Page 73 of The Oxford Guide to Scandal and Lies

“I can’t imagine experiencing that,” she said quietly. “And I see why you didn’t want to take this assignment.”

“But I did enjoy working for the Rook at first.” Sidney dipped his chin, trying to catch her eye again and make her understand. “I enlisted because I was unhappy in Cumberland, and working for him changed my life. I was good at it, it gave me a purpose, and I had two years of successful missions before the incident in France. Only after that day, it all made me sick. I couldn’t eat, I couldn’t sleep. The Rook told me I had to move on…”

The unleashed memories were too strong to ignore now, and Sidney held his breath as France swelled around him in the twilight.

Huddling in the corner of a tent, head buried in his knees. Amélie’s face swimming through his mind, relentless. The Rook kneeling before him, shaking his shoulder.

“These things happen, Braithwaite. The work continues, and I can still use you … though not in this condition.” Eyes assessing him, calm and calculating. “It’s the cost of doing business, my boy. Best not to dwell on it too much if you want to stay useful.”

Something had cracked inside Sidney that night. He had left home to forge his own path, to find purpose outside the mines; and for a while, he thought he’d found it working with the Rook. But those cold, callous words and the horror of Amélie’s death cast a pall over the work Sidney had so deeply enjoyed. He wasn’t doing something useful; he was being used. And people like the Rook didn’t care about others’ sacrifices so long as the work continued.

Sidney disentangled Ginevra from his sleeve and slid his hands down to catch hers. “I didn’t understand how the Rook saw it so simply, and I hated him for it. The world felt different after France; I felt different, like my soul was trying to patch a hole in a dam with sticking plaster. I thought I’d been unhappy at home before the war, but it was tenfold worse after with the nightmares, and I blamed myself for being an idiot. If I’d only stayed home and done what my parents expected, maybe everything would have improved in time…” He trailed off, and Gin’s fingers tightened. “Sometimes there’s a hollow feeling. It was bad right after the war, but Oxford has helped me ignore it well enough. Only when the Rook showed up asking for help, I worried that feeling would swallow me up again if I wasn’t careful. But I’m sorry I was such an ass to you about it.”

“You’re apologizing to me?” Horror flitted through Gin’s eyes. “Sidney, I’m the one who feels like an ass. I should have considered your past, and I’m so sorry—”

Sidney squeezed her hands. “That day in the Botanic Gardens, you said you didn’t tell me about your father for pity, and I don’t want pity either. I’m telling you this now because I want to thank you.”

“Thank me?” Ginevra stepped back, staring at him with bewilderment, but Sidney held her fast.

“I’ve been dodging memories since the war hoping they’d go away, and it only made them stronger … but having a partner has made all the difference, I think.” Sidney traced the small ridges of Ginevra’s knuckles with his thumb and exhaled. “I know something’s broken inside me but working this case with you has given me hope that it can be repaired one day with more than sticking plaster.”

For a moment, Ginevra was quiet. Sidney couldn’t remember the last time he’d talked at such length and was abashed, but he was also relieved she didn’t immediately spout some cheerful froth to lift his spirits. Instead, she studied the lines of his face as though she found that more eloquent than his confession.

“I understand,” she said in a low voice, “at least, as well as I can. My own hardships during the war were very different from yours. I wasn’t shot, for one thing.” There was a touch of wry amusement in her expression, but then it softened into a pain Sidney recognized. “But Mother’s death was a wound I couldn’t really discuss. Everyone at school was sympathetic, but in a chin-up, carry on sort of way. Father was clearly not an option, and my stepmother was the last person to whom I wanted to divulge my heart. I was so very lonely until I met Sarita and Tweety. And you…”

Gin cleared her throat, gently releasing his hands. Sidney ached to reclaim them but refrained.

“You and I are quite different, but we do share one trait,” she continued. “Both of us are terribly opinionated and think our way of doing something is best; only my way embraces surprises, and you prefer predictability. You want to anticipate everything that could go wrong before you begin an assignment and then review it again after the fact—don’t try to deny it,” she said, when he started to grumble. “If the Rook wanted you to move on, I rather wonder if he thought you’d toil over the details of Amélie’s capture until it made you sick with worry and regret—as it did. Perhaps you misjudged his intentions.”

Sidney started to bristle, and Ginevra reached up and smoothed the lapels of his housecoat—as though appeasing an offended cat, he realized with embarrassment. But the gentle pressure of her hands against his chest did a remarkably fine job of softening him toward the Rook. For if Sidney was being honest, something did feel different this time around. He had chalked it up to Ginevra, that the Rook was kinder to a woman than to a soldier in the field. But maybe—maybe—Sidney had been quick to assume the worst of him in France because he was angry.

Rather like he had with Ginevra.

Sidney felt he had already bungled one apology that evening and didn’t want to ruin another. But when he took a breath to express how much he wished he could redo that first day in the library, Gin reached up and brushed a lock of hair from his forehead, her fingers trailing over the plaster at his temple.

“For the record though,” she said softly. “I don’t think you’re broken at all, Sidney. I think you’re perfect.”

Gin looked up to meet his eyes, and something wild brewed there, something so perfectly untamed that the distance between their lips felt compressed to a mere breath. Engaged, engaged, engaged! roared the alarms in Sidney’s head—though if she didn’t trust Craddock to turn in Leland, perhaps that was crumbling apart? Just enough for him to slip inside?

He brushed his fingers down her cheek, and her head tilted into his hand. His skin remembered the warmth of her lips whispering past his in the rain, of her nose teasing him under the desk, and he desperately wanted to feel it again now. He wanted to discover if she tasted like jasmine—

A polite cough from the shadows made Sidney instead consider throwing himself into the privet’s embrace. The electric edge to the night air dissipated like a lever had flipped, and he clenched his hand to his side. With practiced grace, Ginevra assumed the implacable dignity born of generations and turned.

She cleared her throat. “Yes, Abbott?”

An older man stepped forward and bowed his head. “Your father has arrived, miss. He wishes to speak with you in his study.”

As though a heavy cloak had fallen over her, Ginevra’s shoulders went rigid. “Thank you, Abbott. I shall see Mr. Braithwaite back to his room and join the viscount after.”

“Yes, miss.” The butler bowed again and withdrew as silently as he’d arrived.

“You don’t have to watch me,” Sidney said. “I promise, I’m fine.”

“You doth protest too much.” Gin slipped her arm through his and led him toward the exit, but the intimacy was gone. She might as well have been escorting a guest to dinner. “Come. I won’t have you catching your death of night air. It is my turn to play overbearing hostess, which is a role I usually leave to my stepmother.”

Despite the gentle mockery, the catch in her voice at the last word made Sidney relent. “Is your father going to be very angry we’re here?” He wished to curl his hand around hers, to offer to accompany her if it would deflect some of the trouble. But Ginevra kept her gaze on the grand house as they exited the maze, her fingers digging into his biceps like daggers.

“I don’t bloody well care.”