Free Bound in Moonlight by Louisa Burton Page A

they're generally comfortable enough with the situation to let me know how they're feeling, so I can . . . slow down, or . . .”
    I sat up, too, tidying my hair and blouse. “It's just as well. I mean, I didn't really want to. I hardly know you. And I can't think it would have been very good for you. I mean, I know nothing—less than nothing. I didn't realize how uninformed I was before I came here, but now . . . I wouldn't know where to begin.”
    â€œYou don't have to remain uninformed if you don't want to,” he said. “There's more to making love than just . . . opening your legs for a man. There are things I can show you, teach you . . .”
    â€œLike sex school?” I stood up, smoothing my rumpled skirt. “That isn't how people are supposed to learn these things.”
    Rising off the couch, he said, “There is no right or wrong way to learn these things, Emily. Why not let me—”
    â€œNo. Really.” I backed away as he reached out to me. “I feel self-conscious enough already.”
    â€œThere's no shame in innocence. But if you do want to learn—”
    â€œI'm sorry, Inigo,” I said as I crossed to the door. “I know you're just trying to help, but I really don't think—” I gasped as I nearly collided with a dark gray cat that was heading into the library as I was heading out of it.
    The cat arched its back and hissed at me.
    â€œRelax, Darius,” Inigo told it. “She's not going to touch you.”
    The cat darted into the library and onto a leather club chair facing the couch.
    â€œI'll be leaving as soon as the rain stops,” I told Inigo, “so I'll say good-bye now.”
    I left and returned to my room, where I sat on the edge of the bed and tried not to cry. I'd never felt so confused and unsure of myself. My gaze lit on my ruined black picture hat, which I'd propped on a bedpost to dry. In my mind, I saw Hickley aping me for the amusement of his friends and mistress—the ridiculous, waterlogged hat, the desolate pout and big, pitiful eyes.
    The tiresome, gullible American prig: That was my role in this little drama, the one Hickley had cast me in, and which I'd played to perfection. Of course, I was just a minor secondary character in his world, a stereotype with no need for a character arc. I had arrived on the scene ignorant and overwhelmed, and I would leave the same way. So it had been decreed by Lord Hickley.
    But as I well knew from my fiction writing, characters sometimes developed a will of their own, taking the story in a direction its author had never intended. I said, “Go to hell, Randy Randy.” And then I got up and went back downstairs, hoping Inigo was still in the library.
    He was. He looked up from his magazine when I came to stand in the doorway, and smiled.
    I said, “I, um, I was thinking perhaps I was a bit hasty . . .”
    Inigo stood up. So did another man I hadn't seen, because he'd been sitting in the club chair, the one the cat had jumped onto. He was even darker than Inigo, with a hint of a beard.
    â€œMiss Emily Townsend,” Inigo said. “May I present my friend, Darius.”
    â€œI'm pleased to meet you.” I went to shake hands with him, but he bowed instead. I would have thought there was something wrong with his right hand, but he was holding a book with it.
    â€œMy pleasure, Miss Townsend.” His voice was very deep, with a vague accent I couldn't quite place.
    I said, “Forgive me, but isn't the cat called Darius, too?”
    â€œHe is,” Darius said. “I can't decide whether it is he or I who should take offense.”
    Inigo took my hand, chafing it slightly in a reassuring way. Gesturing toward the door, he said, “Why don't we take a walk?”
    It was a short walk that ended in his suite of rooms in the southwest tower. The Arts and Crafts style furnishings were remarkably modern even by today's standards, and imparted