She gave him a baleful glare.
“So,” he said. “Feet on the pedals. Push first on the top one. No, not to the side—down, smoothly down. Like that. Now the next.”
It took her a few revolutions to get the gist of the motion. She went slowly; he paced beside her. They started along the canal at a snail’s pace. He kept one hand on the seat, the other on her spine, steadying her as she moved.
“A little faster,” he told her. “I can keep up.”
A little faster meant there was a bit of wind as they moved. The breeze whipped her bonnet off her head and left it trailing behind her, held in place only by bonnet strings. It stole little tendrils of pale hair from Daisy’s braid. A little faster meant that his hand was no longer steady against her spine. His palm jogged with his pace, up and down, up and down.
The cold lent color to her cheeks. Her determination gave fire to her eyes. God, he missed Daisy.
It wasn’t the first time he had missed her.
It happened at odd intervals. When he heard an amusing story and thought of telling her. When he had an idea he wanted to share with her. When he saw her on the street and accidentally smiled before he remembered.
He didn’t really miss her. He missed the woman he’d once believed she was.
But he missed that woman now, almost intensely. He missed the way she gritted her teeth as she concentrated. He missed the way she kept trying, no matter what life threw at her. The way she gripped the handlebar, as if holding on more tightly would save her from a fall.
He missed the way she’d once trusted him, the way she had used to look at him.
“See?” he told her through even breaths as he ran alongside her. “Keep going. You’re still very high up, but you’re less wobbly, aren’t you?”
Her teeth gritted. “Maybe.”
“You can go faster.”
“But if I do?”
“I’ll be right here,” he lied.
She went faster.
It wasn’t hard to get to the point where he couldn’t keep pace with her on the velocipede. She had her gaze trained ahead; she didn’t even notice when it happened. He let go and she kept on pedaling. For one moment, then two. Her grip relaxed. Her teeth stopped gritting together.
Her expression began to shade into exhilarating wonder.
It lasted for precisely one second. Then she realized that he was no longer supporting her. She looked around, jerked the handlebar—
Crash winced as she toppled to the ground. He jogged up to where she lay on the path, a tangle of skirts and pedals and indignation.
She pushed herself up on her hands, brushing gravel away. “You said you’d hold me up!”
“I lied,” he said succinctly.
She unraveled her scarf from the mess on the ground and unwound her skirts from the pedal where they’d tangled. “I ought to have known.”
“It was worth it,” he said. “You had the feel of the velocipede for one second. For one second, you understood. All you have to do is go fast enough, and you don’t wobble. You fell because you stopped. Not because of me. That’s how it works. Don’t stop. Don’t question. Go faster.”
She brushed debris from her skirts and stood. “What has any of this to do with Daisy’s Emporium?”
“You let fear stop you,” he told her. “You stood up in front of the crowd and lost your nerve. I know you, Daisy.” And he did, a little. “Your figures are no doubt sound. Your plan is well thought through. You’ve likely researched every last item you want to sell in your shop. You know how much you can purchase it for in quantity and how much it will sell for. None of that matters, because nobody will ever know how good you are if you lose your nerve. That’s what you need to work on, Daisy. Not your speech, not your facts. Your nerve. You will be high up in front of everyone with no support, and when you get scared, you can’t falter. You need to go faster.”
“You…” Her jaw squared and she looked at him with suspicious eyes. “You think my plan is well thought through?”
“I’m not going to repeat myself.”
One of the things he’d once loved about Daisy was this. She looked down at her skirts, now decorated with a liberal smear of muddy snow down the side. She shook gravel from her gloves. Her jaw squared and she lifted her chin.
“Very well. I’m getting back on.”
It took Daisy an hour to achieve the minimum skill she needed to pedal down the footpath. An hour of wobbling and catching herself. An hour during which she fell twice. Her gloves tore. Her gown ripped. Daisy gritted her teeth and kept going.
An hour of Crash watching her, his heart aching for what they had almost been to each other. It was an hour until he steadied the velocipede against the bench one final time. Until he took her hand to keep her from falling as she dismounted and almost didn’t want to let go.
