During dinner, it was as though there were a pane of glass between their chairs. Her conversation was so polite it almost felt insulting. From the end of the table, Mr. Blackstone’s penetrating gray gaze raked over him in irritating intervals.
When the dinner concluded, Mrs. Blackstone issued them into the drawing room for some “fun and games.” Catriona seemed part of the group moving toward the parlor, but she never arrived in the room.
“She loathes games,” Mrs. Blackstone told him in passing with a knowing glance. “She’s in a nook somewhere, reading a book.”
He pretended to not know why this should be of relevance to him. Playing with him once didn’t mean she wanted an encore. He couldn’t shake the feeling, however, that he had caused her change of mood with his debate in the reception room. After two rounds of some strange posh game, he went in search of her.
Chapter 12
She drank the first glass of Scotch too fast. A lulling warmth spread through her limbs, so she poured another. First you take a drink, then the drink takes a drink, she thought darkly. Then, the drink takes you. She was nestled deep in the armchair and about to finish her not-so-wee second dram when the door to Blackstone’s library opened.
“Lady Catriona.”
A zing of excitement hit her bloodstream, more potent than the Scotch. His face was cast in shadow but she recognized the outline of his solid torso and his curls, backlit by the light in the corridor. She carefully put her tumbler down on the side table.
“Mr. Khoury. Are you lost?”
There was a brief, amused pause.
“As it is,” he then said, “I have just found what I was looking for.”
Her belly swooped as though she were descending on a swing.
The posture of his silhouette looked rather formal. “Why aren’t you joining the games?”
“What are they playing?”
“When I left, it was Squeak, Piggy, Squeak.”
“Such fun.” She would need another drink or five to enjoy that.
“Forgive my directness,” he said at last, “but I had the impression that I offended you in the reception room earlier.”
They were conversing across a large room.
“Please, do come in,” she said.
He stilled. A gentleman did not spend time alone with a lady, behind closed doors.
“The door has a lock,” she added.
He considered it. She picked up her tumbler and indulged in another hot mouthful of vintage Springbank.
He entered and closed the door. Darkness fell. The lock snicked shut, and measured footfalls approached while her eyes readjusted to the dim light of the gas lamp on the nearby drinks cabinet. The hollow feeling in her belly spread up, between her ribs, a feeling close to nausea except it was thrilling.
Elias halted behind the Chesterfield sofa opposite her armchair, effectively keeping a barrier between them. He arched his brows at the glass in her hand.
“Whisky?”
“Are you terribly shocked?”
“Do I appear shocked to you?”
She studied him. The sooty glow of the lamp threw the sculpted angles of his face into somber relief. His charming disposition, usually so close to the surface, had given way to something impenetrable. Perhaps there was a trace of gentle mockery.
“I was wondering,” she said, “when you go birding, do you snare the birds?”
He huffed, surprised. “Not usually, no. I observe.”
“That’s kind.” She nodded at the bottle on the table. “May I offer you a dram?”
He declined.
“You prefer arak,” she guessed. The drink of choice in his corner of the world.
A half smile. “I do. Though I enjoy a Scotch, too, now and again.”
Just not with her, alone, in the dark. She understood. His unhurried demeanor on the brink of potential scandal made her feel as hot as the liquor; it simmered in her throat, her thighs, the tips of her toes.
“I suppose given the choice between sucking on a piece of peat or a piece of sweet anise, any right-minded person would choose the anise, and hence the arak,” she mused. She held up her empty tumbler. “Scotch, I understand, is an acquired taste.”
His voice deepened when he said: “Many of the best things are.”
“Hm. Why do you think that is?”
“It takes a certain maturity to appreciate complexity.”
The air seemed to swelter over her skin. Outside the faint circle of light around them, surroundings melted into the night.
“I wasn’t offended earlier,” she finally said, softly. “Not in the slightest.”