“Yes,” he said. “I’m astonished that you understand. You are not at all . . . frightened?”
She smiled. “Assemblies frighten me. Proposals frighten me. This . . . is merely wondrous.”
Her limbs had grown stiff and she took some time rising from the ground. Francis rushed forward to assist but was only in time to touch her elbow and bow an apology. She thanked him anyway. Moving then to Edward, she removed her coat and spread it over him. He made a sound, a soft murmur that she couldn’t make out, and nestled more deeply into his grassy bed and sighed in comfort.
“I think I should take my leave, sirs. Do have a pleasant evening.”
“Miss Weston, we should escort you home—”
“No, it isn’t far, I’ll be fine, truly. Stay with Edward.”
They bowed, and she curtseyed, which seemed ridiculous here under the moon by the shadow of the forest, but it also seemed proper.
Taking her lantern, she hurried back to the house, shivering in her nightdress, to warm herself in her bed. Her maid never asked how her slippers had become so muddy and grass stained.
Several days later she received a parcel wrapped in paper and tied with twine. She took it to her room to unwrap, because she was sure what the package contained: her coat, with a carefully written slip of paper that said, My thanks.
This gave her such a warm feeling she was almost overwhelmed, and she held the note to her breast for a long time.
Elizabeth gladly attended the next assembly in town, not for any expectation that the brothers Wilde would be present, but for the hope that they would. Hope, she discovered, was a powerful inducement to feats of bravery.
She refused two dances, with Amy defending her by spreading about that she had a weak ankle, and was sitting in her usual wallflower role in a chair, happy to watch people enter and exit by the foyer.
And there he was. The three brothers entered, much as they had at the Woodfair ball. Edward was in the middle, and his gaze fell on her directly, as a hound on the scent. Elizabeth stood in a bit of a panic. Vincent nodded to her and took a smirking Francis off to another part of the room.
Edward came to stand before her. He bowed; she curtseyed. The emotions pouring from him were tangled, but the strongest thread she felt was happiness.
He asked if she would like to sit; she did, clutching her hands together in her lap. He sat in the chair beside her. He was like the wolf, ears pricked forward, afraid to move lest he startle her.
“May I speak freely with you, Miss Weston?” he asked finally.
“Of course.” They sat a little apart from one another. The distance seemed a mile.
“I could smell you, when I woke. Your coat—it smelled of you.” He blushed, trying to find the words. “I have never slept so well. I have never slept so soundly and comfortably, after returning from my other self. I fear I must ask you to run after me every full moon, to drape me with your coat.”
“I would do it,” she said simply.
He chuckled. “You should stay inside where it is safe. But perhaps I can learn to carry your handkerchief with me.”
“I would give you a handkerchief right now, if I had one.”
“Elizabeth. There is so much you don’t know about us.”
She smiled. “You and the other Misters Wilde are not brothers—well, you are in spirit, if not by blood. It is most strange.”
“Indeed. And yet no one but you questions it.”
“Most people are eager to accept what they are told.”
“But not you.”
“This is my secret, Mr. Wilde: I can feel lies. And almost every word spoken in parlors like this is a lie. I wonder that you are so eager to leave your woods.”
“As I said, there are some attractions here.”
“I do like the music,” she said.
“Miss Weston—will you trust me?” The meaning behind the words was more than what he spoke, and she understood him perfectly.