“The feeling I get, that they look at me and they know.”
Liam, who had been staring down at the table, lifted his gaze and studied me. “The main thing is, show no fear. Give away nothing. Never grant them an opening.”
In a flash of insight, or at least its illusion, one of those muddled leaps of logic that alcohol offers, it struck me that he was talking about himself: not just on the mission, but in general. “Was that how you did it?”
“What?”
“Whatever you did. To so convincingly pose as Old British.”
I’d expected Liam to follow his own advice and give away nothing, but he leaned back and smiled at me, folding his arms. The dim flicker of firelight gave a sculptural quality to his craggy features, and I realized I liked his face; I’d grown used to its unbeautiful angles and planes. “I’m so happy you found it convincing.”
“Maybe you shouldn’t put too much weight on that. I’m American; what do I know?”
I thought back to our earliest days at the institute, and how I had seen him then: his way of speaking, his reserved formality. And then, that girlfriend. Had Sabina been with him, the first time we’d met at the institute, before the interviews and the psychological testing and the role-play exercises that had narrowed down the handful of final candidates to two? A strange thing not to be able to remember, but all my memories of the institute felt vague, rusty with disuse. I was left with an impression of cool, patrician tallness and yet unable to recall particulars.
“Sabina,” I said, and he stopped smiling. “She’s Old British, though, isn’t she?”
“Very.”
“I think that helped persuade me, too.”
“Halo effect?”
“She seems like a lovely person.” Which she didn’t. “So you met her at school?” I wondered why I was asking him this; Sabina was the last thing I wanted to talk about. “And how did you end up there, anyway? It can’t be easy to get into. Especially—” I stopped; I had no tactful way to finish the sentence.
“If you’re no one, from nowhere in particular?”
“I didn’t say that; you did.”
“I passed an exam.”
“Just like that? You passed an exam?”
“It was a very hard exam.”
A section of coals in the fire, burnt through, collapsed with a gentle hiss. I could hear the cry of a night watch outside, the rattle of a distant carriage.
“It was one teacher I had; he encouraged me to try for an impoverished scholars spot, he knew a little about how it worked. He saw in me the thing I’d always felt in myself, that I didn’t fit, in that godforsaken town, in that random family. And to everyone’s amazement, I passed.”
“And you went off to England. You were all of what, fourteen?”
“Thirteen.” He divided the last of the wine between us.
“And found somewhere where you fit.”
“Mother of god, no.” He rested his forehead in his hand. “I’ve never found that. Perhaps here in 1815? I like it; there are rules, and you follow them. I’ll miss being Dr. Ravenswood when it’s over. I’ve no knack for being myself.”
“You’ll be different when it’s over,” I said, disconcerted by this confession. The notion struck me that maybe this, too, was an act; that he was playing some part for me. But why should he bother? “You’ll be important. Finder of ‘The Watsons.’ It’ll be great.”
“Right,” he said, in his old tone of polite neutrality, and it was like a door had closed in my face, one I realized I wished to open again but wasn’t sure how. Then he cleared his throat, looking awkward. “Just before Departure, Sabina—We got engaged.”
It took me a moment before I raised my glass. “Congratulations! That’s wonderful.” Sabina had sent a chill through me in the few times I’d talked with her, an impression more unfavorable in retrospect, as my sense of Liam had shifted. They’d seemed perfect for each other then. But now? I felt obscurely disappointed in him. “I’m sure you’ll be very happy.”
Gazing down at the table, he didn’t look especially happy, but then he never did take much delight in his own triumphs. Why he’d chosen this moment to share his news was another mystery. Perhaps simply because we seldom drank this much; he’d grown confiding. And I had raised the topic.
If he’d just beamed and thanked me, like any normal engaged person, we could have moved on, but the silence lengthened. I’ve never been married; I’ve never been engaged. I’m not opposed to committed relationships in theory, but I guess I am in practice. Maybe I like freedom more. A memory of Sabina at the institute came back to me: standing next to Liam at a little celebration of the end of Preparation, shortly before we left for 1815. She was nearly as tall as he was, had her hand on his arm, was finishing his sentence for him. What had the conversation been about? I couldn’t remember. What had left me with such an unpleasant impression of her? Something about her long, graceful limbs, her supercilious expression. “I hope you’ll be very happy,” I said, and realized I’d just said much the same thing.
“I hope so too,” he muttered. “Her family will have some time to get used to the idea at least, while I’m gone.”
“What’s the problem with her family?” But I had a suspicion already.
“You know. They have money. But it’s not the money, so much.” He waved a hand vaguely. “It was like walking into a story, the first time I went to their house. I didn’t understand that people actually lived like that, outside of books. With oil paintings of their ancestors, and furniture someone bought in 1800.”
So maybe you fell in love with a house, I thought. Maybe you fell in love with an idea. But I didn’t say that; what do I know of love? Yet I felt again an obscure disappointment in him: maybe he was like everyone else. This surprised me, for I hadn’t realized I’d thought he wasn’t. I twisted a curl around my finger and tried to think of a tactful response. “They’ll come around, if they understand it’s what Sabina wants. And if they don’t—well, to hell with them.”
“That attitude, right there, is exactly why people love Americans.”
“Do people, actually, though?”
“If they have any sense.”
WE CONTINUED TO VISIT HANS PLACE ALMOST DAILY, HENRY slowly improving, though it would turn out to be nearly two weeks before he was well enough to come downstairs.