She radiated a quiet intensity now, drawing the eye like the one bright spot in a dim room.
“You can’t predict whose minds your work might touch,” he said.
“Possibly,” she allowed. “But the past is a good predictor of the future. The issue isn’t a lack of proof of women’s abilities, but rather an unwillingness to recognize our contributions. You see, women are a popular subject of study already. Male scholars are quite obsessed with us. Have women a soul, they wondered in ancient Greece, and they still wonder whether we’re capable of rational thought, whether these humans who aren’t men are good for anything beyond procreation.”
Elias choked a little on his own spit.
“So much theory and guesswork,” she said with a shrug, “when instead, they could simply ask us and listen to what women say. But that would be too radical, I suppose.”
He cleared his throat, but his voice was still rough: “You hold men in low regard.”
She tilted her head, as if considering it. “No,” she then said. “I find the human species as a whole rather disappointing.”
A laugh escaped him. “Equal misanthropy for all,” he said, “fair and just.”
He was shaking his head at her, intrigued and disturbed. Her intention was to repel him; Have I shocked you yet? said the look in her eyes. Color was cresting high on her cheeks, and her full lower lip was stained red with Ksara wine. His heart thumped far too fast against his chest. The woman from the lake was back. She was a mountain river in winter: an icy burn, a mighty current under a quiet surface. A man might find himself in troubled waters if he attempted to navigate her without a plan. Too bad that he had an innate urge to figure out the solutions to a challenge. He locked his gaze to hers. Don’t exert yourself, he messaged back, I’m no threat to you. He would dream of her body for the foreseeable future but he didn’t press his attentions, and she was entirely unsuitable in any case . . .
“Wonderful,” the earl said, his voice shattering the mounting tension like a thunderclap, “a very stimulating exchange.”
With a hot jolt, Elias realized he was leaning toward the lady and that his hands on the table had inched that way, too.
“We appreciate a vigorous discussion at dinner,” Wester Ross went on, “and I rarely see my daughter so at ease with guests.”
The man was so enthusiastically mistaken that the cogs in Elias’s brain briefly malfunctioned. He made a noncommittal sound while reassuming proper posture.
“This is fortunate,” the earl said as he looked between Elias and his daughter, “because I have a proposition for the both of you.”
Lady Catriona froze. Elias’s mind blanked.
“Middleton offered to reconsider the land sale today,” the earl told his daughter.
“Oh,” Lady Catriona said after a small pause. “Such news.”
“It appears he has separated from Lady Middleton.”
“MacKenzie mentioned it, yes.”
“I suspect he needs more funds, to maintain the Lady Middleton living separately from him down in London.”
A pucker formed between Lady Catriona’s brows. “What does it have to do with Mr. Khoury and me?”
What indeed.
The earl sounded serious. “I shall have to deal with the Middleton business, so I suggest you accompany Mr. Khoury to Oxford in my stead.”
“What?” The lady said it out loud, aghast.
“You know everything I know, and the fellows at St. John’s hold you in high regard,” her father said. “You could introduce Mr. Khoury, instruct him, assist with the classification of the artifacts, even. I shall follow as soon as possible.”
Her mouth quivered. “Can the dealings not wait,” she managed.
The earl took off his glasses and rubbed his eye with the back of his hand. “Middleton plans to go overseas and he’s in quite a hurry. A new woman, I reckon. Excuse the gossip,” he said to Elias.
Normally, Elias would have let the elder man, the local, the host, make the suggestions, but Lady Catriona’s hand had curled into an agonized, white-knuckled fist on the table.
“It’s no trouble for me to stay at Applecross longer than planned,” he said to Wester Ross, suppressing a surge of frustration. To gain the professor’s trust and assistance, he needed to spend time with him.
The earl slightly bowed his head. “I appreciate that. However, I would be absent from the house for days at a time, as the legal business requires travel to Glasgow, possibly London, and we don’t wish to give the neighbors something to talk about, do we. Especially not when Lady Middleton is about to infiltrate London society.”