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Reaching over to a mahogany sofa table, Gabriel picked up an engraved dram glass half-filled with inky liquid. Without a word, he pressed the glass to her lips as if she couldn’t be trusted to hold it on her own without spilling it.
Pandora sipped cautiously. The drink was delicious, with rich flavors of toffee and plum leaving mellow heat on her tongue. She took another, deeper taste, her hands creeping up to take the glass from him. “What is this?”
“Port. Have the rest.” He curled his arm loosely around her bent knees.
Pandora drank it slowly, relaxing as the port sent warmth all the way down to her toes. The storm whistled impatiently, rattling the windows, calling back and forth with the sea as it leapt in roaring liquid hills. But she was warm and dry, resting in Gabriel’s arms while the snapping light of the hearth played over them.
He reached into the pocket of his waistcoat for a soft folded handkerchief, and blotted the last traces of perspiration from her face and throat. After setting the cloth aside, he stroked back a lock of dark hair and tucked it carefully behind her left ear. “I’ve noticed you don’t hear as well on this side,” he said quietly. “Is that part of the problem?”
Pandora blinked in amazement. In a mere handful of days, he had detected something that even her family, the people who actually lived with her, hadn’t perceived. They had all learned to accept, as a matter of course, that she was careless and inattentive.
She nodded. “I hear only about half as well in this ear as I do in the other. At night . . . in the dark . . . everything goes topsy-turvy, and I can’t tell what’s up or down. If I turn too quickly, I drop to the floor. I can’t control it; it’s like being pushed by invisible hands.”
Gabriel cradled her cheek in his palm, regarding her with a steady tenderness that sent her pulse into confusion. “That’s why you don’t dance.”
“I can manage a few of the dances at a slow pace. But waltzing is impossible. All that whirling and pivoting.” Self-consciously she looked away and drained the last few drops of port.
He took the empty glass from her and set it aside. “You should have told me. I would never have asked you to meet me at night if I’d known.”
“It wasn’t far. I thought a candle would be enough.” Pandora fidgeted with the belt of her flannel robe. “I didn’t count on tripping over my own slippers.” She extended her bare left foot from beneath her nightgown and frowned at it. “I’ve lost one of them.”
“I’ll find it later.” Taking one of her hands in his, Gabriel lifted it to his lips. He wove a pattern of gentle kisses over her cold fingers. “Pandora . . . what happened to your ear?”
Her soul revolted at the prospect of discussing it.
Turning her hand over, Gabriel kissed her palm and shaped her fingers against his cheek. His shaven skin was smooth in one direction and softly abrasive in the other, like a cat’s tongue. The firelight had turned him golden everywhere except for those eyes, the clear blue of an arctic star. He waited, damnably patient, while Pandora summoned the nerve to reply.
“I . . . can’t talk about it if I’m touching you.” Drawing her hand from his cheek, she crawled out of his lap. There was a persistent high-pitched ringing in her ear. Covering it lightly with her palm, she tapped her fingers on the back of her skull a few times. To her relief, the trick worked.
“Tinnitus,” Gabriel said, watching closely. “One of our older family solicitors has it. Does it trouble you often?”
“Only now and then, when I’m distressed.”
“There’s no need to be distressed now.”
Pandora cast him a brief, distracted smile, and knotted her fingers into a tight ball. “I brought this on myself. Do you remember when I told you that I eavesdrop? I don’t do it as much as I used to, actually. But when I was little, it was the only way to find out anything that was happening in our household. Cassandra and I took all our meals in the nursery and played by ourselves. Sometimes weeks would go by before we saw anyone other than Helen and the servants. Mama would leave for London, or Father would go on a hunting trip, or Theo would be off to boarding school, without even saying goodbye. When my parents were at home, the only way to attract their notice was to misbehave. I was the worst, of course. I dragged Cassandra into my plots and schemes, but everyone knew she was the nice twin. Poor Helen spent most of her time reading books in the corner and trying to be invisible. I preferred causing trouble to being ignored.”
Gabriel picked up the length of her braid and played with it as he listened.
“I was twelve when it happened,” she continued. “Or maybe eleven. My parents were arguing in the master bedroom with the door closed. Whenever they fought, it was dreadful. They would scream and smash things. Naturally, I poked my nose where it didn’t belong, and went to eavesdrop. They were fighting about a man my mother was . . . involved with. My father was shouting. Every word sounded like a piece of something broken. Cassandra started trying to pull me away from the door. Then it swung open and my father stood there, in a rage. He must have seen movement in the crack at the bottom of the casing. He reached for me, and fast as lightning, he boxed my ears. All I remember is the world exploding. Cassandra says she helped me back to our room, and there was blood coming from my left ear. My right ear mended in a day or two, but I could only hear a little out of the left one, and there was a beating pain deep down. Soon I took ill with fever. Mama said that had nothing to do with the ear, but I think it did.”