“More of a purplish, then.”
Azalea pressed her lips together into a line, both trying to warm and hide them, and glanced up at Mr. Bradford. Part of his collar was twisted up against his face, the other side down, and his dark cravat was turned askew. Azalea twisted her fingers at the knot in her shawl to keep from reaching out and straightening it.
“Please,” said Mr. Bradford.
And his eyes—the same color as cinnamon bread, Azalea realized—had such a look of concern that Azalea melted.
“You know,” said Azalea as he helped her to her feet with a strong arm, smiling nearly as crooked as his cravat. “One day you’ll rescue me, and I’ll actually look nice.”
“You always look nice,” said Mr. Bradford.
Azalea could have kissed him.
Mr. Bradford’s shop wasn’t far. Just in the square outside the cathedral. Fortunate, too, since Azalea’s feet had frozen into blocks of ice and she half stumbled and was half carried. Mr. Bradford helped her along as though she weighed nothing. He wrapped her up in his coat, and his warmth seeped into her skin.
The clock shop smelled of wood and oil. Dozens of clocks—cuckoo clocks, bell clocks, clocks with rose-shaped pendulums—lined the walls and sat in a glass case at the front of the shop. It was a fine old building that could afford to have an ember lit in the stove at any hour.
Mr. Bradford set a kettle on the stove and unlocked an understairs closet, revealing more coats hanging from pegs, while Azalea slowly unthawed on a stool by the stove.
“Are you here often?” said Azalea, raising an eyebrow at his familiarity with the shop.
“Yes,” Mr. Bradford admitted. “I often come to help Mr. Grunnings with the clocks.”
“Help?”
“I like to take them apart.”
Ah, thought Azalea. She remembered once how the King had unshelved the entire library and sorted through the books a different way, because he had said it would work better. Azalea hazarded a guess.
“And you like to put them back together in different ways?” she said.
Mr. Bradford lit up.
“Oh, yes,” he said. “Some of those clockwork designs are terribly antiquated. You have to wind them two times a day, at least. Surely there is a better way to harbor energy in such a tiny mass.” Still smiling, Mr. Bradford turned to the coats, which were old-fashioned and far out of style. It looked more like a storage closet than anything. A very old, shabby rag cloak hung from one of the pegs. Mr. Bradford glanced at Azalea’s feet. “Perhaps another coat, about your feet?”
Azalea smoothed back her skirts to look. She closed her eyes with embarrassment. She couldn’t find her boots in the dark that morning and, frustrated, had grabbed what she thought were her green dancing slippers from the basket. One was. The other was Bramble’s red slipper, knotted around her left foot. It looked terrible…and festive, in a way.
“I—ah, can be a touch impulsive, I’m afraid,” Azalea admitted, cringing. She tucked her mismatched feet back under her skirts.
“It’s true, then,” he said. “You really do dance at night.”
Azalea had opened her mouth when movement outside the shop window caught her eye. A great white horse pawed at the cobblestones. A dark figure came up the stairs.
In a rush of billowing skirts, Azalea ran for the nearest hiding place—the closet.
Which Mr. Bradford was already in. He was shoved against the wall as she leaped into it, pressing her skirts flat and yanking the door shut behind her.
Pitch blackness enveloped them. A broom handle clunked against someone’s head, and it wasn’t Azalea’s. A bell jangled outside the closet, signaling a customer’s arrival.
There was an awkward moment of silence.
“Eerck,” came Mr. Bradford’s voice.
“Sorry,” Azalea whispered, realizing she pressed right up against him. He smelled like fresh linen, soap, and pine. She resisted the impulse to bury her nose into his cravat and inhale.
“It is, ah, togetherness,” he stammered. “I think—”
“Please,” Azalea whispered fervently. “Please. Fairweller is out there. Don’t let him see me. Please.”
A walking stick rapped against the counter. Mr. Bradford’s hand took Azalea’s.
“Forbear,” he said. Then, with quite a lot of racket and rustling of coats, skirts, and the maligned broom, he was out, carefully closing the door to a crack behind him. Azalea peeked through the sliver of light.
“Minister,” said Mr. Bradford. “Good morning. The shop isn’t open yet. Mr. Grunnings will be in, but in two hours, I should think.”
“I saw a light,” came Fairweller’s voice, completely emotionless and flat as always. “I thought to come in. I ordered a lady’s watch from Delchastire that was to be sent here, and it is already a day late. Do you have it?”
A lady’s watch! Azalea leaned forward for a better look, catching a bit of Fairweller’s face and the counter.