Patrick tried to wipe the smile from his face long enough to scold her. “You should feel awful. But now you’ve had a taste of your own medicine.”
She took a handful of sand and threw it at him. Not to be outdone, he gathered up a fistful and sent it right back at her. Before they knew it, they were both gritty with sand and laughing loud enough to scare the seagulls away.
***
“You’re an alright fellow, Mr. Wolford. I’m rather glad we met.” Linley pushed her feet deeper into the sand, down to where it was cool and no longer warmed from the sun. With her hands, she molded a mountain around the stalks of skinny legs that jutted out of the earth.
Patrick sat reclined on his elbows, shirtsleeves rolled halfway up his arms, and his eyes closed. He tried to time his breathing to the rhythm of the waves breaking on the shore, unable to remember the last time he felt so relaxed.
“Really,” she continued. “You’re the first normal Englishman I’ve ever talked to.”
He opened one eye to look at her. “Normal?”
“One who’s not an archaeologist, or who wants to be an archaeologist, or whose parents are archaeologists.”
“Ah.” Patrick closed his eye.
“You’re very English. The way you talk, the way you carry yourself. I don’t know how I mistook you for a Frenchman when I first saw you.”
He sighed. “Wherever I wander, boast of this I can—though banished, yet a trueborn Englishman.”
“Shakespeare, of course. Very fitting. I’m sure you read all about him in some grand public school—same as your father and his father before him—reciting Richard II by gaslight with all your best pals.”
“It’s true,” he said. “I probably had the most English upbringing of any man I know.”
“How very fortunate you are to be able to say you were a part of something,” Linley said. “Sometimes, I feel everyone else has some place they can call home, but I belong up in the air somewhere.”
“In the air?”
Linley waved her hands. “Not anywhere in particular, just…around.”
“I see.”
“Do you? Do you really see?” she asked. “Because Archie, and Reginald, and Schoville think I’m ridiculous. They think I should be thankful—and I am, truly—but I can’t help wishing that I felt attached to something.”
Patrick opened both his eyes. “Something…or someone?”
Linley glanced over at him, and then darted her eyes away.
“Are you lonely?” he asked. “Is that your fatal flaw? The one imperfection in your otherwise perfect and exciting life?”
“I—I don’t know.”
Patrick rolled over to face her. “Everyone feels lonely, Miss Talbot-Martin. It will come and go many times throughout your life,” he explained. “But no matter how alone you feel, there is always someone somewhere who feels the same as you. Someone who understands.”
“You understand me.”
He nodded. “Yes, I believe I do.”
“Then I am very glad to have met you, indeed.”
***
It was after dark when they passed through the souk. Patrick carried their packages of souvenirs under his arms while Linley walked with her stockings wadded up in her hands, too lazy to put them back on after going through all the trouble to get them off. The shops lining the narrow alleyways had long been packed up and closed. Only one or two still offered items for sale, usually at heavily discounted prices and questionable quality. The reputable merchants were all home with their families.
The city was quiet, peaceful. A shell of the jostling, bustling creature it became during the day. At night, it filled with shadows, begging to be explored by the glow of the moon.
“Are you sure there is no one out looking for you?” Patrick asked. He too saw the shadows, and the doorways, and the deserted streets. But unlike Linley, he saw them quite differently. “I just cannot imagine your father would allow you to wander the streets alone at night.”
“I’m not alone,” she replied. “I’m with you.”
For a moment, Patrick smiled. “I’d be worried about that too if I were him.”
Linley rolled her eyes. “I am not a child. I do not need a nanny. Nor am I one of those London girls who can’t be trusted to walk out on their own. I am an adult. And my father treats me as one.”
“I did not mean to insinuate that you were a child.”
“Of course you did,” she said, turning on him. “I am a young, unmarried woman and, therefore, must be a child. Because—according to you—I am incapable of taking care of myself.”
“That wasn’t what I meant.”
Linley crossed her arms over her chest. “Then what exactly did you mean?”
“I just meant it was dangerous,” Patrick said, blowing out a breath.
“Dangerous? Really?” She looked around the deserted alley. “I don’t see any danger. In fact, I don’t see another living soul.”