Chapter Thirty-Six
“This is going to sound very foolish, but . . .” Pip discovered that she couldn’t look at Lord Octavius’s face while she told him about her greatest flaw. She looked down at her lap and twisted the end of her belt. “My father had an obsession with threes. He did everything in threes. He tapped three times on every door he went through. He wiped each foot three times on the mat. He snuffed candles three times and checked the locks three times and kissed me good-night three times. He made sure to have three things on his fork when he ate. He chewed in multiples of three and he walked in multiples of three and every time he turned to a new page in a book he would stroke it three times. Everything was threes.”
She risked a glance at Lord Octavius. That bright-as-sunshine s
