Love was cruel.
Men were misery.
When she found her way back to Wester Ross a year later, she was rather more disillusioned than before. It had turned out that men had no monopoly on causing misery. Or perhaps it was a fault within her person, that her oh-so-clever brain had a blind spot when it came to reading the person she adored. It didn’t matter, though, because fixating on a man and marriage had been a childish thing to do for someone like her. She needed peace, not love. She needed freedom, not the status conferred to a wife.
* * *
—
Voices carried into the study. A group of St. John’s fellows strolled past the windows in lazily billowing gowns. They were taking a turn in the garden before going to dinner. Catriona put a hand on her stomach, trying to determine whether she was hungry. She supposed she could eat something; but she might see Elias, or perhaps Peregrin. Under her hand, her stomach felt hollow. Listlessly, she sorted her campaign letters into a tidy stack. Avoidance was her preferred method of dealing with her romantic disappointments—she had never set foot in the Middleton town house again, and she had never called on Alexandra after she had left boarding school, even though her old friend resided in Chelsea with her diplomat husband these days. It seemed her world would just become smaller and smaller over time as she’d have to avoid more and more places and people. On the one hand that sounded comforting, quiet and safe, just her and good books and cozy blankets, on the other hand, it didn’t seem right, not yet, not like this. Solitude that wasn’t freely chosen was no better than loneliness.
Perhaps she shouldn’t abandon her experiment entirely. Perhaps she ought to try to salvage what she could. There was no point in practicing feeling normal in Elias’s presence, but she could certainly practice not giving a damn.
Chapter 15
Monday’s suffrage meeting, just as Catriona had feared, was delayed in favor of forming a circle around the cake table to discuss Elias Khoury. Hattie had shared the turn of events about his true identity with Annabelle and Lucie after Catriona’s hasty departure from Blackstone House.
“So, the trouble is that the licenses Leighton presented were issued by a corrupt official?” Lucie asked, two steep lines of concentration between her brows.
“I’m not certain he even had a license for everything that’s in that room, though the official was likely corrupt, too,” Catriona said. “However, even if the paperwork was perfectly in order, the point Mr. Khoury raises is whether an imperial administration is ever entitled to give away indigenous artifacts.”
“I’m not a lawyer,” Annabelle said in a serious, subdued way, “but I know that looting cultural treasures has been frowned upon since Cicero.”
“Pillaging is officially forbidden since the 1874 Brussels Declaration,” Catriona said, “but this wasn’t a war, and Mr. Khoury is determined to strike a deal in any case rather than rely on the law.”
Hattie, who had followed the conversation from her couch while nibbling on a sugar cube, raised her hand. “I’m the first to say give art back to where it belongs, but wouldn’t the pieces be safer here? No one will make things disappear from the British Museum anytime soon.”
Lucie frowned but nodded.
“Perhaps,” Catriona said, “but why are these pieces ours to safekeep when the people who had them taken from their ancestral lands want them back? A bit patronizing, isn’t it.”
Hattie blew up her cheeks. “It’s not just any art, though, is it; it’s from the cradle of our civilization.”
“So, when England was at war with France for a whole hundred years, would you have appreciated it if someone from the Mongolian Empire had come over and decided to relocate Stonehenge? Because the stones would be safer there since no one messed with the Mongols at the time? And they’d give us a pat on the head when we said thanks but we’d rather keep them? It wasn’t even Anglo-Saxons who put the stones in a circle, but we’re all rather attached to them today anyway.”
A broody little silence ensued.
Annabelle decided to refill their teacups for the third time. “I suppose we all agree that we ought to assist him,” she said. “Have you any ideas yet?” she asked Catriona.
“Mr. Khoury and Leighton ought to be introduced as soon as possible,” she said. “I wrote to my father. He cabled back this morning saying I should arrange for a dinner here with everyone at the end of the week.”
Wester Ross had plans to be in London, in his solicitor’s main office. She hoped it wasn’t an appointment to break an entail on the estate to sell off even more, but it was not something she could presently worry about.