Molly slipped a penny into my hand.
“What’s this for?”
“To pay for whatever you’ve been thinking so hard that you’ve been sitting on the edge of my skirt while I’ve twice asked you to lift up. I don’t think you’ve heard a word I’ve said.”
I sighed. “Verity and Regal are so different, I cannot imagine one choosing a wife for the other.”
Molly looked puzzled.
“Regal will choose someone who is beautiful and wealthy and of good blood. She’ll be able to dance and sing and play the chimes. She’ll dress beautifully and have jewels in her hair at the breakfast table, and always smell of the flowers that grow in the Rain Wilds.”
“And Verity will not be glad of such a woman?” The confusion on Molly’s face was as if I were insisting the sea was soup.
“Verity deserves a companion, not an ornament to wear on his sleeve,” I protested in disdain. “Were I Verity, I’d want a woman who could do things. Not just select her jewelry or plait her own hair. She should be able to sew a shirt, or tend her own garden, and have something special she can do that is all her own, like scrollwork or herbery.”
“Newboy, the like of that is not for fine ladies,” Molly chided me. “They are meant to be pretty and ornamental. And they are rich. It isn’t for them to have to do such work.”
“Of course it is. Look at Lady Patience and her woman Lacey. They are always about and doing things. Their apartments are a jungle of the lady’s plants, and the cuffs of her gowns are sometimes a bit sticky from her paper making, or she will have bits of leaves in her hair from her herbery work, but she is still just as beautiful. And prettiness is not all that important in a woman. I’ve watched Lacey’s hands making one of the keep children a fishnet from a bit of jute string. Quick and clever as any webman’s fingers down on the dock are her fingers; now that’s a pretty thing that has nothing to do with her face. And Hod, who teaches weapons? She loves her silverwork and graving. She made a dagger for her father’s birthday, with a grip like a leaping stag, and yet done so cleverly that it’s a comfort in the hand, with not a jag or edge to catch on anything. Now, that’s a bit of beauty that will live on long after her hair grays or her cheeks wrinkle. Someday her grandchildren will look at that work and think what a clever woman she was.”
“Do you think so, really?”
“Certainly.” I shifted, suddenly aware of how close Molly was to me. I shifted, yet did not really move farther away. Down the beach, Smithy made another foray into a flock of gulls. His tongue was hanging nearly to his knees, but he was still galloping.
“But if noble ladies do all those things, they’ll ruin their hands with the work, and the wind will dry their hair and tan their faces. Surely Verity doesn’t deserve a woman who looks like a deckhand?”
“Surely he does. Far more than he deserves a woman who looks like a fat red carp kept in a bowl.”
Molly giggled.
“Someone to ride beside him of a morning when he takes Hunter out for a gallop, or someone who can look at a section of map he’s just finished and actually understand just how fine a piece of work it is. That’s what Verity deserves.”
“I’ve never ridden a horse,” Molly objected suddenly. “And I know few letters.”
I looked at her curiously, wondering why she seemed so suddenly downcast. “What matter is that? You’re clever enough to learn anything. Look at all you’ve taught yourself about candles and herbs. Don’t tell me that came from your father. Sometimes when I come by the shop, your hair and dress smell all of fresh herbs and I can tell you’ve been experimenting to get new perfumes for the candles. If you wanted to read or write more, you could learn. As for riding, you’d be a natural. You’ve balance and strength . . . look at how you climb the rocks on the cliffs. And animals take to you. You’ve fair won Smithy’s heart away from me—”
“Fa!” She gave me a nudge with her shoulder. “You talk as if some lord should come riding down from the keep and carry me off.”
I thought of August with his stuffy manners, or Regal simpering at her. “Eda forbid. You’d be wasted on them. They wouldn’t have the wit to understand you, or the heart to appreciate you.”
Molly looked down at her work-worn hands. “Who would, then?” she asked softly.
Boys are fools. The conversation had grown and twined around us, my words coming as naturally as breathing to me. I had not intended any flattery, or subtle courtship. The sun was beginning to dip into the water, and we sat close by one another and the beach before us was like the world at our feet. If I had said at that moment, “I would,” I think her heart would have tumbled into my awkward hands like ripe fruit from a tree. I think she might have kissed me, and sealed herself to me of her own free will. But I couldn’t grasp the immensity of what I suddenly knew I had come to feel for her. It drove the simple truth from my lips, and I sat dumb and half a moment later Smithy came, wet and sandy, barreling into us, so that Molly leaped to her feet to save her skirts, and the opportunity was lost forever, blown away like spray on the wind.