Clara had no idea what she was intended to find in the directory of charities from Erik, so she read it from cover to cover, beginning in the night after his departure and continuing throughout the following day once she had forced herself to sleep. Then she set it aside for a day to mull it over. On the following day, she picked it up a second time.

Initially, it was monotonous at best: pages and pages of organizations and homes and facilities, listed by category: orphanages, reformatories, convalescent homes, hospitals, various other means of relief. There were so many of them that they blurred together, and she wondered what could possibly stand out among them.

Gradually, though, something did begin stand out, even if it was not necessarily what she was meant to notice: the sheer number of organizations listed.

Society for Emigration of Children. Home for Domestic Servants Out of Place. Asylum for Destitute Girls. Infants' Orphan Home. Home for Fatherless Children. Grants Apartments and Pensions to Widows. Society for the Relief of Poor Clergy. Women's Employment Society. Association for the Care of Invalids. On and on they went, all of them based in or around Paris.

The descriptions, too, started to transform before her eyes. From within the formal language detailing each charity's operations, increasingly more urgent and desperate entreaties began to clamor for her attention.

Subscriptions and donations will be thankfully received.

Donations for special and urgent cases are most valuable.

Funds are urgently needed to sustain these services.

It began to overwhelm her. When she finally finished reading, she shut the booklet and left the house for a walk to clear her head.

Aunt CĂ©leste was a subscriber to a charity, some kind of society for the betterment of young ladies, and had always talked of the organization with marked pride. The society would provide aid, usually in the form of paid-for education or training, to assist untrained women in finding employment. The candidates were hand-picked by a committee based on recommendations from within the organization. It had always seemed a kind enough gesture, certainly.

Clara found herself balking at it now. How many needy women had slipped through the cracks while the committee deliberated the special few who deserved its attentions most? Yet she could not be too harsh on these society women, for they had at least done something.

What have you done with your life thus far, Clara? she challenged herself.

Of substance? Nothing. The answer was nothing.

She was still agonizing over this fact when she joined her father in the drawing-room on one of his rare afternoons home. He was frowning at the letter in his hands but looked up to address her as she entered and sat opposite him.

"Ah, Clara," he said, airing out the page before her. "I have just received word from Isaac Verne. He sends his regrets that he must suspend our dinners for now, as he has been called back to Paris on urgent business."

"How unfortunate." Her reply was so distracted, so flatly unconvincing that he raised an eyebrow, and she hurried to point the conversation toward her intended purpose before he began to question her. "Father," she said, "it has come to my attention what an inordinate number of charitable organizations there are in the city."

"Indeed?"

"Yes, and it has been troubling me that there are so many people in need, so many children, even." She looked down at her lap, her fingers picking at the black crepe of her overskirt. "I hope that this is not an unseemly request, but might I be granted a monthly allowance to distribute among some of these charities?"

Henri regarded her with mild surprise. "Well, yes, I suppose so. Let me think about it and get back to you with an amount."

Her smile was appreciative, albeit somewhat grim. It was a start, but it was not enough.

She heard from Erik the next day.

Clara,

Travel plans in progress. Will be in touch. Daroga still on speaking terms, as predicted.

E.

She knew that this wait was nothing compared to the one she had endured previously, but it seemed nearly as torturous. The pain of separation was fresh. Moreover, it seemed wholly unfair that she should be so thoroughly inducted into the pleasures of kissing one night and then barred from them entirely the next.

And then, a week later, she received word from him once more.

Little fawn,

Should you happen to go riding today, do stop by the Inn at Villers-Sur-Mer. The innkeeper will have something for you. Use the name from the stele at the Louvre.

How awfully presumptuous of him, she thought, to assume that she could remember such a minute detail from several months ago.

She did, though. She remembered nearly everything from that night, and from many others.

It was mid-afternoon when she rode Pastille west to the nearby seaside town of Villers-Sur-Mer. She knew the inn's location but had never been inside, and it was with some trepidation that she walked into the establishment and past the sparsely occupied dining tables to stop at the main counter. Behind it, a stubbly, square-jawed man with a bald head was filling glasses of beer. He watched her approach but said nothing.

