“I can, but it isn’t easy.” Ben took her elbow, guiding Rose around a suspicious-looking puddle that she was about to step into, engrossed as she was by his words. “There are entire political parties dedicated to keeping men who look like me from voting, and I could only register to vote if I paid a poll tax.”
“And you got past all of those things and voted?”
Ben shrugged.As if it were so simple.“I got started in suffrage work when a man approached me at the polls. He was running for office and wanted to improve voting rights for all citizens.”
“Did he win?”
“No, he lost the election, but he brought enough attention to the issue that men who looked like me could at least access the polls. Here I can slip in and out without attracting too much notice. But in California, anywhere there are concentrations of East Asian men, others will try to block our access.”
Her nostrils flared, and he felt a quick thrill of delight in her indignation. She was angry forhim. “Why would they do that?”
“That is a question for the ages. Men are inclined to feel frightened of anything different, particularly when they fear their power will be taken away.”
She recoiled, and he almost laughed at her outraged expression. Almost. “Absolute idiocy. Rights are not pie, there will not be less for them if someone else gets a piece.”
He did chuckle then, but it emerged rusty, like a gate being opened for the first time in a decade. Ben cleared his throat. “I had never thought of votes as pie, but I suppose it is an apt metaphor.”
They turned again, and within a few steps, he could see the familiar façade of 138 Willow. He couldn’t remember ever being disappointed to be close to his home.
“Do you like pie?”
Rose stopped and fixed him with a strange look. “Yes, but I—”
“Do you want to visit the bakery Abby has been working for?” he asked in a rush, the words out before he could reconsider.
A slow smile spread across her cheeks, and her unusually bright eyes sparkled. “Pie would be delightful.”
Chapter 9
“Whereisthemeat?”
Ben stared at her across the table, his fork halfway to his mouth. “Meat? It’s apple pie.”
“This is a tart.” Rose stabbed a piece of fruit with her utensil and lifted it for close inspection. “When you saidpie,I expected Mowbray pork or, if it were closer to the holiday, mincemeat.”
“What type of meat is mincemeat?” he asked cautiously, as though he feared her response.
“It’s not meat at all, but dried fruit and spices.” She smiled as memories rushing back to her. “Our cook always makes it for Christmas.” At least she had. When Rose left Oxford, her father had just sacked half a dozen of their staff, tears in his eyes as he handed them letters of reference.
Ben slid another forkful of the filling into his mouth and dropped his eyelids shut for a moment, giving her an opportunity to explore his face once more. He was objectively beautiful and unlike any man she’d ever seen. She wanted to trace his features with her fingertips, then her lips. Perhaps he would do the same to her.
Her cheeks warmed with the thought. She had never been undone so completely by heated thoughts towards a man or woman. There had been fleeting moments in the past, when she experienced flutters in her belly when she looked at a man, but the flutters never lasted, not long enough to hold on to and explore. Perhaps Ben’s aversion to her, his unwillingness to be charmed and fall at her feet, as so many potential lovers had, fascinated her. Perhaps she wanted the hunt.
“Have you had gooseberry tart—pie?” Rose asked, suddenly desperate to know every minute detail of Ben’s existence.
A furrow appeared between his dark brows. “Gooseberry?”
“Or pineapple? I ate pineapple tarts at a ball last year and they were delightful. My mother insisted we add them to the menu at Boar’s Hill—our estate in Oxford—but by the time the fruit arrived in the country, it had spoiled. We settled for having them in London.”
Ben blinked, and heat crept up Rose’s neck and cheeks under his intense gaze. “I’ve never had pineapple, Princess,” he said, redirecting his attention to his plate.
Rose bristled. “I’m not a princess.”
He sat back and drew his eyes over her in silent appraisal. “You’re a princess in disguise. You don’t like the king’s plan for you, so you think you can dress as a commoner, work in the kitchens, and escape your fate. But eventually you will be found out and return to your palace.”
“I’m a princess in a fairy tale. That’s what you think of me?”
“My mother still didn’t know much English when I was born.” He spoke as though he weighed each word he gave her, deciding if she could be trusted to hold his story and keep it safe. “She had this book of Grimm’s Fairy Tales that she found in a secondhand shop and she read them to me every night, practicing sounding out the words and learning the cadence of the English language. She believed everyone deserved a fairy tale ending.”