“Tomorrow?” he asked. “You need more practice.”
She shook her head. “The next day. I need… I need…” She didn’t say what she needed. She stood on the bench she’d used to disembark and looked down at him with wide, hurt eyes.
“Why?” she asked finally. “Why are you really doing this?”
Of course she knew it wasn’t about the damned wagers. If she’d talked to anyone at all about him, she had to know he’d refused to take any bets about the charity bequest at all.
“Because.” His voice came out a growl. “Because I want you to understand for once. I don’t get to stand still—if I did, I would fall. Unlike you, I never had a choice. If I start to wobble, I have to go faster.”
She flinched. “I said I was sorry.”
“I recall that you said you forgave me.” At length. That unwished-for absolution still rankled.
“And that’s why you’re still angry? I’ve seen you brush off harsher insults a thousand times.”
He held up a hand. “No. That’s where and why this ends. Tell yourself I could have lived differently all you wish. I can’t stop you; you are remarkably good at lying to yourself.”
She stared at him.
“I am good at going fast,” Crash said. “So good that sometimes all anyone sees is a blur. Insult me all you like. Deep down, though, you know better. You know who I am.”
Her eyes glittered back at him. “I know you very well, Crash. Everyone knows. You make a point of it.”
The things everyone knew about him… He held up a hand. “No. That’s where and how this ends. Tell yourself I could have lived differently all you wish. I can’t stop you; you are remarkably good at lying to yourself.”
She stared at him.
His teeth ground together. “But don’t lie about me when I’m standing right here. I don’t need your holy dispensation to exist.”
“Just as well,” Daisy shot back. “You don’t have it.”
Daisy unwound her scarf and set her ruined gloves in a wad on the entry table. Her body ached from the exertion and from the falls. She’d be sore the next day.
How fitting. Crash had a tendency to leave her sore in the morning.
The single room that she shared with her mother was still warm, a good sign. She always had to tell her mother to burn coal and never mind the cost. Winter was hard on her, and heat was one of the few things that kept her mother’s pains away.
Today, her mother had actually listened.
“Mother?” Their flat was a scant two rooms—one, really, but they’d rigged a curtain. Somehow, two tiny rooms seemed more luxurious than one small one. She peered around the fabric into the alcove where their shared bed stood. “Mother?”
She could smell something delicious—crisp jacket potatoes and something savory that might have been fish. But there was no answer.
Good. Her mother wasn’t here. Daisy found a rag and scrubbed at the mud on her skirt. The hem needed repairing, but it could be fixed. For now, a pin or two would manage.
She’d hastily tacked the fabric in place when the door opened behind her. Daisy turned guiltily. “Oh, Mama. There you are
.”
Her mother removed her own scarf and gave Daisy a bright smile. “I’m feeling better today. I was thinking that perhaps I’d take on a little more lacework instead of just the two pieces a week we agreed upon.”
It was always a delicate balance. The more her mother earned, the easier it was to purchase coal. The more her mother worked, the worse her rheumatism became.
“Mama.” Daisy stood and set her hand on her mother’s shoulder. “The last time you tried, your rheumatism had you laid up for weeks. It’s not worth it.”
Rheumatism. That’s what they assumed it was. Years ago, they had spent money they didn’t have for a physician. When he’d come, he’d examined her mother for a cursory three minutes. Then he’d pulled Daisy aside.
“There is nothing wrong with your mother,” he had told her in a quiet voice. “Women of her age don’t get rheumatism. She is malingering. She wishes to stay in bed, and so she’s invented aches and pains to do so. She doesn’t need compassion or medical treatment. She needs someone to insist that she work.”
Daisy had wanted to slap the man’s supercilious expression off his face. Instead, she’d paid his fee. So much for physicians, then.
“I have supper ready,” her mother said, “and I cleaned up a little—it does look nice, doesn’t it?”
“It does.”
“Sit,” her mother said. “Eat.”
They sat.