Work Text:
The reporting in the Hub-Telegraph would have you believe the earthquake was the result of a heretofore unknown fault-line running deep below the museum. At least, that was the conclusion of the insurance adjuster. Certainly, it was the story Dr. Starkweather encouraged and, for all I knew, actually believed.
Miss Coburn, on the other hand, privately expressed her conviction that the discovery of (and subsequent damage to) the primitive statue deep in a sub basement just prior to the earthquake was oddly coincidental. “Veles, I’m almost sure of it,” she said. “Thought to be more of a trickster than an earthshaker, but then it’s not every day an intern drops you and snaps your head off.” That the hapless intern had been buried under falling debris and the statue, both parts of it, rested in a section of floor so clean as to appear recently swept, also seemed a remarkable coincidence.
Whatever the cause, the damage to the museum was unquestionable. Deep cracks broke through several of the walls in the basement; bricks and mortar crumbled and ceilings sagged. My own office floor developed an alarming list that made walking from the door to my desk like attempting a climb to a mountain summit.
And so, the doors still capable of closure were locked, the others chained shut, and signs announcing the six month closure for repairs were plastered across the face of the Samuel Mather Parrington Museum.
Six months, I thought, as I woke the next morning after a fitful sleep and stared at the ceiling of my bedroom. I’d collected books and research material from my office, as much as I could carry before the constables had locked the museum down, but even the most generous of estimates gave me a few week’s worth of work at most. The gentle tick of the bedside clock seemed to grow louder in the morning stillness, a relentless metronome that marked the coming empty hours.
I rose, showered, shaved and dressed as if it were a normal day, then sat in my chair and stared at the papers I’d brought home. Work had always been my escape, my refuge, my purpose. The prospect of being without was unsettling, and I suddenly felt the urge to clasp the nearest book to me as if it were a lifebuoy.
The rattle of mail in my postbox saved me. My circle of correspondents was small and mostly professional in nature, so I was pleasantly surprised to find a note from Dr. Ratcliffe amidst my usual assortment of bills and advertisements. He was in town for a few days, he wrote, and had a suite at the Claremont. He wondered if I might be free to join him for dinner. A phone number was scrawled at the bottom alongside the careless scribble of his signature.
I hesitated. We’d exchanged a few letters since the reunion at Brockstone; he’d written first to enquire about my well being a few days after we’d parted. My reply was in my usual style, stilted and overly formal, in spite of my desire to replicate the easy conversational manner we’d established that weekend. But he was not put off, and I became the beneficiary of his irregular but chatty correspondence. His letters, even when mentioning people and doings that had little meaning to me, were a source of pleasure, a connection to a wider world outside my own.
My gaze returned to my work; a thimble to fill my ocean of time. I dialed the number.
“Ratcliffe,” he said in my ear, and I stammered out my name in reply. “Booth!” he exclaimed, with every indication of pleasure.
We agreed to meet for dinner, in his suite rather than the public dining room. I assured him that Dr. Starkweather was unaware he was even in the vicinity. “Indeed,” I said, “he, er, recently mentioned you were on an expedition in Europe somewhere.”
“Germany,” Ratcliffe said with a laugh, “and not quite yet. But let us discuss that over dinner, if you please.”
The Claremont seemed less a hotel than a private club. No ostentatious red velvet and shiny brass here; the walls were darkly panelled with finely grained wood, the mullioned windows were framed by velvet drapes the same rich green of the vine pattern in the cream carpet. The young man at the front desk escorted me to Ratcliffe’s suite, and, after a polite knock, ushered me in.
Ratcliffe’s sharp, clever face creased in a smile at the sight of me, and he beckoned me to a table covered in snowy linen and silver trays. “I ordered for both of us. I hope you don’t mind.”
I could hardly find fault with his choices: filet of beef with a rich sauce swimming with mushrooms, sweet and delicate new peas, and potatoes Anna that practically melted on the tongue.
He watched as I took a bite, waited until I swallowed, then asked, “Good?” with a faint air of anxious expectation.
I nodded, then managed to mumble out something like, “Yes, delicious, thank you.” Years of abuse at the Siddonses’ table left me almost incapable of speech while dining, and I winced internally, disgusted with my own lack of grace.
But Ratcliffe simply said, “The Claremont does a nice table,” then sliced into his own filet.
