Funny. It was precisely what he wanted and had been praying for since she’d darkened his windows several days earlier. And yet, somehow that reminder that echoed in his mind didn’t have the same . . . eagerness it’d had. It left him oddly . . . regretful.

“Oh, yes,” she said matter-of-factly, lifting her head. “I know . . . eventually they’ll recall I’m not around, and then they’ll return, but until they do, I’m here on my own and in need of help.” Myrtle stared pointedly at him, and it was a moment before he realized—

“My help?”

She nodded.

He scrubbed a hand down his face. Do not ask . . . Remind her that she should go and—

“What kind of help?”

And then immediately he wished he’d never asked, after all.

“I need a bath.”

He choked on the saliva in his mouth.

Myrtle rolled her eyes. “I’m not asking you to bathe me—”

He strangled all the more, bending down and doubling over.

Myrtle thwacked him hard between the shoulder blades. “Or to help me dress.”

She was going to kill him.

She was going to suffocate him with his own spit.

“No.” He finally managed to get out that emphatic rejection.

She stared at him with forlorn eyes, her smile gone and her expression sad, and it was then he knew he was lost. Because he was becoming increasingly aware of the fact that he wasn’t so immune to feeling, after all. Nay, he wasn’t so very immune to her.

Cursing, he took her basket, and yanking the lid up, he reached inside and grabbed the first pastry his fingers touched. Val took an enormous bite of the Queen’s Cake.

“Alriff,” he said around the large mouthful.

Myrtle smiled, and damned if it wasn’t like when the sun found its way amidst the perpetually grey, cheerless English skies.

“Splendid.” Thrusting the basket against his chest, Myrtle drew her hood up and led the way.

Val stared after her retreating frame, watched as she let herself out and headed across the courtyard, so trusting with her expectation that he’d follow as he’d said.

And for a moment, he was tempted to push the door shut behind her, turn the lock, and keep her out . . . because every day he let her in more and more, and it left him unsettled.

Myrtle turned and peered back; with her hood up as it was, he felt her probing stare anyway. “Are you coming?”

He cursed. Yes, he was coming. Ignoring her question, he grabbed a hat, jammed it atop his head. “Stay here,” he commanded his dog.

Horace glared in return.

They remained locked in a battle, master and dog.

“Oh, fine,” he bit out, and Horace immediately barreled past him, bounding down the steps after Myrtle.

Val continued at a distance behind the pair.