“Right,” Lucie said. “Let the poor woman be, Hattie. I’m ringing in our meeting now. Whoever wants to talk about anything other than our agenda shall have to leave the room.”
She looked sternly at Hattie, whose room it happened to be, and opened her satchel, allowing Catriona to exhale with relief. It was hard enough keeping her face empty without having to spin romantic fantasies about the man she was trying to erase from her brain.
Lucie produced a sheet with a neatly drawn table containing names, some of them already haphazardly crossed out.
“Since our last meeting, we have spoken to two dozen dithering MPs, and in conclusion, it was a success,” she announced. “If we continue at this rate, we might have an amendment before the year is over.” She knocked on the surface of the table.
The point was agreed, and it was Catriona’s turn to present.
“I sent my first appeals out last Friday.” She nudged the two letters she had placed on the table. “My results are disappointing.”
“Those are quick replies,” Lucie remarked. Quick replies were usually written with tempers running high.
Catriona opened the first envelope. “Essentially, this one says: don’t be silly—the writ protects women from being left abandoned and penniless by errant husbands. No man would pay maintenance unless he faced jail.”
“Tosh,” said Lucie, “as if there weren’t other legal means available than this writ to correct such a man.”
“I think this one here is closer to the crux of the issue,” Catriona said and opened the second envelope. “Listen to this: The Writ for Restitution of Conjugal Rights has a purpose,” she read out. “If a wife could abscond on a whim, then who is to guarantee that she will honor her vows? A capricious bride could change her mind as soon as the day after the wedding and leave, thus condemning an innocent, upstanding man to years of celibacy as well as depriving him of the opportunity to father children. I am honouring your query with a response because I admired your academic work about the Theodosian Walls of Constantinople. I have much respect for a woman who has a man’s brain. However, a word of warning: when a woman fails to pair her intellect with the softer inclinations of the female sex, she is in danger of becoming a harridan or unsexed altogether. My regards to Wester Ross, I should like to meet him at the club when he is in London next.”
For a long moment, they looked at one another blankly. The muffled sound of nearby traffic filled the room.
At last, Hattie said in a grave voice: “The Theodosian Walls of Constantinople.”
They burst out laughing, so uncontrolled and high-pitched that it sounded like screaming.
“Capricious bride,” said Annabelle, wiping tears from the corners of her eyes, and just when the fresh shrieks died down, Lucie choked out, “unsexed,” and they doubled over again.
“I wonder what it would feel like,” Annabelle said when calm had been restored, “how I’d feel if I woke up every morning filled with such brass-necked audacity.”
“Invincible?” Hattie suggested.
Perhaps I would consider marriage then, Catriona thought. I could just close the door to my study whenever I needed and trust he would love me for being good at what I do, not for what I can do for him . . .
She glanced at the pocket watch. In two hours, she’d face her most recent disappointment in the Common Room. His attractive face appeared before her mind’s eye, and her body remained quiet, as if numb.
Chapter 16
He had, very casually, looked at his pocket watch at five minutes to one, then he had moved the chess pieces into their positions of the last game. When the door to the Common Room opened a few minutes later, he kept his eyes on the board for a moment as though his body hadn’t just buzzed with awareness.
She wore a soft blue color today. This touch of gentleness was deceiving, he quickly realized. Up close, she felt as cool and remote as she did two days ago, when she had told him to keep his hands to himself.
“Ma’am. Mrs. MacKenzie.”
Catriona’s small smile didn’t reach her eyes. “Thank you for setting up the game.”
Her voice was smooth as glass, without a particle of emotion, good or bad. She returned his scrutiny with a placid expression that filled him with vague unease.
He walked round her to assist with her seating. Her hair was in a loosely pinned braid, and two dark curls had escaped from the updo and nestled in the tender indent of her nape. The chaperone was watching him eye up the lady’s exposed neck. He pushed the chair under the lady’s bustle.
She put her spectacles on top of her head again, but it seemed her gloves stayed on today.
It was his turn, and his least self-destructive move was to put his pawn in a3. As he had predicted after their last round, she immediately eliminated his knight on c3 with her bishop and was now behind enemy lines. It made him feel vindicated—at least during this game he knew what was inside her head.
She looked up at him. “My father will be in London midweek,” she said. “We could have dinner with Mr. Leighton on Thursday or Friday, depending on his availability and preference. I could cable to him today to invite him.”
“That’s rather short notice,” he pointed out.
She nodded. “Nothing wagered, nothing gained.”
“You haven’t told your father the reason, have you?” he asked in Arabic to lock out the chaperone.
“No—I understood you wanted to discuss the matter with him face-to-face, prior to the dinner.”
It still impressed him, how effortlessly she switched between the languages. He launched a fresh pawn to destroy her pillaging bishop.
“As for Leighton,” he said, “in his invitation, we tell him that we want to share our progress with the classification. Nothing yet about my proposal.”
“As you wish.”
She studied the board rather briefly, then switched her king with her rook.
He narrowed his eyes. “Interesting.”
She seemed unflustered by the compliment, just graciously inclined her head. Blush, he willed her, or say something strange. Say nothing at all, if you must, but act normal. This was normal, he then realized—for probably the first time, she was acting perfectly in line with protocol. He contemplated his small army, wanting to do something reckless. An awareness of the greater picture was a must in chess as well as in life; to plan any possible scenario in too much detail, however, risked overlooking actual realities. Catriona probably lived life that way, though. He could just see her do it, classing people as pawns, knights, kings; intuiting their moves and switching her responses on and off accordingly. He brought his bishop into a position that would allow him to take her knight and penetrate deep into her ranks in a few moves’ time.
“What do you think about using some bait to lure Mr. Leighton to the dinner,” she asked. “We might need it, at such short notice.”
“Do you have anything in mind?”
“I could suggest an exhibition in the British Museum.”
He paused. “Take the pieces to London?”
“Aye. Such an opportunity would flatter the vanity of any collector.”