”
A flush rose from my chest at his words. I tried to dispel it with a sardonic reply. “Don’t forget they also symbolize modesty, innocence, and faithfulness. But to most, they’re just bothersome weeds, impossible to drive out.”
It had felt imperative I make the joke before he could, as if it might somehow sting less. I had spent my childhood unwanted,
and that feeling had never entirely left me.
“They are rather difficult to kill,” Foxcourt noted. “I approve.”
I only shook my head, my gaze drifting idly around the pub. The rain had eased, and, really, we needed to leave. But that
loose-limbed feeling was still with me, and I felt calm now for the first time in days. I was loath to spoil it.
Something in the way Foxcourt shifted, lowering his foot back to the ground, made me glance at him again.
“My uncle once told me that he thought of their scent as quite melancholy, as it reminded him of twilight, just before night
comes,” Foxcourt said after a moment, looking a bit tortured. Clearly it had been an effort to dig that treasure up from his
memory and offer it to me freely. “But he thought that scent was all the more precious because it rarely lasted as long as
the sky held that final hint of color.”
“That’s a perfect description of it,” I said. “It’s a cool, powdery scent—I’ve always felt that coolness is what made it feel
despondent. Sadness, especially grief, smells of snow.”
I’d always wondered if that was the true reason my mother named me Viola.
Foxcourt stilled, his eyes turning wary, as if I’d stumbled upon something not meant for me. “Snow.”
“Yes,” I said, wondering at his reaction. “Your uncle was a remarkable person.”
“You would have enjoyed each other immensely,” Foxcourt admitted after a moment, rasping a hand over his jaw. “I used to find
it all very trying when he spouted on about the vibrancy of eglantines and the grace of larkspur, but it’s remarkable what you miss when you’re faced with the prospect of never having it again.”
The truth of his words resonated in me, echoing painfully. Each day since Mama’s death had brought with it some new reminder
of what I had lost, adding another crack in my heart.
“You realize you’ve only proven my point,” I said, trying for a light tone. “Scent does evoke strong emotion in you, whether you acknowledge it or not. It revives memory and returns the dead to us, if only for a moment.”
“I wouldn’t go quite that far,” he said. “I miss being able to discuss matters with him. He had a knack for looking at a situation from a thousand
different angles.”
“Ah,” I said, “and so the hardened stoicism returns.”
Foxcourt swallowed. I had the most absurd feeling of protectiveness as I watched his face then, the way he seemed almost flustered
by what he was about to say. I didn’t need to scent his feelings to know he was arguing with himself; I’d learned to watch
for the way he idly toyed with his thumb, the way his gaze slid to the side, as if needing the space to think.
“Viola,” he said at last, almost too softly to hear, “there is one scent I miss.”
I didn’t dare to so much as draw a breath.
“My mother wore a perfume—blackberries and lemon, with a bit of tea,” he said. “Every dress, every handkerchief, every cloak
smelled of it. I searched for it, for a time, but I’ve never been able to find it.”
And now she’s gone. The unsaid words were there, not needing to be heard when they were felt so deeply. I knew by his inability to meet my eyes,
the way the red crept into the tips of his ears, that he had likely never told anyone this before.
“It sounds beautiful,” I said sincerely.
“It was.”
The old ache in those two words stirred my own. My hand moved, almost of its own accord, loosely covering his bigger one.
His gaze flicked up from the table to meet mine, and the moment shivered between us.
Anything might have happened then, had the dank pub air not suddenly turned acrid with the smokiness of burnt parchment. A
sickly thread of sulfur wove through it, the scent trail slipping like an adder around the heels of the crowd. Impatience,
redolent with malice.
My hand tightened around Foxcourt’s, but he was so attuned to even the subtlest changes in my expression, he had already leaned
forward. My heart sped, kicking painfully against my ribs.
I was careful not to turn, inclining my head ever so slightly in the direction it seemed to be emanating from. My eyes skated
right, where a man in a limp, large-brimmed hat had edged into the crowded pub, leaving the door ajar behind him. He scanned
the room.
It felt like a tragedy to watch Foxcourt’s relaxed demeanor change, the muscles of his body tensing, his expression shuttering.
His free hand slid down to his waist, where he felt for something—a weapon, no doubt.
I remembered my earlier assessment of him then.
The underworld god had returned. The hard line of his mouth stirred my pulse, quickening it further.
And then the candlelight caught the spiked silver knuckles the man wore, and a little hush fell over the nearby men who noticed.
Word had spread about the rich widow in the pub until it had finally reached the ear of an ambitious Stone Slogger—or perhaps
Greystone himself.
Now it was truly time to go.
My hand released his as we both slowly slid our chairs back. Somehow, without a word needing to be spoken, I read exactly
what he wanted me to do. I cleaved myself to his side, grasping his arm, pretending to drunkenly stumble. Foxcourt’s eyes
flashed with a glimmer of amusement, and his free hand lifted my cloak’s hood again.
The stench of the Slogger trailed behind us as we wove through the bodies between us and toward the door behind the bar.