Chapter Twenty-Four #3
Her mother was silent for a long moment, her gaze thoughtful.
“I don’t mind,” she said at last. “I’ve always liked Ashbridge—he was ever so polite when Freddie knew him, and I thought it a shame that politics got in the way of their friendship.
I find him even lovelier now, seeing the way he looks at you.
But”—and here, she hesitated again, as if searching for the right words—“the fact is, it doesn’t matter if I mind.
You like him, and I think it’s about time the rest of us started trusting your judgment a bit more. ”
Vesper, for a moment, couldn’t speak; her lower lip was suddenly not feeling at all sure of itself.
However, she had never been one to allow an opportunity to pass her by, and so she said, quite cheerfully, “I’m glad to hear it.
Because I’ve been thinking I’d like to paint the office at Holloway’s bright pink. ”
Her father still had excellent hearing, it turned out; a pity, Vesper thought idly, as she listened to the eruption from that quarter. In the end, however, he was easy enough to soothe, once she agreed to settle for a pretty jewel-toned wallpaper instead.
It had, of course, been what she’d had in mind all along, but there was no need for him to know that. Men really were dreadfully easy to manipulate.
Max caught her eye, a look of suspicion on his face that only deepened when she smiled angelically at him.
Most men, she amended. Of course Max would be an exception, as he was to so many things.
It was, she feared, why she liked him so much.
The next morning, the sun was high in the sky by the time either of them mustered the energy to leave the bed, and it was Vesper, not Max, who retrieved the morning newspapers from her front step.
She brought them back to bed, crawling in beside Max, who had drifted off into a light doze in the wake of their recent exertions, stretched out on his stomach, the muscled expanse of his back on display.
She paused to appreciate the sight, and the way his face looked younger in slumber.
Then she dropped a copy of The Spark on his head.
“Mmph,” he muttered, which Vesper found satisfying. She was used to being the one difficult to rouse, but she tended to find sex energizing, whereas Max, she was learning, lapsed into something approaching a coma afterward. She decided to take it as a compliment.
Today, the front page of The Spark read RAFFLES RESIGNS FROM PARLIAMENT; GRIMME-NOX QUESTIONED BY METROPOLITAN POLICE.
“I expect your father—Grimme-Nox, I mean—has had an absolutely awful twenty-four hours,” she said happily, and then watched as a thoughtful expression crossed his face. “What is it?” she asked, curious, and he glanced at her.
“He came to see me yesterday morning,” he said, his voice low and still rough from sleep. “Before I came to see you. I think he was trying to—I don’t know. Unnerve me? Get the last word?”
“And did he?”
“No,” he said, “because after a few minutes, I got tired of listening to him, and simply told him goodbye and shut the door in his face.”
Vesper let out a hoot of delighted laughter. “I wish I could have seen that—he must be furious.”
“Probably,” he agreed, but he didn’t sound as though he cared much one way or the other. “It’s just that I realized, as we were talking, that I don’t care. After all this time, this ridiculous fixation on trying to best him—I simply don’t care what he thinks about any of it.”
“Good,” she said softly, and leaned over to kiss him. It was meant to be a quick peck on the lips, but he dropped the paper and curved his hand around her neck, pulling her closer. She felt herself smiling against his mouth.
“If Simon’s repeal bill passes, I expect things will change at Holloway’s,” she said, a while later once he’d released her and she’d caught her breath.
She was leaning against him, her head on his shoulder.
His arm was round her shoulders, his fingers tracing a pattern along the bare skin of her arm.
“It will be nice to think about other ideas for running the club, rather than just focusing on how to work around Forbiddance. I was thinking…” She trailed off, wondering how he would react.
She felt his head move as he glanced down at her.
“What?”
“I was wondering about speaking to my parents about expanding our membership—or having a certain number of memberships available at reduced cost.” She chanced a glance up at him, and his gaze was warm.
“I kept thinking about the things you’ve said, and the way you viewed magic as something for the privileged elite.
I’d like… well, I’d like to change that.
I love magic, and I want more people to experience it.
I know there are some pubs for the working classes, but I’d like to make Holloway’s a more welcoming place.
” She toyed with the bedspread. “I was hoping that you’d be willing to help me with that… if—”
“If?”
“If you wouldn’t find it too much, to be involved at a magical club.
” She sat up, allowing his arm to slide from her shoulders.
“I don’t expect you to change your mind about magic overnight but, well, the club is a big part of my life.
We can keep our work separate. But I was hoping, if you were willing…
you might want to help me make it something better, instead. ”
He leaned down and kissed her. “There’s still a lot about magic that I don’t like,” he said frankly, and he pressed a hand to her lips to still her when she opened her mouth to reply.
“But I’ve come to realize that the magical world that my father and those tossers at the Duke and Earl represent—it’s not all of it.
You’ve shown me that.” He paused, then added, “I’d like you to show me the rest of it, too. If you wanted.”
“I do.” She smiled at him, then, so wide that her cheeks ached. She wrapped her arms around his neck, and said, very solemnly as she pulled his face down to hers, “Of course, magic is still illegal, pending legislation in Parliament, so as a law-abiding citizen, I suppose I’ll simply have to wait—”
He stopped her words with his mouth; she felt his smile against her own. And when he laughed as he kissed her, it felt like its own kind of magic.