Rowen ducked his head at the question, retrieving Jordan’s hand.

“Soon, soon,” Burchette returned. “He is on the cusp.”

“He’ll make a fine enlisted man,” Liradean assured. “With his jocular attitude he could keep them laughing as both ball and bullet fly.”

“We hope for a bit more than that,” Rowen heard his father confess.

Liradean’s volume dropped but Rowen and the others still heard him. “Surely you do not expect him to be a leader of men…”

Burchette’s response was slow in coming. “I simply expect him to be the best that he can be.”

“Come,” Rowen said. “Let us step away from these animals of a purely political variety and see what more noble beasts the menagerie has provided for viewing.”

Jordan nodded, saying, “Oh … Rowen, remember…”

“I know, I know … You must be seen. Showcased.” He winked at her. “People watch you no matter where you go, Jordan, you need not seek their attention so hungrily.”

She pressed her lips together. “When attention is all you are good for…”

He stepped away from her suddenly, pulling her arm to spin her back into his side.

She laughed.

“You are good for far more than you give yourself credit.”

“No. I am as useful as a single butterfly’s wing.” She touched the pendant hanging at her throat. “Beautiful to look upon and worth a comment here or there, but with not even the ability to take flight.”

“Oh, do hush,” Catrina said, closing the gap between them. “You have value, Jordan.”

“How so?”

Catrina paused to consider as they walked past a gaggle of younger girls gossiping.

“… old man Biddle’s boy has fallen in love with a serving girl!”

“I saw them once from my window late at night as they were winding their way down the Hill together. She on a white horse, of all things!”

“Wherever were they off to?”

“I watched them go all the way to the water’s edge!”

“Well. That will be a short-lived romance if they go on in such a carefree manner. And rightly so,” the girl added, seeing they were being observed by the three friends. With a curtsy to Jordan and a wink at Rowen she said, “One should stick to one’s own class and know well one’s own place.”

Remembering the girl was Sixth of the Nine (as was Rowen), this time it was Jordan who guided him away from the too obviously interested members of his same rank.

“I am not as clever as you,” Jordan complained. “I cannot do more than simple arithmetic in my head. I am utterly beyond hope in all but the simplest card games—”

“They are not suitable pastimes for a lady of fine rank,” Catrina scolded.

Rowen gave a bemused snort. “Then we must needs occupy our hours alone in other ways,” he said, raising an eyebrow so that Catrina was quite thoroughly scandalized.

Jordan swatted at him.

“Hours alone?” Catrina squeaked. “Unchaperoned? You do know that is the thing most certain to ruin a young lady’s reputation—other than witchery…”

“It was only the once,” Jordan chided.

Rowen coughed.

Catrina was incensed.

“And for but a few hours…”

Catrina’s eyes widened. “A few—”

“Why whatever might a young man and a young woman do together in but a few hours?” Rowen asked drolly. “I cannot possibly imagine…”

Catrina sucked in a sharp breath. “I daresay you can imagine, Rowen Albertus Burchette … oh! And you probably have!”

“Are we not instructed to use the gifts we have been provided by the Divine, Catrina?” Rowen asked, raising his eyes to the ceiling and clasping his hands together in the most perfectly pious of poses. “It just so happens I intend to use well those things I have in a most impressive size. Like my disproportionately large imagination. As well as other things of”—he coughed—“substantial size that the good Lord saw fit to gift me with.”

Jordan thought the grin that twisted his lips was most assuredly cocky. She tore away from his arm to cover her mouth with her hands, her eyes suddenly as disproportionately large in her head as the things of more than sufficient size he alluded to. Her gaze strayed to his trousers and she twirled away, blushing and coughing when she realized what she was doing.

Rowen laughed so hard the sound startled the beasts in the menagerie, sending them screaming, screeching, and rattling their cages’ bars. Jordan snatched Rowen’s arm once more, peering around him at the assorted cages. Something with sharp teeth pressed its mouth between the bars, gnashing needlelike fangs in her direction.

“Oh! How awful!” Jordan whispered, tugging on Rowen’s arm to maneuver him away from the menagerie. “Dangerous things should be kept under lock and key!”

