They entered the dining hall. The long rows of student tables were empty but the perpendicular High Table was busy with dons, among them Wester Ross.
“I had been under the impression that you had extracted the pieces in person,” Elias said, his voice sounding normal enough.
Leighton looked surprised, his upper lip curling with amusement. “Me? Oh no. I haven’t ventured into that part of the world in years—not since I gave up the trade post in the region. The food doesn’t agree with me.” He shamelessly patted his stomach. “My brother is an attaché in Damascus. His son—Regina’s brother here—embarked on a grand tour this spring and I sponsored him in exchange for some souvenirs. Ah, Wester Ross—it’s a pleasure.”
Souvenirs.
He focused on pulling out Catriona’s chair. They were facing the wall behind the table, aged ebony wood paneling and rows of old portraits in heavy frames. Leighton, Miss Regina, and the earl were seated facing them, with a view over the hall.
While the Latin prayer was being read, Elias looked down at his hands. Over the monotone incantation, his heating temper cooled a little. He heard Catriona’s breaths, flowing softly in and out. He tried not to look at her; she wore a snugly fitted satin gown with a tartan bodice that attracted him.
The first course was a root vegetable soup with parsley garnish. After a few spoonfuls, Mr. Leighton turned his attention back to Elias. “What do you think of the local fare, Mr. Khoury?” he asked. A bit of green was stuck to his canine tooth.
“I find it better here than at Cambridge,” Elias replied.
Leighton made a pleased moue. “You’re a Cambridge man. What college?”
“I was at King’s.”
“My nephew, the one I mentioned earlier, Wilfred is his name, was up at Trinity. Wilfred Leighton.”
“I’m not familiar with the name, I’m afraid.”
“Either way, you’re well accustomed to the English cuisine, then,” Leighton mused as he dabbed at his lips with his napkin. “No nasty surprises for you here, I hope. Though I have a theory, namely that the attack on the midsection affects Westerners traveling east rather than vice versa. What do you think, Wester Ross?”
Wester Ross looked surprised, but he duly studied his soup through his round spectacles. “Well,” he then said, “these parsnips certainly look universally agreeable to me.”
He raised his spoon toward Elias in a bizarre little toast.
“Sahtein,” Elias said, his smile showing too many teeth.
Miss Regina’s attention drifted over him, increasingly insistent, so he looked at her. A blush crested on her cheeks.
“That was Arabic, wasn’t it,” she said.
“It was, yes.”
“What does it mean?”
He turned to his table partner, who was notably too quiet. “Perhaps Lady Catriona will tell you. Her Arabic is very good.”
Catriona stiffened slightly, but she obliged. “I’m not familiar with all the words in Mr. Khoury’s dialect,” she said to Miss Regina, “but I assume it means ‘enjoy your food.’?”
“Yes,” Elias said, “that’s the meaning.”
Miss Regina was looking back and forth between them with poorly concealed intrigue.
“In Egypt, one would say ‘bil hana wa ashfa,’?” Catriona added.
“Such a difference,” Miss Regina said, and shook her head.
Around them, footmen quietly prepared the table for the second course. White and red wine was poured.
Just when Elias had picked up his glass, the young woman leaned in.
“Mr. Khoury.”
“Miss Regina.”
She lowered her voice, as if to impart a secret or something unsavory. “Is it true what my brother tells me—even the more educated people in your region are often illiterate?”
Ah. “It’s true,” he said after a pause.
“A pity,” she said, a crease between her brows. “I thought there were many schools. Universities, even.”
“There are, of course, but there is a great divergence between spoken and formally written Arabic. It’s not the same as an English speaker learning to write English.”
“How peculiar.”
“It’s hardly unique,” Catriona said unexpectedly. “Think of the difference between classical and vulgar Latin—people in all provinces could speak vulgar, or common, Latin, but few could write the classical form.”
Miss Regina gave her a polite smile. “Of course.” And, to Elias: “What about watches? Wilfie said you don’t have them because so few people can read the time on a clock?”
He carefully put his wineglass back down. “I have no trouble reading a clock, ma’am.”
“You wouldn’t,” she said quickly, and moved her hand across the tablecloth. “But you are different.”
“Ah,” he said, “I’m quite the same.”
Her cheeks dimpled; she thought he was joking because he was a Cambridge man and wore an academic gown from Ede & Ravenscroft. She should see him at home. He wouldn’t repeat the mistake he had made in Blackstone’s reception room and explain things, how keeping time was bound up with modes of production and that industrialization was fanning outward from Europe, or that mechanical clocks had first been invented in the West and their hourly gong in public places disturbed prayer time in the East, all good reasons why people still relied on other ways of keeping time.
“The people who work the land don’t have watches because the time on a clock is irrelevant for successful farming,” he said to Miss Regina.
She nodded slowly. “I suppose they simply feel the time,” she said, “as they are so attuned to nature—they are still one with the land. It is something we have lost here, with most of the workers now in factories. Some days I worry Marx was right and the poor souls will become part of the machinery.”
“Good lord,” Catriona muttered under her breath. Elias cut her a warning glance. The last time she had exuded such coldness, she had lectured a hapless nobleman in front of his friends. She was supposed to charm these ones here, to facilitate, diplomatically—
“Mr. Leighton,” she said, her voice so low that one had to pay attention to hear her. “We were so pleased that you accepted our invitation at such short notice.”
Leighton waved his hand in an appeasing gesture. “The pleasure is mine. I had thought to myself, just before your invitation arrived: these pieces belong in a museum. As it is, the rooms for my private collections are becoming a little crowded, too.”
“What a well-timed coincidence,” Catriona remarked.
“It shall be a loan, of course, but I’m contemplating a very long loan indeed,” Leighton amended. The parsley bit had attached itself to his front tooth. “As my wife and my niece here inform me, when a man is in the position to do so, sharing the heritage of humankind with the broadest possible audience is his moral duty.”
Both Miss Regina and Wester Ross nodded. Elias forcibly relaxed his jaw, trying to shake the feeling that his negotiation was unfolding in front of him like an absurd stage play.
“Now, tell me more,” Leighton said to Catriona. “What do you have in mind for the exhibition? The bulls ought to take center stage, of course. I envision an entire room just for them.”