by Emily Larkin
Pip felt her eyebrows rise in astonishment. “What did they say?”
“They thought I was joking.”
“But you weren’t?”
He shook his head.
“Is that what you’d like to do? Use your magic to help people?”
“I don’t know. I’m glad we stopped Rumpole, but . . .” He sighed, and rubbed his forehead in a gesture that she recognized as purely Lord Octavius. “I don’t want to do what I did to Rumpole, ever again, but I have to because Donald hasn’t been stopped yet, and—” He frowned suddenly. “Damn it. I mean, dash it. I should have brought your dress back.”
“You’re not going to put the fear of God into him tonight?”
“I tried, but he’s locked himself in his room and he won’t open the door, no matter what I say or what voice I use.” He smiled, and despite the feminine softness of his face, the smile had sharp edges. “You’ve given him a fear of women.”
“Good,” Pip said.
“Yes, but I don’t think it’ll last. What he did to you? He’s done that before, and once he’s got over his fright he’ll do it again. I’m certain of it.”
Pip was certain of it, too.
“Don’t worry, Dex and I’ll stop him,” Lord Octavius said. “We’ll come back next month, slip into the house once it’s dark, and deal with him. I give you my word.”
Pip looked at him, sitting on the floor alongside her in a female body, and came to a belated realization. This wealthy, privileged marquis’s son did have a vocation, and not just any vocation, but a vocation that impacted profoundly on people’s lives.
She’d been right this morning to think him a hero, but wrong to set him on a pedestal. He wasn’t perfect. No one was. And perhaps that was what they needed to be discussing. Not values and vocations, but their unrealistic expectations of each other.
“I’m not perfect,” Pip said. “And I’m afraid you think that I am.”
Lord Octavius looked slightly confused by this change of subject. “Perfection is in the eye of the beholder,” he said, with a lift of his lips that invited her to smile at this statement.
Pip ignored the invitation. “I have flaws,” she persisted. “Lots of them. Everyone does.”
He cocked his head at her. “Tell me what you think yours are.”
“Well . . .” Now that she had to list them, Pip found herself floundering. “Well, my red hair and freckles, of course.”
Lord Octavius shook his head. “Those aren’t flaws.”
It wasn’t a compliment, precisely, but it felt like one. Pip’s cheeks became a little warm and her thoughts a little flustered. She scrambled to think of another flaw. “I have a crooked tooth. See?” She pointed to her eyetooth.
“Yes, that’s a very significant flaw,” Lord Octavius said gravely.
Pip pursed her lips at him. “Be serious,” she told him.
“Then give me a serious flaw—and not something physical.”
Pip thought for a moment, and then said, “I hold grudges. I find it difficult to forgive some things.”
“What sort of things?”
“Selfishness. Spite. Cruelty.”
He nodded. “What other flaws do you have?”
Pip hesitated, and then confessed, “I’m not as patient as I’d like to be.”
Lord Octavius shook his head. “I’ve watched you all week with the girls. You’re extremely patient.”
“With children, yes, but with adults . . .” Pip looked down at her lap again, plucked at a fold of fabric, pinched it, twisted it. “I get impatient when people complain a lot. At my last position, the children’s mother . . . she saw everything that was wrong in her life, not everything that was right.” She released the twist of fabric, smoothed it down, and met his eyes. “I know I should have been sympathetic—she can’t help the way she is—but it used to annoy me so much. I wanted to shake her and say, ‘Look at all the good things you have! Focus on those!’”
Lord Octavius eyed her for a long moment. “Let me see if I understand this correctly. You feel impatience towards people who complain incessantly?”
“Yes.”
“That’s not a flaw; that’s human nature.”
“A truly compassionate person—”
He shook his head. “Even a saint would find such a person annoying. Next flaw.”
Pip pursed her lips at him again. She searched for another flaw. “I’m too idealistic.”
He smiled. “You’re certainly idealistic, but it’s not necessarily a flaw. What else?”
Pip cast about for something else. “I have no musical ability. I can play the pianoforte, but it sounds terrible, and I can’t sing at all.”
“Ah, now that’s a real flaw,” Lord Octavius said, with a grin.
The grin was disconcerting. Somehow, despite the fact that his face was a different shape and his mouth was smaller and his lips fuller, it was still Lord Octavius’s grin.
In fact, it was more than disconcerting; it was actually a little bit disturbing. Pip found herself wanting the real Lord Octavius, not this female version of him.
“Fortunately, I can sing well enough for the both of us,” he said. “Can’t play the pianoforte, though.” He paused, and his grin widened. “My cousin Ned can burp God Save the King.”
Pip couldn’t prevent a laugh. She pressed her fingers to her mouth to smother it, and then said, “Can you do that?”
“Alas, no.” His tone was regretful, but his eyes were smiling.
Seeing Lord Octavius’s dark brown eyes smiling at her from someone else’s face wasn’t just a little bit disturbing, it was very disturbing. So disturbing, in fact, that Pip almost asked him to change into himself. Prudence stopped her from uttering the words. Having a female Lord Octavius in her bedchamber was unnerving enough. Having a male Lord Octavius would be even worse.
