The Suffragette Scandal (Brothers Sinister #4)(37)

“Do you think I don’t know that the only tool I have is my thimble? I’m the one wielding it. I know. There are days I stare out at the Thames and wish I could stop bailing.” Her voice dropped. “My arms are tired, and there’s so much water that I’m afraid it’ll pull me under. But do you know why I keep going?”

He reached out and touched her chin. “That’s the one thing I can’t figure out. You don’t seem stupid; why do you persist?”

She lifted her face to his. “Because I’m not trying to empty the Thames.”

Silence met this.

“Look at the tasks you listed, the ones you think are impossible. You want men to give women the right to vote. You want men to think of women as equals, rather than as lesser animals who go around spewing illogic between our menstrual cycles.”

He still wasn’t saying anything.

“All your tasks are about men,” she told him. “And if you haven’t noticed, this is a newspaper for women.”

“But—if—”

“I had myself committed to a government lock hospital,” Free said. “I was locked up with three hundred prostitutes suspected of being infected with syphilis, so I could report accurately on the cruelty of the attendants, the pain of the examinations.” She still couldn’t bring herself to recall those in any detail—the feel of being held down, the invasive metal tools wielded without an ounce of gentleness had all hazed to thankful forgetfulness. “I told everyone that there were women dying in pain with no comfort but to be tied to their beds writhing in agony. I reported that there were women who had shown no signs of disease in two years who were still kept like prisoners.”

“And yet the government is still locking up women with syphilis. The Thames rushes on, Miss Marshall.”

“But the two women I learned were free of symptoms are now free. And every time Josephine Butler speaks to a crowd of men, she sketches a picture with her words of what those thousands of women endure. Grown men weep to hear it, and we chip away at that wall, day by day. It will come down someday.” She raised her chin and looked him in the eye. “You see a river rushing by without end. You see a sad collection of women with thimbles, all dipping out an inconsequential amount.”

He didn’t say anything.

“But we’re not trying to empty the Thames,” she told him. “Look at what we’re doing with the water we remove. It doesn’t go to waste. We’re using it to water our gardens, sprout by sprout. We’re growing bluebells and clovers where once there was a desert. All you see is the river, but I care about the roses.”

His eyes were dark and the light was dim enough that she could see scarcely make him out. But his whole body was turned to her.

“Everything about you matters to me.” He leaned in. “It shouldn’t. I keep telling myself it shouldn’t, that it’s only the lust talking. But every time we talk, you turn my world upside down.” His smile was tight and weary.

“You’re wrong again. The world started out upside down. I’m just trying to set it right side up.”

“Either way gives me the most astonishing vertigo.”

He reached out. But he didn’t touch her—his hand was gloved, and he held it, poised, a hair’s breadth from her cheek. She could feel the warmth of him. But he pulled it back with a shake of his head.

“Good night, Miss Marshall,” he said.

EDWARD WASN’T SURE what roused him in the middle of the night. A sound, high-pitched; a rustle perhaps.

He came instantly awake. His heart rate accelerated; he jumped soundlessly to his feet. But there were no footsteps, no sounds of anyone shuffling about outside. And then that noise sounded again—a soft, muffled moan coming from Miss Marshall’s office.

He went to the window that looked in on that space.

The only illumination was the moon, and that came in only indirectly through a single high window. Her form twitched; her hand reached up, as if to push someone away.

He should have let her sleep.

But he was so far beyond should when it came to her that he knew he wouldn’t. Dangerous to enter her office. He was in his shirtsleeves, and she… He could see her ankle poking out from under a blanket, the flash of her wrist. Miss Marshall was far too undressed for his peace of mind.

He opened the door anyway, kneeling beside her. He set his hand on her shoulder.

“Miss Marshall,” he murmured.

She turned again, unwaking. He brushed her forehead. A clammy, cold sweat met his fingers.

“Free.” He ran his hand down her cheek.

Still she didn’t wake.

“Darling,” he whispered.

Her eyes opened on that. She blinked, hazily, up at him. God, he was in so far over his head. With her hair spread out around her, her eyes not quite focused on him, she was the most beautiful thing he had ever seen. He could not have captured her, not with pencil or paint. He couldn’t have tried. After all, a man could only draw what he could comprehend.

“Shh, darling,” he whispered. The endearment, once used, came too easily to his tongue a second time. “You were having a nightmare.”

She exhaled, pressing her lips together. Then, very slowly, she sat up. “I know that,” she said tartly. “It was my nightmare.”

He wished he could whisper sweet nothings in her ear. It will all be right. Sleep again; I’ll not let anything harm you.