Page 37 of The Starling and the Hatter

Then she dropped a copper on the table next to me. “That’s for Robert’s chain.”

I hesitated, wanting to throw the money back at her and demand to know why she was gifting anything to that selfish, pompous—

I mentally sighed and then picked up the copper. If I didn’t accept it, that would mean I had allowed her to give something of my father’s away to her new…companion. And I could stomach that idea even less than the idea of Elise thinking she was indebted to me.

“I thought he liked to be called White,” I said, because I had to say something, and saying “your friend is a pig” didn’t seem like the right thing.

She shrugged. “I’ve always known him as Robert. I can’t change that now.” She put a bite of biscuit in her mouth.

“Elise?”

“Hmm?” She looked up, one fingertip still in her mouth as she licked the preserves from it.

“Don’t you think it’s strange that you’ve never told me your last name?”

She froze. Everything about her went still and tense as she stared at me. Then I watched as she unlocked her limbs one by one before returning her attention to the table’s surface. “What does it matter?”

I waited for her to look up at me again, and when she did, I smiled just a little, hoping to convey compassion but also remind her that I was no fool. “It is strange.”

She squirmed a little. “My last name is”—she struggled for words—“of no consequence.”

“Then why keep it such a secret?”

“I don’t like my last name,” she stated.

My mind churned over what reasons she might have. She’d confessed to having brothers that weren’t worth mentioning, but her last name? I just had to ask, “Why?”

“Because I don’t.”

“Why?” I pressed, frustrated that she would push back on something so simple. It was a name, not a story.

“Because it’s not a good name,” she yelled.

I pulled back in surprise. Fierce Elise was something I rarely saw.

“It doesn’t represent love or loyalty or honor. It’s not who I want to be or what I want to be known by,” she declared with conviction.

I chewed on my lip for a moment. “Very well.” I could understand that. “But why not tell me?”

“Why do you need to know?” Her face was sad and frustrated.

I studied her. Why did I need to know? “Because it’s a part of you. It might be a part that you don’t like, but it is a part of you, and it clearly still affects you,” I said, looking at the way she pursed her lips and bunched her forehead. “I want to know about it. I want to know…you.”

“You do know me,” she said, slapping her hand against the surface of the table.

“Do I?” I asked, my voice raised. “I thought I knew you quite well, but then this White comes around, and he doesn’t have to earn your trust over years, and he already knows your name, and probably much more.” I truly hoped I wasn’t sounding like a whiny fool. “And I don’t understand why I haven’t earned that trust.”

She put her elbows on my work table and cradled her head in her hands for a moment before turning to silently study me. “I suppose there is some level of trust between Robert and me. Shared experience does that. He knew me when I was younger. He watched…my life. He saw the way I lived.” Her vague words held such gravity that I worried about all the things she wasn’t saying. “My name and my past is not a secret from him because he witnessed it. I didn’t have a choice in him knowing. But I have a choice now, and I like to think that I have some control over the stories I want to share and those that I don’t.”

“Was your life so terrible?” I asked with trepidation. I knew that the weeks leading up to our first meeting had been challenging. She’d been starving with nowhere to go. But I always assumed that was a result of having just lost the last of her family, or, I now realized, perhaps running away from her family.

She didn’t answer for quite a while. But she didn’t walk away either. She continued to study me and I calmly held her gaze, wondering what it was she was looking for in me. Finally, when the silence became almost too much to bear, she spoke again.

“My name is Elise Wolfe.”

I caught the intuitive reply of “Nice to meet you, Miss Wolfe” in my throat before it could escape. Though it would have been the natural response, it was clear that she wished to leave that name behind. So I would put it away in the box of secrets she’d shared with me, and perhaps it would help me know her better. “Thank you for telling me that,” I said, needing her to know that I valued the trust she put in me.

She swallowed and nodded. “I still don’t understand why it was important.”