CHAPTER TWO THE PROPOSITION #3
“No, Eleanor. You understand the words.”
The use of her name altered the air between them. Her fingers paused upon the edge of a book. Gabriel heard it too late to withdraw.
He continued more carefully. “You do not understand the behaviour.”
“Then explain it.”
He leaned both hands upon the table. “They will look at your gown and decide what may be offered. They will touch your hand, your back or your waist to determine whether you object. They will ask questions designed to make you confess more than you intended. If they believe you are mine, they will test whether I possess you. If they believe I do not, some will treat that as permission.”
A flicker of unease crossed her face. Gabriel felt relief and hated himself for it. He pressed the advantage.
“You may be asked to sit upon a man’s knee during gaming. You may be invited to private supper. Someone may put a hand beneath the table and expect silence because women who enter that club are assumed to accept such liberties.”
Eleanor’s gaze remained upon his.
“Will you allow anyone to touch me without permission?”
“No.”
The answer tore out of him before thought or charm could soften it. The room became very quiet. Gabriel straightened. Eleanor’s expression changed. Not triumph. Something more searching.
“No,” he repeated evenly. “But I cannot prevent every man from attempting it without drawing attention to you.”
“You could teach me how to prevent it myself.”
“That is not the same as teaching seduction.”
“It is part of it.”
“It is not enough.”
“Then what is?”
Gabriel looked at her mouth. His body supplied several possible answers, none suitable for discussion in an unfinished publishing office while Beatrice remained one floor below. He stepped away from the table.
“You also misunderstand the nature of instruction.”
“Do I?”
“A lesson requires intimacy.”
“I assumed it might.”
“You would have to permit me to touch you.”
“I have permitted physicians to touch me without assuming marriage would follow.”
“I am not a physician.”
“No. Your patients appear much happier.”
Gabriel nearly laughed, but her gaze stopped him.
“You believe this is an academic exercise,” he said.
“I believe knowledge is improved by instruction.”
“You cannot reduce desire to grammar.”
“Why not? Both are governed by rules that men claim women cannot understand.”
“You are determined to make this political.”
“Men make everything political by deciding who may learn it.”
Gabriel walked toward the window. Rain blurred the alley below.
A delivery boy hurried between buildings with a bundle of paper beneath his coat.
He had refused women before. Married women whose husbands were allies, young women hoping scandal would force a proposal, lonely women seeking promises he could not honour.
Refusal usually required charm, distance and enough flattery to preserve pride.
Eleanor required truth. He did not wish to give it.
“You think women always fall in love with you,” she said behind him.
Gabriel turned. She had moved closer to the centre of the room, though a safe distance remained between them.
“I did not say that.”
“You implied that lessons might be misunderstood.”
“They might.”
“By me?”
“By either of us.”
Her brows lifted slightly. “That is a more interesting answer.”
Gabriel smiled. “Do not mistake honesty for encouragement.”
“Do women always fall in love with you?”
“Not always.”
“Often?”
“Often enough to encourage caution.”
Eleanor considered him with infuriating seriousness.
“Excessive admiration must be exhausting.”
“It requires stamina.”
“I am relieved you possess no shortage.”
The hint of colour in her cheeks made the dry delivery more appealing than any practiced flirtation.
Gabriel folded his arms. “You believe you would remain unaffected.”
“I believe I can distinguish instruction from affection.”
“Experience suggests otherwise.”
“Whose experience?”
“Mine.”
“Your experience consists of women meeting you under circumstances designed to encourage attachment.”
“And this arrangement would not?”
“No.”
“You propose private lessons in seduction with a notorious rake.”
“For the purpose of entering a criminal society.”
“How reassuringly practical.”
“Precisely.”
He shook his head. “You have no understanding of how easily the body creates expectations the mind did not authorise.”
A silence followed. Eleanor looked down briefly, and he saw the pulse in her throat again. She was not immune. Neither was he. That should have ended the argument. Instead, she reached for one of the programmes.
“You missed three errors.”
Gabriel frowned. “In what?”
“The cipher.”
She spread the programme open upon the table and placed a Greek text beside it.
“The quotation is attributed to Homer.”
“It is Homer.”
