She rolled her eyes. “Thankfully, I’ve never felt compelled to offer an apology like that to anyone.”

“Come on, really?” Talia nudged her. “You don’t feel any need to say sorry for whatever happened before I barged in on you two?”

Her memory flashed back to that moment, Vic’s body pressed close, the rise and fall of her chest, the fire in her eyes, and the strength of her long, elegant fingers tightening around the hilt of the sword. She merely gritted her teeth and shook her head. “I never apologise . . . to anyone.”

“Movie stars.” Talia rolled her eyes. “I don’t care what she says. I’m committing ‘You are a guest in my home, and I should have afforded you the courtesy inherent in that position’ to memory so I can put it in a movie someday.”

Vic smiled weakly. “How would you have phrased it?”

Emma shrugged. “Something more common or American.”

“Like—” Vic affected a higher register, “you guys are visiting me and I shoulda, I don’t know, been nicer to ya.”

Talia and Emma both immediately burst out laughing, and even Sophia relaxed a little. The move, the voice, the playfulness of Vic’s posture all caught her off guard. She wouldn’t have thought her capable of something so silly or self-deprecating.

“That was the worst mixing of American accents I’ve ever heard,” Emma pronounced. “You went from the Bronx to Wisconsin in like four words. By the end I expected you to offer us some cheese curds.”

“Cheese curds?”

“Don’t ask.” Emma nudged her forward. “We were headed for the dining room?”

“Right.” Vic shifted back to business in a snap. “There’s a shortcut.”

She ducked around a corner into a narrow hallway and sped off again, leaving Sophia to catch up both physically and emotionally. She had to gather her skirts to fit through the slim corridor, which was clearly designed for servants. The floors here weren’t polished, but grooved by centuries of passage from busy feet. How had a woman like Victoria learned to navigate this route as effortlessly as the more grandiose spaces where she belonged?

She was pondering the thought along with the inconsistencies Vic had shown over the last few moments when they came to a short but steep set of stairs. She barely had time to even process how tricky they would be to navigate in her awful death trap of a dress when a hand appeared in front of her lowered gaze.

For a second the gesture felt so out of context she could only stare at the slender fingers and smooth palm before glancing up at the woman it belonged to. Even after meeting those eyes and taking in Vic’s expectantly upturned lips, she still needed a few more seconds to comprehend the offer.

Vic wanted Sophia to take her hand. She wanted to assist her up the shallow wooden steps. She wanted to steady her.