“You are.”
“Fine. But I’m like that with a lot of people.”
“Not like you are with Percy. And he’s certainly not. Percy’s so stoic and polite with everyone but you. And I’ve never known him to be, you know, involved with anyone. Lad or lady.”
He hasn’t, it occurs to me suddenly. Or if he has, I’ve never been privy to that information. He’s never mentioned being sweet on someone, or spoken of anyone fondly, and for all our junkets, I am the only person I’ve ever known Percy to kiss.
“Even if it isn’t, you know, romantic,” Felicity goes on, “it’s hard not to see. You’re the kind of pair that makes everyone around them feel as though they’re missing out on a private joke.” We sit still for a minute, neither speaking. The fire pops and flails, spitting out sap. Then she says, “It’s a relief, actually. I wasn’t certain you had it in you to truly care for anyone.”
I slouch down a little farther and nearly slide right off the sofa. It’s very slick upholstery. “It would have been good if it were someone who wasn’t my best mate. Or someone I could actually be with. Or, you know. A woman.”
“I thought you liked women too.”
“I do, sometimes. But that doesn’t mean I don’t like Percy more than anyone else.”
Felicity presses her fingers to her temples. “I’m sorry, Monty, I’m really trying to understand this and I . . . can’t.”
“It’s fine. I don’t understand it most of the time.”
“What does Percy think?”
“Not a clue. Sometimes I think he knows I’m smitten and ignores it. Sometimes I think he’s just thick. Either way, he doesn’t seem to feel the same.”
“It must be difficult,” she says.
I want to throw my arms around her for acting as though this conversation is ordinary. But as hard as she’s trying, any more honesty would likely burst her head open. Because Percy goes so deep inside me, like veins of gold grown into granite. I think again about our kiss in Paris. His hand on my knee in the carriage when the highwaymen ambushed us. Lying side by side on the roof of the livery stable. It makes me ache to line them up like that, each of those moments that fall just short of where I wish they would land. “Not very enjoyable, no.”
“What are your expectations, exactly? If Percy did feel the same way about you, what would happen? You can’t be together. Not like that—you could be killed for it if you were found out. They’ve been sentencing mollies by the score since the Clap Raid.”
“Doesn’t matter, does it? Percy’s good and natural and probably only fancies women and I am . . . not.”
Silence again. Then Felicity reaches out and puts a hand upon my shoulder. As far as physical affection goes, we’re a fairly delinquent family, so coming from her, it’s a momentous gesture. “I’m sorry,” she says.
“What for?”
“You’ve had a rough go.”
“Everyone has a rough go. I’ve had it far easier than most people.”
“Maybe. But that doesn’t mean your feelings matter less.”
“Ugh. Feelings.” I take a long drink, then pass her the bottle.
She has another delicate sip. “You were right—it’s less horrid now.”
It occurs to me then that perhaps getting my little sister drunk and explaining why I screw boys is not the most responsible move on my part. I almost snatch the bottle back, though it feels rather hypocritical to take a stand for sobriety. So instead I say, “I wish I could be better for you.” She looks over at me, and I duck my head, shame sinking its teeth in. “I’m older and I know I’m supposed to be . . . an example, I don’t know. At least someone you aren’t embarrassed of.”
“You do fine.”
“I don’t.”
“You’re right, you don’t. But you’re getting better. And that isn’t nothing.”
16
Felicity and I stay up much later than either of us intends. I finally go above—at her insistence, as she says kipping up in the library is rather dramatic—to find Percy long asleep. He’s balled up in bed, arms curled into him and knees pulled to his chest, but when I crawl in beside him, he slides against me without waking, cheek to my shoulder, and I can’t put any more space between us without going straight off the edge of the mattress. He shifts in his sleep, bare legs hooking around mine, and suddenly my body is very much out of my own control. Calm yourself, I instruct it firmly, and it doesn’t really obey, so I pass the rest of the night with Percy nuzzled up to me and me trying to think of anything but that. I hardly do more than doze—we’ve been lodging in dodgy inns for weeks and yet this is the worst sleep I’ve had since Paris. When it finally seems an acceptable hour to rise, I’m exhausted and frustrated and sort of hard.
Which is just unfair.
I splash cold water on my face until my body seems to understand that a romp with Percy is not about to happen, then dress in my borrowed clothes and slip down the stairs before Percy stirs. If we are to quit this place today, I plan to at least have a word with Dante before and see what I can find out about his father’s cure-alls. Perhaps play upon the tremendous debt he owes us, work the remember the great personal risk at which we brought your father’s precious box back to you so why not spill a bit of his alchemical secrets your sister was so keen on us not knowing yesterday? angle.
A spacious kitchen with scuffed floors and high windows juts from the back of the house like a broken bone. Clusters of candles are stuck with wax along the table, and copper pots dangling above sway in the breeze filtering through the open window. It’s not yet eight and already hot as yesterday afternoon.
Dante is crouched in the hearth, trying to coax chalky embers into flame, and I think for a moment I may have lucked into catching him on his own, but Helena is at the table, flipping through a stack of letters, her thumbnail between her teeth. A kettle filled with cold chocolate, waiting for the fire, sits beside her, alongside an amber cone of unnipped sugar and tongs. It’s exceedingly odd to see the pair of them, lord and lady of the house, in the kitchen preparing their own breakfast.
They both look up as I enter. Dante stands quickly, bangs his head on the lip of the hearth, then wipes his sooty hands on his breeches, leaving two black palm prints. “Mr.—Mr. Montague. Good morning. How did— Did you sleep well?”
“Um, yes,” I lie. “Thank you, . . . sir.” It’s not a thing I’m accustomed to calling a man my own age, but he’s got a house and likely his father’s title on me, so I err on the side of awkward formality.
Dante holds one of the candles to the kindling and blows until it catches, then tosses a log overtop for the flames to curl their fingers around. “Is Mr. . . . Newton . . . ?”