Alva dropped the file onto her lap. “It really is always ‘Wait!’ with you. I don’t want to wait. I’m not even sure how I can. I’m already sitting almost perfectly still, quietly reading. I’m a captive audience. I can’t possibly be waiting any more than I am right now.”

“I didn’t mean you,” he said, and leaned forward to open the window between passengers and driver. “Driver, could you let us out here?”

“We’re still blocks from the hotel,” she protested, thinking of a warm cup of tea and a crackling fire.

“But I’ve just remembered I have a terrible problem,” he said as the driver swerved through traffic to bring them to the curb. “And, for once, I also have the perfect solution.”

“Oh yes? What’s this terrible problem and magical solution?”

“The problem, and I assure you it is indeed a critical, even life-threatening one, is that my sister’s birthday is only three days away and I have yet to buy, or even consider buying, a single present for her. The solution, of course, is you.” As he spoke he opened the door, bundling her out and quickly walking towards a large storefront with an elaborate window display.

“Me?” Alva said, or perhaps squawked, as he pushed her through the door. “I don’t see what I have to do with it.”

“You’re going to be my savior,” he said, helping her out of her coat and handing it to the coat check girl along with his own.

“I see. And do I get a choice in this?”

He pulled her to the side of the entrance and moved in front of her, his hands gently resting on the sides of her shoulders. He looked down at her, a woeful, singularly masculine expression on his face, his dark blond hair a little wet from the snow. Her legs went wobbly. “Of course you get a choice,” he said. “It just depends on how much you currently want me to die. Because if my sister wakes up on the morning of her birthday and does not find a thoughtful, fashionable, and extremely expensive present from me waiting for her, she will travel all the way to Hyde Park to murder me. And it won’t be a particularly clean murder, either.” He pushed a curl out of her face. “Come on, Alva. It’s been an ugly day. Let’s put some joy back in it.”

Alva clutched the folder, thinking of pretty snow-covered asylums and screams echoing in hallways, and, looking up at him, understood. He was trying to offer her something that wasn’t covered in the sins of other people. Something he needed, too. “I’ve met your sister,” she said. “She’s about a foot shorter than you and half your body weight.”