Page 26 of The Assassin's Bride

He twisted his foot free of his boot.

She measured and stood. “I need one more. Would you hold the tape like this?” She demonstrated against herself, holding the end against her stomach and letting the rest fall so it could be drawn back between her legs. “For the seat depth.”

Gil took the tape and obliged without a word. Everything he did and said was professional, polite. She'd gotten more than her share of rude comments from men she'd sewn for as she took their sizing before. Why was a man like him, of all people, the only one she'd met who had manners?

She pressed the tape to his lower back and checked the length, then pulled it from his hand and wound it around her fingers. “That should do.”

“I'll leave you to it, then.” He removed his other boot and pushed them both under the edge of his bed, then sat cross-legged on the floor to resume his work.

Thea would have preferred to draw the pattern on something other than fine fabric first, but her options were limited. She was less confident in her familiarity with his size, even after she wrote down his measurements and worked their calculations in her head. It was just as well, she decided after she finished her planning and preparation. She wouldn't be able to lay out the fabric to mark or cut until he was finished, anyway.

After a time, Gil collected a few papers. “Behold, your passport. Miss Theadora Emroth. It just needs one more thing, and I think that's a job for you.”

She took the papers when he offered them, blinking in confusion. “What can I do?”

“It's supposed to be a booklet.” He indicated the sides of the papers, which he'd already folded together. “Women's passports are sewn with black thread at the spine.”

“Oh,” she said.

He produced his example and turned it for her to study. His work was remarkable; she could distinguish no differences between the official document in his hands and the forgery she held.

After she'd examined the thickness and spacing, she nodded. “I can do this.”

“Then do it, and I'll begin work on the next thing we'll need.” He returned to the floor and prepared a new piece of paper, larger than what he'd used for the passport.

“What's that one going to be?”

He drew a breath to speak, then stopped.

Uncertainty made the fine hairs on her arms prickle in chill. “Gil,”

“A forgery,” he said quickly. “Nothing to be concerned about. But it may require... ah, some acting.”

Uncertainty morphed to unease. “What do you mean?”

He put his head down and dipped his pen. “Think carefully, Thea. How might a man get a foreign woman into his home country without question?”

Her stomach dropped. “No.”

“I suppose it is time,” he said, the faintest hint of a playful smile curling the corners of his mouth. “Past time, even. I'll be thirty-two in the spring. My mother, Light rest her, would have been disappointed that I took so long.”

“You cannot be serious,” she protested.

“I am, and if you truly intend to settle in Ranor, you'd best be serious, too. I'll be gone to tend business long before you're settled, and word of my untimely demise will follow to satisfy Ranor's insatiable hunger for paperwork. You'll be free within a year.”

Free to establish herself, to start her new life. Safely, after she'd settled, after his forgeries ensured she'd be welcome and secure. “But I—I can't—”

Before she had time to think of some reasonable protest, he turned the half-finished document. “Sign here, Miss Emroth, and I'll finish the rest.”

“Gil—” she choked.

He presented her with the pen. “Remember, it's only a forgery. This isn't even your name.”

Thea's heart quickened as she stared. Slowly, she reached for the pen.

Just a forgery,she told herself, as if it would still the trembling of her hands. It wasn'treal.

She pressed so firmly, ink bled and feathered across the paper as she spelled out her false name.

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