by Diana Davis
He didn’t know she was Jeanne Dark.
He had not asked to court her.
Constance moved from the dance floor before Fischer recovered from whatever his shock was. She could only hope she was fast enough to outrun her own.
Fischer was too surprised to stop Constance from leaving the dance floor. He withdrew to the charter room. Finding that crowded, he moved to the balcony. Even that wasn’t private enough to make sense of his thoughts or escape Constance’s violet scent.
Constance had said Jeanne Dark. Not jeen dark, zhahn dark: Jeanne d’Arc.
Jeanne Dark was an alias, based on Joan of Arc’s name in French. How had he not seen it sooner? Of course he knew Jeanne was a French name. He’d hardly had time to say it aloud.
He had asked to court a woman whose name he’d never said aloud. He hadn’t just asked — she’d accepted. He was courting a woman whose name he’d never thought on hard enough to pronounce.
That was hardly the biggest impediment to the courtship. All one had to do was look at how he’d been drawn to Constance Hayes, how easy it had been to fall into their old ways, as if nothing had changed.
He didn’t deserve her kindness, not even to compliment his clothing.
He had to think.
Fischer edged back through the charter room and downstairs, walking the few blocks to his shop. He’d been so happy to have a single night free to attempt to find the woman he was courting, and what had he done? Gone straight to Constance Hayes.
Yes, she’d seemed in need of rescuing from that rascal who couldn’t tell when he’d been insulted, but her cousin had been right there. He could have done it. Despite obviously pushing Fischer to dance with her already, Beaufort wouldn’t have let that Means man carry her off.
And then Fischer had had Constance’s hand in his for the first time in over a year.
How he’d conspired to make that happen the year before. The memory overtook him as he numbly made his way home.
—
He’d implied to Lydia that she ought to bring Constance by the shop as soon as was convenient. Seeing her at Beaufort’s housewarming had not been nearly enough. As exciting as all the subterfuge had been, Fischer had been ready to be done with it. He’d learned all he needed to know about Constance. She was kind and generous and forgiving. She’d stood up for Lydia. And she was funny and inventive and sweet. She’d made him feel understood. Accepted.
His father, all those years ago, had been wrong. He could certainly marry someone he loved desperately, all-consumingly. How could he not?
He wouldn’t jump that far ahead, not yet. Not if it would reflect poorly on Constance.
That night, Fischer had lit the lantern in the front office of his print shop, then brought a taper into the back. He’d finally carved out a little time to work on those essays. Constance’s editorial judgment was excellent: if he wrote them as letters from an ordinary farmer, surely he could persuade more people to the revolutionary cause.
She made a very good muse, if he could put her out of his mind long enough to write.
He hung his coat over the back of the chair and settled in to work. He’d barely scratched out an opening sentence when the front door opened. Sighing, he prepared to serve the belated customer.
“Fischer?” Lydia’s voice carried. “I’ve a surprise for you.” She laughed, and another voice joined in.
A voice he knew well. He pushed his work aside and hurried to the front of the shop, his heartbeat already hastening. “Good evening!” he said, at Constance’s side in an instant.
“Good evening. We were just out for a walk and thought we’d stop in,” Lydia said.
“And I’m so glad you did.”
Lydia glanced around. His assistants were gone for the day, so the three of them were alone in the shop. “I’m just going to . . . check a few things, if you’ll excuse me for a moment. And then perhaps you could give a tour?”
“I would like that,” Constance said.
“Then a tour you will have.”
Lydia strolled away from them. Distantly, Fischer wished she would hurry up and go into the back room, but he couldn’t wait any longer. He took Constance’s hand, and she held his. Encouraged, he took her other hand and lifted them both to kiss them.
Constance gazed up at him, her green eyes wide and shining with hope. That was good, wasn’t it?
He hoped so. He took a deep breath. Was it his imagination, or was the fire burning hotter in here?
Had he lit a fire?
“Miss Hayes. Constance,” he began. “I know we haven’t known each other very long, but I think of you constantly.”
She smiled serenely up at him. He could just kiss her now and that would be the same as asking to court her, wouldn’t it?
No, he should ask and then kiss her. “You must allow me — please — to —”
“Fischer!” Lydia’s cry from the back broke their idyll. What the devil? He hadn’t even noticed she’d finally left the room. He started for the back, still holding onto one of Constance’s hands.
He’d only made it two steps before Lydia shouted again: “Fire!”
The taper. He’d left it burning. He released Constance and ran.
In the back, flames climbed the curtains and the wall. Fischer shed his red coat and ran to beat at the flames.
A scream. Lydia — screaming his name. He ran to her. She held a bucket — she was brilliant. “Get out of here!” he shouted. “Keep her safe!”
He threw the water onto the fire and used his coat to smother the last of the flames.
A long moment of wary watching stretched out before he was sure the crisis was averted. Then he sank onto the floor.
The silence spun itself tighter and tighter until he had to get up again and check everything meticulously. His presses were safe. His type was safe. Most of his paper was safe. He searched everywhere again, made another inventory, raked through the ashes.
