She shouldn’t recognize his voice already, she mused as Sam strode towards her, a head taller than the people he passed. It was deep, and a little slow, like he had all the time in the world to say what he wanted to. There was a bedrock of humor underneath it, which came out in the letters he’d written, too. He wrote like he spoke—warm and welcoming, inviting you to share in the fun.

Of course, fun wasn’t for people like her.

“Professor Moore,” she said, her own voice coming out strict and flat. “Are you following me now? If your letters haven’t convinced me, this certainly won’t.”

“Ah,” he said, smiling down at her. He looked … delighted to see her. Which was discomfiting, since the only people who had looked delighted to see her since she’d landed in New York were journalists. “But there’s an even more convincing one in the mail. And I’m not following you; I’m here for dinner. Is this where you’re staying?”

She looked at him in bemusement. “You have my address. I don’t know how you got it—”

“Oh, Henry found it,” he said. “Although I have to tell you, I don’t think he had to work hard to get it, so if you were hoping to be incognito—”

“The point is,” she continued, determined not to lose track of it, “you have it, so how can you not know this is where I’m staying?”

“Oh, very easily,” he said. “I have no idea where I am.”

“How can you—” She closed her eyes. “Never mind. Now if you’ll excuse me, my shoes are quite damp, so—”

He looked at her shoes. “Those are ridiculous,” he said.

She sighed and followed his gaze. They were ridiculous, of course: embroidered half boots in black suede, now quite destroyed by the slush and general grime and muck of New York, and uncomfortable on top of it all. She hated them. “They’re perfectly ordinary footwear,” she said. “Now if you please—”

“How long do you spend lacing those?” he asked, crouching down to get a better look. “It must take … good lord, it must take up to a minute. And then another thirty seconds to unlace them.”

In truth, it took longer. The laces were tiny, and they went all the way up the boot. “I simply don’t see—”

“And don’t you women change during the day?” he said, looking up at her in horror. “My sister does, and I think it’s general behavior.”

“I’m sure I don’t—”

“Why, it must take you … it could take you almost twenty hours a year to lace and unlace your footwear! That’ll teach Henry,” he said with savage pleasure. “He said no one would want a shoe-lacing device. We’ll just need to develop it for women. It’ll change the design a bit, of course—”