Chapter 20: The Night Before

Tobias's POV

On the night of the twenty-third, Langston sent his mother's carriage to the corner with Adaline in it.

He did not come himself.

He had learned, in the last week, how to stay out of a scene.

I stood at the top of the glue-smelling stairs with the door open and a lamp in my hand.

She came up in her cloak with the hood over her hair, and she was out of breath, and she looked at me.

I put the lamp down on the table.

"Tomorrow," she said.

"Tomorrow."

"I wanted tonight to be mine."

I shut the door and set my back against it, as I had the first time.

"Nan?" she said.

"At the Fenners' old landlady's. I paid for a bed. She said she wanted to sleep without a man in the next room."

"Good."

"Adaline."

She had already taken the pins from her hair.

It came down in a heavy brown fall over her shoulders, and she shook her head once, and I forgot what I had meant to say.

I had planned a speech.

I had meant to ask her not to stand beside Nan in the church.

I had meant to say that if Nan fired, a ball could go anywhere.

I could not stand in a pew and watch her take it.

She crossed the floor and put both hands flat on my chest.

"You were going to ask me to stay behind," she said.

"Yes."

"No."

"I haven't said it."

"No, Tobias."

I laughed, and it came out rough, and she went up on her toes and kissed me.

It was not like the loft or the night of the frost.

It was slower, and it was angrier, and she took her time with it.

She unbuttoned my waistcoat while she did it.

I got the cloak off her shoulders.

I opened the dress down her back with my fingers, and she let me.

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