She lifted her hem and let Jack haul her up through the window. Her boots clunked on the top of his desk, which was strewn with all manner of oddities. Twigs, rocks, clumps of moss, braids of grass, wilted wildflowers. Adaira stepped down to the floor, still holding his hand, and she turned to gaze at the strange collection.

“What is all of this?” she asked.

“Preparation,” he replied. “I should be ready to play for the earth by tomorrow afternoon.”

“Good.” Adaira felt his fingers unwind from hers. He flexed his hand, and she wondered if he disliked touching her. Or maybe there was another reason he disengaged his hand. She watched as he walked to his bed, where Lorna’s music was scattered. He gathered up the loose sheets and attempted to straighten the wrinkled blanket, to offer her a place to sit.

“I prefer to stand,” she said when he turned to her. “But you should sit.”

Jack’s brows lowered with suspicion. “Why?”

“Trust me.”

To her surprise, he did. He sat on the edge of his bed and carefully set her mother’s composition beside his pillow. “Now then. Are you going to tell me why you’ve come to my room like a thief in the night?”

She smiled but delayed answering him while she meandered around his chamber, studying it. Jack was quiet, suffering through her examination of his things. She expected him to protest or rush her along—he was such an impatient man—but he was silent, and when she at last came to a stop before him, his eyes, inscrutable and deliciously dark, were fixed on hers. Almost as if he knew why she had come.

She shivered.

Her heart quickened as she knelt on one knee before him, a position she would take for no other man save her father.

Jack watched her intently. She didn’t know how exactly she had expected him to react—whether he would laugh, curse, frown, or scorn her. He did none of those things. As his eyes remained on her, she knew he realized the magnitude of her bending a knee to him.

Her hair flowed down her shoulders like a shield, and yet her courage wavered. He will never agree to this, she thought, but it was too late now. He must know her intentions, and she was too proud to alter her course.

“John Tamerlaine,” she began to say.

“Jack.”

Adaira blinked, astounded he had just interrupted her proposal. “Your given and legal name is John.”

“But I answer only to Jack.”

“Very well then,” Adaira said through her teeth, and she could feel the color rising in her face. “Jack Tamerlaine. Handfast yourself to me. Give me your vow and be my husband for a year and a day, and thereafter should we both desire it.”