Ruby smiled, glad that her father hadn’t overreacted on the mention of an adult male who wasn’t a relative making her acquaintance. Not that he would, not when he’d allowed Delight to work around men.

“He’s given me a book, actually, though it was in Italian so I had to translate some bits on my own,” she explained. “Oh, I’m so glad to have met him! He’s the only person I can talk about things like... astrocartography! I suppose you more than anyone knows how it pains you to want to discuss things and to have no one to talk about them with... nobody who would understand, or be interested!”