"I believe that you have something for me," she told him, trying to sound loftier than she felt. "Lady Taparet."

The innkeeper reached under the counter and pulled out a letter, sealed with wax, on which her alias was written in red ink. "Funny name that is, Taparet," he said gruffly as she plucked the paper from his outstretched hand. "Where is your husband from?"

"Egypt," she replied, and she placed a coin on the counter before turning to leave.

Outside, she opened and studied the missive: meticulous directions, written in Erik's hand, to an unnamed location perhaps five kilometers south of where she stood. She mounted Pastille and took off immediately.

As she rode, the pretty pastel buildings of the seaside town diminished in both stature and density. The vegetation along the road grew greener and thicker: meadows and pastures dotted with clumps of thriving forest. The land rose sharply into sprawling hills.

Erik's directions eventually took her off the main road and down a quiet lane that was flanked on her left by a tree-studded hillside and on her right by a thinner treeline, through which she could see more pasture. Several trees arched over the path to form a canopy, dark green and eerie in the waning sunlight as gray clouds rolled in from the west, darker and heavier than the doughy ones already blanketing the sky.

It is going to rain, she thought, but she had come too far to turn back. She would have to deal with it as it came.

Clara glanced down at the handwritten instructions once more; her destination was supposed to be a kilometer down this lane. Brown rail fence, the paper said, and she rode until she came upon it. It was thinly lined with trees, but in the gaps between trunks she could see a small, open pasture leading up to a little cottage of pale gray stone.

It was unassuming at first, but the closer she got, the more she became enamored of it and its orangey-brown roof with gabled windows, the cluster of apple trees in the yard, the small barn out back. It seemed the very definition of coziness.

She led Pastille into the yard, where she dismounted and tied the reins to a fencepost. The cottage windows were curtained so that she could not see inside. Yet, as she approached the house, the door creaked open and Erik stepped into the doorframe, dark and expectant, all spindly lines and sinew.

"Is this where you are staying?" she asked him, beaming. "What a lovely find!"

"Yes. Well." He stepped back and motioned for her to enter. "I am afraid that it comes with another tenant."

She crossed the threshold into a small sitting-room. Two wingback chairs and a loveseat, all upholstered in faded maroon velvet, circled the wide hearth of a white stone fireplace. The wood floorboards were bare, sans a weathered oriental rug at the center of the room, and they needed polishing. At the back of the room were a modest upright piano, an old chessboard, and a tall, double-wide bookcase so brimming with literature that books were stacked atop other books. The room was dim on account of the small windows and their drawn ivory curtains, but there was a pleasant yellow glow emanating from a lamp in the corner.

Sitting opposite her in one of the wingback chairs, in a smart yet humble brown suit and his boat-shaped hat, was Nadir Khan. At her entrance, he set down the book he had been reading and stood, smiling. "Clara!" he remarked. "How good to see you."

"And you as well, daroga," she replied. "Though I must admit, I am surprised to see you here."

"Ah, yes," he said. "When Erik mentioned wanting to stay in the area, I was reminded of an acquaintance who expressed an intention to spruce up his cottage to sell. I made an inquiry and discovered the property to be unoccupied for the summer."

"Said acquaintance was uncomfortable renting the property to a stranger," Erik noted curtly from his position at her side. "Thus, I am forced to lodge with the daroga."

"And it will be much easier to acquire provisions when one of us can go into town like a normal person," Nadir reminded him, glaring.

Clara looked from one man to the other. "You are staying here," she said, dubiously. "Together."

"Indeed," said the Persian, lifting an empty teacup from a side table. "We shall regale each other with hunting stories while we drink to excess in a cloud of cigar smoke. Or whatever it is that men are wont to do in each other's company." He disappeared through a doorway into what Clara could just make out to be a small kitchen.

"By that," Erik translated, "he means that he will read and drink tea until he passes out from lethargy."

She looked up at him, her face softening. "It is awfully kind of him to do this for us," she said quietly, over the distant sounds of splashing water and clinking china. Her knuckles grazed Erik's tailcoat, and he reached out ever so slightly to slip his hand into hers, his expression inscrutable.