We ate in companionable silence until I finally attempted a conversational salvo. “You said, um, something about Germany. A dig?”
He took a sip of wine, then said, “I did. I’m on loan for the next few months to the University of Tübingen. There’s a cave nearby; a hunter fell in a badger den and found bone fragments and artifacts. They need an archeologist, I was at liberty and when Tübingen offered a generous loan policy on whatever I might find, my director couldn’t wait to offer me up.” He shrugged, then added, “I’ve never been, so I packed my bags and here I am. I have a berth on the SS Virginian and leave at the end of the week.”
I said, “Just like that? I, er, must assume the rector of Tübingen is no Dr. Starkweather.”
With a laugh, Ratcliffe topped off my glass and said, “You’d be surprised.”
“How do you mean?”
“I’m shipping out from your fair city for a reason. Tübingen wants to extend an invitation to you as well.”
I choked a little on my wine and wheezed out, “Me?”
Ratcliffe raised a brow and said, “You needn’t sound so surprised. I seem to recall your attempt to poach me at the reunion.”
“But,” I sputtered, “but that’s,” totally different, I wanted to say, but it wasn’t really, except that Ratcliffe was renowned and talented and patiently waiting for me to finish my sentence. “...why me?”
He frowned a little, then said, “There was a recent bequest to their Thaumaturgy department, a massive collection of books and manuscripts, but totally uncatalogued and in multiple languages. You’re the senior archivist at a major museum, why wouldn’t they want you?”
I couldn’t answer, indeed was only capable of shaking my head in instinctive refutation of his praise. “Anyway, it’s absurd. I couldn’t possibly leave the Parrington.”
“But you’re on leave now, surely.”
“Technically, I suppose I am.”
“Well, then,” he said and leaned back, as if it had been settled.
“I can’t just hare off to Germany,” I said hotly. “I have work...I have to...to…”
“Yes?”
“Dr. Starkweather would murder me,” I said after a pause, “or make me wish he had.”
Ratcliffe made a face and said, “Now that I can easily imagine. Except that the university has made it clear the same loan policy applies to your work. The Parrington gets first crack at the collection, once it has been catalogued.”
My fingers twitched. In my mind’s eye, I saw my meager pile of work and compared it to the imagined boxes and stacks of Ratcliffe’s description. “...how long of a loan?”
His eyes gleamed. “It’s in the contract. You can bring it home to look over and let me know tomorrow. Dessert?”
The terms were more than generous and I knew, damn him, that Dr. Starkweather would throw me onto the ship himself were he aware of the offer.
There was only one person I might turn to who could offer me a sliver of sympathy, so we met for lunch and I related my tale of woe.
“I shall have to go,” I concluded dismally.
“Oh boo hoo,” Miss Coburn retorted. “Crossing the ocean on a luxury liner, no doubt staying in beautiful hotels all across the continent and then actually working in a prestigious university for months. I should shoot you, borrow your clothes and go in your place.”
“There will be people,” I said. “I will be forced to be social.”
“I refuse to feel sorry for you,” she said, then softened a little. “You don’t have to converse, you know. Simply tell people upon meeting them that you’re mad about the Sumerian Cuneiform and would just love to talk at length on the subject.”
“...I am mad about the Sumerian Cuneiform.”.
“Then you’ll be fine!”
I rang Ratcliffe later that afternoon.
The next few days passed in a flurry of packing and making arrangements to put my affairs in order during my absence. On the morning of my departure, I delivered a copy of my apartment key to Miss Coburn, along with my direction as I travelled.
“Thank you,” I said, as I pressed the envelope into her hand.
“I shall expect a postcard, at the least,” she said, then paused as if in consideration. I waited, until she gave a small nod and then said, “I wonder, do you have room in your trunk for another item?”
My wardrobe was hardly extensive, so I said I did and she motioned for me to wait, disappeared into her flat, then came back bearing a wooden box. She handed it to me, and I knew, somehow, as I took the weight of it into my arms, what it was.
“It’s Veles,” she said with an air of worry, as if she thought I’d return it. “I thought I’d try my hand at repairing him, but it’s beyond my ability. The head of restoration at Tübingen is the best, and since the statue supposedly came from that vicinity to begin with, I thought…”
“Yes?”
She paused again, then squared her shoulders, lifted her chin and continued, “I thought maybe he’d be happier there.”
