A tall man in a navy blue jacket appeared at the park entrance. Elias. He stood as still as an observing soldier, watching her sharply while she approached.
When she was right within earshot, he addressed her, his voice low but unmistakably steely. “Catriona,” he said. “Come home with me.”
She walked past him. He stayed put, but soon enough her pace slowed, and the looping thoughts scattered. His commanding tone had tightened around her chest like a rubber sling, its resistance increasing the farther she moved away. She came to a halt with a cynical huff. Until now, she hadn’t felt this side of him outside the bedroom. But of course, he could apply it anytime, anywhere. It was probably the bedrock of his jokes and smiles, why his light demeanor struck her as charming rather than silly.
She went home with him. He didn’t trouble her with questions, astute enough to not pick losing battles. When he undressed her later, he did ask: Do you want it?
She was unexpectedly desperate for him.
Afterward, she gazed at the ceiling, and it felt as though she were up there instead, looking down at their bodies on the bed, next to each other and naked in the sheets like a modern pair of Adam and Eve. The backs of their hands were close to touching.
“I must go back to Oxford tomorrow,” she said. The words left her without emotion. They had spent nearly ten days in London now, most of it in bed. Her desires had overruled reason for too long, and she would soon lose her grip entirely. Beyond this chamber, reality awaited, a reality where husbands expected wives to be a certain way and too many women lost themselves in the lives of other people. She’d be as miserable in the role of a wife as she’d be as Elias’s long-term lover, meeting up at random to snatch pieces of what could have been until he married someone else. Tears scalded her eyes, and she turned her face away to hide them.
“Heh there, my love, tell me what troubles you,” Elias said, rising on his elbow.
For a mad second, she thought about it, why not do it, why not vomit everything ugly and fearful that filled her up inside onto the bedsheet, into the open.
She shook her head. “It’s just that we had such a lovely time here, didn’t we.”
He stared down at her profile for a long minute. Finally, he nodded and said he would stay in London until Monday.
Chapter 31
In the Blackstone drawing room, the clock ticked away at half the normal speed. Hattie, stretched on her side on the fainting couch, kept looking up from her novel and staring at the clock face, then back down at the page. Lucian was late. He wasn’t coming home at the regular time these days; ever since he’d known about the baby, he seemed to have doubled the number of his appointments. When he finally entered the drawing room with heavy steps, his jacket gone, his cravat trailing down on either side of his neck, Hattie felt flooded with acute relief. She pushed herself into a sitting position and gazed up at him. Lucian stood in front of her, smelling of remnants of shaving soap and a long day of work. He extended his hand and caressed her cheek, the pad of his thumb rough against her delicate skin.
He smiled. “Hullo, my luscious love.”
She stood up abruptly and threw her arms around his neck.
He gave a soft grunt of surprise, but his arms slid around her reflexively. Immediately, she burrowed closer against his broad chest. For a while now, she had guessed that he was working so hard for the same reason she was increasingly fretful about working at all: there was a new life between them that they felt compelled to care for to the best of their abilities. Thank goodness she had somehow understood this before resentment over his absences had set in. She was moody enough as it was these days.
“There now,” he said, his hands stroking lightly over her back. “Are you all right? Nervous because of the amendment?”
The session to vote on the Property Act was approaching fast.
“That, too,” she said. “But we have done all we can there.” She leaned back and met his eyes. “I must ask you something, and please be honest with me,” she said.
His brows lowered. “Go on.”
“Do you think I should give up my photography, and my painting, and the work for the ethics committee, and the factory workers?”
His skeptical expression deepened. “Why are you asking me?”
“You already hinted that I was overexerting myself.”
His broad hand slid over her stomach. “Are you feeling unwell?”
“No, not at all,” she said. “But I discussed it all with my friends and it was helpful. So I’d like your opinion, too.”