She seized the opportunity. “Were you worried the disapproval would drive you apart?”
He chuckled. “Oh no. I knew my mind. So did she. Sometimes, the unions that don’t fit the mold are the strongest. You only choose something complicated over a more conventional, and as such, convenient option . . . funny how these words are related, isn’t it, convenient, conventional . . . anyway, you only brave it when you feel very certain about it indeed.” He seemed to look far back in time now. Whatever he saw was making him smile softly in a way that took years off his face. “In Emilia, I had a companion,” he said. “A friend. A clever counsel. And so much joy. We were separate creatures, of course, but from the beginning, we were also extensions of each other.” He looked at her quite sharply then. “Let me be clear: if you found a love like that, I would expect you to marry. I would expect it for your own good. But as long as our finances permit it, I could never ask you to yoke yourself to a pale imitation of what your mother and I had. I don’t expect it of myself, either. Certainly not when we could be writing books instead.”
Her eyes stung. She exhaled slowly, scared that she would let out an ugly sob.
“She’d be very proud of you today,” said her father, “how much work and time you have dedicated to changing the course of history—child, what is wrong?”
Catriona pressed her fist to her mouth. “Papa,” she croaked. “I’m sorry. I have done something . . . I have kept something from you. I have caused trouble for you.”
She confessed what she had done about the artifacts.
Chapter 35
On Monday, after a quick lunch at the Lamb and Flag, Elias accompanied Nassim to the railway station. It was a pleasant enough day, so he decided to return to St. John’s in a roundabout way. On a whim, he let his walk take him past the Ashmolean Museum. He contemplated the charming building with narrowed eyes. He had made up his mind to let it go; there was no reason to go in and have a last look. He had decided to prioritize his woman over this, and he knew what it would cost him.
Still, he went ahead and entered. He greeted the clerk at the desk and wrote his name and the time in the ledger, ten minutes past one o’clock. The airy hall was largely abandoned; few people visited what still felt like a museum in progress.
He slid the key into the door lock at the Leighton room. His first warning should have been that the room was not, in fact, locked.
The room was empty.
A spot of nothing yawned under the skylight. The shelves were bare.
Elias stared at the situation in silence.
The clerk at the desk watched him approach with some alarm. “How may I help you—”
“Where are the artifacts from Mr. Leighton’s room?”
The young man looked up at him with wide eyes.
“They were picked up for transfer quite early this morning,” he said.
“Transfer to where?”
“To the British Museum.”
“No,” said Elias. “No, that’s not possible.”
“It’s quite possible, sir. They had been packed up overnight.”
Elias leaned over the desk. “The transfer was planned for September.”
The clerk brushed his fingers over his blond mustache and picked up the ledger. “A change in schedule, perhaps?”
“I would know about that,” said Elias, “I work on these pieces, I would have been informed.” She would have told him; it made no sense that she wouldn’t.
As the clerk became more nervous, Elias became proportionally more impatient.
“Where’s the curator?” he demanded.
The blood was slowly leaving the clerk’s face. “He’s taking a sabbatical today. He . . . he hadn’t informed me about the pickup, come to think of it. But they presented official documents . . . signed and stamped . . .”
“Well, when were you informed about the change?”
“This morning?”
“By the crew itself?”
His voice sounded far too harsh to his own ears. As if his body already knew something his heart hadn’t the capacity to admit. It was well possible that she hadn’t told him. On purpose. It felt as though the ground moved under his feet.
The clerk met his eyes. “I think we may have a situation,” he said.
Chapter 36
The interview with Scotland Yard had been brief, though they had questioned Elias for longer than the clerk. Neither he nor the clerk had had much to say about the unexpected disappearance of Leighton’s entire haul; they provided dates, names, unusual observations or rather, the lack thereof, and the officers who took their statements had seemed satisfied for the time being and let them go. Elias had walked away from the museum with his senses primed for defense; the quaint, leafy surroundings had turned menacing and glared back at him like drawn blades. Something sharp had kept slicing into his chest with every beat of his heart.
She did not return on Tuesday. Nor on Wednesday. He knew because he watched the quadrangle from an upper-floor corridor window. Thursday morning, he sat up straighter in his nook, because the familiar upright figure, dressed in dark blue, appeared in the archway. She was accompanied by her father, so he remained put. An hour later, she left, alone, without luggage, so he expected her to return. As the minutes ticked past, the icy flame of his restrained fury licked higher. Things became interesting when Wester Ross left. When Catriona returned while her father was still gone, Elias pushed away from the wall.
The door to the Campbell flat was unlocked. He crossed the vestibule without making a sound. He knew she was home; his body was still attuned to her presence. In the study, he paused. A suspicious silence lurked in the adjacent room. The door was ajar.
It was a bedchamber. Catriona was on the other side of the bed, frozen in a hunch over an open valise, her blue gaze flickering over him warily. And knowingly. There was a pile of clothes on the counterpane. She was packing up her things. He gripped the doorframe with one hand, his lips white with a terrible emotion, the sickening gut punch of betrayal.
“You lied to me, my heart,” he said. “You lied, and now you’re running, too?”
She straightened. “I should have told you,” she said in a flat voice. “I realize that it was a mistake to keep it from you. I imagine you are displeased.”
Now, that was the understatement of the century.
“Why?” he asked. “You could have just reported me. Why the charade in London? For weeks?”
Her throat moved nervously. “The artifacts are on their way to your family’s warehouse in Beirut Port.”
Her meaning did not filter through the heat of his temper at once.
“I had the pieces shipped back to the Levant,” she said again.
His mind fell silent.
She writhed under his quiet stare. “I thought it best to not tell you, in case there was an investigation,” she said. “I understand Scotland Yard has already taken your statement?”