I gave the box a dubious look and asked with a faint sense of alarm, “He’s unhappy?”
The line of her shoulders relaxed a little. “I took him home when the museum closed, and, as I said, thought to repair him. But...have you ever picked up a book and just known something was off? Or wrong?”
I thought of the dreadful volume that had killed Blaine, and shuddered.
“Yes, I thought so,” she said. “He doesn’t feel angry or harmful, not like...you know. I just can’t seem to repair him and he needs to be whole. And when I thought of you and your trip, it seemed provident, somehow. Will you take him?”
The box seemed to grow heavier as it waited for my answer. I could say no. I knew I could. But what would I be leaving with Miss Coburn if I did?
“I will,” I said.
My personal library was rather thin on the subject of early Slavic gods, but I did have a copy of Nestor’s Chronicle and started there. I added books to the trunk, then the wooden box, carefully padded with soft linens.
A cab delivered me to the docks just as Ratcliffe himself arrived, sparing me the embarrassment of either feeling rudely tardy or inappropriately early. He waved a hand, and porters materialized to take our luggage. He beamed in satisfaction, then, “Well then, Booth. Shall we?”
While I knew the ship itself was large, the reality of her dwarfed my expectations, as did the throng of people we joined in boarding. Something of my discomfort must have shown on my face, as Ratcliffe glanced up at me and said, “It’s always a bit of crush boarding, but we’ll be out of it soon enough.”
And indeed, as we moved further up the ship, the crowd melted away until it was just Ratcliffe and I following a steward to an upper hallway.
He unlocked the door to our suite, handed each of us a key, then waited with an air of patient and polite expectation.
Ratcliffe, who’d been eyeing the room with approval, glanced at him and then slipped him a bill. The steward managed a credible facsimile of pleased astonishment, then exited. This was all accomplished while I was still fumbling in my pocket and trying to mentally calculate the proper amount of a tip.
My face felt like it was on fire as I managed, “I, er, I don’t travel much…”
Ratcliffe’s brows drew together in puzzlement, then he gave an easy smile. “If you like, you can take care of the porters when our luggage arrives. Now, shall we pick our rooms?”
The stateroom was as large as my apartment. There were bedrooms flanking either side, each boasting a double bed, a desk and a private water closet. The common area in the middle had a dining table, and sofa and a scattering of deep chairs.
“I thought a larger suite would be preferable,” Ratcliffe said, once we’d selected our respective rooms. “We can dine in here if we tire of being social.”
Judging by the confident way he moved through the world, I rather doubted Ratcliffe ever tired of being social and said so. “You do, um, seem to make friends easily,” I added.
“Not always easily,” he said cryptically, then brightened at a knock on the door. “That will be our luggage,” he said. “A dollar each should be sufficient.”
When we’d unpacked, Ratcliffe suggested a tour of the ship. It was all very grand; the dining rooms, the lounges and parlours, the smoking room (already populated and stinking). I should have liked to go on deck, but a glance outside made it clear most of the other passengers were gathering there to wave goodbye as the ship prepared to leave port.
“It will be quiet after dinner,” he said. “And we should dine in company tonight. Sorry, but it’s expected.”
Seating was assigned, and as we were two bachelors, there were two equally unattached ladies at our table; Miss Fiore and Miss Anderson, alike enough in looks and demeanor to be indistinguishable except for their hair coloring.
Miss Fiore made polite conversation with Ratcliffe after introductions had been made, then fixed me with a determined smile with the arrival of the first course. “And what do you do, Mr. Booth?”
I picked up my fork, then set it down again. “I’m, um, an archivist for rare books at the Samuel Mather Parrington Museum.”
“That must be so fascinating!” she exclaimed. “Do you have a particular area of interest?”
I took a breath, then bared my teeth in an approximation of a smile and said with forced enthusiasm, “Oh yes. I’m simply mad for the Sumerian Cuneiform.”
Her own smile faltered as she said, “Oh, how marvelous.”
“Yes,” I said. “It’s been a passion of mine since I was a child.”
Ratcliffe covered a laugh as he made a show of dabbing his lips with a napkin, then said, “Mr. Booth is modest. His real talent is managing his tyrant of a museum director.”
Both ladies gave him their full attention, and Ratcliffe spun several gossipy and wildly unflattering stories featuring Dr. Starkweather and his temper through the rest of the course. All that was required of me was to make generally affirming noises when questioned as to the veracity of Starkweather’s temperament.