"Yes," he said. "I suppose so."

Nadir reappeared in the room, and they both instinctively flinched and pulled away. He all but rolled his eyes. "I am hardly a delicate flower," he informed them. "Regardless, I know when I am not wanted. I am happy to step away so that the two of you can catch up."

"No, that's not necessary," said Clara, while at the same time Erik deadpanned, "Good. Get out."

She glowered at him. "Please stay, daroga. Erik and I will go for a walk."

The Persian eyed his male counterpart with heavy skepticism. "Are you sure? He might combust in the sun."

"The daroga has a point," said Erik, nodding agreeably.

"The sun is not even out, and you know it," she said to him. "In fact, it looks like rain."

"All the more reason to stay inside, my pet."

Her eyebrows rose, and her hands planted themselves on her hips. "We cannot send Nadir out into the rain, and if you are trying out new terms of endearment, I am not overly fond of that one."

"Aha. Noted. And it is not raining yet."

They stared at each other, Erik with feigned innocence and Clara in mild exasperation, though she was also struck by the urge to grab and kiss him.

Nadir cleared his throat and they both looked at him, having momentarily forgotten his presence even as they discussed him. "I could use the walk," he said decisively. "I shall take my umbrella."

Once he had seen himself out, umbrella in tow, Clara turned to Erik for further instruction. He seemed at a loss, opening and closing his mouth several times before he finally asked, "Would you like a tour?"

"Please," she said, grasping at anything to diffuse the discomfort. Whatever heated tension he had brought to her room the previous week had been supplanted by something more delicate and uncertain, as though he had left town solely to purge the restless and fiery energy from his system.

There was not much to tour, in the end: a small kitchen and a heavy wooden table for six in the adjoining space, and then two bedrooms and a washroom upstairs. The ceiling in Erik's room was pitched so steeply that the very center of the space was the only area where he could stand without ducking or hunching over. This awkwardness she found endearing.

"No coffin?" she asked, with feigned concern. "However will you sleep, Erik?"

His lips pulled taut in indignation. "This continues to be a source of amusement for you, does it?"

"That depends," she replied. "Are you still doing it?" His hesitation was answer enough; she grinned.

Back on the ground floor, she went to her satchel and pulled out the booklet he had given her. "I read it twice," she said, holding it out to him. "It was very enlightening, but not in whatever way you meant it to be. I could not find any hint of a puzzle or mystery in it."

He gently pushed the directory back at her. "It is yours," he said. "Enlightening how?"

"I had no idea," she replied, shaking her head as she returned the book to her bag. "No idea how great a need there is for assistance. How many people are so reliant on the goodwill and generosity of others."

"Mm. And now that you do?"

"I feel that I must do something. I have already petitioned my father for a monthly stipend to donate as I see fit, but that seems so...so...dispassionate, does it not?" Erik seemed to be drawing closer, looming over her as she spoke, but she hardly noticed. "I have started writing letters to some of the charities," she continued, "to inquire about their areas of greatest need, and what other forms of assistance they might use. I probably ought to make a list of the skills and resources that I can offer. Oh, but do you think they will even want my help? Perhaps not, but I should—"

He moved in to kiss her so swiftly that she did not know what was happening until his lips had been pressed to hers for several seconds, her arms wrapping around his neck as the forward momentum of his torso dipped her backward until only his hand at the small of her back kept her from toppling over. Whatever she had been about to say drifted off into the ether as she began to move her lips in tandem with his, slow and sweet, quite unlike their previous exchange.

He captured her mouth again and again, plying it with gentle, reverent strokes. The faintest pattering of rain began outside and she relished the safe comfort of the cottage walls, of Erik's lengthy arms around her.

Once his lips released hers with a quiet, velvety suction sound, he brought up a hand to stroke her cheek. She leaned into it, gazing up at him for an explanation that, to her surprise, he provided.

"I apologize for the interruption, my love, but whenever you deign to let me inside that beautiful head of yours, I cannot help but be moved."

She blinked. His words reverberated in her head, under her skin, across every nerve ending. Beautiful. My love.

"You hardly know it yet," he continued, "but there is a voice deep inside you that yearns to come out."

