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“Percy! How dare you hide that from me!” Her face was split in a smile impossible to mend. “You have been married to me for weeks, and did not favor me with your music until now? That was truly magnificent.”
He turned in his chair, a reserved smile pulling at his lips. “I couldn’t have you thinking highly of me.”
Fanny laughed, then sighed as her chuckling subsided. “Tell me another story about you.”
“What sort of story?”
She tipped her head to the side, contemplating the possibilities. “A ridiculous one.”
He scoffed. “Do I seem to be the sort of man with plenty of ‘ridiculous’ stories to tell?”
Fanny gave a hard laugh, throwing her hands in the air. “Well, I haven’t the slightest idea of what you are hiding inside that head of yours. You could be entirely ridiculous and I would not even know it.”
“I imagine you have a great deal of ridiculous stories to tell of yourself,” Percy said.
“Not half as many as you have, I’d wager.”
Percy leaned his head back, exasperated. He narrowed his eyes and rubbed his jaw, as if struggling to think of a story. He froze, a slow smile tugging on his lips. “Very well. I’ll tell you aridiculousstory.”
Fanny clapped her hands with a squeal and leaned closer.
“As a child, I was very odd. I loved animals with all of my heart. I spent my days out of doors riding horses and chasing butterflies.”
Fanny tried to hide her laugh behind a hand, but it came out in a snort. She could not imagine him chasing butterflies no matter how hard she tried.
“When I was very young—six or seven years old—I found a kitten wandering in the woods behind this house. She was lost, so I scooped her up and took her home with me. I knew my father didn’t like the idea of having a pet, so I hid her in a basket when I brought her into the house.” He smiled, his face turning wistful. “The kitten was fairly quiet, so no one suspected my trick. I kept her in my room for weeks, feeding her scraps from the table that I hid inside my pockets. We were the dearest of friends.”
Fanny grinned. “What was the kitten’s name?”
“Fanny.”
She gasped. “You cannot be serious!”
“I’m not.”
She jabbed him on the arm. “What was it, then?”
He crossed his arms, moving them away from her. “Cake.”
“Cake?” Fanny giggled. “You named your kittenCake?”
“It was her favorite of the foods that I brought her. I daresay her favorite thing in the world was cake.”
Fanny laughed again, the idea of Percy loving a kitten that much, of naming itCake,was so absurd that she couldn’t stop. Tears welled in her eyes as she laughed. “You were certainly an odd child,” she said. “But you are an odd man also, so itdoesmake sense.”
Percy shook his head as she broke into another bout of giggles. “Youare an odd woman.”
Fanny sighed, not planning her words before she spoke them. “Perhaps we are well-matched after all.”
Percy smiled, just a twitch of his lips, but there was something deep and troubled in his expression that confused her. “Perhaps.”
Shifting uncomfortably in her chair, Fanny asked, “So what became of thisCake? Did she grow into a delightful cat and dine on dessert pastries for the remainder of her life?”
Percy’s expression twitched with regret. “I don’t wish to ruin the story.”
“You can’t leave me guessing. It isn’t fair.” Fanny watched him, sensing that Cake didn’t have a happy ending. Her heart pounded with dread. Perhaps she didn’t want to know. But curiosity tugged at her.
Percy sighed, long and slow. “My father found her one night while I was asleep. He returned her to the woods. I never found her again.”