“No. It is adapted from Callimachus, though the final line imitates Homeric phrasing.”
Gabriel moved closer despite himself.
Eleanor pointed to the date printed below the emblem. “You used the line numbers as the substitution key. That produces nonsense because the date changes the sequence. The month determines which repeated letters are removed.”
Gabriel read the Greek.
“I do not see it.”
“Because you are using the printed attribution.”
She turned the book toward him and traced one line with her finger.
Her glove had been removed. The movement exposed the delicate bones of her hand and the faint ink stain beside her thumb.
Gabriel’s attention fixed upon that small mark.
He imagined taking her hand and lifting it to his mouth. The thought was absurdly intimate.
Eleanor continued, unaware or pretending to be. “This phrase does not mean ‘the swift god carries a father’s gift.’ The word translated as gift can also mean payment, but only in the Callimachean construction. When corrected, the altered words provide a different message.”
She slid a sheet of paper across the table. Gabriel read the sentence.
THE DAUGHTER COPIES WHAT THE FATHER SELLS.
His amusement vanished.
“Are you certain?”
“Yes.”
“Could the daughter be metaphorical?”
“Possibly.”
“But you do not believe it.”
Eleanor looked at the programme.
“My father altered the translation after I completed it. He received a programme for the Feast. A private publisher has invested in scholarly work connected to Mercury, and the code refers to a daughter copying what a father sells.”
She spoke without emotion, but her bare fingers curled against the table. Gabriel resisted the impulse to cover them with his hand.
“Has Finch sold your work before?” he asked.
“He has published it.”
“That was not my question.”
Eleanor met his gaze.
“I do not know.”
Gabriel understood. She did know, but proof mattered to her because accusation without proof could be turned against the accuser.
“What exactly did your father change today?” he asked.
She explained the original Greek phrase and his altered translation.
Gabriel listened, asking questions concerning each symbol.
Eleanor answered with patient precision, yet the further she went, the more obvious the danger became.
She was not merely useful and was indispensable.
Gabriel could enter the club, charm its members, obtain access to rooms and encourage men to speak.
He could identify fear, greed and deception.
He could not recognise when an ancient quotation had been altered by a scholar who understood his sources better than Gabriel ever would.
Eleanor could read the code. She could not enter the club.
They did need one another. He disliked the conclusion.
“You could continue decoding from outside,” he said.
“Only if the relevant documents leave the club.”
“I can bring them to you.”
“You cannot copy Greek accurately while pretending intoxication.”
“I have managed more difficult tasks in bedrooms.”
“Not in Greek.”
“That depends upon the woman.”
Eleanor’s mouth twitched. Gabriel felt an unreasonable flare of satisfaction at having nearly made her smile.
She moved around the table. “You require someone who can identify the texts as they appear. I require someone who can gain access. There is no sensible reason to separate those skills.”
“There are several.”
“Name one I have not answered.”
He looked at her. Her father’s exploitation had not made her fragile.
It had made her deliberate. She had spent years observing the limits placed around her and learning how to move inside them without attracting notice.
Now she had discovered that invisibility would not take her where she needed to go.
Gabriel knew what it meant to construct a self for survival.
That recognition was another reason to refuse.
“You might be recognised,” he said.
“Then we create an identity no one connects to me.”
“You must appear experienced.”
“Then teach me to appear experienced.”
“You must tolerate being watched.”
“I have been watched all my life. Men simply fail to see what they are looking at.”
“You must appear comfortable beside me.”
“I am comfortable now.”
Gabriel stepped closer. Eleanor remained still.
“Are you?”
“Yes.”
He moved until less than an arm’s length separated them. Her chin lifted slightly. Her breathing changed, not enough for another person to notice, but Gabriel had built half his reputation upon noticing.
He lowered his voice. “You would enter upon my arm. Everyone present would assume I had seen you without your clothes.”
Colour spread slowly over her throat. Gabriel continued, though his own body had begun to object to the lesson.
“They would watch how I touched you. They would look for familiarity. If I placed my hand upon your back, you could not stiffen. If I whispered in your ear, you could not move away. If I looked at your mouth, you would have to behave as though you knew exactly what I intended to do with it.”