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“Himself,” he said, more darkly.

“And if it could be undone?” She fixed her eyes straight ahead. “If I really could wish everything different, I don’t think I’d do it. Not because I’m deceived. I do see the bad. Piles of bad. Heaps.” She gave a raspy laugh. “The good is still there. Jack also filled my life with people to love. And non-people.” She reached out to touch Fritz’s head, but laid her hand instead on Alan’s side and felt his muscles clench beneath his coat. She pulled back.

“Without Jack, I wouldn’t be who I am.” She licked her lips. How exposed she felt, and foolish. So, this was honesty. “I can’t cut him out.”

He angled her a look, shaded by his soot-black lashes.

“You’re Nina Finch,” he murmured. “You can do anything.” He wrapped his arm around her.

She froze, then she melted into his solid warmth. His scent flooded her, Brown Windsor soap and that dark, delicious, nameless spice.

Chirp.

She let her gaze travel down. Fritz stared up at her, half-levered out of Alan’s waistcoat, eyes wide and mischievous. He stuck out his tongue, ear tufts vibrating.

She blinked back sudden tears and stuck out her tongue in return.

Alan stretched out his legs and leaned back, so Nina could settle her head more comfortably on his shoulder.

Much later, after a visit to a watercolor exhibition, a hot, surprisingly enthralling hour in a lecture hall, another dinner in a subterranean restaurant, and a quartet concert, Nina found herself back at Casa De’Ath, standing with Alan at the foot of the front staircase.

She was as breathless as if she’d run up those stairs three times over. She’d fallen into step with him and hadn’t thought of splitting off toward her own room.

Now, she was lingering. They were lingering, turning toward each other.

“Nina,” he said, and in the pause that followed she had time to imagine too many things. She couldn’t think at all, could only stare up into his face.

“Here.” He reached into his waistcoat. Fritz stirred and sprang into her arms.

She lowered her burning cheek to stroke his fur and heard a murmur so deep and low she could only assume it was good night. And a moment after, she heard the sound of Alan’s slow steps as he ascended the stairs.

Chapter Twenty-two

Nina awoke with a gasp. A wave of pleasure was rolling through her. The covers bunched between her legs; her arms cinched the pillow. She sat up, pushed away the hair plastered to her sweaty cheeks. Her rapid breathing had dried her throat. The room was pitch-black and too warm.

Water. She scrambled out of bed and banged into a chair. She clutched at the handle of the wickerwork basket before it sailed off the chair into the washstand. Nested inside, Fritz gave an admonishing cry.

“Go back to sleep,” she whispered. “It’s the middle of the night.” Was it? Or was it the earliest hour of the morning? She’d lost all sense of time. She lit a candle and shadows swarmed. The walls seemed unbearably close, furniture squeezing together.

Air. Air first. She went to the tall window, pulled the silk curtain cord, and yanked up the sash. Welcome coolness seeped around her. She rested her forehead on a pane of glass.

She registered Fritz’s presence, his quiet leap onto the sill, but her sluggish body reacted too slowly, even as he pressed into her waist, gathering himself. Even as her brain anticipated his next move.

“Don’t—”

But he’d already hurtled into the darkness.

“Blast!” She canted forward, jamming her whole upper body through the window, thrusting her arms down into the prickly landscaping. Where had he gone? She craned her neck to squint up at the house’s brick façade, mantled heavily with ivy. That ivy was rustling.

“Fritz. Don’t move another inch.” He was climbing for the balcony above.

She retracted herself, wiggling her shoulders and knocking her head on the sash. She spun, seized the candleholder, and raced from the room.

Once she’d climbed the tightly spiraled servants’ stair, she stopped to catch her breath, candleholder shaking so violently in her hand the long hallway seemed to flicker. That door there, by its location, opened onto the room possessed of the relevant balcony.

She tiptoed to the door. She should have put on stockings, shoes.

The room—it might be a guest bedchamber. It might be . . .