Pip looked away and struggled to find something else to say. “Good,” she said. “Because I couldn’t marry a man who can burp God Save the King.” Too late, she realized that she’d implied that she could marry him and that she was in fact considering it.
Pip tensed. She didn’t want him to propose again. Not yet. It was too soon.
Perhaps Lord Octavius noticed her tension, or perhaps he also thought it was too soon, for he said, “What other flaws do you have?”
Pip cast about for one. “Not precisely a flaw, but a . . . an idiosyncrasy.”
He nodded encouragingly.
Pip knew she ought to tell him about her obsession with threes, but she couldn’t quite bring herself to. There was honesty, and then there was honesty.
“I wake at dawn every day,” she told him instead. “Sometimes earlier. I like mornings.”
“I like mornings, too,” Lord Octavius said. “But I’m not usually up at dawn.” He shrugged. “I can be, though, if you’d like?”
Would she like to share dawns with him? Would she like to watch colors unfurl across the sky and the world come to life? To share that quiet sense of wonder and joy?
Yes. She would. In fact, she’d like it so much that she actually felt a pang of yearning in her chest.
Pip looked down at her lap and fiddled with the belt of her robe until the pang faded.
“Any other flaws or idiosyncrasies?” Lord Octavius asked.
Threes. Threes were definitely both a flaw and an idiosyncrasy, but Pip chose the coward’s route and shook her head—and that, right there, was another flaw to add to her tally: cowardice.
“Very well,” Lord Octavius said. “Let’s examine my flaws, shall we?” He shifted his weight slightly and then was silent for several seconds. So many seconds, in fact, that Pip glanced at him. He was frowning at the floor. “My greatest flaw is that I’m a frippery fellow,” he said finally. “I have no need to earn my living and no purpose in life other than to enjoy myself.”
“I don’t think you’re frippery,” Pip said.
“No?” He met her eyes. “I have money and time in abundance, but I’ve o
nly ever used them for my own amusement, and as for my magic, I could have chosen a gift that was practical, like Grandfather’s, but instead I chose one that was fun.” He shook his head. “Frippery. That’s definitely my greatest flaw. And my second greatest flaw is what happened this morning. I lost my temper and almost killed someone—and I don’t know if you can believe it, but before today I wouldn’t even have said I had a hot temper.” He rubbed his forehead again.
“I don’t think you have a hot temper,” Pip said. “I think what you have is a very protective disposition.”
His expression was doubtful. “You do?”
She nodded. “Extremely protective.”
He shrugged, as if he didn’t quite believe her. “And as for my other flaws . . . well, they’re much the same as yours. I can’t forgive malice and cruelty and I have no patience for people who complain all the time.” He gave a half smile. “I can sing, though.” The half smile faded. “We should have talked about this earlier, shouldn’t we? I’m a frivolous lout, and not at all the sort of man you’d like to marry.”
“You’re not a frivolous lout,” Pip said. “Unless you’ve been pretending to be someone other than yourself this past week?”
“Pretending?” He looked affronted. “Of course not.”
“Then you’re not frippery or frivolous and you do have a purpose. You want to protect people.”
He frowned at her, and she wished he was wearing his true face.
“What about idiosyncrasies?” Pip asked. “Do you have any of those?”
He thought for a moment. “I’ve been told I talk in my sleep,” he said, and Pip wondered who’d told him. A family member? A servant? A lover?
He thought some more, and then wrinkled his nose. “I hate gooseberries. The smell and the taste . . .” He shuddered. “Ugh.”
“I rather like gooseberry custard,” Pip said.
Lord Octavius pulled a face. “Then we can’t possibly marry,” he declared, before a smile twitched at his lips.
Pip found herself smiling back; it was impossible not to, but then his smile faded and so did hers.
His gaze was intent on her face. “What do you think, Pip?”
Pip looked away from him. She studied the cheap drugget carpet on the floor, her eyes following the lines of the weave while she thought. “I think that we share a connection and that our characters are compatible and our values sufficiently similar, but I worry that our backgrounds are too different. You’re a marquis’s son and I’m a clergyman’s daughter. You’re wealthy and I’m poor. We were raised so differently and I fear . . .” She lifted her gaze and met his eyes squarely. “I fear that the differences between us are too great. There’s no commonality in our backgrounds. None at all.”
He studied her face for a long moment, his expression grave, and then said, “We’re human. That’s the greatest commonality of all, isn’t it?”
Her gaze dropped. She fiddled with her belt. “Well . . . yes.”
Lord Octavius said nothing. After a moment, Pip glanced at him.
He was watching her. “What does your heart tell you?” he asked quietly.
Pip was silent for several seconds, and then she said, equally quietly, “My heart tells me to marry you.”
He offered her a tiny, hopeful smile. “My heart tells me that, too.”
The dark brown eyes were Lord Octavius’s, but nothing else was, and suddenly it was unbearable to be having this discussion with someone who was almost, but not quite, him. Pip needed to hear his real voice, to see his real face. “Please change into yourself,” she said.
He hesitated. “Are you certain?”
Pip nodded.
“Very well.”
