The Echo of Old Books(41)

I blink at you, rerunning what you’ve just said. Dinner. At your father’s table. With his . . . guests, who are almost certainly not movie stars. It’s the opportunity I’ve been angling for. And yet, my conscience chafes. “Do you think that’s wise? Parading me around in front of your family?”

You smile, all innocence. “I have no intention of parading you anywhere. And people rarely notice what’s right under their noses.”

“Your sister won’t appreciate a crasher.”

“My sister will just have to make the best of it. The kitchen was planning on twelve, and twelve is what they’ll get. We’re basically talking about rewriting a place card. I’ll write it myself if she likes.”

There’s an alarming whiff of recklessness in your words, a mix of glee and daring that makes me want to give you a shake. “I’m not worried that the foie gras won’t stretch, Belle. I’m thinking about the kinds of guests your family is used to having at their table. We both know I’m not up to scratch.”

You pin me with one of your dark, steady gazes, the kind meant to make a man squirm, and I find myself wondering where you learned it or if it comes naturally. “Don’t you want to meet my father?”

I’ve wanted nothing more since getting off the boat, I think to myself. But that isn’t the point. “I’m not a suitor, Belle. That’s not what we’re talking about.”

“What are we talking about?”

I bite my lip, realizing that in my frustration, I’ve nearly said too much. “Nothing. We’re not talking about anything.”

“Then what’s the problem? You were mooning over not being able to see me in my dress. I’m going to fix it so you will. I thought you’d be . . .”

“Grateful?”

You blink at me. “Glad,” you say after a tense beat. “I thought you’d be glad. Instead, you’re sniping at me and drumming up excuses not to come.”

“I’m not sniping. But part of me does wonder . . .”

“What, Hemi? What do you wonder?”

“What it is we’re doing. Or more accurately, what it is you’re doing. With me, I mean. When you have—” You warn me with your eyes and I pull up short. “Let’s just say, I’m a bit wanting in the pedigree department—not to mention the fortune department—and I can’t help thinking you see me as some sort of novelty. A diversion to liven up the social season. Slumming, I think you Yanks call it.”

Your eyes cloud, and for a moment, I think you’re going to cry. Instead, when your eyes return to mine, they’re sharp and hard, like bits of flint. “Slumming?”

“Or maybe it’s rebellion. A jab at your father, who’d hardly consider me suitable for his daughter, even if she weren’t already . . .”

Sensing where I’m headed, you fling open the car door. Before I know what you’re about, you’re off at a clip, heading for the lake. I barrel after you, bellowing into the stiff breeze coming off the water. “Where do you think you’re going? It’s bloody freezing out here.”

I’ve nearly caught up to you when you wheel about, your hair suddenly loose from its pins, tumbling wildly about your face. “Did you ever think I might just want you there? That I’d want to have a . . . friend . . . sitting at that table for a change? Someone who actually cares what I think? Or that I might be tired of only seeing you on the quiet? Of lunches on blankets or in cars, stolen kisses, chance meetings on street corners that aren’t chance at all.”

Your words stun me. Not the rawness of them, or even the way your eyes pool with tears as you say them, but because you’ve flung them at me like pebbles, as though the cause of all your unhappiness has to do with me.

“I’m not the impediment here, Belle. If you want things to be different, you have to make them different.”

The words are out of my mouth before I can stop them. I haven’t said his name, but it’s there between us anyway, swirling about us in the spiky November air. Teddy. Revoltingly rich, bloody perfect, not a brain in his head Teddy.

“Please take me back,” you say stonily as you step past me. “It’s an important dinner and I don’t dare be late.”

We drive back to the city in silence. I drop you off a block from where I picked you up. You slide out of the car with your package, then hover a moment on the sidewalk. “Will you be there?”

“That depends. Do you still want me there?”

“There will be a place card with your name on it. Come or don’t.”





Regretting Belle

(pgs. 48–54)

Come or don’t, you said. As if there were ever any question in the matter.

Still, your head comes around sharply when I’m shown into your father’s parlor by a man I assume is the butler. You catch yourself quickly, making your face blank, then murmur some excuse to the woman you’re talking to, a matronly type whose too-tight dress puts me in mind of an overripe eggplant. You smile coolly, hand extended as you cross the room to greet me, a vision in midnight-blue velvet. So polite. So gracious.

“It’s so good of you to round out our table on such short notice.” Your voice is just loud enough to be heard above the hum of conversation. A flawless performance. “Let me get you a drink. What will you have?”