"It was my mother's,"I say, still blushing from the bold compliment. "It was given to her by a village woman in India. A charm of protection. I'm afraid it didn't work for her."
"Perhaps it isn't for protection," Simon says.
I've never thought of that."I can't imagine what else it could be for."
"What is your favorite color?" Simon asks. "Purple," I answer."Why do you ask?"
"No reason," he says, smiling. "I might have to invite your brother to my club. He seems a good fellow."
Ha! "I'm sure he would enjoy that. "Tom would leap through rings of fire for the chance to go to Simon's club. It is the best in London.
Simon regards me for a moment. "You're not like other young ladies my mother trots before me."
"Oh?" I say, wincing, desperate to know how I'm different.
"There's something adventurous about you. I feel as if you have a great many secrets I should like to know."
Lady Denby notes us standing at the windows so close. I pretend to take an interest in a leather-bound copy of Moby-Dick that sits upon a side table. The spine crackles when I lift the cover, as if it's never been read."Perhaps you wouldn't really want to know them," I say.
"How do you know?" Simon asks, repositioning a ceramic figurine of two cupids."Offer me a test."
What can I say? That I suffer from the same delusions as poor Nell Hawkins but that they are not delusions at all? That I'm afraid I'm one step away from the madhouse myself? It would be so nice to confide in Simon and have him say, See, that wasn't so very bad now, was it? You're not mad. I believe you. I am with you.
I let the chance pass. "I have a third eye," I say breezily. "I'm a descendant of Atalanta. And my table manners are inexcusable."
Simon nods. "I suspected as much. That is why we're going to ask you to eat in the stable from now on as a precaution. You don't mind, do you?"
"Not at all." I close the book and turn away. "What terrible secrets do you have, Mr. Middleton?"
"Besides the gambling, carousing, and pillaging?" He falls into step behind me."The truth?" My heart skips a beat. "Yes," I say, turning to him at last. "The truth."
He stares into my eyes."I'm frightfully dull."
"That isn't true," I say, moving away again, looking up at the enormous bookcases.
"I'm afraid it is. I am to find a suitable wife with a suitable fortune and carry on the family name. It's what they expect of me. My wishes don't enter into it at all. I'm sorry. That was far too forward of me. You don't need to hear my troubles."
"No, truly. I'm happy to listen." I am, strangely enough.
"Shall we retire to the parlor?" Lady Denby asks. With a sigh, the maid resumes her scrubbing once the ladies have gone. Simon and I follow slowly.
"Your flower is slipping, Miss Doyle." The rose, pinned to my hair, slides to my neck. I reach for it just as he does. Our fingers touch for a moment before I turn away.
"Thank you," I say, completely flustered.
"May I?" With great care, Simon secures the flower behind my ear. I should stop him, lest he think me too permissive. But I don't know what to say. I am reminded that Simon is nineteen, three years my senior. He knows things that I do not.
There's a tap at the window, followed by another, harder tap that makes me jump. "Who is throwing rocks?" Simon peers out into the hazy dark. He opens the glass. Cold air rushes in, raising gooseflesh on my arms. There is no one below that we can see.
"I should join the ladies. Grandmama will be worried about me."
Making a hasty retreat, I nearly trip over the maid, who never even looks up from her scrubbing.
It is well after midnight when we say our goodbyes and emerge into a night alive with stars and hope. The evening has been a wild jumble for me. There is the good--Simon. His family. The warmth they've shown me. My father regained. Then there is the sobering prospect of meeting Nell Hawkins at Bedlam to see if she holds the key to finding the Temple and Circe. And there is the curious--the rocks thrown against the window.
At the carriage, Kartik seems agitated. "A pleasant evening, miss?"
"Yes, very pleasant, thank you," I answer.
"So I noted," he mutters, helping me into the carriage and pulling away from the curb with a bit too much gusto. What ever is the matter with him?
Once my family is safely to bed, I don my coat and dash across cold, hard ground to the stables. Kartik sits reading The Odyssey and having a cup of hot tea. He is not alone. Emily sits near, listening to him read.
