“Nonetheless.”
He didn’t say anything for a long time. Then he finally spoke. “My father thought he could change my character with a little discomfort. He was wrong. It took pain.” He looked away. “Someday, try forging a letter of credit and delivering it to a man who is worse than you.”
That night after the fire seemed so distant—even though it was scarcely a week past. But Free could recall the words he’d given her late at night. Pain is a black ink. Enough of it and you can blot out a man’s soul.
“On second thought.” He gave her a brilliant smile, one that almost broke her heart. “Don’t try it. You don’t want to know what will happen.”
“Was it very painful, then?”
His lip quirked in disgust. “Just enough to prove I wasn’t the resilient white knight I believed myself to be. I was a liar and a fraud and a cheat, just like everyone else. I needed to learn that lesson.” He took a deep breath, and then he looked up at her. His eyes met hers. They sparkled with that look she knew so well, that black humor that she’d come to care for. “I didn’t much mind until now.”
Her heart thudded in her chest.
“I don’t think I can stop being a liar and a fraud,” he said. “But, for the first time in a very long while, I’m beginning to believe in something.” His voice dropped. “In someone. I’m sorry, Miss Marshall, but I can’t let myself do that.”
She could scarcely breathe. She didn’t know what to say. She only knew she couldn’t look away from him, couldn’t have told him to leave no matter what he revealed at the moment.
“There.” He brushed his hands together. “That’s said. It’s a pack of lies.” He shrugged. “It’s as honest as I know how to be at this point. That’s why I’m leaving, Free.” He looked over at her. “I brought you something.”
He reached into his jacket pocket. His hand closed on something—something large enough that he had to turn his wrist to get it from his pocket. She caught a flash of gray metal.
“Here.” He reached out and set the piece on her desk. “It’s a paperweight. You have papers; I thought you might put this to use.”
Free leaned forward and picked up the piece he’d placed before her. It was heavy and yet intricate. The paperweights she had seen before were fussy blown-glass balls encasing pleasant flowers. This bore no relation to those things. It was a single strip of iron, worked into a curlicued ball. The metal doubled and tripled back on itself. It was warm from resting in his pocket; the edges were rough against her skin. And yet it seemed surprisingly delicate.
“What is it?”
He shrugged. “I don’t know. Nothing but a big wad of metal.”
“This is beautiful,” Free said slowly. “Beautiful and somehow, sad. And harsh. All at the same time. I’ve never seen its like. Where did you find it?”
He shrugged indifferently. “Just outside Strasbourg. Some six years ago.”
“Did you commission it yourself or did the artist have a regular stock of these paperweights?”
Edward snorted. “I commissioned it,” he told her. “It’s just a trifle.”
She didn’t think it was a trifle. She turned the piece around, catching hints of half patterns hidden in every twist of metal. “Was this to commemorate some occasion? The artist that made this was an incredible genius. The loops look random at first, but they’re not. When I look at it from this angle, I almost see…a rose? There are thorns on that part, I think, and these loops from this angle form petals.” She gave it a quarter turn. “But this looks like a hawk. I could stare at this for hours.” She looked up at him and suddenly frowned. “Edward, are you well?”
“Perfectly so.” The smile he gave her was just like every smile he’d ever delivered—easy, untinged by emotion and, Free realized, utterly false. His left hand gripped the arm of his chair so tightly that his glove bunched. His other arm was ramrod straight, braced against his leg as if it were the only thing that held him upright.
He was lying to her. Of course he was; he hadn’t given her this piece because it was an inconsequential paperweight that he’d commissioned on a whim. It was because it meant something to him.
“Don’t be such a man.” Free stood, rolling her eyes. “You’ve gone pale. Here. Let me get you a glass of water.”
“I am not pale,” he said brusquely. “I don’t need a glass of water.”
She came around the desk and she set her hand on his wrist. “Your pulse is racing.”
“It is not,” he said in contradiction of reality. He had begun to breathe fast, and his skin was turning paper white.
Free rolled her eyes again. “Stop being ridiculous. Now are you going to stay here while I fetch you something to drink?”
“Hmph.”