She scarcely heard him; she was still stuck in the previous moment. "I'm sorry," she said faintly, "what did you call me?"

The corners of his mouth curled up slightly. "Ah, little fawn," he said, tracing her jawline with his thumb, "did you doubt that you had captured my heart? You have had it since the night you fell asleep in my drawing-room."

She cringed. "The night I sliced into my finger?"

"The same," he said. "How could I resist a doe-eyed creature so intent on procuring my friendship?"

"You tried," she reminded him pointedly.

"Many times. You are so delicately persistent when it comes from a place of good intent!" He let his hand fall to his side, and he looked at her in all seriousness now. "And that, my dear, is why I gave you the directory. It was not a puzzle to be solved. Your benevolence is no mystery."

The rain began to fall in earnest, beating down on the roof and spattering the windowpanes, and it pulled Clara out of her praise-induced reverie. "Oh, goodness," she remarked. "I hope we haven't drowned Nadir."

Erik shrugged. "He can swim."

She gave him a gentle, playful shove. "You did not have to do this, you know," she said. "That is, stay here. For me."

"You would be remiss to think me so unselfish," he replied. "I am here because I want you all to myself." He curled an arm around her back and drew her close once again. "Neither distance nor Monsieur Verne shall stop me," he murmured into her hair.

She snapped her head up, pushing a palm against his chest to put distance between them. "Erik," she said, her voice thick and taut, "I withheld that information for a reason."

"How little credit you give me, my dear, to assume that I could not deduce his name."

"It was not a question of whether you could, but rather the hope that you would trust me enough not to."

"And I do, my fawn," he said soothingly. "Unfortunately, I cannot say the same for him."

She voiced the requisite follow-up question even though she was afraid of the answer, and it came out as a near-whisper: "What did you do?"

"Nothing so terrible as whatever makes you look at me with such terror! Only, it is quite possible that M. Verne found himself called back to Paris due to the sudden absence of funds in his bank account."

"Oh, Erik, you didn't!"

He gave a dismissive wave of his hand. "I will put it back. Eventually."

Clara let out an exasperated sigh. "I told you that I would take care of it."

"And so you shall," he said. "I have merely bought you more time while ensuring the two of us a more pleasant summer. This is the second time that a lovesick fop has tried to interfere with my happiness, and I will not stand for it."

She found herself bristling. "I do not suppose you let that first occasion lie either, did you?" she asked. "And how did that work out for you?" Her tone was soft, meant to deliver a gentle reproach, but as his mouth fell open in stunned silence she realized all too late how sharply her words fell.

Eventually, his mouth closed again and his jaw went rigid. "I hardly think that you have any authority to judge my past behavior," he snapped.

Still troubled by his meddling but overcome with guilt, she found her reply frozen in her lungs. And then, patron saint of awkward interference that he was, Nadir burst through the door in a spray of warm rainwater. His clothes clung to him and dripped onto the floor as he struggled to collapse his umbrella and extricate himself from muddy shoes.

"Well," he announced, "I believe I have discovered why my acquaintance wishes to be rid of this property."

Shoes finally off, he now lifted his head to regard them. Something shifted in his expression, likely as he absorbed the heady tension that must have permeated the room. "Ah, please forgive my intrusion," he said. He shucked his wet cap and placed it on the hat-stand near the door.

"No intrusion," Clara assured him, her voice so small and hoarse that she knew she was fooling no one. "You were saying?"

"The lane is flooded," he reported gravely, "and I suspect that the main road is as well. Our position lower in the hills is most unfortunate in a downpour. I have led your mare to the barn, Clara."

She glanced worriedly at Erik, whose expression was impassive, before looking back to Nadir. "If I do not leave soon," she said, "I shall miss dinner."

The daroga shook his head. "I could not allow you to go out in a rainstorm of this severity. It is dangerous in more ways than I could count."

"But it will be dark by the time it clears!"

He nodded. "And even then, there might still be flooding." He glanced at Erik, as though seeking permission of some kind, and beside her Erik gave a small nod. Nadir turned back to her. "I think it would be best, Clara, if you stayed the night."