“Thank you,” I said later as we walked about the emptied deck.
“For deflecting conversation or for painting Starkweather as a foot stomping tyrant? That was my pleasure, I assure you.” We walked in silence for a while, then he said, “He’s entirely too much like the bullies at school; the adult version who’s learned how to be a brute without using his fists. I’ve worried about you, a little bit.”
Touched, I offered him a smile and said, “Just a little bit?”
He slanted a smile back at me and said, “Well, as a master of the Sumerian Cuneiform, you’re obviously not a man to be trifled with.”
I was startled into laughter, which he joined. We strolled around the deck a little longer in comfortable silence, then retired to our rooms.
As I drifted toward sleep, I thought of that moment of laughter, one of the rare times when I was a participant, and not the subject and felt an almost painful sense of happiness, a physical clenching deep in my chest. It had been worth it, I thought drowsily; the awful trip to Brockstone, the terrible dreams of Palmer and his tormentors, reliving some of my most painful memories.
I, who had always stood outside the bright, warm golden circle of friendship, had somehow been welcomed in.
It made me feel a little shy of him, the next morning, as if my newfound regard was writ large on my face, but Ratcliffe only asked if I wanted room service or coffee on the deck.
“On the deck,” I said after a moment. We claimed two chairs and flagged down a steward who promptly returned with an urn of coffee and a tray of pastries still warm from the oven. Once replete, I leaned back in my chair with a freshened cup and let my gaze rest on the horizon. “It’s marvellous,” I murmured, then flushed a little at the banality of my observation.
But Ratcliffe followed my gaze and agreed. “There’s something about the movement of the water, the curve of the sky. It draws the eye and satisfies the soul.” His hawk like eyes were lit with the morning sun, and looking at him, I once again felt that clenching in my chest.
We parted after breakfast; Ratcliffe to further explore the amenities of the ship, and I to our suite. My trunk sat in a corner, empty of clothes but still weighted by my books, and of course, the box. I removed the books without disturbing Veles and selected the Chronicles. I eyed the sofa in the main room, but the day was clear and fine, and so returned to the deck.
It was there Ratcliffe found me several hours later. He came bearing a tray of sandwiches and a pitcher of lemonade. He eyed my book and notebook and offered, “I can come back later if you’d prefer to keep working.”
My stomach gave a loud and mortifying grumble and he grinned. “Oh, put the tray down,” I said. “And pour me some lemonade.”
Between the two of us we cleared the tray, and I said, after my last bite, “You’re always feeding me.”
He shrugged, then said easily, “One hates to eat alone.” He glanced again at my notes and said, “Do you always take your work on holiday?”
“I…,” I paused and had to admit, “I don’t think I’ve ever had one.”
“Never?” He shook his head at my hesitant affirmation. “Booth, you will grow old before your time.”
“Well,” I said, “I have to catch up to my hair.”
He laughed, then said, after studying me for a moment, “It suits you, though. Very Senior Archivist at the Parrington.”
I blushed and muttered something like “thank you” and shuffled my notes so I wouldn’t have to look at him.
“But seriously,” he said, “Starkweather, for all his faults, can’t be such a slavedriver that you must work when you’re on leave.”
“Oh no,” I said. “This isn’t for the Parrington, not directly anyway. It’s for the thing in my trunk.”
Ratcliffe raised a brow and said, “I wasn’t going to pry, but am now compelled to ask: what thing in your trunk?”
And so, there on the deck in the warm sunshine and fresh sea air, I told him. The intern, the earthquake, Miss Coburn’s feelings of disquiet.
“I only know Miss Coburn by reputation, but it paints her as both brilliant and sensible,” Ratcliffe said as I finished, “so now I am also inclined to feelings of disquiet. Have you felt anything?”
I shook my head. “But then, I haven’t handled it. Er, him.”
Ratcliffe wouldn’t touch the statue either when I opened the box to show him. It was the first time I’d seen it. Miss Coburn had packed the thing carefully in wool batting, a long somewhat serpentine body and the head of a beast. The jagged break at the base of the head almost hurt to look at; some trick of the stone it had been carved from made it almost appear to be flesh on the verge of bleeding.
