“Je suis désolé, mon neveu,” said the judge.

“Ne sois pas désolé, mon oncle. Tout ira bien.”

They kept on in soft French for a little while, Asa kneeling close to his uncle and giving him his undivided attention. As I listened to the gentleness passing between them, I remembered Mama pulling her fingers through my hair, slowly untangling the salty knots as she whispered stories about her girlhood. Mama kissing my forehead. Te amo muchísimo, mi vida, she’d say into my ear. Nothing in life was more precious than having someone to whisper tendernesses to.

Soon, the judge’s soft snore filled the carriage. Asa reached under the bench again and handed me a thick blanket.

“What about your uncle?”

“I gave him my cloak.”

“What about you?”

“There is only this blanket. Take it. Please.”

I was too cold to refuse. I pulled the blanket over me.

“I’m sorry you have to see him this way. He suffers from attacks on occasion. They started after the mob abused him. He becomes irrational with fear.”

“That’s awful….I didn’t know.”

“My uncle hides much about himself. He has had to.”

I thought I understood. The judge was wealthy, handsome, older—and unmarried. I’d never seen him observe or mention a woman in an amorous way. Like me, I suspected the judge hid his true self. “He’s a wonderful man,” I said.

“Aye. He is.”

“You never mentioned him on the Ambrosia.”

Asa’s mouth tugged up on one side. “We had six days together. I believe I’d have gotten to my uncle on the seventh.” He looked at the judge, who’d fallen into a deep slumber. “He’s actually my mother’s uncle—distantly connected to the Parisian Latimers, as he was born and educated in England. He has always been there for me when I needed him.” Asa turned back to me, his eyes narrowing. “Frannie, you’re still shaking. You’re not going to freeze on me, are you?” He took my hands. “Your gloves are soaked.”

“Are they? I can’t feel my fingers to tell.”

“That won’t do.” He tugged my gloves off carefully, then pressed his hands over mine, giving me his warmth. “Better?” He leaned down and blew a hot breath over my hands—but somehow I felt it all over me.

This wasn’t right. Duncan. But Duncan wasn’t here, and this was nothing more than staving off frostbite. “Getting better,” I replied hoarsely.

“Good. Progress.”

He wove his long fingers through mine and massaged my palm with his thumb. My heart began to beat with such force it nearly hurt and I soon felt molten deep in my core.

People often said that eyes showed a person’s soul, but I’d always thought it was hands that spoke the truth. Hands hammered nails and gentled babies. They burst like happy fireworks or cowered in pockets. I couldn’t put into words what Asa’s hands were saying as they kneaded my cold ones back to life. But I wanted the whole world to be made of what I felt in them.