Chapter Five #2
Marcus began to see that her talents reached far beyond the ordering of meals or the care of household linen.
She possessed the rarer gift of anticipating the turn of unspoken expectations.
He watched her as she arranged the cards, her manner thoughtful and efficient.
He had married her expecting competence.
What he now discovered was a woman of substance, intellect, and intuition.
She glanced toward the window, and all at once, he realised they had passed the whole morning in what felt like mere minutes.
“The sun is rising higher,” she said. “Should we take a walk before lunch? The weather will not remain fine all afternoon.”
He rose from his chair.
“That is an excellent suggestion,” he said.
Catherine gathered the papers into a tidy stack, placing them back into their folder.
As they left the study side by side, Marcus opened the door for her without ceremony, yet the movement bore a quiet civility that had started becoming natural between them. If respect could form of its own volition between the pair, could they possibly learn to become friends?
***
That afternoon, Marcus waited just outside the library entrance, where the westward sun, diffused through Penwood’s tall windows, cast a long wash of light across the corridor. When Catherine approached, dressed simply yet with unstudied elegance, he offered her his arm.
“Did you wish for me?” she asked.
Marcus inclined his head with a small bow. “I wondered whether you might care to see the older parts of the grounds.”
She placed her hand upon his arm with a ready smile. “I should like that very much.”
They walked in companionable silence toward the southern lawn, where the foundations of the present house met with remnants far more ancient. Marcus guided her beyond the hedgerows and through a small iron gate set into a crumbling wall of stone and earth.
“These walls were uncovered during my grandfather’s additions,” he said. “He fancied himself a patron of antiquities, though he never possessed the patience for true scholarship.”
Catherine bent to study the cut of a partially buried stone.
“This looks Roman,” she observed. “The tooling is finer than the others.”
Marcus nodded.
“It is,” he said, surprised and gratified. “Most visitors remark only on the moss.”
Her smile appeared, quiet and steady.
“They miss what lies beneath the surface,” she said softly.
He pointed to a darker patch of stone half-exposed by weather.
“That is a threshold,” he said. “We believe it belonged to a bathhouse. There was a small outpost here, or so the pottery fragments suggest.”
She stepped nearer.
“Have any coins been found?” she asked.
Marcus nodded.
“Two,” he said. “One commemorating the reign of Antoninus Pius, the other too corroded for certainty. I can show them to you in my study, if you are curious.”
Catherine’s eyes lit up, and Marcus’s heart performed an odd flutter.
“I am,” she said. “These sites reveal so much of ordinary life, like what they cooked, what they wore, how they built things to last.”
He nodded eagerly.
“Exactly,” Marcus said. “The domestic evidence is more instructive than the ceremonial.”
They moved from stone to stone, brushing aside low grasses and fragments of lichen. Catherine touched one carved rim and asked about its original use, prompting Marcus to describe a theory regarding grain storage.
“But if grain were stored here, would it not have required better ventilation?” She asked.
He paused, considering the point.
“It would,” he admitted. “I had not considered that.”
Her brow furrowed in quiet concentration.
“Perhaps it held oil, or wine,” she mused. “Or something else less perishable.”
Marcus surveyed the ground with fresh eyes, a thoughtful frown touching his brow.
“Very possible,” he said at last. “I shall have to reconsider the cataloguing notes.”
Their shoulders brushed as they bent over a ring of smaller stones embedded in the soil. Marcus stilled. The contact was brief, innocent in its cause, yet his breath caught.
Catherine, too, seemed arrested—her posture unaltered, though her gaze lost its steady focus.
“There is so much still buried,” she murmured.
Marcus nodded, though the focus of his interest was rapidly changing.
“Yes,” he said quietly. “So much yet to understand.”
They lingered until the shadows began to stretch. Turning back toward the house, they walked side by side along the narrow path, keeping pace with one another.
“You ask the right questions,” Marcus said at length. “Far more useful than many I have heard from trained scholars.”
Catherine tilted her head with modest reserve.
“Perhaps. But it is your study. I only ask because you have piqued my curiosity.”
Marcus’s mouth curved faintly.
“Curiosity is half the work. And yours has already made me reconsider my notes.”
She glanced at him briefly before looking ahead again.
“That is generous of you to say.”
“Not generous,” he returned. “Accurate.”
They reached the main lawn once more, and Catherine turned her gaze toward the house.
“I begin to see why this place holds such meaning for you.”
Marcus studied her in profile, noting the calm attentiveness with which she spoke.
“And I begin to see how much better it may be to share it,” he said.
She offered no reply, save for a faint smile that lingered as they crossed the threshold together.
Marcus drew a quiet breath, struck by the ease of their walk.
Catherine did not appear ill at ease in his company, nor indifferent to his pursuits.
And, to his surprise, he found a quiet contentment stirring in himself as well.