“No, I don’t care to touch it,” Ratcliffe said in response to my unspoken question. “I will have to add brave to Miss Coburn’s reputational qualities. Close the box, if you please.”
I returned Veles to the bottom of my trunk, and we adjourned to the sitting room. Ratcliffe opened a cabinet, pulled out a bottle of cognac and poured us each a healthy measure.
He drank his without ceremony, then said abruptly, “I can cable the university from the ship. Alert them and have a courier take it off our hands when we land. Or,” he said in a lower voice, as if he were afraid to be overheard, “we could throw it over the side.”
When I gasped, he continued, “I agree with Miss Coburn; it doesn’t seem wicked, but it does seem old and powerful and probably doesn’t give a fingersnap about anything other than what it wants.”
I shook my head. “No,” I said thinking of Madeline Stanhope. “I’m under an obligation now. Shirking responsibility for that sort of thing never turns out for the best. I shall,” and I swallowed nervously to say it out loud, “I shall have to see it through to the end.”
While his expression was dubious, Ratcliffe nodded in understanding, then said with a rueful half smile, “You unman me, Booth.”
I shook my head again, making faint inarticulate protestations, but he would hear none of them. “Then I shall see it through with you,” he said and offered his hand. I hesitated, only a moment, then offered my own. He clasped it firmly, his fierce gaze held mine, and he said, “Together, yes?”
My dreams that night were filled with vague images of a vast head covered in shaggy pelt and a scaled body sliding between the roots of a tree, and all about me the smell of wet wool. I should have been terrified, but there was no malice I could detect directed toward me. And at my side was the solid presence of Ratcliffe, his hand still firmly clasped in mine.
The decision made, we settled into a routine for the rest of the journey. We breakfasted together, either on the deck or in our suite. Afterward, I would read or walk, while Ratcliffe pursued the pleasures of the ship.
By the second day, he was greeted wherever he went with cries of either “Ratcliffe!” or “Ratty!” and seemed welcome to fill a seat at a card game, or on a stool at the bar, or to simply hold court in one of the salons. Sometimes we would luncheon together, but most often would be apart until dinner, occasionally in the formal dining room but more often alone in our room. And afterward, we would either read in companionable silence or seek out one of the music lounges.
It was possibly the happiest I’d ever been in my life.
On our last night we dined in our stateroom. After the porter cleared away the last of the dishes, Ratcliffe put his head to one side, considering, and said, “Either ship life suits you or you just needed a holiday. You look years younger.”
I rolled my eyes. “Like I did in school, I suppose.”
“No,” he said, soberly. “You looked angry and miserable in school. I suppose I did the same.”
“Yes,” I said. “I’d recently lost my parents and didn’t much care for my guardians.”
“And most of the boys were beastly,” he added.
“And most of them were beastly,” I agreed. “I wish I’d known you better then. It would have been nice to, er, to have a friend.”
He smiled and said, “Ah, you’ve just salved an ancient wound, thank you.” My face must have been a study in puzzlement, because he let out a rueful laugh and explained, “I spent ages trying to get you to notice me, but you only seemed to have time for Peter Ludgate. And after a while, I let my jealousy turn into dislike.”
I was sure I misunderstood. “I don’t...jealous of what?”
“Peter, of course. I thought you knew; I had a massive crush.”
I felt my face flame, and that fierce clenching in my chest again and stammered out, “No, I didn’t, I had no...truly?”
And for the first time since we’d met again at Brockstone, Ratcliffe seemed diffident. “Truly.” He paused to measure my reaction, then said, warmly, “Booth.” His gaze captured and held mine.
“Yes.”
“Would it be unpleasant if I said I admired you and held you in high regard?”
“...no,” I said faintly.
“Or that I have come to care for you, more than a little bit?”
My tongue felt cleaved to the roof on my mouth, incapable of forming words, so I shook my head.
Ratcliffe reached out a hand, and let it rest palm up on the table, midway between us. “Or invited you to my room for the night?”
I almost felt faint, whether with terror or anticipation I could not tell. “I…,” I started then simply shook my head again, and then, ever so slowly and cautiously, put my hand in his.
His fingers gave a reassuring squeeze and he said, “We can take it slow, as much or as little as you like. All right?”
“I...yes.”
We docked in Le Harvre the next morning, and it was only after we settled into our hired car that I remembered we had return passage booked on the same ship. “Oh,” I said, faintly as I felt a flush heat my face.
