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"Thank you," I say, completely flustered.
"May I?" With great care, Simon secures the flower behind my ear. I should stop him, lest he think me too permissive. But I don't know what to say. I am reminded that Simon is nineteen, three years my senior. He knows things that I do not.
There's a tap at the window, followed by another, harder tap that makes me jump. "Who is throwing rocks?" Simon peers out into the hazy dark. He opens the glass. Cold air rushes in, raising gooseflesh on my arms. There is no one below that we can see.
"I should join the ladies. Grandmama will be worried about me."
Making a hasty retreat, I nearly trip over the maid, who never even looks up from her scrubbing.
It is well after midnight when we say our goodbyes and emerge into a night alive with stars and hope. The evening has been a wild jumble for me. There is the good--Simon. His family. The warmth they've shown me. My father regained. Then there is the sobering prospect of meeting Nell Hawkins at Bedlam to see if she holds the key to finding the Temple and Circe. And there is the curious--the rocks thrown against the window.
At the carriage, Kartik seems agitated. "A pleasant evening, miss?"
"Yes, very pleasant, thank you," I answer.
"So I noted," he mutters, helping me into the carriage and pulling away from the curb with a bit too much gusto. What ever is the matter with him?
Once my family is safely to bed, I don my coat and dash across cold, hard ground to the stables. Kartik sits reading The Odyssey and having a cup of hot tea. He is not alone. Emily sits near, listening to him read.
"Good evening," I say, marching in.
"Good evening," he says, standing.
Emily looks stricken."Oh, miss, I was just . . . just . . ." "Emily, I have some business to discuss with Mr. Kartik just now, if you wouldn't mind."
Like a shot, Emily is running for the house.
"What did you mean by your comment tonight?"
"I simply asked if you had a pleasant evening. With Mr. Muddleton."
"Middleton," I correct him."He is a gentleman, you know."
"He looks like a fop."
"I'll thank you not to insult him. You know nothing about him."
"I don't like the way he looks at you. As if you were a piece of ripe fruit."
"He doesn't do anything of the sort. Wait a moment. How do you know how he looks at me? Were you spying on me?"
Chagrined, Kartik buries his nose in his book."He did look at you that way. In the library."
"You threw those rocks against the window!" Kartik jumps up, the book forgotten. "You allowed him to touch your hair!"
It's true. It was much too unladylike of me. I'm embarrassed but I'm not about to let on to Kartik. "I do have something to tell you, if you can stop feeling sorry for yourself long enough to hear it."
Kartik scoffs."I'm not feeling sorry for myself."
"A good night to you, then."
"Wait!" Kartik takes a step after me. I'm gloating. It is unattractive, but there it is. "I'm sorry. I promise to be on my very best behavior," he says. He falls to his knees dramatically and pulls an acorn from the ground, holding it to his neck."I beg of you, Miss Doyle. Tell me or I shall be forced to kill myself with this mighty weapon."
"Oh, do get up," I say, laughing in spite of myself. "Tom has a patient at Bethlem. Nell Hawkins. He says she suffers from delusions."
"That would explain her confinement in Bethlem." He gives me a smug smile. When I do not return it, he says contritely, "Sorry. Please go on."
"She claims she's a member of the Order, and that a woman named Circe is trying to find her. She says she's driven herself mad to keep Circe from getting to her."
