Elias shivered strangely at this. He held harder to Dora’s shoulders. He took a few more deep breaths, and forced himself upright.
“I...” Elias swallowed hard. “I needed to hear that, Lady Carroway. I did not by any means deserve to hear it.” He looked towards the viscountess, over Dora’s shoulder. “I am terribly sorry. And I am grateful.”
Lady Carroway smiled, but Dora saw that it was tremulous. “Your anger can be terrifying, Lord Sorcier,” she told him. “Since we are being honest with one another, I must admit to being frightened by it. I cannot help but forgive such earnest grief, since it is caused by such earnest love. But I beg you to remember the effect you may have when you forget yourself.” She drew in another breath. “And I... I will ask that you do not leave bridges unmended with my son. If you come inside now, I swear that all shall be forgotten on my side. Talk with Albert. You will have a hot meal and a warm bed tonight, instead of sitting in the dark in some wretched bachelor’s lodging, thinking of terrible things.”
Elias hesitated.
Dora surreptitiously kicked him in the shin, and he hissed in surprised pain. His eyes flickered back towards her, and Dora smiled serenely. “You must say yes, of course,” she told him. “Because there is no other proper answer.”
Elias sighed. Slowly, he removed his hands from Dora’s shoulders. “I am scared of facing Albert,” he admitted. “I would rather face a French firing line again. But since it was Albert that saved me from something of that sort in the first place, I suppose that would be a terrible waste.”
“If you change your mind,” Dora told him helpfully, “I will have my scissors on hand. You may borrow them whenever you like.”
Elias coughed on a hazy laugh. “That is very dark humour, Miss Ettings,” he managed. “I cannot help but approve.”
They headed back inside, all three of them, dripping on the floor in front of the quietly horrified butler. Lady Carroway sent a servant with Elias to find him a room. She turned to Dora then, and there was a fond, rueful smile on her face.
“I shall have to lend you a dress, Miss Ettings,” she said. “And perhaps a set of slippers.”
Chapter 11
Lady Carroway gave Dora one of her older dresses—it was a lovely mint green silk that was so far beyond Dora’s means that it looked somewhat ridiculous, especially with the bust so obviously fitted for another woman. Still, one of the maids helped Dora change in Lady Carroway’s room, pinning back the extra material so that it looked nearly right. They eventually tracked down the matching slippers too, which fit her feet tolerably well.
“I will see how quickly I may return this to you,” Dora promised the viscountess. “It is so expensive, I almost fear to wear it at all.”
Lady Carroway shook her head. “I have not worn this dress in years,” she said. “I still think fondly of it—but it is a style fit for a younger woman, and it is time I gave it up.” She smiled at Dora. “I do not think that I have ever seen such grace and calm under pressure. I am suitably impressed with you tonight, Miss Ettings.”
Dora blinked at that. Somewhere distant, the words gently nudged themselves against a pile of misery, knocking away a few of the other ugly words that had nested there.
“That is... most kind of you,” Dora told her. “But I fear it is more of an affliction than a grace. I am often not emotional enough, my lady.”
“You were quite emotional enough to calm an angry magician and drive him to tears,” Lady Carroway said wryly. “I ought to have died of shock to hear an apology cross that man’s lips, Miss Ettings. But he seems truly chastened tonight, and now in a more generous and contrite state of being than ever before. If you continue to perform such miracles, you may yet be in danger of being canonised.”
Dora looked down at the green slippers on her feet. “I will ask the priest on Sunday,” she said absently. “But I suspect I must be dead before I may be canonised, Lady Carroway. The thought does not immediately appeal, so I shall do my best to refrain from any further miracles.”
The viscountess laughed at that. It was a warmer sound, now that they were away from dinner and behind closed doors. “Miss Ettings,” she said. “It is a terrible shame that you will not marry Albert. I would have loved you as a daughter.”
Dora froze in place. A warm, flustered confusion beat at the inside of her chest. “I... I don’t know what you mean by that,” she said.
Lady Carroway patted her shoulder. “Albert has set himself against the match,” she said. “For the life of me, I could not understand why at first. But I have seen now what he must have seen from the beginning. You have a rare sorcery indeed, to wring a few such smiles from the Lord Sorcier, Miss Ettings. And I think you must be nearly as taken with him as my son is.“
Dora gave a few slow blinks. The hundred or so implications of this little speech moved like molasses through her head.
This is ideal, she thought. Albert will be pleased that his mother has given up.
But Elias was not really courting Dora, and obviously she was not taken with him. Dora could not really be taken with anyone, could she? She was almost certain one required a full soul for that sort of thing.
“I would have loved you as a daughter.”
The words made her chest sore. Dora reached up to rub at it, confused.
“I am very mindful of the compliment you have paid me,” she told Lady Carroway quietly. “I value it dearly, though I do not quite know how to express