Between one blink of Pip’s eyelids and the next, he became himself. There were no sparks or flashes of magic; he simply changed. One second he was a woman, the next he was a man. The air didn’t shimmer, but he seemed to shimmer slightly, if only for the merest instant.
As a man, he took up considerably more space on the floor alongside her. The robe had been voluminous on him before. Now, it wasn’t. In fact his belt was tied far too tightly, judging from his pained grimace and his haste in loosening it.
Lord Octavius was the same person regardless of what body he occupied—his character didn’t change, merely his outer shell—but seeing him as himself again gave Pip a profound sense of relief. She felt the relief physically, as if she’d been wearing something prickly next to her skin and now it was gone.
On the heels of that almost visceral sense of relief came another feeling: safety. She felt safer now that Lord Octavius was a man—much safer—as if nothing could possibly harm her.
Pip waited until he’d retied his belt before asking, “What does it feel like when you change shape?”
“It itches.”
“Itches?”
“The parts of me that change, itch. My skin, my bones.” He shrugged.
Pip looked at him. His features were the same as they’d always been—the strong eyebrows, the strong nose, the strong jaw—but she saw him more clearly than she had before. He didn’t have a murderous heart, but he was a man capable of violence. He was a hero, but an imperfect one.
They gazed at each other silently for what seemed like hours. Pip felt the sense of connection grow up between them again, that intangible bond that was so much more than friendship.
“Will you marry me?” Lord Octavius asked.
The differences between them might be vast, but the differences weren’t what mattered. What mattered were the things they shared.
“Yes,” Pip said.
His face lit with emotions: relief, joy, elation. His smile was as bright as the sun. He opened his mouth.
Pip held up a hand to forestall whatever he was going to say. “But there’s something I must tell you first. I do have another flaw.”
Chapter Thirty-Six
“This is going to sound very foolish, but . . .” Pip discovered that she couldn’t look at Lord Octavius’s face while she told him about her greatest flaw. She looked down at her lap and twisted the end of her belt. “My father had an obsession with threes. He did everything in threes. He tapped three times on every door he went through. He wiped each foot three times on the mat. He snuffed candles three times and checked the locks three times and kissed me good-night three times. He made sure to have three things on his fork when he ate. He chewed in multiples of three and he walked in multiples of three and every time he turned to a new page in a book he would stroke it three times. Everything was threes.”
She risked a glance at Lord Octavius. That bright-as-sunshine smile had faded. He looked faintly perplexed.
“Threes ruled my father’s life, and they ruled my life, too, but I didn’t mind. It felt like a game, our game, but it also felt good—safe—as if everything in the world would be all right if only we did things in threes.”
Lord Octavius’s brow creased. He looked even more perplexed.
“It was an obsession,” Pip said. “An affliction, but it was also an enormous comfort to my father. I don’t expect you to understand, but threes made him happy, and they made me happy, too.”
Lord Octavius nodded. It wasn’t a nod to show that he understood—because how could he?—but a nod to encourage her to continue.
Pip looked back down at her lap. She twisted the end of her belt backwards and forwards between her fingers. “When my father died, I went to live with my aunt. She wouldn’t let me do threes. She said it was unhealthy and unnatural and that she’d whip it out of me if she had to.”
“Did she whip you?”
“Twice,” Pip said. She risked a glance at Lord Octavius. He was frowning.
“How old were you?” he asked.
“Twelve.”
His frown deepened.
“My aunt suffered more than I did,” Pip told him. “She cried the second time she whipped me and that was when I realized that she wasn’t breaking me of threes to be cruel; she was doing it for me.
”
“So . . . you stopped?”
“I stopped fighting her,” Pip said. “But it took the better part of a year before I was able to stop doing everything in threes. It was difficult.”
“Difficult” was a profoundly inadequate word to describe the pain of that year. She’d lost her father, and she’d lost threes, and she’d been more unhappy than she’d thought humanly possible. Her father had given her love and stability, and threes had given her a way to make sense of the world. Without those things she’d felt helpless and alone, adrift in a chaotic sea with nothing to cling onto.
Pip shivered. Not a shiver of cold, but a shiver of remembered misery. “In the end, my aunt let me keep one three. And that’s my flaw.”
Lord Octavius, when she ventured a glance at him, didn’t look disapproving. He had a surprisingly sympathetic expression on his face. “Which three did you keep?”
“I tap for good luck,” Pip said, and tapped her thumb and forefinger together three times to show him. Embarrassment heated her cheeks as she did so, or perhaps it was shame, but even though tapping in front of him made her feel bad, the taps themselves made her feel good. In that brief instant of time she felt calmer and safer and luckier. But afterwards . . . afterwards she felt foolish, because even if those taps gave her a sense of control over her destiny, she knew that they didn’t.
Pip balled her hand up on her knee. She couldn’t quite bring herself to meet Lord Octavius’s eyes. She was afraid she’d see derision there, or perhaps pity.
“People do lots of things for good luck,” he said, and his tone was so easy, so affable, so uncritical, that she couldn’t help but look at him. His expression matched his tone. He didn’t look derisive or pitying. He smiled at her. “Knock on wood,” he said, and rapped his knuckles twice on the wooden skirting.