Finally, he eased himself back onto the floor, leaning against the foot of a press. He stared at the blackened streaks along the wall. The curtains were gone. His coat was completely forfeit. Half of this week’s edition was ruined, between the water and the fire. The draft of his first essay was drowned but at least legible. He was lucky he’d forgotten his draft book at home; he might have ruined all his notes.
A letter from Constance was half burnt, though he’d used the one uncharred sleeve of his coat to carefully blot dry the surface of the remaining fragment.
He pulled his knees up to his chest and hung his head over them. He couldn’t be sure whether he’d left the taper too close to the curtains or knocked it over in his haste to greet her. Either way, he was a singular fool.
He was so consumed by his love for Constance, he’d let himself run riot.
He had nearly lost everything. What if Lydia hadn’t been there to see the fire, to bring the water? He would have been asking to court Constance at the same time as the only thing that made him hope to be worthy of making those addresses to her was burning to nothing more than worthless ash.
He would have lost any chance with her before he’d even begun to win her.
He looked up at the burnt desk again. How had he been so careless, so foolish? Just an hour ago, he’d sat there, finally working on the project that he’d been planning for so long — one he’d put off again and again to write to Constance, to sit with Constance, to talk with Constance.
And then she’d appeared, and he’d forgotten all about that in a heady, giddy, all-consuming rush.
Fischer was not under any illusions about his press. He was not failing, but neither was he succeeding financially, not yet. He didn’t have the luxury of time to spend flitting about following some ridiculous fantasy.
Fischer got up off the floor. He didn’t have time to wallow, either. He used his ruined coat to scrub the soot from the walls. They would have to repair the damage and repaint, but this would be enough to ge
t back to work in the morning.
He spread out the sheets of paper that might be salvageable — not many — and tossed the rest in the fireplace. His drowned draft went in as well.
He wrote a quick note to leave at his superintendent’s boardinghouse asking to meet him as early as possible. They still had the formes locked in their chases from the most recent edition; they still might be able to reprint at least some of what he’d lost.
Fischer picked up the last thing on the desk — the fragment of Constance’s letter. He could have even endangered Constance herself. He could have lost far more than half her last letter.
Fire was not the only thing that might hurt her.
Fischer stepped back from the desk, contemplating it with his chin in his hand. He ought to put the fragment of her letter on the grate. He ought to put her out of his mind. He ought to ignore his stupid heart. That was safest for them both.
He carefully refolded the letter along its remaining creases and slid it into his pocket.
Reeve, his superintendent, wasn’t in bed yet, so he was able to leave word in person, and then Fischer began the long, slow walk home.
He knew better than this. It hadn’t been that long ago — not quite a decade — that he’d been young, in love with the fervid certainty of youth. Hadn’t he learned his lesson then?
—
Fischer finally pulled himself out of the memory as he reached his house. A year after the fire, it was obvious he still had learned nothing, if his mind was still so consumed with Constance. At the end of another long, slow walk home, Fischer stared up at his house again. The drawing room windows were lit; Lydia was probably still working. He would go in to her just as he had last year, and she’d probably ask about Constance just as she had last year.
What had really changed?
Fischer trudged up the steps and into the house, heading straight to the drawing room.
Phineas Brand stood in his house. Back to Fischer, he bowed over Lydia in his arms.
Fischer took no time for thought. Brand had an inch or two over him, but Fischer had surprise — and fury — on his side.
He grabbed Brand’s coat collar and hauled him off balance. Brand, for his part, released Lydia before he fell.
Fischer half-dragged him to the door and threw him onto the front steps. “Never again!”
He slammed the door and threw the bolt.
“Fischer!” Lydia demanded behind him. “We weren’t —”
He took her by the arms, barely managing not to shake her. “Comment peux-tu être si égoïste?” How can you be so selfish?
“Égoïste? Who is being selfish here?”
“Please, Lydie. Please.” His voice broke on the last syllable. He had argued this too many times. She could only injure herself on this path.
Her gaze fell from his, and her expression went flat. “That hurts.”
He hurt her? His anger was extinguished faster than last year’s fire had been. He made sure Lydia had her balance before he released her. What was he doing? He’d done it again: let himself be so consumed he’d hurt someone he loved. “I’m sorry.”
“Sleep at the shop,” she said in the same remote tone.
Fischer looked away, but nodded. Lydia extinguished the drawing room’s lamp, gave him a clear berth in the entryway and ascended the stairs. Fischer waited until the house was quiet and he was sure Brand was gone before retracing that long, slow walk back to the shop.
Maybe he’d been right.
Perhaps he was the danger. To everyone he loved.
Perhaps all of it was his fault — not just the fire, but Constance, Lydia, Maman. He’d hurt them all again tonight, probably even Maman, watching over them.
Love made life’s tenderest miseries. When would he learn?
Constance Hayes did not shed a single tear over Fischer Marks. Not this time.
Well, she hadn’t shed any tears after waking Sunday morning, at least. She actually awoke almost calm.
