Her hair was loose, and the breeze kept tugging strands across her face, giving him the infuriating urge to drag it back with his fingers.
No paint adorned her lips tonight. No rouge reddened her cheeks. Even her feet were bare. She looked wild and raw and exposed out here. Not the girl he was used to seeing all done up at parties.
It threw him off guard. He’d come here to win back her trust because she was his best lead. But he found himself … faltering. Unsure of himself. The silence between them rose like a crescendo.
He glanced down at the angry gash on her forearm. How did a girl who spent her days planning parties and spreading gossip come by such a deep wound?
“Did you hurt yourself?”
Rune startled. “Oh! Yes, I … took a tumble while riding yesterday. Sliced my arm on a rock. I can be so clumsy.” She smiled up at him, tucking the arm under her shawl and changing the subject. “Have you given more thought to my invitation?”
“To the Luminaries Dinner? I thought my answer was obvious.”
She glanced at him, her lips parting.
Apparently, it was not.
He almost laughed. “Rune. Of course I’ll accompany you. You expected me to turn you down?”
Her eyes held his. “I don’t know what to expect with you.”
The words hung in the air between them.
Was that Rune Winters talking? Or the Crimson Moth?
Gideon had no proof that she and the Moth were the same. Rune had a solid alibi the night before last, and yet she was freshly injured—much like the Moth might be after Laila shot at her. He couldn’t arrest her, but neither was he convinced of her innocence.
It was why he was here. If Rune was the Moth, no way would she trust him after the stunt he’d pulled at the Seldom mine. He needed to patch the hole he’d made, because the only way to unmask her was to get closer to her. And the only way to do that was to convince her to trust him again. If that was even possible.
What would I do if this were a real courtship?
Gideon recoiled at the thought. He didn’t know how to fall for someone as superficial as Rune Winters.
Maybe that was the wrong way to think about it.
How would he fall for a girl pretending to be superficial—in order to outwit him?
That was easier.
Gideon cleared his throat. “Your gardens are beautiful.”
He winced, imagining Harrow rolling her eyes. Is that the best you can do, lover boy?
“Are they?” Rune murmured, taking in her surroundings. “I try to keep them well tended, but I lack my grandmother’s … devotion. She loved these flowers like they were her children.”
At the mention of Kestrel, Rune’s face softened. She continued, unprompted, as her gaze roamed the hedges.
“Sometimes, if I squint, I can almost see her still trimming her roses. Or sipping tea in the greenhouse, with her box of seed packets beside her, planning out next season’s garden …”
She quickly glanced at Gideon, her face blanching. As if she’d said more than she meant to. “I—”
“We never had a garden,” he said, to put her at ease. “But my mother grew herbs in a box on the windowsill.”
He immediately wished he’d thought of something else to say. His family’s lack of land was an obvious reminder of the gap between them: their stations, their upbringings, their lives. It was a gap that had narrowed since the revolution, but it would never close.
Proving him exactly right, she said: “You could have a garden now, if you wanted. You could live somewhere far grander than even Wintersea House, with gardens more well kept, as a reward for everything you did for the Republic. I’m sure the Good Commander would grant it all to you, if you asked.”
“I’m happy in Old Town.”
“Are you?”
Gideon flinched at her question, remembering the day he took her measurements in his parents’ shop. He wondered what she’d been thinking as she walked the sooty streets of his neighborhood. Breathing in the smoggy air. Listening to the rattle and hiss of the factories nearby.
“Old Town didn’t impress you, I take it.”
She stiffened beside him. “I only meant—”
“Was that your first time there?”
She didn’t need to answer; he could easily guess.
In all the years Rune and Alex had been friends, she’d never set foot in their tenement. Alex had always gone to Wintersea House. Either his brother had been too ashamed to invite her into their home, or he’d invited her, and Rune had declined to come.