She knew the careful geography of his nights. She knew because Joanna, in the bright unguarded confidence of a future sister-in-law who had been trying very hard to be useful all week, had told her on the second day.
“He has a study on the third floor at the south end. He sits in it most nights. He has not been sleeping this week. The attic is two more flights above the study. The key to the attic is on a hook on the back of his study door, but he never uses it. I keep the room clean because I am sentimental.”
Alice had thanked her and not asked any further questions.
That day, she had not known what she was going to do with the information. But this evening, she knew.
She climbed the small back stairs to the third floor and made for the small, paneled door of his study. Light came from under the door. She could faintly hear the crackle of a fire that had not yet gone down for the night, and the slow tread of a man pacing across the carpet on the other side.
She drew a breath and knocked.
The pacing stopped. “Enter.”
She turned the handle, opened the door, and entered.
The study was a small, low-ceilinged room with a single shaded lamp on the desk, a low fire, and a long window with the curtains drawn back to the late spring dark.
Cassian was standing by the window in his shirtsleeves with a glass in his hand. His coat was draped over the back of a chair, and his cravat was undone. He had not been expecting any visitor at this hour on the night before his wedding. He had been expecting none at all.
He turned and saw her.
At first, he did not say anything.
He stood by the window for the amount of time required to register that the woman standing at the door was wearing a long pale wrapper over what was very plainly a silk nightgown. At her throat, restored to its rightful place, was the gray pendant he had given her in her father’s orangery ten days ago.
He set the glass down. “Lady Alice.”
“Your Grace.”
“You are?—”
“I have?—”
“Are you feeling better, My Lady?”
She looked at him for a careful second, in the disciplined way she had been looking at him for ten days, and apparently decided to take the mocking and give him nothing back.
“I am feeling well enough to give you a gift.”
“A gift?”
“Yes.”
“At this hour?”
“At this hour, Cassian.”
“On the night before our wedding?”
“On the night before our wedding.”
“Alice.”
“No matter what happens tomorrow, I have enjoyed our time together. It is only fair that I give you a gift.”
He looked at her. He looked at her for a long minute. He did not break their stare until she very nearly broke it for him.
“You still plan to leave, then?”
