"I wish... you'd talk to Victoria," Nora said shyly once their desserts were brought, and Martin took her hand in his again. She couldn't help herself, she knew that if she didn't tell him this now, she never would, and it would stay on her mind forever, casting shadows over them, creating new skeletons to hide.

"What about?" His eyebrows drew together in confusion. "We're friends, nothing more, whatever people may think."

Nora sighed. "I don't care what people think or say. And I believe you. But I'm afraid that she doesn't see it as you do. And there's Lily, too. I can see how the little one is attached to you and Daniel. There are ties among the four of you, which make me feel like... an intruder, like I don't belong." She shrugged.
"Ask Daniel what his Little Prince says about creating ties... 'To you, I am nothing more than a fox like a hundred thousand other foxes. But if you tame me, then we shall need each other. To me, you will be unique in all the world. To you, I shall be unique in all the world. You become responsible, forever, for what you have tamed.'" Nora cited. "I can't explain it better."

"I understand," he said, bringing her hand to his lips. "Lily feels like a daughter to me..."

Nora nodded as he trailed off. She knew the feeling perfectly, she felt the same way about Daniel. That was the reason why she behaved carefully around Martin whenever the boy was present-- she didn't want to give him false hopes of something while she wasn't sure it would happen. She didn't want Martin to stop meeting Victoria, let alone Lily, she simply wanted him to clear the relationship between them and put a full stop to their unattainable hopes, even though he wasn't directly responsible for them.

"All right," Martin added. "You'll talk to Eric, and I'll talk to Victoria. Before the ball. Will you come with me to the Christmas masked ball on the twenty-sixth?"

"I... I'm not much for these things..." Nora muttered, taken aback by the sudden change of the subject. "But if we went together, what would be the point of the masks? You'd know who I was even before the ball started. Where's the fun in that?"

He chuckled. "I'd recognise you in the middle of a crowded Great Hall, among other twenty ladies dressed exactly like you."

Nora smiled at him mischievously; the ball was starting to sound almost like fun. "I don't promise anything, but should I come, I'll come alone, and I want you to find me among your guests, my lord."

He laughed and opened his mouth to reply even as Nora's phone rang, startling her. Her phone never rang, not this time of the night.

"I better pick up," she said, glancing at Martin apologetically before she pulled the phone from her handbag, not recognising the number flashing on the screen.

He nodded, his own phone vibrating with a notification claiming his attention momentarily.

"Hello?" Nora said, voice laced with curiosity.

As the caller assaulted her with a stream of information she neither asked for nor cared about, Nora recognised the voice of one of her two stepsisters.

"Anastasia, slow down," she said, then listened for a while again. "That's perfect. I wasn't coming to Mother's anyway. Well, have fun and Happy Christmas."

She removed the phone from her ear, switching it off before dropping it into her bag. The only person she wanted to communicate with sat in front of her, eyeing her attentively; she didn't need the phone.

"That was Anastasia, my stepsister. Do you remember her? She and Ella used to come here too, before Dad..."

He nodded. "Is everything all right?"

"Yes. She simply called me to let me know that I'm not expected at home for Christmas, not that I meant to visit. She and Ella and their families are taking Mother to Canary Islands for a couple of weeks. They'll be back on the eighth of January."

The look in Martin's eyes was too close to sadness and pity to her liking, as he observed her while she talked.

"I don't care, honestly!" she assured him. "I would never spend my birthday at Mother's, and Clelia insists I come to her Christmas dinner..."

"And I insist you come to the ball," he said, and the small table between them suddenly felt like a huge nuisance to Nora. She felt a surge of affection for this man, wanted to be alone with him, and she needed him to kiss her the way he did only when they were alone.

He must have felt the same way because he suddenly waved at one of Lino's waiters and poured the last wine into their glasses before their bill was delivered.

"Do you have any plans for your birthday? It's on the twenty-third, right?" he asked after he deposited a few banknotes, refusing her offer to pay, on a small silver tray, surprising her yet again with how much he knew about her.

Looking around in vain for the busy Lino as they crossed the crowded restaurant, Martin led her towards their coats, then outside, the winter chill and darkness assaulting their senses like a flood the instant they stepped beyond the door.

