Free Daring In a Blue Dress by Katie MacAlister Page B

“If I ask ‘What’s hard?’ you’re not going to make a dick joke, are you?”
    â€œNo,” he said, braving a little smile as he looked up. “I’m the least likely person to do that.”
    â€œWhy?” she asked, kneeling on the ground next to him. She
tsk
ed, and pulled a packet of papers out fromunder her knee. “Lady Sybilla’s private journal. She swears it’ll make a best seller if I type it up for her. Why are you not likely to make a dick joke, not that I want you to, mind, but still, why the
least likely
business?”
    He sat up straight, his hands on his knees, unable to look her in the eye when he bared his soul. He didn’t even wonder over the fact that he suddenly was driven to explain the truth to her—he just knew he had to. He owed it to her. He didn’t want her hurt simply because he was socially inept. “I’m . . . I have anxieties. Social anxieties. With women.”
    â€œYou’re . . . shy?” she asked, her nose wrinkling a little.
    He thought it was a wholly charming expression, one that perfectly suited her open, honest face. He considered that face for a few moments. She wasn’t what would have been described as classically beautiful, with a round face, straight eyebrows, and a little nose that drifted toward the upturned category. Her hair was the color of dark honey, straight and cut in a shoulder-length bob that rippled like silk curtains when she tipped her head to the side, as she was doing now. No, she wasn’t strictly beautiful, but he found her all the more appealing because of that.
    â€œâ€˜Shy’ is a good word for it. I don’t communicate well with women.” He made another awkward gesture. “I try, but . . . it all gets tangled up, and . . . and then . . .”
    â€œAnd then you just want to escape.” She nodded. “I know exactly what that feels like. One time, when I was in Edinburgh taking some classes in criminology, I was wearing my favorite pair of capris. They were light blue. Really pale baby blue. And my period came, but I didn’t know, because I’m not always crampy, and I spent a goodchunk of the day running around with a huge old stain that no one told me about, and when I found out, I could have died. I just wanted to hole up in my room and never face all those people in all those classes who must have seen me, but instead, I told myself that there was nothing to be ashamed about a perfectly natural occurrence, and I wasn’t going to let societal reaction to women’s bodies and their functions ruin my life. So I went to my classes the next day with my head held high.”
    â€œThat must have been truly horrific,” he said, empathy making him flinch at her story.
    â€œOh, it was. It was hard as hell to do it, and you know what? It’s hard to tell you, an almost stranger, about something so intimate, but here we are both surviving the incident and, I hope, finding a little common ground because of it.” She smiled, and patted his knee in an impersonal manner. “I know you can’t help anxiety, and being shy around women, but the next time things get all tangled up around me, just think about me going to classes the day after Stainageddon, and remember that I’ve been in embarrassing situations and survived.”
    â€œThank you,” he said, smiling back at her, and even placing his hand on hers in order to give her fingers a friendly squeeze.
    â€œGood lord!” she said, staring down at their hands. “Look at you touching a woman! Of your own accord! Let me alert the newspapers—wait, do we have a camera? Maybe I should post this online!”
    He made a face and pinched the back of her hand. “Are you going to make fun of me every time I manage to speak to you?”
    â€œOf course I am,” she said, laughing and getting to her feet. She held out