The butler took Tom’s hat and overcoat at the door before he led him, Murphy, and Anne back to the drawing room and announced them.

A rush of voices surrounded them, but Tom’s eyes found his target immediately. She was standing awkwardly near the bookcases, next to an older woman who looked like a companion. He could see a hastily set-aside book on the small table next to the lamp. Josephine Shaw was brushing at her skirts and slouching slightly, as if trying to conceal her height.

“And Mr. Murphy”—Tom blinked when he realized Shaw was speaking to him—“allow me to introduce you to my only daughter, Miss Josephine Shaw.”

Tom stepped toward her.

Girls are caterpillars…

No girl here, but Tom thought he saw the caterpillar. Miss Shaw was… not pretty, though he thought she might be what some would call handsome. What had suited the darkness and moonlight appeared awkward in the artificial light of the drawing room. Her skin was pale, not luminous. Her hair was mouse-brown and tied back in a complicated, heavy knot. Her height and dramatic features were not flattered by the fashions she’d been buttoned into. But her eyes…

Too big for her face. Too dark. Too wide. Too… much.

Far too much for a very proper drawing room.

Tom thought her eyes might trap him if he wasn’t careful.

“Miss Shaw.” He bowed respectfully. “A pleasure to meet you.”

Wake up, caterpillar.

She smiled politely and inclined her head, her shoulders still bent. Tom watched her ink-stained hand as he straightened, imagining what the skin would feel like in his rough palm. He stretched his shoulders back. Those large, dark eyes that had been hovering somewhere around his cravat rose and kept rising to meet his own gaze.

“I find,” he said quietly, “that it’s quite useless to apologize for how tall the good Lord made me.”

She blinked. “Pardon me, sir?”

He liked her voice even more when it wasn’t whispered in a garden. And Anne would probably thrash him for it, but he’d say it anyway. “No need to slouch, Miss Shaw. In my opinion, there’s nothing grander than a tall woman.”

Miss Shaw blinked again. Then her face lit with a smile, she threw back her shoulders and let out a laugh as improper as dancing in the garden at midnight.

The laugh transformed her.

The older woman behind Miss Shaw met his eyes with an approving look, and Shaw clapped him on the shoulder as Miss Shaw continued to laugh.

“You young people,” Shaw said. “Mr. Murphy, I have a good whiskey I’ve opened for the evening. May I get you a glass?”

“Please,” Tom said. “And what are you drinking tonight, Miss Shaw?”

An attractive flush lent a little color to her face. “I rarely drink spirits, sir. I only take a bit of wine as my doctor recommends.”

He liked that she made no pretense of hiding her disease.

Tom led Miss Shaw away from the bookcases and toward the fireplace where he found a seat for her near the cheerful hearth. She introduced Mrs. Porter, her companion, and asked him all the proper questions a young lady asks a young man of trade. Tom answered, even though he was far from a young man of trade.

It was very, very awkward.

“Tell me, Mr. Murphy, do you enjoy working with your brothers?”

He’d been watching the fire and thinking about how long it would be before dinner, so the answer slipped out before he thought. “Better than a team of asses, but not by much.”

He heard Miss Shaw stifle a snort and barely contain a spit of wine that would have sprayed over her lovely green frock. Mrs. Porter’s mouth hung open a little, though her eyes were alight in amusement.

“Bollocks,” Tom muttered before he pressed a knuckle to his lips and tried not to growl. Language, man. Watch your language. “My sincerest apologies, Miss Shaw. I am too accustomed to the company of men. Please forgive my vulgarity.”

Her voice was low and conspiratorial as she leaned toward him slightly. “I accept your apology. I hate dinner parties. Would you like to know why?”

“Yes.”

“Because it takes five times as long to say something in polite language as it does by being forward. And all the really good jokes are forbidden.”

“Don’t you believe in manners, Miss Shaw?” He let the corner of his mouth turn up. “Are you trying to shock me?”

“I have a strong inclination that it would take quite a lot to shock you, Mr. Murphy.”

“You might be correct.”

If their self-appointed matchmakers were watching, Tom thought they would probably be cackling with glee. Miss Shaw leaned toward him and he toward her. He couldn’t help it. Something about her nature spoke to him. She was, despite her proper upbringing, an outsider by nature and circumstance. A caterpillar in a world that was not ready to see the butterfly she might become.

Tom wanted to see it.

He could smell the scent of gardenia in her hair and india ink on her fingers. And layered beneath that, he realized with an unexpected pang of sorrow, was the smell of her sickness. Of tonics and herbs she probably took to let her breathe easier.

“Miss Shaw, may I call on you tomorrow evening?”

She smiled, a sweet, cheerful expression with no artifice at all. “I would like that. I think… you and I might get on very well, Mr. Murphy.”

THEY toasted him later, Murphy and Anne and Declan, who had miraculously appeared once Tom hadn’t bollixed the whole affair.