Page 12 of Infamous

‘Eddie,’ he said slowly, one side of his lip quirking upwards, as if her name tasted good in his mouth. ‘I’ll see you back inside, then. Eddie.’

Chapter Six

‘So he invited you to dinner?’ Rose said. She was lying on the sofa with her head hanging off one end, so she was upside down when she said it, and it came out high-pitched and strangled.

‘No,’ Eddie said, walking to the table with an armful of books and depositing them in a messy pile that immediately threatened to topple. ‘It’s notdinner. It’s a literary salon. It’s a lot of very creative, very clever people sitting around having stimulating conversations about .?.?. about life, and art, and politics—’

‘And then you’ll eat dinner,’ Rose finished.

Eddie frowned at her. She didn’t seem to be grasping the most important part of all of this.

‘Well, perhaps. I don’t know!’ Eddie pulled up a chair, picking a book from the top of the pile and flipping it open to the contents page.

‘And you have to study this mountain of texts before dinner because .?.?.?’

‘Because I don’t want to sound like a halfwit,’ Eddie said, chewing on her lip as she thumbed through the introduction, barely registering a word.

‘Are you having a crisis of confidence?’ Rose said, wriggling back up the sofa and then turning herself the right way up. ‘You are, aren’t you? Stay still, I must make a sketch – it’s never happened before, and never shall again.’

‘Stop your mockery andhelpme. Actually .?.?. Wait.’ Eddie glanced up at her. ‘Come with me.’

‘Comewithyou? Oh, honestly, Eddie. What am I going to do at aliterary partyhosted byNash Nicholson?’

‘I haven’t run it past Mother yet. His wife will be there, it’s all above board, but I can’t very well go alone. In fact .?.?. what about Mr Rednock?’ Eddie smacked her hand on the table and then pointed at Rose, the idea solidifying. ‘He knows Nash.’

Rose raised her eyebrows and slumped against the cushions. ‘Listen to you.Nash.’

‘I’m serious, Rose. Come with me.’

‘I don’t actually understand why you want me there. Surely I’ll just dilute your brilliance. And you don’t even like Mr Rednock, as you’ve madeabundantlyclear, although you’d do well to remember that it was Albert who talked you up to Mr Nicholson in the first place. Why don’t you go alone, and make all sorts of fabulous new friends, and I can quietly hate them for taking you away from me?’

She was laughing, as if this were all a bit of light fun to her. It made Eddie feelsilly, which was perhaps the worst feeling she could imagine, excepting appendicitis.

‘Fine,’ she said stiffly. ‘You’re right, I don’t want you there at all. Perhaps you can go and have dinner with Mr Rednock and the man who thinks his dog is his baby, or visit Ava Forester or Sophie Newport for a round of cards, and Sophie can give you a list of every man she’s seen recently in descending order of income and remaining teeth—’

‘I yield,’ Rose said.

‘What?’ Eddie was momentarily baffled. They hadn’t used the phrase for years; it had been a mainstay of their childhood years, during games of tag and high-speed chases around the garden, and then had been occasionally employed when they were teenagers, always by Rose, when Eddie was pushing her too far. The last usage, by Eddie’s estimate, had occurred during a game of Truth or Commands, when Eddie had asked Rose to confess the identity of the most attractive person she had ever laid eyes on. ‘You can’t yield. I was only halfway through berating you.’

‘Berate no more, your duelling partner has retired in disgrace.’

Eddie looked at Rose properly. Unless Eddie was much mistaken (unlikely), she looked sad around the corners of her mouth.

Abandoning the books, Eddie strode to the sofa and dropped heavily into the space next to Rose, accidentally sitting on quite a lot of leg. Rose squeaked and looked indignant; Eddie dismounted and flung an arm around her, and Rose sighed and allowed her head to drop onto Eddie’s shoulder.

‘I don’t want to go alone because I’m nervous,’ Eddie said into Rose’s hair, which today smelled like grass and something sweet and smoky. ‘All right? I’m nervous, and if you’re there, and bloody Albert Rednock is there, I’llknowpeople.’

‘You’re going to be a triumph,’ Rose said. Eddie could feel Rose’s mouth moving against her neck, and it was a little distracting. They had been touching casually like this a lot recently; the night in the treehouse had broken down some physical barrier between them, even as the rift over the puzzling Mr Rednockgrew. ‘I’ll come if you need me to. You know I always will. If anything, you clearly require someone to keep averyclose eye on you.’

‘I need you to,’ Eddie said, at the exact same moment the door was flung open and Beatrice sprinted in, her arms blackened up to the elbows.

‘Oh, Trix! What on earth have you been doing?’ Rose said, sitting up quickly and putting out her hand to stop Beatrice from colliding with her legs.

‘It’s coal dust,’ Simon said from the doorway, following at rather a leisurely pace for somebody who was clearly supposed to be intercepting his little sister. ‘She tried to climb up the chimney again.’

‘There are pigeons in there,’ Beatrice said to Rose confidentially, grinning. She had a dot of soot on her front tooth. ‘They’re nice.’

‘What are you going to do with a pigeon if you catch it?’ said Eddie, watching as Beatrice wriggled in Rose’s surprisingly strong grip. She ceased wriggling to consider.