The corners of his eyes crinkled in amusement, most of it at her expense. “You don’t say. Imagine my luck at collapsing on the doorstep of an actual viscount. And everyone knows theyloverules. May I ask what this one is styled?”
“His name is Lord Bolt.”
His eyes flared in surprise. Then he gave a sudden short, shocked laugh. “Come now. Youcan’tbe serious. Bolt? Lord Bolt? He’s alive, is he?”
She bristled. “But I am indeed telling the truth! The last time I saw him he was alive but you can likely attest to how quickly men can transform from living to dead.”
“Very well,” he said more gently. “I promise I was not laughing at you, Mrs. Gallagher. Forgive me if you feel as though your honesty has been called into question. That’s an unpleasant feeling, indeed, isn’t it? Why, just a few moments ago someone tried to tell me my name was Mr. Bellingham and implied I was a looby.”
She opened her mouth and an arid squeak emerged. “I...”
He smiled beatifically at her.
Her lips, like a snake charmed from a basket, turned up.
His charm was sophisticated and quicksilver but undershot with a devastating sort of gentleness, a deference, that suggested he was protecting her from something. Perhaps the full force of his personality, which he had not yet unleashed. But she wanted to move toward the gentleness. She could feel it working away at the bones of her knees, weakening them.
This was the truly dangerous bit, she realized. This was the thing that exerted a sort of tidal pull.
The nature of tides, however, was that one could never quite predict if they were the sort that would lap gently at your toes or pull you right out to sea.
“In all seriousness, I do appreciate the points you are making,” he said seriously. “I shall regretfully obey the rules, if only to remain in your good graces, Mrs. Gallagher.”
“You ought to follow them because the people here are very kind and very concerned about you, and will likely still feel that way even if you aren’t a vicar. Lord Bolt stitched you. Helga cleaned your shirt. And Mr. Delacorte gave you some medicine from his case and it helped to break your fever and to treat your wound.”
And now she sounded like a scolding governess. Well, so be it. She spoke the truth.
“I look forward to meeting everyone, especially this Mr. Delacorte. He sounds a useful fellow, if he carries medicines about in a case.”
She considered this. “He is a surprising fellow.”
“Rather like me, I expect.” Gently mocking her again, yet in a way that included her in the joke.
She couldn’t help it: she smiled at him again, more fully.
She was surprised when he angled his head slightly away, as though he’d just caught a sunbeam in the eyes.
She wondered what he would do if she said aloud all of the ways in which he had surprised her.You’ve a tattoo of a dagger beneath your arm, Mr. Hawkes, and a fluffy nest of hair in your armpit, and I have never seen such a thing, and another fine trail of it vanishes into your trousers. I saw all of this when you fought your enemies in your sleep. You are shaped in beautiful sections, like the jewel Brundage gave to me. Your skin is soft over hard, hard muscle and you are too lean. When you are asleep, your face is a Renaissance painter’s dream. You look the way your mother must have seen you when she looked in on you at night when you were a little boy. And now, awake, you look like you’ve never been innocent in your life.
She wondered if she looked different now, too. Did her face now reveal that she was no longer innocent, hint at the life she’d led, the things that had happened to her?
Was she a different person in her sleep? Why did it all fall away then, she wondered, and why did we carry it about when we were awake?
Sheknewshe could disarm this man with words. He had his assumptions, too. And his vulnerabilities.
She sensed that one of them was now her.
There was a lovely, breathless power in this. And a responsibility.
“What brings you to this charming inn near the docks, Mrs. Gallagher? Are you perhaps in the midst of a journey?”
“Yes,” she said shortly. Warily.
He spent a moment in silent perusal of her.
“May I ask to where on this globe of ours you are journeying?” he said politely.
“I am going to live with my brother... who needs me.”