Lucie frowned but nodded.
“Perhaps,” Catriona said, “but why are these pieces ours to safekeep when the people who had them taken from their ancestral lands want them back? A bit patronizing, isn’t it.”
Hattie blew up her cheeks. “It’s not just any art, though, is it; it’s from the cradle of our civilization.”
“So, when England was at war with France for a whole hundred years, would you have appreciated it if someone from the Mongolian Empire had come over and decided to relocate Stonehenge? Because the stones would be safer there since no one messed with the Mongols at the time? And they’d give us a pat on the head when we said thanks but we’d rather keep them? It wasn’t even Anglo-Saxons who put the stones in a circle, but we’re all rather attached to them today anyway.”
A broody little silence ensued.
Annabelle decided to refill their teacups for the third time. “I suppose we all agree that we ought to assist him,” she said. “Have you any ideas yet?” she asked Catriona.
“Mr. Khoury and Leighton ought to be introduced as soon as possible,” she said. “I wrote to my father. He cabled back this morning saying I should arrange for a dinner here with everyone at the end of the week.”
Wester Ross had plans to be in London, in his solicitor’s main office. She hoped it wasn’t an appointment to break an entail on the estate to sell off even more, but it was not something she could presently worry about.
“I’m so relieved that Mr. Khoury isn’t the villain in this piece,” Hattie said, and lolled into the upholstery like a lazy cat. “For a moment, I was worried I was losing my touch. To think I could have left you to promenade alone with a scoundrel . . .”
“Promenade? When? Where?” Lucie asked, looking at Catriona with suspicion.
“The day of the fire drill,” Hattie said. “When Catriona, erm, left the carriage to walk.”
“Good lord,” Catriona said, mildly disturbed. “You were trying to matchmake.”
“Ha,” said Lucie. “I knew it.”
Annabelle gave Catriona an inquiring glance. “What have I missed?”
“Nothing,” Catriona said. “Shall we begin our meeting? I have some fun letters here.” She pulled the replies to her writ campaign from her pocket.
Hattie put her chin in her hand and regarded her with an annoying twinkle in her eyes. “Don’t you like him?”
“No,” Catriona said, feeling a muffled disturbance, her emotions, her shame, the memory of a kiss, trying to break from their icy shell. “I mean, it doesn’t signify whether I like him or not.”
Her red face was all it took for Hattie to keep prodding: “If you liked him, and you were looking for a match, hypothetically speaking, of course . . . would you consider him a good prospect?”
They all leaned forward slightly, luring her with curious glances to spill everything, the same way looking down a plunging rock face might induce the unreasonable urge to jump. They had comforted one another through enough scandals by now, their loyalty and discretion were true and tested, but somehow it was different when it was one’s own scandal. Catriona took off her spectacles and polished them a little too vigorously with her shawl.
“It would be a terrible idea,” she said.
“Because he’s a foreigner?” Hattie asked with a small frown.
She shook her head. “Because I am me,” she said, “but you’re right; imagine if I were to marry an Eastern man—the gossip would be gross. His family would feel just as unimpressed, I believe.”
Annabelle made a sympathetic noise. “There would be talk,” she agreed.
“Such a thing can be overcome,” Lucie pointed out. “Annabelle married a duke, and Hattie married, well, she married Blackstone. Ballentine used to make literal headlines with his antics. Look how well it all worked out for us in the end.”
Catriona regarded her with her mouth open like a fish. “You?” she managed. “You are trying to hypothetically marry me off? Since when?”
Lucie gave an embarrassed shrug. “I think my own wedding preparations make me look at everything from a matrimonial angle,” she offered. “It’s quite disgusting.”
The angle also seemed to give Lucie tunnel vision. For all their faults and scandal, none of her friends’ matches were unprecedented in society history, when she, Catriona, couldn’t think of a single case where a lady of her station had married outside of a European house. She put the glasses back on, and Annabelle’s pensive face came into clear focus.
“I don’t want to press you,” Annabelle said with an apologetic smile. “But I’m curious—why exactly would it end badly? You have only ever been good for us, you see. I’m just trying to imagine how you could be bad company for someone you care about.”
Catriona felt sudden pressure in her throat, like a big bite had become lodged.
“You don’t have to tell us,” Annabelle added.
“No, it’s all right.” She looked down into her cup, into the calm unicolored circle of her breakfast tea. “If I were to marry, I would only marry someone I loved,” she finally said.
“Of course you would,” Hattie exclaimed.
“I would still need time to just be inside my head. You know that I don’t eat or drink at regular times when I’m focused on something. I wouldn’t care about going to bed before midnight or hosting a social event and I would walk around thinking about the page I should write or translate whenever I’m not at my desk. Don’t tell me a husband wouldn’t come to resent this. He would begin voicing perfectly reasonable demands about my availability, about keeping a schedule, about acting like a regular wife. I would feel guilty. I would resent him, too, but because we love each other, we try. In the end, I would have to choose between the happiness of the man I love and living in a way that suits me, which is dreadful; either way we are probably so enmeshed by then that ripping his soul from mine would leave an open wound. We would both be in worse condition than we were before. I therefore see no reason to hypothetically entertain the idea of marrying Mr. Khoury.”
Her friends were stunned, she could tell. They weren’t really moving, not even blinking.
She raised her cup to her lips again.
“Given how much I just talked,” she said between sips, “it could of course leave you with the impression that I have considered it.”
“Not at all,” Annabelle assured her.
“Never,” Hattie agreed, but she was gripping the edge of her seat now, looking ready to burst.
“That was the longest I have ever heard you speak,” Lucie said, sounding awed.
“You have played out an entire marriage in your head and divorced the man before you even attempted courting,” Hattie cried.
Catriona put her cup back onto the saucer with a clink. “Why are we fussing over my nonexistent marriage to a stranger?”