Because she had a plan.
She begged off church and avoided Mama’s gentle questions at breakfast. Leaving the dance early had to bear some remark, but Constance remained stoic. She entreated Mercy to come up as soon as possible, which was sooner than she’d anticipated. “I didn’t mean to keep you from church,” Constance said.
“Mama agreed the Lord could spare me for one day to take care of my sister.”
Constance offered a little smile.
“Did you wish to talk about what upset you at the dance last night?”
She retracted her smile and shook her head. That would only serve to upset her further.
Moreover, she had to tend to her plan. “I want to work on the next volume.”
“Is your hand still not better?”
She cradled it against her. Truth be told, she might be able to hold a quill, but she didn’t dare give herself away to Fischer. Besides, they’d already begun in Mercy’s hand.
Mercy obliged her by taking a seat at the desk, and Constance joined her. They were already halfway through the sequel, which she’d decided should cover the first two petitions to the king — rather, the Farmer. If her audience could accept sentient animals, they could surely accept literate ones, though once again, she had to be careful to follow Fischer’s editorial advice not to use words her audience did not understand.
However, every time she brought up the kingfisher, Mercy objected. “Do you think he really belongs here?” she’d ask.
“His job in this volume is to make himself obnoxious.”
Mercy would lift an eyebrow, and Constance would have to concede. She didn’t know where Fischer Marks belonged, but perhaps she could salvage her poem from last year that sent him through the torments of the underworld. How would he feel about publishing that if the entrancing, perceptive, intellectual Miss Dark sent it to him?
They’d made it through another four or five pages when Ginny brought in a letter. “For me?” Constance asked.
“Yes.” Ginny held out the paper. Although the direction on the back was clearly written in haste, there was no mistaking Fischer’s hand. “Mr. Marks brought it by himself.”
Did that make it different than his usual business letters?
Of course it did. He didn’t know she was Jeanne Dark. This must be personal.
Constance accepted the letter and debated not opening it for a long moment. She didn’t want an apology for last night. She didn’t want an excuse for his courting Jeanne Dark. She didn’t even want an explanation for last year.
Mercy studied her. “Do you want me to open it for you?”
Constance pondered the offer for a moment too long before she nodded. Mercy split the seal and unfolded the paper, but after only a moment she turned it to Constance. “About his sister.”
Oh. She could probably bear to read that, then. Constance accepted the letter, which bore no greeting at all.
I must work today, the letter began, but I’m terribly concerned for how my sister fares. The reasons are the same, only, perhaps, worse. Is there any possible way you might find an hour or two to spare in sitting with her? I’m greatly anxious for her.
And, as an afterthought, I’m very sorry for my shock last night. I hope I haven’t offended you.
She didn’t know whether it was better or worse that he’d apologized. Though she might wish to believe otherwise, clearly he still didn’t know she was Jeanne Dark, or he would have made some reference to that or addressed her letter as such.
She had much rather crawl back in bed and draw the coverlet over her head for the rest of the day. Or finish the sequel and kill off the kingfisher at last.
But if Lydia needed her desperately enough for Fischer to send word on a Sunday morning when he had to work — and after their disastrous encounter last night — Lydia must be in a truly wretched state.
She dictated a few last notes to Mercy, but her youngest sister seemed relieved to surrender her pen on
ce Constance readied to go.
No answer came at the Ainsley-Marks’s door. She hadn’t worried he’d used his sister as a pretext to make her come — coming to her aid and dancing beautifully with her last night notwithstanding, she could hold no more illusions about Fischer Marks.
But now she was worried his sister was even worse off than he’d indicated. Constance tried the handle and found the door unlocked.
“Lydia?” she called. The house stood as still as a stone. The spinning wheel was abandoned, and the drawing room and kitchen held no fire.
Constance had never been upstairs before, but she had to dare now. A narrow, dark corridor revealed at least three doors, and Constance tried the first one. This was surely Fischer’s room, even without seeing the coat folded over the back of the Windsor chair. Neat, almost austere, other than sheaves of papers littering the night table and desk and clothespress. Most of the pages carried his handwriting, and there on his desk were two of the little, soft leather volumes she’d seen him make notes in, his draft books. He’d said they held his innermost thoughts.
She started to reach for them but turned away before the memory could take hold. Another paper caught her attention — in her own hand. She moved aside the pages on top of it, mostly Fischer’s handwriting, to reveal her poem.
Oh, good heavens, how had he not burnt this after he’d hated it so? Constance had to do him the favor. She carefully extracted all the pages from the piles there and rearranged them to hide the gap. Surely he’d never miss it. She rolled it up and slipped it into her pocket.
Were any of her letters here? She scanned the desk and dressing table, shuffling a few pages here and there. No sign of anything else in her hand.
She tried to ignore the pang in her chest. He must have gotten rid of them. Good. That was good. She didn’t want to think he’d treasured her poem and her letters for a year without ever thinking to write or speak to her again.
Just as she’d thought — and feared. Despite the way he’d treated her at first, Fischer had never truly cared for her.
