Page 42 of The Widow and the Wanted

But that is not something I can give voice to.

“There is,” I say. “Someone. Though it is complicated.”

Her mouth curves faintly. “How so?”

“We have never…quite so formally…announced it, I suppose.”

“Hmm. A pity.”

A soft laugh escapes me. “It is.”

Then, not looking at me, she asks, “Would this someone object to you sharing close quarters with a woman?”

I reach for my shirt where it hangs in the rafters. Why is she interrogating me like a prisoner of war?

“Have you taken a post with the newspaper?”

With a little click of her tongue, she sets down her cup. “I should cohabitate with strangers? My apologies for seeking to know you better.”

I ease back in my seat, crossing a leg over my thigh. Perhaps she’s right.

What do I know of this woman besides she’s a widowed herbalist, an irrefutable beauty, a resourceful, brave little spitfire? I wipe my palms over my thighs.

“Since your husband passed,” I start, the shape of the question still awkward on my tongue, “have you another who might object to your current arrangement?”

She studies me as though weighing my measure.

“A few. Nothing of consequence. The last…” Her mouth tightens. “A disappointment. In every respect.”

I laugh without thinking. She shoots me a look.

“I’m sorry,” I say.

“It was laughable,” she admits. “Though I suppose that sounds cruel, given how it ended.”

“How did it end?”

“He was among the men on the expedition.”

“Oh…fuck.”

It slips out before I can stop it.

She grimaces, then tells me it had been meant for one night only. By morning, the man was already planning their future together. She dismisses it with a shrug, offers a prayer for his soul, and closes her suitcase as if sealing the matter inside. Her hand rests there a moment before she turns back to me.

“I hope you do not think me unfeeling for speaking so plainly of him now.”

War requires an iron gut. If you let yourself feel all the grief at once, you will never rise again.

“No,” I tell her. “Men say worse in the thick of it. Not from malice. From necessity.”

She releases a breath. “I have never cared for the notion that grief must behave politely.”

“The day after a fight,” I say, “word would pass that a fellow lost his left arm and leg and he’s all right now.”

She gasps, then laughs despite herself. “That is dreadful.”

“If you do not laugh, you will weep.”