Page 105 of A Ruse of Shadows

“But that’s not all. Turn it over.”

He did as she asked. “There’s more?”

The couple at last tumbling into bed?

On the back of the sheet of paper, it was written,“I love you,” she said. “I have loved and admired you for a long time, and I thought you should know.”

The roar came back, loud enough to block out the chatter ofvendangeursdown the slope and the grunts of porters who ferried buckets of grapes to waiting drays. “What is this, Holmes?”

“Looks like a declaration of love to me,” she said, sounding as if he’d asked her the name of an unfamiliar pastry.Looks like a profiterole to me.

Under her wide-brimmed hat, her expression was serene, almostblank. He had learned how to read the smallest flickers of reaction on her face, but it was as if he’d suddenly become illiterate again where she was concerned.

“Whose declaration of love?”

Did he force the words past his lips or did the question barrel through all his restraints and hurl itself out there?

“Hers.” She pointed at the paper. “And mine.”

Inside his mind it was suddenly quiet, so quiet. “You love me?”

She gazed at him, her eyes as deep as the sky. “Yes, I have loved and admired you for a long time. I used to think that you must know it but then I realized that you didn’t. You believe that although my friendship is genuine, I sleep with you for novelty and am liable to stop being your lover once that novelty fades.”

He raised a hand and cupped her soft cheek. “I don’t fear that so much anymore.”

“But you’re still not sure. I can live with a great deal of uncertainty, but you don’t enjoy it nearly as much. So I decided that if it is in my power to make you feel more secure, then I ought to at least try.” She placed her hand over his. “I will remain your friend and lover as surely as I will remain Livia’s sister.”

A whole orchestra dropped into his head, cymbals, strings, acres of brass and woodwind, all surging toward the crescendo of “Ode to Joy.” “My God! Do excuse my language—but Miss Olivia is the most consequential person in your life. You’re comparing me to her?”

“Yes. That is how important you are to me. I will direct the moving of hundreds of cubic yards of clay for you, too, if I must.”

All at once he could read her again. It was not blankness on that beloved face but bone-deep certainty. She was as sure and confident about this as she had ever been about anything in her entire life.

He laughed, his heart so full he could scarcely speak. “I just hope next time I will not need to be in the digging crew again.”

“No, for you, I will crawl in that tunnel and dig myself.” She looked into her reticule again. “And I have a little present for you, a Viking penannular brooch that—”

He took the reticule from her, tossed it onto the picnic blanket, and kissed her. Later, when they were apart again, he would gaze at the pin, study its every detail, and polish it with the finest, softest cloth. But now he needed no token of love.

Now he needed onlyher.