this time? Satan?”
“Is it bad?” she asked. “My friend Mariko isn’t here to help, and I don’t know anything about styles.”
“No, it’s not bad,” he said, in a tone of voice that told her she looked anything but bad. Then, in a friendly way, he asked, “Are you here to beat me up?”
“That would be too easy,” she responded immediately. The words flowed from her naturally, as though she were practiced at flirting, when in fact this was the first time she’d ever heard that particular tone in her own voice. “Not worth the trip.”
He laughed and Catherine was vexed by how much she enjoyed the sound of his laughter. He leaned against the other side of the bike seat so his shoulder was almost touching hers, though they were facing in opposite directions.
“You know, I’m actually a good fighter,” he said seriously. “I’m not as foolish as you think I am, Catherine Renart.”
“I know you’re not.” She did know it. She’d even known it the first time they met.
She was looking away from him, at the lanterns and their real-seeming flames. The question she wanted to ask was hard to bring to the surface. Archie sensed she was about to speak and stayed silent, waiting.
“Why did you look at me that way?” she asked at last.
“You mean the way I looked when you nearly knocked me out in front of my father?” He said it as though the moment had been frozen in his mind just as it had been frozen in hers.
Catherine nodded.
He said, “I was thinking, She handles herself better than any girl I’ve ever met. It’s too bad she despises me, because this is the luckiest I’ve felt in ages.”
Catherine had convinced herself she had no idea how he would answer her question, but when she heard his words, she realized she’d known all along. She’d seen those thoughts written clearly on his face when they’d met in his father’s grand living room. She looked down at the sleeves of her jacket, so like the sleeves of Archie’s jacket, now that she was paying attention. She’d found the jacket and put it on for him. That was the truth, if she were willing to admit it.
“I didn’t want to like you,” she whispered.
“I didn’t want to like you either,” he said quietly.
“You were meant for my sister,” she said. “You’re my parents’ choice.”
He let his shoulder brush against hers. “Yes. I hate that too.” They were quiet for a little while. Then he told her, “I want you to know that your sister didn’t care for me at all. Marrying me was only another duty she expected herself to carry out. And when she died…the idea that my father would replace her with another one just like her, as if my future life partners were all interchangeable—”
“I’m nothing like Anna,” Catherine said, the words coming out more sharply than she’d meant.
“I knew that as soon as we met.”
Somehow the inches between them were gone and his shoulder was pressing against hers, solid and reassuring. Archie was there, next to her, and he was listening. He was the sort of person who would listen, she thought. Even to the crazy theories that were chasing themselves around inside her head. Even though he was not a Seeker, and knew nothing of her life, he might even care, the way she cared, about finding the truth of things and making them better. When she forced herself to look at him, he turned his head and met her gaze.
“You’re not what I expected,” she whispered.
“A frivolous boxer who likes to play with old cars?”
She shook her head. Her gaze dropped to his hand on the motorcycle seat between them.
“And you’re not some strange girl my father is forcing me to marry,” he told her. He lifted his hand from the seat and very carefully pulled one of her hands from its position at her waist. “You’re just Catherine.”
The way he said her name made her feel she’d never properly heard it before. His hand was warm on hers, and its pressure made her feel queasy in a strangely pleasant way.
“Why is he forcing you to marry me?” Catherine asked.
Archie thought for a minute before he spoke. “He’s…a bit strange, my father. He’s convinced that your family is how my family will recover itself. Financially, I guess, though I don’t know how—and I don’t care about that. He tells me I’m someone important in disguise. That the disguise has saved me,