Ratcliffe paused with his hand on the key. “Forgotten something?”
“My...my bed,” I said. “It’s still made, the maids will...,” and I trailed off into mortified silence.
“Probably be grateful for one less bed to make,” he said and then started the car.
We were silent as he navigated our way out of the town, then he abruptly said, “I don’t care, you know, if people talk or gossip. Not for myself. Would it bother you?”
After a moment of reflection, I said, “Probably. A little anyway. I try not to care about what people think of me, but this,” and I gestured between us, “it’s not something I would care to see made...tawdry.”
He flashed me a smile, then picked up my hand, brought it to his lips and pressed a kiss in the palm. “Nor I,” he said, and kept my hand in his as we drove through the countryside.
Our journey to Tübingen took several days. It might have been accomplished in two, but Ratcliffe was an adventurous traveller, eager to sidetrack at a moment’s notice.
I took the opportunity at one such stop to send Miss Coburn a postcard. I wrote Having a wonderful time, wish you were here. In cuneiform.
We toured medieval cathedrals, crumbling chateaus and wild gardens heavy with flowers, their perfume as thick as smoke. And at every stop found such meals as only the French can produce, from a small cafe that served a simple but perfect omelette with a wine so exquisite that I insisted on acquiring several bottles, to a farmer’s wife who provided us with a picnic of a roasted fowl, bread and cheese, and milk bottled that morning.
And if each day left me satiated and drowsy with food and drink, the nights left me satiated in another way entirely.
Ratcliffe and I were discreet in public, but once alone in the rooms we’d booked for the night I lost all sense of propriety, was his willing pupil in any subject he cared to teach.
“Do you mind?” I asked one night as we lay tangled in a drowsy afterglow.
He lifted his head from the pillow and gave me a quizzical look. “Mind what?”
“That I’m…,” I paused, pushing away the ugly words-clumsy, awkward, virginal-that wanted to be spoken. “Inexperienced.”
He rolled his eyes and said, “Yes, as I’m sure the last thirty some minutes made abundantly clear.”
I rolled my own eyes and said, “That was never thirty minutes.”
“Kyle Murchison Booth, are you casting aspersions on my stamina?”
“No, just your time keeping skills.”
His eyes narrowed. “I see,” he said, then moved a hand to my hip and pulled me closer. “Perhaps we should test your time keeping abilities.”
I laughed, breathless, and said, “Perhaps we should.”
When we finally arrived at Tübingen it was mid afternoon, and the sunlight hung just low enough to make everything seem to be edged in gold. Ratcliff and I presented ourselves to the Rector, then parted to be guided to our respective workspaces.
I asked to detour to Restoration, where I silently handed over the wooden box to an elderly gentleman who opened it, then studied the statue for a long moment. His bright blue eyes pinned me in place as he asked, “You are the one who broke him?”
I shook my head.
“That is good,” he said, then studied Veles again.
“You can repair him?”
“Oh yes,” he said absently. Then, “I don’t see papers. This is a loan, yes?”
I shook my head again. “A return.”
Then he smiled, and said, “Good. I will make him whole. He will be happy here, I think.”
The anteroom where my office waited was packed from floor to ceiling with boxes of books. Even the rather large desk was covered. I commandeered a notebook and pen and started making notes right away, then began unpacking.
I was midway through one box when Ratcliffe knocked at the opened door before strolling in. He looked at the stacks and gave a low whistle. “Wow,” he said.
“Indeed,” I agreed. I grimaced from where I knelt on the floor, and gladly took the hand he extended to help me up.
“Enough to keep you busy?” he asked.
“Six months won’t be nearly enough,” I said. “What about your dig?”
“Could be years,” he said cheerfully. “There’s an entire cave system down there just waiting to be explored.”
I noticed that he still held my hand, was vaguely aware of the open door behind us and found I didn’t care. But. “I don’t think Dr. Starkweather would extend my leave beyond the reopening of the museum,” I said seriously.
“Dr. Starkweather can go hang,” Ratcliffe said just as cheerfully. “If he gives you the sack, I happen to know of a museum in the Midwest in desperate need of a talented archivist.”
“I see,” I said. “So all this was an elaborate scheme to poach me.”
Ratcliffe laughed, then said, “Would you mind it terribly?”
“Not in the slightest,” I said, and curled my fingers around his.