“Yes, though I believe we can now amend our previous timetable. You see, a dramatic rescue such as you have effected will be expected to create an outpouring of my emotions. What once might have been a scandal will instead be viewed as romantic. We could plausibly announce an engagement next week and have it be accepted in high society without concern or comment.”

“That’s good, I suppose.”

“Yes. Shall I proceed with our contract, then?”

“You don’t mind that I’ve returned to the miscreant ways of my past?”

“I rather think that I would soon be dead if you had not,” Steris said. “I am not in a position to complain.”

“I intend to continue,” Waxillium warned. “Not every day, patrolling a beat or anything like that. But I’ve received a forbearance—and an offer—to be involved in constabulary business in the city. I plan to take on the occasional problem that needs extra attention.”

“Every gentleman needs a hobby,” she said evenly. “And, considering the self-indulgences of some men I’ve known, this wouldn’t be problematic by comparison.” She leaned forward. “In short, my lord, I see you for what you are. The two of us, we are beyond the points in our lives where expecting the other to change would be realistic. I will accept this about you if you will accept me. I am not without my faults, as my previous three suitors chose to explain to me—at length—in written communication.”

“I hadn’t realized.”

“It is not an issue worthy of your attention, really,” she said. “Though I did think that you’d have realized I did not come to this potential union without—no offense—a measure of desperation.”

“I understand.”

Steris hesitated; then a bit of her coldness seemed to depart. Some of her control, her steely will, fell away. She looked tired, suddenly. Worn. Though behind that mask, he saw something that might have been affection for him. She clasped her hands before her. “I am not… good with people, Lord Waxillium. I realize it. I must stress, however, that you have my thanks for what you have done. I speak it from the depths of all that I am. Thank you.”

He met her eyes, and nodded.

“So,” she said, growing more businesslike. “We progress with our engagement?”

He hesitated. There was no reason not to, but a part of him found that he thought himself a coward. Of the two offers this day—one unspoken, the other blunt—this was the one he was contemplating?

He glanced toward the room where Marasi was giving the report of her involvement in this mess. She was entrancing. Beautiful, intelligent, motivated. By all logic and reason, he should have been completely infatuated with her.

In fact, she reminded him a lot of Lessie. Perhaps that was the problem.

“We move forward,” he said, turning back to Steris.

EPILOGUE

Marasi attended Miles’s execution.

Daius, the senior prosecutor, had counseled against it. He never attended executions.