“I’m hungry,” said Honoré, desperate to turn the conversation away from the dangerous hostility with which it had begun. Didn’t this woman know what kind of madman Calvin was? “Where shall we eat?”

“Since I’m expected to pay,” said Margaret, “it will have to be in a restaurant I can afford.”

“Excellent,” said Honoré. “I am ill at the thought of eating at the kind of restaurant I can afford.”

That earned him a tiny hint of a smile from the stern Mrs. Smith. “Give me your arm, Monsieur de Balzac. Let’s not tell my brother-in-law where we’re going.”

“Very funny,” said Calvin, climbing over the railing and back onto the porch. The edge of fury was out of his voice. Honoré was relieved. This woman, this torch, she must truly understand Calvin better than Honoré did, for Calvin seemed to be calming down even though she had goaded him so dangerously. Of course, if she was protected by hexes that might give her more confidence.

Or was it hexes she was counting on? She was married to the Maker that Calvin longed to be—maybe she simply counted on Calvin’s knowledge that if he harmed her or her baby, he would have to face the wrath of his brother at long last, and he knew he was no match for Alvin Maker. Someday he would have it out with him, but he wasn’t ready, and so Calvin would not harm Alvin’s wife or unborn baby.

Certainly that was the way a rational man would see it.

Calvin tried to keep himself from getting angry during the meal. What good would it do him? She could see everything he felt; yet she would also see that he was suppressing his anger, so even that would do no good. He hated the whole idea of her existence—someone who thought she knew the truth of his soul just because she could see into his secret desires. Well, everyone had secret desires, didn’t they? They couldn’t be condemned for the fancies that passed through their mind, could they? It was only what they acted on that counted.

Then he remembered the dead hummingbird. Lady Ashworth naked in bed. He stopped himself before he remembered every act that others had criticized—no reason to list the catalogue of them for Margaret’s watchful eye. For her to report to Alvin with, no doubt, the worst possible interpretation. Alvin’s spy—

No, keep the anger under control. She couldn’t help what her knack was, any more than Calvin could, or anybody else. She wasn’t a spy.

A judge, though. She was clearly judging him, she had said as much. She judged everybody. That’s why she was here in the Crown Colonies—because she had judged and condemned them for practicing slavery, even though the whole world had always practiced slavery until just lately, and it was hardly fair to condemn these people when the idea of emancipation was really just some fancy new trend from Puritan England and a few French philosophers.