Page 59 of The Number of Love
Margot had gotten the paper off the book and laughed when its title was revealed.
Dot scooted forward on her chair. “What is it? Something about mathematics, no doubt.”
“Yes.” Grinning in a way that nearly stopped his heart, she held up the book.
“No.” Her brother sent her a mock scowl.
Dot lifted a brow. “Poetry?”
Margot nodded. “Mathematics. Meter and rhythm and rhyming patterns. All mathematics.”
“Hardly.” Lukas’s eyes were definitely twinkling over his frown. “Music. Poetry is but music without the instruments.”
Willa rolled her eyes and leaned back comfortably against the couch. “Spare us the familiar debate, you two.And do explain why you had my brother hunting for thisparticularbook of poetry, luv.”
“Émile Verhaeren is one of Belgium’s most beloved poets.” His expression softened into a smile. One flavored, it looked to Drake, with honeyed memories. “Les Heures Claireswas the book we first began our music-or-mathematics debate over, when Margot was ... what? Nine?”
Drake’s throat went tight.Les Heures Claires.
“Eight.” She ran a hand over the cloth binding. Her amusement shifted into longing. “It burned along with all our other books. In Louvain.”
Dot shot a look at Drake. “Isn’t this the one you’re reading now?”
All eyes flew to him, and he nodded. “I found a copy in my favorite bookshop in Bilbao. Had it with me when I was...” He motioned to his side.
Lukas turned wide eyes on him. “Parlez-vous français?”
Nodding, Drake said, “Oui. In addition to Spanish and Italian and Latin. Spanish is, of course, my best language after English, but French is a close third.”
“I’ve always been a dunce at languages.” Dot chuckled at herself and cast a look at Red, who’d pulled over a chair from the dining table. “You?”
“I always reckoned English enough.”
Drake looked between his sister and their old friend. Measuring. Gauging. Her eyes lit when she looked at Redvers Holmes in a way he hadn’t seen them do since Nelson signed up. And now that he paused to think of it, her smiles had been rather more abundant than usual when talking with him too.
He let out a slow breath. Finding the bloke a good position just got a bit more imperative.
“Here. This is from Drake and me.” Dot handed Margot a small package that contained a few decorative hairpins and grinned. “Mostly me.”
Hecertainly hadn’t chosen them. “Entirely Dot. She’s just too good to allow me to arrive empty-handed to the celebration, so she added my name to the tag.”
Margot lifted her eyes to him for the slenderest of seconds before focusing on the package, but it was a sliver of attention large enough to pierce.
Blast it all, he’d never get her out of his head now. The eyes, the prayers, even the poetry had all conspired against him. He was doomed. Which left him with one vital question.
What could he do about it?
“Oh, how lovely.” No particular excitement emerged with Margot’s words as she lifted the crystal-encrusted pins from their box. “Thank you, Dot.”
His sister laughed. “I know you don’t care a whit for pretty baubles. But they’ll help keep your hair out of your face without the need for the pomade you detest.”
“Oh!” Now her face brightened. “Thank youverymuch, then. And there are ones with metal flowers as well.” She held these up, presumably for Willa to see, since the other men seemed about as interested in them as Drake was.
But he took mental notes on Margot’s reactions. Pretty things—useless. Useful things—priceless. Mathematics over music. Logic over feelings. She was obviously a subscriber to the virtues of sarcasm, and when one could engage her there, she went from stony silence to smiles. She said she didn’t want a husband and children, but family was obviously of the utmost importance to her.
She sought solitude. But if she really wanted to be alone, she wouldn’t be so angry at God for letting her mother die that way.
He let it all tumble through his head while Dot served the cake she’d made with the sugar she’d been saving. He’d never win Margot over through conventional means. Never gain her heart if he appealed to it outright. But there had to be a way. She was no island—she was anchored to Lukas, to Willa, to Willa’s family. She’d formed a quick attachment to Dot and seemed to have taken to Red.
