Page 65 of Hazard a Guest
“You did?”
She nodded, blinking rapidly, forcing herself to look up and into the light dancing in the lantern on Joe’s chest of drawers. “Yes,” she said briskly. “Yes. But tonight … tonight goes beyond forgiveness. Tonight was … what was that, Freddy?”
He laughed again. “I don’t bloody know.”
“Oh, good,” she said. “I don’t either.”
They watched as Joe opened the door again, returning with a cold compress and a cut of steak. He had brought the elements of healing, Ember thought.
But everything in this room was already mended.
SUIT 4: SPADES
CHAPTER 22
It was with great reluctance and absolute certainty in its necessity that Ember returned to her own room for the night.
She arrived just in time, catching Hannah right at the doorknob, evidently a breath away from crossing a threshold from which she could not ever return.
“Hannah,” said Ember, raising her brows as she walked in, every step she took sending the younger woman back an equal amount. “Going somewhere?”
“No,” Hannah lied. “No, I …”
“Don’t,” said Ember, reaching out, taking the other girl’s hand and gripping it. “He isn’t worth your future.”
Hannah reddened, averting her eyes for the space of a breath and sucking in two sharp gulps of air before looking back at Ember. She sighed and nodded, squeezing the hand back, and once she was released, she kicked her slippers back off with a notable slump in her shoulders.
It gave Ember permission to do the same.
“How do you know?” Hannah asked softly. “He might be. He defended me. He didn’t have to do that.”
“He didn’t have to,” Ember agreed, “and he didn’t need to. Your father had already said no. Violence was only for Mr. Beck’s personal satisfaction, his own misplaced outrage for your perceived value. Hannah, I know it feels romantic to have someone treat you like a precious jewel, but that’s the thing about jewels: they’re not alive. They have no sovereignty. You don’t want to be a jewel,a stóirín,cut and wired and put on display. You are more than that.”
“Jewels are precious too,” Hannah returned, her little jaw jutting out, “precious to most.”
“Precious like the money you’ve watched the people here toss about, hm?” Ember replied, softer than she’d ever felt. “Cold, like gold coins. Interchangeable. You are more than that, Hannah Lazarus.”
Hannah sagged a little, pressing her lips together, breathing in the message, trying to make sense of it. “So you …” She cut herself off, a strain of hurt in her voice. “You don’t think he actually cares for me?”
“I didn’t say that,” Ember told her, fast and true. “I think he might, actually, in his way. But that is no reason for you to sneak out like this, to risk all the variables that might harm you, and only you, if perhaps his care is not enough. I know why you want to, love. I just also know you shouldn’t.”
“Why shouldn’t I, though?” Hannah protested, a touch of desperation in an argument she already knew she’d lost.“Because someone else might come along? Maybe? Perhaps? What if no one ever does?”
Ember felt the little gust of amusement at that idea escape her. “Hannah,” she said seriously, “there will always be interested men.”
“When? There haven’t been any others so far. Not like that.” She flung herself onto the bed, her back crashing into the mattress. “Not that I wanted too.”
“I thought you liked them all,” Ember teased gently, crossing the room to sit by this silly, beautiful, achingly familiar girl.
“I … not like him,” Hannah said, her voice muffled in the blankets she’d turned her face into. “I’ve never seen anyone like him before. It would have been stunning even if he’d never noticed me there, but Ember, hedid.”
“He did,” Ember agreed with a sigh, dropping her hand on Hannah’s shoulder. “So now comes the part where he has to prove himself, where he has to win more than just the spark of your body noticing his. Let him.”
“I thought he had,” Hannah muttered, “when he punched the lecher.”
“I suppose it could be a start,” Ember granted with a little squeeze, “maybe even a good one, but only a start, nonetheless.”
What she didn’t say, but suspected with something nearing certainty, was that if Hannahhadmanaged to sneak out andhadmanaged to find Beck’s room, that he would have turned her away. He’d made it clear in all his sickening righteous fury, hadn’t he? He’d made it clear that Hannah was above suchthings and that he wouldn’t allow her to fall victim to them, even if he was the recipient.
