Because I kept you from drinking something that was added to your glass at the ball.
She was supposed to. The images of rolled-parchment letters crumbled away from her mind. The swirling excitement between her ears started to rattle to a halt, like a carriage being drawn by a tired company of grand jah'zoon. He tasted his brandy with his fingers; his mouth opened and closed more than for simple words, and the way his teeth shone, they seemed to gleam, magnify the dormant, flickering light into something blinding, distracting.
When he touched her hand, a chill rolled through her bones. She stiffened. He wrapped his muscular fingers around hers -- hers were little sausages, with dimpled knuckles and chewed-short nails -- and commanded her with an urging motion to strike her final move into place.
"No," the seamstress said, and with a jerk, a frantic toss of her hand, she threw the piece of charcoal against the bar so that it rolled off the other side of the counter and was lost to the floor beyond. In the field of their game, he was on his knees and surrounded by her imaginary armies. In her mind, she pressed a boot against his shoulder and held the blade just under his chin, his egg-round chin, a victorious matron of war--
--while before him, in reality, she looked away, whispering, "Am I supposed to thank you, Clayton Thayer," the girl said, gritting her brittle teeth against feelings, against a burn welling inside her chest. He'd hair that seemed to gleam like spun gold. "Am I to thank you for something I was unaware of? That -- that you acted in my interest, and now wish to play games with me to ensure my acknowledgment of the fact?"
A twitch in her cheek, something between a frown and a grimace--
Can't you just hold my hand?
"Don't -- don't touch me," she said, scrubbing her palm against her chest. "I -- I don't understand."