Dana Schwartz

What were miracles, but science that man didn’t yet understand? And didn’t that make it all the more miraculous that the secrets of the universe were out there, codes one might decipher if smart enough, tenacious enough?

He was a fool. No, worse than a fool. He was a romantic fool.

Honestly, the nerve of him, barging in without warning, acting like I committed some sin for not wanting to promenade with him. What is a ‘promenade,’ anyway? Just walking slower than any natural human gait so you can show off a new outfit to people distracted by how badly they want to show off their new outfits. It’s a pointless exercise in self-absorption that doesn’t even work because everyone involved is too self-absorbed to provide the admiration their fellows are in such desperate need of. And as if Bernard would need to be circling around the Gardens like a show
pony to get people to notice his clothes; I swear, one could see that blue jacket from Glasgow. Ooof, just got it there.”

“Harsh? He’s a man, isn’t he? He has the entire world at his feet. I think he can handle my turning down a promenade.”

“He is your betrothed, though,” her maid said to the floor.

“Not yet. Much as my mother wishes it were the case so she could get rid of me once and for all.”

Iona swallowed and twisted a strand of hair around her finger. “Perhaps, then, you should be sweeter to him, to ensure—”

“Oh, Iona, please. I will have my entire life to be sweet to him if he wants it. Can’t I have a single afternoon of mourning my future?”

“Dead bodies are never going to bite you. They’re never going to do anything to you. It’s living things that hurt you.”

THE AFFECTION JACK ONCE FELT FOR Isabella had seemed so real, so immediate and important. And yet the next evening, as he walked down toward the stream where he had seen Hazel sitting by the shore, he realized something: his love for Isabella had been like seeing a candle in a painting, a painting by a master who captures its light and the glow it casts on everything around it, but still a flame made of oil on canvas. When Jack looked at Hazel, the flame was alive and licking at the air around it. He felt its heat and power, heard its crackle. It was seeing fire in person for the first time.

“Dear Lord in heaven,” he whispered. “You’re so beautiful, Hazel Sinnett.”

“No one has ever told me that I’m beautiful before,” Hazel said. She hadn’t even realized it was true until she said it out loud.

Jack stood with his hands on either side of her face and stared at her for a few heartbeats. Then he leaned in and softly kissed both her eyelids.

“Someone should tell you that you’re beautiful every time the sun comes up. Someone should tell you you’re beautiful on Wednesdays. And at teatime. Someone should tell you you’re beautiful on Christmas Day and Christmas Eve and the evening before Christmas Eve, and on Easter. He should tell you on Guy Fawkes Night and on New Year’s, and on
the eighth of August, just because.” He kissed her lips once more, gently, and then pulled away and gazed into her eyes. “Hazel Sinnett, you are the most miraculous creature I have ever come across, and I am going to be thinking about how beautiful you are until the day I die.”

“Hazel,” he said softly. “You are the most brilliant person I’ve ever met in my life. You’re incredible.”

“I’m scared,” Hazel said.

“Good,” Jack said. “That’s fine. There’s nothing wrong with being scared.”

No wonder noblemen had time to invent medicines and maths—they had to, out of sheer boredom.

the thought of putting another mile between himself and Hazel felt impossible. Where could he go when she was here?