Instead, he came to her, sat down, took her hand, and put it on the back of his freshly shorn head.
“Say na’ymen,” he said. He sounded a little tired. The smell of the more wretched parts of the city clung to his navy jacket.
She curved her fingers around his nape. “Naymen?”
He just nodded and placed his hand over hers.
The sense of relief was so forceful, her legs felt weak for a moment. He had come back to her, he was still hers, feeling warm and alive and familiar beneath her palm.
He lifted his head. “I brought you food,” he said. “It’s in the kitchen.”
“Thank you. I don’t think I had anything today after breakfast.”
I thought so, said his grave, unsurprised expression. “What did you do today?”
A triumphant smile broke over her face. “I went out—I went back to Mrs. Weldon’s house.”
He sat up straight. “Eywah,” he said, looking impressed. “What happened?”
He seemed too interested in her excursion to comment on her cavorting around town on her own.
“I wrote her a letter,” she said. “An honest letter. First, I apologized for my sneaky ways. Then I explained that I’m trying to create a legal case Parliament can’t ignore.” Her gaze slid away. “I suppose I was still a wee bit sneaky; she feels so strongly about spiritualism that I wrote I had felt ‘guided’ to seek her out, that I sensed she could be the key to a landmark decision that would change the fate of women in Britain. The truth is, though, I do feel it; this . . . buzz right here.” She touched her breastbone.
Elias’s hand slid over hers again, and their fingers entwined seamlessly. “Did she read it?” he asked.
She grinned. “I think so, yes. Her butler nearly slammed the door into my face, but something rather odd happened—the tabby cat, you know, the one that was sleeping next to the flower pots the last time, this cat got in the way. So, while he was struggling with the tabby around his legs, I just . . . talked at him. Until he took the letter. I said I would wait right there, and if he were so kind to let me know whether Mrs. Weldon accepted it. I waited for half an hour, and the curtains were twitching . . . he came back. He said she will read it.”
Elias’s smirk looked impressed, proud even. “So now you wait?”
“Aye, now it’s out of my power, I have done all I can.”
“Then you have done enough,” he said. His hand slid up her thigh and curved around her hip with sensual intent.
“You went back to that witch house by yourself,” he said.
“I’m afraid I did.”
“Brazen woman,” he said, leaning over her. “What am I to do with you.”
She had a few suggestions.
Chapter 26
Saturday morning. The sky was a mellow blue and a pair of doves cooed in the park across the street. Two empty teacups sat on the round table.
They were expected in the curator’s office at ten o’clock. Mrs. Blackstone would meet them at Trafalgar Square; she was a respectable, married woman, and her company would allow Elias to attend the meeting together with Catriona.
Presently, her dark head was bent over his sleeve, her attention focused on slipping his cuff links through his right cuff. He could do it himself, but he enjoyed watching her fingers tending to him. The tip of her right middle finger seemed permanently dyed blue.
She stepped back and looked him up and down before quickly glancing away.
“What?” he asked, glancing between her and his reflection in the mirror.
She moved her lips nervously. “You look handsome,” she then said, and blushed, as though she had been the one receiving a compliment.
Her shyness stirred desire low in his body. Not the shyness per se, but that what was between them affected her so. Something was softening in her. Perhaps the heat of passion was melting down her walls.
“It’s a good suit,” he said. “From a tailor on Savile Row.”
She touched his sleeve. “Do you miss your Eastern clothes at all?”
“Yes.”
“What do you miss about them?”
“I can wear my boots. The trousers are comfortable. The fabrics are more luxurious, and I can carry my knives in my belt.” He could tell his words were painting an image of him in her mind, and he wondered if she liked it. “I can still appreciate a well-made suit,” he added. “I practically lived in them in France.”
“You wear them well.” She leaned back against the dresser, her hands behind her bustle. “Do you ever feel confused?” she asked. “About what you are?”
Had she pried open his skull and looked into his head lately?
He shrugged. “I’m used to it. I’m used to being in between.”
“How I admire you for it.”
He stepped in front of her and put his hands left and right from her on the dresser. Now she was nicely trapped. The soft smile on her upturned face said she liked it. Her shell-pink lips were still a little swollen from last night’s erotic exploits.
“What do you admire about it?” he asked.
“I don’t have the constitution for it,” she said. “You’ve met my good friend, Annabelle. Sometimes, when I observe her, how she goes about her days, I feel as though I’m a different species from her entirely. She’s a scholar, a wife, a mother, a duchess, a suffragist—everyone wants a slice of her, but she seems to thrive on it. It’s as though she receives more from her responsibilities than they cost her.”
“You’re a scholar, a suffragist, a daughter, a friend.”
His lover. She was very good at that, too, unreservedly passionate. In bed, when he embraced her, she trembled and clung to him as though he held her very life in his palm. It disturbed and aroused him on a visceral level. It made him feel like some demigod. Such feelings would come with a price, he was certain of it, he had heard the sermons about hubris.
“I feel I can’t be too many things at once,” she now said. “It probably means I’m weak, that I can lose myself so easily in the presence of others.”
The look on her face was resigned.
“I think you are strong,” he said after some thought. “You’re from a great, noble clan.”
She tilted her head. “But that’s my clan. Not me.”
“See. You could make the Campbell name your entire identity, but I haven’t seen you do it once. Too many people let their family name tell them who they are and what to do.” He cupped her silky cheek in his hand. “You . . . you are you.”
She focused on his cravat, smoothed it with her fingers. “What about you—is your name telling you how to be?”
“My mother’s name could, or the name of her town,” he said with a low laugh. “But here it is: my family and the people of Ehden, they call me Ajnabi.”
She translated it with a puzzled expression. “The stranger?”
“Yes.”
“Your own family,” she murmured. “Why?”
“Habit,” he said. “My father was not from the village. His ancestors, but not he. His grandparents settled at the coast.”
“But—”
“We don’t live in the mountains, cut off from the sea and fertile soil, because we enjoy it, Catriona. We retreated there from trouble. Too much trouble makes people cautious.”