“The physician would order me to abandon everything: the chemicals in the lab, the bad air in the studio and the poorer parts of town . . . the hurrying from one meeting to the next . . .”
Lucian urged her to sit on the couch again and settled next to her, making the upholstery springs groan under his solid weight.
“Mo chridhe,” he said, “my instinct is to wrap you in cotton wool regardless of your condition. But I’ve grown up watching women doing the washing with the washboard against their bellies, and out came healthy babies, and the mothers seemed to carry on, too. So if you want to keep fulfilling your obligations, I shan’t stop you.”
She closed her eyes. “Now I feel both reckless as well as spoiled.”
“Nah, you just sound like a worried new mum.”
She drew back, a terrible understanding dawning. “Is this how it will be from now on? Constant worry?”
He grimaced. “Too late to change your mind now.”
“Good grief.”
“If it were for me to decide, you’d stay home for a while,” he said.
She sat up straighter. “Why?”
“Because you want to,” he said. “When I’m around, I always catch you stroking and admiring your belly. And you look so loved up when you do it, it makes me want to put another one in you right away.”
She gave a mortified giggle.
He took her small hand in his. “You seem happy with your condition. It’s your spreading yourself thin that is putting you in a black mood. There’s only so much of you to go around. Everything you do will all be there a year from now; the one thing you cannot do is stop hatching this one. That’s only happening now.”
Somehow, his words, or was it his low, confident tone, rearranged the disjointed pattern of emotions that had troubled her for weeks and turned it into a clearer picture. With a deep sigh, she leaned her head against his shoulder.
“I love you,” she said against his warm neck. “I love hatching our baby.”
His lips grazed the crown of her head. “You want me to command you to stop flitting about,” he said, “so you don’t have to feel guilty for making that choice yourself?”
“I’m a grown woman,” she muttered. “I can make that choice. All right. Command me.”
“Stay home for a while, wife. Put up your feet, enjoy your belly, and eat biscuits.”
She kissed his cheek and greedily inhaled the scent of his skin.
“I love you so,” she whispered. “You’re the best husband, and the best father.”
He remained quite stoic while she scattered heated kisses over his face, but she felt his heart beating fast under her hand.
“Before I forget,” she said just when he slipped a hand down into her plunging neckline.
“Mm?”
“I have a favor to ask you. It’s Catriona’s business, actually—will you help me?”
His eyes were opaque. “Depends on the type of business, my sweet.”
She lowered her lashes. “The type I’d rather not know much about.”
Chapter 32
Elias’s plan to be back in Oxford by Monday had been scuppered by an administrative issue with the bank. It was now sorted: the funds for the bull mission would be released from his account in Beirut. He had also met the man who would lead the crew from the London railway station to the docks, and the fellow seemed professional; sharp, sober, and silent. The plan’s execution could still fail, but the planning progressed smoothly like clockwork.
He returned to St. John’s on Wednesday, and he spent the remainder of the day unpacking, taking his suits to the dry cleaner on High Street, and organizing his week. It took him by surprise that Nassim’s next visit was imminent, but there he was, scribbled into his notebook for Saturday. Time had been meaningless lately. He felt mixed emotions at the prospect of seeing his cousin. He was in dire need of his company, a man close like a brother, but at the same time, Nassim would be able to tell that something was wrong. Elias was not ready to share the details, not while her mood was so cool and strange.
He left a note for Catriona in her pigeonhole, informing her that he had returned.
On Thursday, after waiting in vain for a reply, he decided to seek her out.
He went to the Common Room at one o’clock, without the chessboard—instinctively, he knew that this phase of their acquaintance where they communicated with the help of a game had passed; at this point, they needed excruciating honesty. Unsurprisingly, she didn’t show. With a dark, annoyed gleam in his eyes, he strode to her lodgings in the west wing.
His resolute knock at the Campbell door brought him face-to-face with Wester Ross.
“Mr. Khoury.” The professor looked pleasantly surprised to see him. He clearly had no suspicions that Elias had debauched his daughter for days on end.
A spasm of guilt tightened Elias’s chest. The entire affair had begun crooked, so naturally it could only grow more twisted as it went on.
“You are back just in time,” Wester Ross said, and stepped aside as if to usher Elias into the small vestibule. “I had hoped to speak to you, but I was told you were held up in London.”
“My business there took longer than expected,” he replied truthfully.
Catriona’s plain blue hat hung on the garderobe. She was at home.
“I’m meeting a colleague of mine today, Professor Jenkins, Greek antiquity scholar,” the earl said. “I was hoping we could consult your opinion on the ethics of artifact transferals for academic purposes. For obvious reasons, I have decided to propose an investigation into our current practices at Oxford . . . but that’s not why you are here, I assume.” The earl adjusted his glasses, the gesture eerily like his daughter’s. “What can I do for you, Mr. Khoury?”
He put his cards on the table. “I was hoping to take a walk with Lady Catriona.”
Wester Ross’s brow pleated slightly. “It’s a fine day for a walk,” he said. “The summer is curiously mild this year, rainy, but mild. Let me see whether my daughter is at home.”
He disappeared into the room at the end of the short corridor. Muffled voices sounded behind the closed door; the low, soft cadence of Catriona’s voice was unmistakable. Elias kept flexing and unflexing his hand as the minutes drew out. He could tell that his pulse showed in his throat.
The door opened.
She was pale, and her posture oddly still when they looked at each other. Like a rabbit that was trying to go undetected when the fox was near.
“Mr. Khoury.”
His temper simmered. He had been inside her twice a day, rather carelessly, too, toward the end, and she had enjoyed it loud and clear. Now she looked at him as though he were a passing acquaintance.
“Walk with me,” he said, his tone even enough.
“MacKenzie has departed to Applecross,” she replied. “But my father and Professor Jenkins are going to Christ Church at three o’clock. We may walk with them.”