“They are only little and surely not as frightening as the orangutan that inspired Poe—” But Rowen allowed himself to be led away by Jordan.

Jordan shook her head.

“You must be more careful with what you say in public, Rowen. People will talk…” Catrina scolded.

He shrugged. “Jordan craves attention.”

She swatted at him again. “Not of that type. Women will be staring at you, wondering…”

“Do you think so?”

“Why yes, of course,” Jordan said, thinking sometimes they were as different as their favorite candies: he as bold as the smoky-flavored Black Jack, and she as sweet and understated as Salem’s lemon Gibraltar.

“Hmm. Well. You should know, Jordan, that I also crave attention from time to time,” he admitted, his voice going lower, softer.

Jordan picked up the fan hanging at her hip and snapped it open. The gown was far warmer than she thought it would be.

“Rowen,” Catrina warned.

Jordan turned to look at her friend. “Fetch us drinks, please?”

“What?” Catrina blinked. “Do I look the part of a servant?” she asked, rolling her hand down before her to draw attention to the finely wrought gown she also wore.

“N-no,” Jordan stammered, “but neither is there a waiter or butler here.”

“You are the hostess,” Catrina said. “Perhaps you should go and fetch drinks for Rowen and myself.”

“I am the guest of honor,” Jordan protested.

Catrina blinked again. “Fine. I will tote and carry.” With a flick of her wrist she opened her fan and traipsed off toward the fountain, glancing over her shoulder but once.

“You are far too anxious, Jordan,” Rowen whispered, his eyebrows lowered. He ran a soothing hand over her forearm and she rested her other hand atop his.

“I’m sorry. You know…”

He nodded. “I do. And you hide your nerves well from everyone but me. If they only knew that is why you act the way you do. People love you, Jordan. You are more popular than you know.”

She glanced down at the floor but something about her brightened. “At least, adorning your arm I am well presented and better loved for people’s love of you. You are so much better than me, Rowen.”

He snorted. “Sixth of the Nine here.”

“Does that truly matter?”

He looked startled. “Yes. I think it must. Our society is built around rank and order. Rank is the most important thing we have.”

She stiffened, hearing something so closely akin to her father’s justification for rejecting Rowen coming from Rowen’s own lips.

“If certain things weren’t in their place…” he continued.

“There’d be chaos.”

He nodded.

“Spoken like a true military man.”

A waiter carrying a tray full of hors d’oeuvres paused before them and Rowen took a fistful, popping them into his mouth and barely chewing between bites. “A truly hungry military man.”

Jordan was far enough into their friendship that such moves no longer stunned her. “Rowen,” she admonished softly as the servant drifted away.

Rowen blinked at her. “Did I take too many?”

She smiled. “Actually I half expected you to clear the entire tray. And lick the poor waiter’s hand for crumbs.” She winked at him and he straightened. “You’ve already been to the kitchens to see Cook, haven’t you?”

He grinned, for a moment looking all of twelve. “You are stunning,” he said, dragging her toward the broad French doors and onto the veranda that stretched along one side of the estate’s back, hemming in the gardens and ending where the property dropped suddenly away.

They walked all the way to the end of it, Rowen striding like a man on a mission.

The Below spread out at the Hill’s foot, buildings seemingly alive and creeping with flickering lights through the shadows the deepening evening threw.

Rowen interlaced his fingers with hers.

“This is—improper,” she protested.

“Improper?” He arched an eyebrow. “You’re afraid of what someone may say about being this close here—now?”

“We are—again—unchaperoned…”

“Exactly.” He leaned in, his eyes closing, and she dodged away from his willing lips, neither of them aware of Catrina standing inside the distant doors and seeing all.

Rowen caught Jordan’s wrist and drew her close, encircling her waist with his arms.

A breeze blew up from below, rattling the topiaried tree branches and bending them toward the raised veranda’s floor. Green leaves snapped off and spiraled around the pair’s feet as a storm built in the sky above.

“Come. Let’s go back inside,” Jordan said.

Rowen’s eyebrows drew together. “What is wrong?”

“You said you had a surprise for me…”

The metallic threads in her dress sparked like lightning traveled their careful stitches, and the wind tugged at her hair, pulling free one of her many curling locks.