She looked like a child. Her eyes were wide, wet, blinking rapidly. Her hair was a mess. Her glasses were fogged. Her blouse had come untucked on one side. She was thirty-two years old, the headmistress of the Royal Academy, and she looked like a student who had just been told class was over and she still had questions.
"I only write when my mood is good," he said.
His hand went into his pocket. He turned the handle. The gesture was clear: an offer. A transaction. Not stated. Not demanded. Simply presented.
Vespera trembled. She swallowed. Her throat worked. Her eyes went from his face to the page to his face to the door.
"I — I can prepare a bath for you," she said.
The words came out before she could stop them. The academic, the headmistress, the woman who had sworn off romance and devoted her life to research — offering to run a bath for a man she'd met five minutes ago.
