*Everly* I know I am babbling, talking about nothing of consequence or importance. It irritates me that I worry what people think, that I feel as though I move about with a great big M sewn onto my chest. I see many couples parading about. Surely they aren’t all married. And surely if my father had not been ashamed of me, he would have brought me when the park was teeming with people. I don’t doubt that he loved me, but I am beginning to realize that he might not have been as proud of me as he always claimed. He never took me into a dressmaker’s. He never rode by my side through a park. I suppose Tristan Rafe does it without any embarrassment because he is notoriously scandalous himself. I can’t deny that he epitomizes what I imagined would fall into line with most ladies’ dreams… tall, handsome, with just enough aloofness to be intriguing. He would make the women come to him. I wonder if he will expect me to initiate our coming together. I very much doubt it. If he waits on me to

*Tristan* ‘Wake up, wake up,’ my mind whispers, but I do not dare say the words out loud. I am not certain I want her to know that I am here, leaning against the bedpost at the foot of her bed, watching her sleep again. While I was away, I had thought of the night before I left, when I had observed her while she lay sleeping. Every night I wanted to be back here, my gaze honed in on her face, the sweet expression of it. All the women I have known intimately had been coarse and hard, shaped by life into something impossible to break. She could break. In all likelihood I will eventually destroy her, unless I find the strength to let her go. I admire her stubbornness, enjoy sparring with her. I will think I'm winning, and then she will slip in beneath me and deliver a quick jab that leaves me flummoxed. Sometimes, only a few times, when I am in her company, I catch shadowy glimpses of the man I might have become had fate been kinder. A man who deserves to have her for the remaind

*Everly* I follow him out of the room, up two flights of stairs, and down a hallway with several rooms. I might have thought this was the bordello portion except that the doors are open. The walls are papered in burgundy, with gold vines. More tasteful than I would have expected. Gas lamps flicker along the walls. Glancing through a doorway into a room we are passing, I stop. “This is your office; it’s where you work.” I stroll inside. It is spartan. A desk. A chair in front of it, and another behind it. A table with decanters. The windows are bare, looking out onto the night. “Why do you say that?” he asks. Looking over my shoulder, I see him leaning against the door jamb, his arms crossed over his chest. “The globes.” They are sprinkled about numerous shelves on three walls. “There must be a hundred of them.” “A hundred and two to be exact.” Astonished, I twist around. “Does that include the ones at the residence?” “No.” “Why do you collect them? What’s your fascination wit

*Tristan* In the late afternoon I stand at the window of my office, looking out on the street, watching as people bustle by. I do not know why I had not returned to my residence with Eve. I had wanted her, by the Goddess, how I had wanted her. Standing there in my apartment with the lights from outside, and the dim glow inside casting her in shadows that ebbed and flowed with her movements, she had been a seductress. Her smoky voice and her throaty laughter had added to the allure. My eyes slide close as I remember the kiss. She is becoming quite masterful at parrying. I had almost given her rein to wrap her arms around me, almost. I had felt the brush of her hands, craved the touch as much as it repelled me. My chest had tightened, sweat had popped out on my forehead, and I had known that I would shove her aside, possibly hurt her, so I had snatched her wrists before any damage was done. I do not want her first time to be in my den of iniquity, or in my carriage, or in the stre

*Everly* We eat in the sitting room that looks out on the garden. I had my father’s portrait removed earlier. I will have it returned tomorrow. But for tonight I wanted the intimacy of a smaller room. The dining room is too large, too formal, too cold. Candles flickers. Servants bring in the food, one course after another. I barely touch anything, and am aware of his constant gaze. Whether he is eating or sipping on his wine, he is looking at me. I had clung to a vain gossamer hope that things between us would not progress, that I might become more of a companion than a mistress. Talking of inconsequential topics over dinner, reading to him as he had asked that first morning. But the extent to which I am already in his debt astounds me. I had given no thought to the small things. “That’s how men lose fortunes, isn’t it ? They lose a little bit at a time, hardly giving it any credence … then suddenly they look around them and everything is gone”. He studies me over the rim of