Lady Middleton smiled haltingly. “Well. It was quite lovely to see you again, Lady Catriona. Our families have long been friends.”
Distinct lines framed the lady’s mouth, even when her smile had been switched off again. I would have called this woman Mama, had Charlie wanted me ten years ago. A whole decade. Sitting there on his mother’s sofa, in his banal presence frozen on canvas, Catriona felt the weight of these years, like physical blocks pushing between her current self and the girl back then, until the two seemed worlds apart. She left Charlie’s house feeling dazed. During the carriage ride, her thoughts were in such disarray, it was like thinking of nothing at all.
* * *
—
Elias’s presence was palpable when she entered Cadogan House. Sure enough, his coat hung on the garderobe and his elegant walking stick was in the cast-iron umbrella stand. He might be upstairs. She took off her hat and gloves and placed them onto the sideboard. In the mirror, her lips looked pale and her eyes glassy, as if stunned. Hardly enticing.
When she approached the kitchen for some water, she heard a rhythmic clacking she could not place. The kitchen door was ajar. She entered and Elias looked up from a cutting board. Afternoon sunlight warmed the room and the air smelled unusually fresh, like cucumber and herbs. It was disorienting, as though the gray flagstone tiles, the wooden cabinets, the brass pots on the floating shelves were new surroundings. It was too unusual to see a man standing behind the cabinet at the center of the room, jacketless, a large knife in hand, chopping something.
“You know how to cook,” she said, pretending not to notice that he was in shirtsleeves. It wasn’t his well-tailored jackets that created his broad shoulders—his build filled out the cut of his soft cotton shirt perfectly.
He twirled the knife between his fingers. “No,” he said. “I can’t cook. But I know how to cut a tomato. We can’t dine out together and your pub offers only fish and chips to take away. I need more than just beige food on my plate.”
There was a basket on the cabinet countertop and something green and leafy was sticking out from it. Additional brown paper bags from the grocer’s sat on the floor.
She halted next to the cabinet, awkward like a visitor in her own kitchen.
Elias’s attention lingered on her bloodless face. “Are you well?”
She nodded. “I’m fine.”
His head tilt said he didn’t believe her.
“The place where I went today, it holds unpleasant memories,” she said as he made to keep slicing. “I was hurt there, once.”
He went motionless, the knife suspended in midair. “Who hurt you?”
His eyes had narrowed to the same assessing slits she had seen before in the Glasgow inn.
“It was a long time ago,” she said. “Someone said something hurtful.”
“Ah.”
“It only took a minute or two for them to say it, but I can see now that the words stayed with me, for years. When I went to the house today, I was quite nervous. I wondered how I would feel . . . and then, when it came to it, I felt barely anything. Not a fraction of the turmoil I had dreaded I’d feel.”
Elias tipped up his chin. “That’s good, non?”
His eyes remained alert, as though he was reading every nuance of her expression.
She moved her hands over her stomach. “There have been other incidents throughout my life that have caused me grief, and now I can’t stop wondering how bad they truly were,” she said. “In the carriage, I kept thinking, I kept thinking about how a part of me has wallowed in sorrow for years. How many decisions have I made because I was afraid of some dreadful thing that in the end would have never come to pass? How often have I said yes or no to something just to avoid a certain type of pain? I don’t think I’m a coward; sometimes I even think I’m brave. But now I look at myself and I think, who would I be, today, had I never been so needlessly afraid? I’m . . . pathetically sensitive.”
He tutted softly.
“Do you know how a tree changes shape to grow around an obstruction?” she asked, her voice hollow. “How it develops an unnatural bent, or ugly bulges?”
“I have seen these trees, yes.”
“I’m wondering how misshapen I am,” she whispered. “I wonder how bent out of shape I am from these attempts to exist around some fear, instead of just growing, straight and up, as I should have.”
Elias was silent for a moment. He put down the knife. “A tree cannot be ugly,” he said. “In nature, all that matters is to survive. A living tree is a good tree.”
She felt like crying. In a normal tone, she said: “That’s true.” And, when it felt safe to keep speaking: “Does that mean you don’t believe we have an essence?”
He exhaled on a huff, then he scratched the back of his head. “I think we have our own will; we can decide how to respond to others, but respond we must. When you live, you can’t stay pristine. You can’t remain a child. We come into the world through other people, so from the beginning, you are not a separate entity.”
“No man is an island,” she said, calmer now, “entire of itself.”
“See? You were hurt, so you became cautious,” he said. “It’s not unusual. We have a saying: ‘He who burned his tongue on soup, blows on yogurt.’?”
A small laugh burst from her, and it sounded surprised to her own ears, that she could have a laugh in her at such a time. His face brightened as he took in her smile. I think I’m in love with you, Elias, she thought, really in love, differently from any love I ever felt before. She closed her eyes and let the sweet devastation of it wash over her.
“I have seen you,” came his voice, low and dark. “You’re not misshapen. You are a beautiful creation.”
She swallowed. “You flatter me.”
“I haven’t yet begun to flatter you, habibti.”
He had moved around the cabinet and stood in front of her, his presence warm and solid like a rock out in the sun that she might rest against.
Their gazes fused. His scent, his certainty, the alluring pull of his leashed sensuality, entered her bloodstream, the same stealthy invasion every time he was close, until every part of her body filled with a keen awareness of him. His hand was next to hers on the countertop, but she felt it on her, curving around her waist as if their souls were ahead of their bodies and already embracing.
“Elias,” she said. “Could you do something for me?”
His face tensed at the sound of his Christian name. “Eh, tikram ayounik,” he replied.
For your eyes, literally, but it meant he would gladly give her whatever she’d ask for.
“Would you kiss me?”