Hello Stranger

“Why do you say that?” Ransom leaned a shoulder against the wall as he looked down at her, his big, sheltering form very close.

Garrett was chagrined to realize how much she’d been talking. “I’m being tiresome, babbling on and on about my childhood. Let’s change the subject. How do you—”

“I like the subject,” Ransom interrupted, his voice lowering to a velvety pitch. “Tell me what you were going to say.”

Garrett drank again to bolster her nerve before replying. “It’s only that I . . . tend to keep others at a distance. Even with a good friend like Lady Helen, I hold back things that I know would shock or distress her. My work . . . the way it’s shaped me . . . and perhaps having lost a mother . . . I can’t seem to be close to people.”

“’Tis a habit, is all.” The glow of a streetlamp found sapphire gleams in the depths of his eyes. “Someday you’ll trust someone enough to let down your guard. And then there’ll be no holding back.”

They were interrupted as a young girl walked along the pavement in front of the sessions house, calling, “Flowers! Fresh-cut flowers!” She stopped in front of them. “Posy for the lady, sir?”

Ransom turned to the girl, who wore a colorful scarf over her long dark hair and a patchwork apron over her black dress. She carried a flat basket filled with posyes, their stems wrapped with bits of colored ribbon.

“There’s no need—” Garrett began, but Ransom ignored her, browsing over the tiny bouquets of roses, narcissus, violets, forget-me-nots, and dianthus.

“How much?” he asked the flower girl.

“A farthing, sir.”

He glanced at Garrett over his shoulder. “Do you like violets?”

“I do,” she said hesitantly.

Ransom gave the flower-girl a sixpence and picked out one of the posyes.

“Thank you, sir!” The girl scurried away as if fearing he might change his mind.

Ransom turned to Garrett with the cluster of purple blossoms. Reaching for the lapel of her walking jacket, he deftly tucked the ribbon-wrapped stem of the posy into a buttonhole.

“Violets make an excellent blood-purifying tonic,” Garrett said awkwardly, feeling the need to fill the silence. “And they’re good for treating cough or fever.”

The elusive dimple appeared in his cheek. “They’re also becoming to green-eyed women.”

Self-consciously she glanced down at the posy and touched one of the velvety petals. “Thank you,” she murmured. “This is the first time a man’s ever given me flowers.”

“Ah, darlin’ . . .” His perceptive gaze searched her face. “Do you intimidate men so badly, then?”

“I do, I’m horrid,” Garrett confessed, and a mischievous laugh broke out. “I’m independent and opinionated, and I love telling people what to do. I have no feminine delicacy. My occupation either offends or frightens men, or sometimes both.” She shrugged and smiled. “So I’ve never been given so much as a single dandelion. But it’s been worth it to live as I choose.”

Ransom stared at her as if spellbound. “A queen, you are,” he said softly. “I could travel the world the rest of my life, and not find another woman with half your ways.”

Garrett’s knees seemed to have turned into isinglass. Somewhere in her dissolving brain, it occurred to her that there was a reason she felt so warm and chatty and comfortable. Frowning, she held out the wine bottle and regarded it suspiciously.

“I’ve had enough of this,” she said, handing it to him. “I don’t want to become tipsy.”

His brows lifted. “You’ve scarce had enough to make a field mouse tipsy.”

“It’s not just the wine. Dr. Havelock poured a glass of birthday whiskey for me earlier. And I must keep my wits about me.”

“For what?”

She floundered for a reason but fell silent.

Ransom drew her deeper into the shadows. His hand pressed her head to his shoulder, against the soft, supple leather of his vest. She felt him stroke her cheek gently, as if he were smoothing the wing of a small bird or the easily torn petals of a poppy. The sweet scent of violets clung to his fingers. For the rest of her life, she thought hazily, that smell would bring her back to this moment.

“You’re used to being in charge,” he murmured, “every second of the day. With no one to catch you if you set a foot wrong.” His voice curled around her ear, making her shiver. “But I’m giving you the night off. You’ll have my arms to hold you steady. Drink more wine, if you like. There’ll be music and dancing later. I’ll buy a ribbon for your hair, and waltz you across the green at midnight. What do you say to that?”

“I say we’d look a fine pair of fools,” Garrett said. But she let herself relax into the power and heat of him, conforming bonelessly to the hard framework of his body.

A brush of silky warmth against her temple raised the little hairs on her arms and the back of her neck. The movements of her breathing pressed into the rise and fall of his chest until the rhythms blended. She was distantly aware of other couples nearby, indulging in bits of amorous fondling and a stolen kiss or two. Before tonight, Garrett had never understood why people indulged in such shameless behavior in public. Now she did. Shadows didn’t always harbor fearful things. Sometimes shadows were the only place for a little magic to hide.

People were dimming streetlamps. The lights in shop windows and public houses were vanishing. A woman was singing somewhere nearby—one of the street entertainers, performing a ballad in Gaelic. Her voice was supple and airy, weaving an intricate melody that fell on the ear like an audible heartbreak.

“What is that song?” Garrett asked.

“Donal Og. One of my mam’s favorites.”

“What do the lyrics mean?”

Ransom seemed reluctant to answer. After a long moment, he began to translate quietly near her ear. “Black as coal is the grief all around me. You’ve stolen the future and past from me, you took the East and West from me. The sun, moon, and stars from my sky you’ve taken—and God as well, if I’m not mistaken.”

Garrett was too moved to speak.

Ethan Ransom could never fit in with the pattern of her life as it was now, nor in any of its possible future shapes. He was an anomaly, dazzling and temporary. A shooting star, burning up from the friction of its own velocity.

But she wanted this man. She wanted him with an intensity that was beginning to make a number of deranged ideas seem like sensible plans of action.

The crowd occupying the green was stirring in anticipation. Carefully Ransom began to turn Garrett to face away from him, ignoring her muffled protests.

“Turn around,” he insisted, “so you’ll be able to see.”

“See what?” she asked, wanting to stay against him just as she was. Ransom pulled her back firmly against his chest and crossed an arm around her waist. Before another minute had passed, a long, ear-splitting whistle cut through the air, punctuated by a crackling burst of blue sparks in the upper vault of darkness. Garrett started reflexively, and Ransom clamped his arm more securely around her, his chuckle tickling her ear.

The sky over central London exploded with a simultaneous release of approximately three dozen aerial maroon rockets. Exhilarated cries and cheers erupted from the crowd as pyrotechnic volleys pierced the air: fiery tourbillion spirals, plumes, shells, and rains of colored stars. Elfin light danced over the crowd on the green.