“Why are you going into Saltney?” she asked.
He looked surprised to hear her speak. “I go to the pub to work sometimes. It’s hard to focus in that house, with Myrddin’s son breathing down my neck.”
A flare of anger in her belly. “Maybe Ianto doesn’t like soulless academics rifling through his dead father’s things for little anecdotes to pad their thesis.”
Preston’s head snapped up. “How did you know it’s for my thesis?”
Effy was so pleased her bait had worked, she had to keep herself from smiling. For the first time, she felt she had gained some ground, had some advantage over him. “I just assumed you had an ulterior motive. You were so uneasy when Ianto tried to show me the study.”
“Well, congratulations on your powers of observation.” Preston’s tone took on a bit of bitterness, which pleased Effy even more. “But just so you know, not a single literature student would pass up the opportunity.”
Not a single literature student. Was he trying to belittle her, to rile her? Had he guessed the real reason she despised him so much? Effy tried to hide her frustration and envy. “The opportunity to what? Write some gossipy little thesis and get a gold star from the department chair?”
“No,” Preston said. “The opportunity to find out the truth.”
That was the second time he’d said it—the truth. Like he was trying to make his self-interested scheming sound more noble. “Why did Ianto even invite you here?” she bit out.
“He didn’t. Obviously he didn’t object to the university creating a collection out of his father’s papers, but he didn’t invite me.” Preston’s eyes darted briefly toward her, then back to the road. “Myrddin’s widow did.”
The mysterious widow again, who hadn’t even left the bedchamber to greet Effy, who had insisted on marooning her in the guesthouse. Why was she playing patron to a scurrilous university student?
The car sloshed through a mess of salt water and foam, a wave that hadn’t yet receded. A sudden stop sent Effy lurching forward, her seat belt catching her before she smacked her face into the glove box.
Still unwilling to concede, she righted herself and stared straight ahead in surly silence. She could have sworn she saw the ghost of a smirk on Preston’s face.
As the car turned down the last bend in the road, he sobered and asked, “Why are you so desperate to get to Saltney?”
Her stomach knotted instantly. The last thing in the world she wanted to do was confess that she was planning to leave Hiraeth after only one day. Even in the face of such an impossible task, surrender was humiliating. Doubly humiliating, because Preston had been living and working in that awful house for weeks, undeterred by the rot and ruin and sinking cliffs. Admitting the truth would mean accepting he was cleverer, more resourceful, more determined.
And it would be worse to tell him the deeper, more painful truth: that seeing Hiraeth had ruined her childish fantasy, ruined the version of Myrddin she had constructed in her mind, one where he was benevolent and wise and had written a book meant to save girls like her.
Now when she imagined him, she thought only of the crumbling cliffs, the rocks falling out from under her feet. She thought of that drowned room in the basement, of Ianto saying, My father was always his own greatest admirer.
“I need to call my mother,” she said.
It was the first lie that came into her head, and it wasn’t a very good one. Effy’s cheeks warmed. She felt like a child caught shoplifting, embarrassed by the clumsiness of her artifice.
Preston lifted a brow, but his expression didn’t seem disdainful. “Does she know you’re taking time off from your studies?”
His tone was casual, unassuming, but it stopped Effy’s heart for a brief moment. They went to the same university. Different colleges, of course, but it was possible that they’d passed each other in the library, or while drinking coffee in the Drowsy Poet. Being the only girl in the architecture college was like being under a bell jar, everything she did closely scrutinized. The rumors had started so easily, and traveled so far. It wasn’t unrealistic to imagine that he had heard about Master Corbenic.
Now that her mind had conjured the possibility, her belly pooled with terror and dread. She had the abrupt urge to fling open the car door and pitch herself into the sea.
She managed to calm herself and reply icily, “That’s none of your business.”
Behind his glasses, Preston’s gaze hardened. “Well,” he said. “I’ll drop you off by the phone booth.”