"No, I haven't thought of it yet," she said, shivering, their hands finding each other in the dark.

"How about... Would you... "

Nora smiled, turning away from him. As self-confident and in control as he looked most of the time, there were these moments hinting at his hidden, insecure, gentler, and romantic side. She turned back to him and stopped walking, then pulled him down for a kiss.

"Yes. I'd love to spend my birthday with you," she said after a long while even as they resumed their walk toward the square.

"That's wonderful. I have a surprise for you."

She could feel the excitement in his voice as he said that, and it set her anticipation and curiosity ablaze. Both feelings were quenched momentarily when he added, confusing her, "You wanted to know about Robertha."

She raised her eyebrows at him as they stopped behind the last row of trees separating them from the square, with Clelia's stall only a few steps away, beyond the green, living screen separating their tiny, private world from the rest of the universe.

Their faces were illuminated intermittently by the lights reaching them from the square, disturbed by the shadows of fir branches trembling in the freezing wind, allowing her to notice the caution in his look. This was a painful subject for Martin.

"Bertha. Daniel's mother," he clarified, his eyes searching hers for permission to continue.

She let her eyes stray towards the trees again, torn between the urge to run from this conversation and the need to hear him out; the fragile, moving barrier separating them like an enchanted portal from the square with its joyous, Christmas music, loud, happy, inebriated atmosphere, the cold wind obliging her to draw closer into him for warmth as he cupped her face and tilted it up to make her look into his eyes again.

"Bertha is in a private psychiatric hospital."

Something clicked into place in her mind, and she recalled their previous conversation about Daniel's mother, and then Martin's hint about having something in common with Mr Rochester. She nodded, allowing him to tell her all that he wanted her to know.

"Those sudden mood swings of hers... were not that simple. She suffers from severe bipolar disorder and depression."

Nora allowed his words to settle in her mind before she asked, "As serious as to keep a young woman, a mother of a wonderful boy, in a hospital?"

Martin inhaled deeply, his eyes becoming unfocused as her words took his mind to memories he would rather have forgotten.

"She left me less than two months after we moved in together without telling me that she was pregnant. She simply vanished from my life, I had no idea where she went, I did not meet her family until much later. They, her parents, came to tell me that she suffered from postnatal depression. She..." he trailed off, taking a deep, pained breath, which Nora could hear well despite all the noise surrounding them. What he was about to tell her was difficult, and she wished she didn't want to know so she could save him from the pain of reliving it. But it was better to talk openly and start their relationship with a clean slate, with no secrets lurking in the corners.

"Bertha set their house on fire, with her parents and Daniel, and herself inside... Only then, once she was hospitalised, she told them who the baby's father was and where to find me. I went to see her in the hospital and she insisted that I look after Daniel, rather than her parents. She signed all the papers, and I had her moved to a better, private psychiatric hospital. I help her parents to pay the bills. As far as I know, she is still there, she never allowed me to visit her again. Daniel has never seen her, not since he's old enough to remember. A couple of years back, I told him that his mum was ill and couldn't live with us, and he accepted it like that, no questions asked. He meets his grandparents several times a year."

Nora closed her eyes and leaned her forehead against his chest, hiding her face in the folds of his coat. She didn't want him to see all the emotions rushing through her mind reflected in her eyes; she felt like crying.

Martin stood still and speechless, his arms wrapped around her as if he was afraid that she would run from him, until she tilted her face up and he, understanding her silent demand, kissed her again, the guarded tension leaving his body as she melted into him in response to his kiss.

"I must go," Nora forced herself to whisper after a long while, wishing she hadn't promised Clelia to help her, and was free to spend the rest of the evening next to the lit fireplace of her cottage, with Martin.

Martin inhaled deeply then nodded, kissing her on her forehead before letting go of her. She watched him stumble backwards away from her, postponing the moment when he would have to turn away.

"I'll bring Daniel to the reading group tomorrow afternoon. Please call me whenever you need, or want to."

"Have a good night. I'll see you tomorrow," Nora said in reply even as he turned away, and she walked towards the square through the curtain of moving branches.