Gideon looked at him and gave him a crooked smile. There was no dislike in it; in fact, it was jarringly the look of someone who understood Wil , and why he behaved as he did. Even Wil looked a bit surprised. “There is the problem that Gabriel wil never come back here, of course,” said Gideon. “Not after this.”
Sophie, whose color had started to return, paled again. “Mrs. Branwel wil be furious—”
Tessa waved her back. “I’l go after him and apologize, Sophie. It wil be al right.”
She heard Gideon cal after her, but she was already hurrying from the room. She hated to admit it, but she’d felt a spark of sympathy for Gabriel when Gideon had been tel ing his story. Losing a mother when you were so young you could barely remember her later was something she had familiarity with. If someone had told her that her mother had had a dying wish, she wasn’t sure she wouldn’t have done everything in her power to execute it . . . whether it made sense or not.
“Tessa!” She was partway down the corridor when she heard Wil cal ing after her. She spun and saw him striding down the hal in her direction, a half smile on his face.
Her next words wiped his smile away. “Why are you fol owing me? Wil , you shouldn’t have left them alone! You must go back to the training room, right away.”
Wil planted his feet. “Why?”
Tessa threw up her hands. “Don’t men notice anything? Gideon has designs on Sophie—”
“On Sophie?”
“She’s a very beautiful girl,” flared Tessa. “You’re an idiot if you haven’t noticed the way he looks at her, but I don’t want him taking advantage of her. She’s had enough such trouble in her life—and besides, if you’re with me, Gabriel won’t talk to me. You know he won’t.”
Wil muttered something under his breath and seized her wrist. “Here. Come with me.”
The warmth of his skin against hers sent a jolt up her arm. He pul ed her into the drawing room and across to the great windows that looked down over the courtyard. He released her wrist just in time for her to lean forward and see the Lightwoods’ carriage rattling furiously across the stone yard and under the iron gates.
“There,” Wil said. “Gabriel’s gone anyway, unless you want to chase after the carriage. And Sophie’s perfectly sensible. She’s not going to let Gideon Lightwood have his way with her. Besides, he’s about as charming as a postbox.”
Tessa, surprising even herself, let out a gasp of laughter. She put her hand up to cover her mouth, but it was too late; she was already laughing, leaning a little against the window.
Wil looked at her, his blue eyes quizzical, his mouth just beginning to quirk up in a grin. “I must be more amusing than I thought. Which would make me very amusing indeed.”
“I’m not laughing at you,” she told him in between giggles. “Just—Oh! The look on Gabriel’s face when Sophie slapped him. My goodness.” She pushed her hair out of her face and said, “I real y shouldn’t be laughing. Half the reason he was so awful was your goading him. I should be angry with you.”
“Oh, should,” said Wil , spinning away to drop into a chair near the fire, and stretching out his long legs toward the flames. Like every room in England, Tessa thought, it was chil y in here except just in front of the fire. One roasted in the front and froze in the back, like a badly cooked turkey.
“No good sentences ever include the word ‘should.’ I should have paid the tavern bil ; now they’re coming to break my legs. I should never have run off with my best friend’s wife; now she devils me constantly. I should—”
“You should,” Tessa said softly, “think about the way the things you do affect Jem.”
Wil rol ed his head back against the leather of the chair and regarded her. He looked drowsy and tired and beautiful. He could have been some Pre-Raphaelite Apol o. “Is this a serious conversation now, Tess?” His voice stil held humor but was edged, like a gold blade edged in razored steel.
Tessa came and sat down in the armchair across from his. “Aren’t you worried that he’s cross with you? He’s your parabatai. And he’s Jem. He’s never cross.”
“Perhaps it’s better that he’s cross with me,” said Wil . “So much saintlike patience cannot be good for anyone.”
“Do not mock him.” Tessa’s tone was sharp.
“Nothing is beyond mockery, Tess.”
“Jem is. He has always been good to you. He is nothing but goodness. That he hit you last night, that only shows how capable you are of driving even saints to madness.”
“Jem hit me?” Wil , fingering his cheek, looked amazed. “I must confess, I remember very little of last night. Only that the two of you woke me, though I very much wanted to stay asleep. I remember Jem shouting at me, and you holding me. I knew it was you. You always smel of lavender.”
Tessa ignored this. “Wel , Jem hit you. And you deserved it.”
“You do look scornful—rather like Raziel in al those paintings, as if he were looking down on us. So tel me, scornful angel, what did I do to deserve being hit in the face by James?”