Page 58 of The Phoenix Bride
“There is no need to apologize. What’s happened? You needn’t tell me if you don’t wish to, but…”
“It is rather complicated, I’m afraid.”
He sighs. “I am quite terrible with complicated things, I must admit. But I shall do my best to understand.”
I shake my head. Duchess circles around David’s jacket andsniffs at it before flopping down to curl up within the lining. I watch her, eyes stinging.
Sam offers me his arm to help me up, and I take it. We both sit on the edge of the bed. It is terribly forward of us to do so, but I don’t think either of us much mind.
Sam watches me in silence for a moment, teeth worrying at his lower lip.
“The thing is,” Sam says, “I don’t particularly want to get married, either. No offense.”
“None taken.”
“But it is obligatory, you see. I am Sir Grey and heir to the Eden titles, too, at least until Robert has a baby. And if I die those lines go extinct—my sisters are married themselves, you know, so they aren’t candidates. Oh, it’s awful.” He rubs hischeek with his hand, smearing the rouge he has used down toward his chin.
“I’m sorry,” I reply, which is a pointless comment, but he still smiles at me as if I have said something terribly kind.
He says, “You know, I used to have a little bird—a parrot—from very far away. It was bright green and it talked.”
This segue seems so abrupt that I can’t think of a response. Thankfully, he doesn’t seem to need one. “It didn’t talk in English,” he continues, “because it had spent most of its time with Spanish sailors. It only ever said one word, which wassaltamontes,over and over. I’d wake up to it in the middle of the night, hearing it scream,Saltamontes, saltamontes,driving me half mad.”
“What does that mean?”
“Grasshopper,” he says. “Isn’t that curious? What sailor was saying the wordgrasshopperenough to teach it to a parrot?”
I snort. “Is that all?”
“What?”
“Well…I just thought…Is there a point to the story? It isn’t a metaphor?”
“A metaphor? Oh no. I thought you’d find it amusing.”
At that I laugh properly. He laughs, too.
Below us, Duchess huffs. I look down at her, cocooned in David’s jacket, and the smile slips from my face.
Sam follows my gaze. “That is a man’s jacket,” he says.
“Yes.”
“Was it your husband’s?”
“No.”
“Ah,” he says. And then, after a long pause: “I see.”
I twist my hands in my lap, press my nails into my palm. “It—it doesn’t matter. It’s finished now.”
“I’m sorry,” he tells me in an echo of my own platitudes.
“My sister is insistent we marry, and I…” Breathing shakily, I hunch over. Sam’s hand flutters awkwardly over my back, then withdraws. “There isn’t much to be done, Sam. I am her ward. I have no money of my own.”
“You have no widow’s pension?”
“None. My husband’s family is not as wealthy as the Edens, and the heir was a minor when he died.”
