“What sort of lies?” she asked.
His lip curled sardonically. “The worst sort, Miss Marshall. You make me think I could be someone.”
“Aren’t you?”
“No.”
She frowned at him.
“Nobody good. But I believed I was. Once.” His hand shifted to cover his jacket pocket as he spoke. “My family was wealthy. Not so socially exalted that we could do whatever we wished; we stood just high enough to be hampered by every last expectation.”
He’d rarely spoken of his past. Free sat, waiting for him to continue, afraid that if she so much as breathed too loudly, he wouldn’t go on.
But he did. “I was friends with the son of one of my father’s servants. Good friends.” He set his hands—still gloved, she noticed; she’d never seen him take off more than the one glove. “A little unusual, I suppose, but there weren’t many other boys my age about. Normally, such friendships vanish when a boy goes to school.” Edward shrugged. “This one didn’t. When I was seventeen, his father was kicked by a horse in the course of his employment. He fractured four ribs and broke a leg in three places. He wouldn’t have been able to work for months. Rather than granting the man time to recover, my father hired someone new in his place. After twelve years of service.”
Free sucked in a breath.
“Of course I spoke up. It was unjust, and this was my friend being cast out, with an injured father who would have no way to make a living.”
“That was good of you.”
He shook his head. “That was foolish of me. There’s nothing more stupid than telling dangerous truths to a man who controls your life. By that time, I had some fairly unusual political notions.” He smiled vaguely at that. “Reading is dangerous. I thought we could organize a mass response among the tenants, demanding—ah, well. Never mind that. It didn’t go well. The tenants balked, and instead of revolting, they told my father. The end result was that my father realized, after years of ignoring me, that I had developed dangerously plebeian sympathies. So he didn’t just toss my friend and his family out on their collective ear. He had my friend and his brother whipped for attempted rabble rousing. In front of me.” He let out a long breath. “And then he banished me. He had it put about that he was sending me to France to work with the masters. For my art.
“He did send me to France. But he sent me to live with a blacksmith in Strasbourg, not some painter in Paris. He thought I’d get a taste of manual labor, of the life of a regular man, and I’d recant all my beliefs in exchange for a taste of white bread and the comfort of a valet.” That smile twitched up even more. “It didn’t work. For two years, it didn’t work. And then war was declared with Prussia. I asked my father to send a letter of credit so I could return home; he refused. I went to the consulate in Strasbourg before the army arrived, only to find that my family had told them there was an impostor pretending to be me in the environs. I was ejected without assistance.”
Free made an involuntary noise of protest. He had already told her what had followed—have you ever seen plaster dust ignite in the air? He’d hinted at far more.
“So I vowed I’d never go back to them. I had my art, and what is art but the second cousin of forgery? It’s odd—lie about the world long enough, and everything in it stops feeling real. As if I’m nothing but a figment of someone else’s imagination. I don’t dare lie to myself, or I’ll lose touch completely.”
There was a great deal he hadn’t told her. She could tell it from the uneasy shift in his shoulders. “I imagine it wasn’t as easy as knocking off a forgery right away.”
He tensed. “Nothing is ever easy.”
“Nonetheless.”
He didn’t say anything for a long time. Then he finally spoke. “My father thought he could change my character with a little discomfort. He was wrong. It took pain.” He looked away. “Someday, try forging a letter of credit and delivering it to a man who is worse than you.”
That night after the fire seemed so distant—even though it was scarcely a week past. But Free could recall the words he’d given her late at night. Pain is a black ink. Enough of it and you can blot out a man’s soul.
“On second thought.” He gave her a brilliant smile, one that almost broke her heart. “Don’t try it. You don’t want to know what will happen.”
“Was it very painful, then?”
His lip quirked in disgust. “Just enough to prove I wasn’t the resilient white knight I believed myself to be. I was a liar and a fraud and a cheat, just like everyone else. I needed to learn that lesson.” He took a deep breath, and then he looked up at her. His eyes met hers. They sparkled with that look she knew so well, that black humor that she’d come to care for. “I didn’t much mind until now.”
Her heart thudded in her chest.
“I don’t think I can stop being a liar and a fraud,” he said. “But, for the first time in a very long while, I’m beginning to believe in something.” His voice dropped. “In someone. I’m sorry, Miss Marshall, but I can’t let myself do that.”
She could scarcely breathe. She didn’t know what to say. She only knew she couldn’t look away from him, couldn’t have told him to leave no matter what he revealed at the moment.
“There.” He brushed his hands together. “That’s said. It’s a pack of lies.” He shrugged. “It’s as honest as I know how to be at this point. That’s why I’m leaving, Free.” He looked over at her. “I brought you something.”
He reached into his jacket pocket. His hand closed on something—something large enough that he had to turn his wrist to get it from his pocket. She caught a flash of gray metal.
“Here.” He reached out and set the piece on her desk. “It’s a paperweight. You have papers; I thought you might put this to use.”
Free leaned forward and picked up the piece he’d placed before her. It was heavy and yet intricate. The paperweights she had seen before were fussy blown-glass balls encasing pleasant flowers. This bore no relation to those things. It was a single strip of iron, worked into a curlicued ball. The metal doubled and tripled back on itself. It was warm from resting in his pocket; the edges were rough against her skin. And yet it seemed surprisingly delicate.
“What is it?”