A still Nassim was a rare sight, but behind his eyes his quick mind was jumping to outrageous conclusions about Elias’s reflexive protectiveness of Lady Catriona’s honor. Elias, for his part, preferred not to dwell on this at all.
Nassim leaned a shoulder against the bull and tilted his head. “I was complimenting the power of your charm, not insulting the lady,” he offered.
Elias rubbed a hand over his eyes. “Tell me. What would seducing her accomplish?”
“So,” Nassim ventured, carefully, sweetly now, as a devil sitting on a man’s shoulder would. “A woman in love does foolish things. She overlooks things. She explains things away. She likes to help, to make you love her more.”
“Foolish things,” Elias repeated. “Such as: help me with a heist that would besmirch her father’s reputation, the very reputation on which her own ambitions hinge—don’t touch it.”
Nassim withdrew his finger from the bull’s nostril. “Be that as it may, if the Englishman refuses to do business, we will need someone from their side who does cooperate.”
He wanted to say that she wasn’t on another side, but he wasn’t a fool. Not entirely, yet.
“Look,” Nassim coaxed, “if you haven’t done the sweet talk on purpose, I believe you”—clearly he did not—“but it might soften her just the same. You know how quickly one becomes delusional when love beckons; it wouldn’t even be your fault if she jumps to conclusions.”
This sounded like a half-veiled reminder of Elias’s own, now abandoned, delusions about love. There had been a brief but ecstatic interlude, which had resulted in his de facto banishment from the mountain. It was why he was here in this room, he supposed, on his own mission, pushed into establishing himself without much family assistance.
Seduce her.
It was true, her assistance, in whichever form, could only help.
“Shame,” he said, softly, as if to himself.
Nassim shrugged. “Sacrifice something minor to win the whole game. I’ve seen you do it often enough.”
“Yes, when playing chess, idiot.”
The lady wasn’t a wooden pawn on a board. Besides, she did not wish to be seduced. Compliments and poetry wouldn’t woo her, this he knew instinctively, and learning her personal preferences required closeness in the first place . . . Nassim was smiling faintly. The silence had been too heavy with Elias’s weighing of his conscience against his ambitions, and they both seemed to know which way the balance was tipping. It didn’t feel as deplorable to him as it should. A part of him was clearly influenced by his unholy desire to see more of her.
“If I did it,” he said, “it would have to be within the bounds of propriety.”
“Of course, Eli,” said Nassim. “Of course.”
He probably imagined it, that the air still smelled of lavender. The clean scent filled his mouth and teased his tongue as though he had already taken a bite from the forbidden fruit.
* * *
Catriona arrived at the Campbell flat with drooping shoulders. After showing the men around the museum, she had spent the day at various libraries, selecting research material for her new suffrage task that should be ready for her to read by tomorrow. Her body felt as though it had been encased in lead. Too many people for one day. Fleeing imaginary Peregrins this morning hadn’t helped.
“If anyone calls on me, I’m not home,” she told MacKenzie.
Listlessly, she stood in the door to the study. Bookshelves covered the walls from floor to ceiling, except for the doors leading to the bedchambers. On the right side of the room, two Chesterfield armchairs flanked the fireplace; to the left, two desks stood below the windows facing the walled garden. On her desk, a stack of empty pages loomed. She ignored it on her way to her bedroom.
She freshened up over the washbowl. Her reflection looked very young and very old in turn as it contorted on the moving surface of the water. Time had been acting strange since Elias Khoury’s arrival. Time did in fact not provide a solid barrier between haunting past events and present day; it could crumble or turn to glass. All it took was a particular disturbance. First, the arrival of Mr. Khoury, who had reminded her that her desire wasn’t dead. Add Hattie’s remark earlier that Peregrin had spurned her only after he no longer needed her, and the lid on her personal little crypt had cracked open. Hattie was right. When the Duke of Montgomery had tried to impress Peregrin into the Royal Navy several years ago, she, Catriona, had helped Peregrin hide. She had conspired against an English duke without giving it much thought, because it had been the right thing to do; she would have assisted Peregrin regardless of his feelings for her. Peregrin, however, had gone on his merry way later, thinking he had her spinsterly crush to thank for her care. It added insult to injury to have her intentions misjudged so severely.