Chapter 18
M irren felt instantly crestfallen as she saw Theo’s dark eyes slide off hers and stare out of the snowy window. Perhaps she’d misjudged things? She thought back to asking him what sold well through his uncle, and he’d explained that the most lucrative was often quite startling seventeenth-century pornography, but his uncle didn’t like discussing this, and she’d laughed aloud and said, For example, what? And Theo had said, trust him, she didn’t want to know, but it was basically the internet porn of its day, except with rather more saddlery, and she’d laughed again and ... well. It had seemed, Mirren thought, quite provocative at the time.
Was he gay? Or maybe just didn’t fancy her? Which she knew was obviously completely okay and everything ... well, obviously, she’d much rather he was gay, in the scheme of things, but that hadn’t been the vibe she’d got at all. But then ...
As if he’d made his mind up about something, Theo switched his attention back to her, and she was struck, again, by how dark and penetrating his eyes were. Hard to read.
He made a slight bow.
‘Milady,’ he said. ‘Whilst all my earthly instincts would compel me to approach you, my chivalry never could. I should be delighted to take the trundle, and trust we shall both sleep soundly.’
There was a moment of silence during which Theo wondered if he’d been able to pull it off. If there was one thing, he had thought, he could do in his lamentable moral code right now, perhaps it was this; at least he wouldn’t sleep with her under false pretences.
Mirren stiffened, as if he’d insulted her, which he knew, of course, he had. He would have liked very much to tell her what he felt about her, but that would just make things worse, not better.
‘Of course,’ she said.
And after that, they took turns to go into the bathroom and undress, more or less in silence.
Mirren lay in the four-poster, determined to be a bit annoyed, but her very, very long day, the dousing, the whisky, as well as the extraordinarily cosy duvet, firm mattress and crisp white sheets, the thick brocade curtains keeping out all light and noise from the snow-softened streets, meant that she found herself completely incapable, and drifted off to sleep incredibly quickly.
Theo, on the trundle, his long legs sticking out the bottom, took a little longer, wondering on their plan of attack for the next day, how on earth they could find something so rare and special in such a big book country as Scotland, and also thinking of the absolute unlikelihood that anyone in the entire place would have somehow overlooked an undiscovered book by Edinburgh’s own famous son, Robert Louis Stevenson.
His thoughts also strayed to Mirren, her breathing slow and quiet, but he damped down those thoughts immediately and tried to focus on the task in hand.