Chapter Twenty Six
Elliot could feel the coming rain in the air.
The shift in the pressure and the increasing humidity.
The sky had been threatening it all day, the clouds shifting between a dismal, gloomy grey to nearly black.
There had been ominous rumbles of thunder and the occasional flicker of lightning from within those heavy, ponderous clouds; the sort that had made most reasonable people trudge inside hours ago, lest they be caught in what promised to be an exceptionally violent storm.
Elliot rather preferred it that way. It meant there were few other people sharing the street with him, and still fewer to dodge as he walked. And walked. And walked. Aimlessly, listlessly, with little attention to his direction or surroundings.
He’d waited upon the steps of Devon’s townhouse all the night through and well into the afternoon.
He’d waited past Drew rudely nudging him awake from his awkward sprawl and flatly informing him that he’d spilled Elliot’s closest-held secret to Kate.
He’d waited past Hodges refusing him at the door when at last a proper calling hour had arrived.
It hadn’t been until Rebecca had turned up and pointed out that being seen in such a disheveled state and still in last night’s eveningwear besides could not be helpful to Kate’s reputation—or his own—that he had at last conceded the point and gone back to his own lodgings.
A quick bath and a bit of a nap, he’d thought, and he’d try again to call upon Kate later in the day. Only that short nap had turned into a dead slumber, and by the time he’d woken again, it had been well past visiting hours and into the evening.
He’d been meant to attend a dinner party with Kate this evening, but the probability of that—or any future engagements—seemed so vanishingly small as to be laughable.
Worse still was the likelihood that he’d ruined his most cherished friendship.
That Kate might well never speak to him, nor see him, ever again.
And it would be devastating. Kate had been the biggest part of his life for years and years.
What was he to do without her? Would he even be able to return to Northampton?
Because Kate would be there, and if their paths should happen to cross and she turned away from him as if they had suddenly become nothing more than strangers…
possibly his heart would break on the spot.
Possibly it had already broken, it ached so severely. And he had no one to blame for it but himself.
A single drop of rain fell upon his cheek, hard and heavy, as aggressive as a slap, and then slid down his face like a tear. Elliot paused in his tracks, closed his eyes, and turned his face upward to what promised to be a deluge.
It didn’t come. There wasn’t even the faintest patter of rain upon the pavement. The air was still thick and humid, and the clouds continued to swirl above, stubbornly resisting the shedding of their cargo.
He couldn’t even manage to get himself caught in a storm properly.
Elliot heaved a sigh, opened his eyes to proceed once again on his aimless journey, and found himself startled to realize that the raindrop which had snapped him out of his restless wandering had done so directly outside of Devon’s townhouse.
He’d walked halfway across town, and had still ended up here. Because his heart had always led him directly to Kate.
Christ. It was full dark already, and even if he had his calling cards upon him—which he did not—Hodges would certainly turn him away at the door based solely upon the hour at which he’d arrived.
Probably a single raindrop could not be called a sign, but it had certainly felt like one. It had stopped him in his tracks right here, after all. Right where he most wanted to be. And if he couldn’t hope to persuade Hodges to let him in, then perhaps…perhaps he could appeal to Kate directly.
∞∞∞
As Kate returned to her room after having bid goodnight to Mama—who was still under the weather, but had recovered herself enough to enjoy a hot toddy and a little chat before she had retired for the evening—a plink sounded against the window pane.
Had it begun to rain at last? The weather had held all day, the sky maintaining its surly grey hue throughout the afternoon she’d spent in Rebecca’s company.
It hadn’t been the prettiest of summer days, but the persistent threat of rain had kept the streets free of their usual congestion, and she had had what had turned out to be a lovely afternoon browsing books and enjoying a lemon ice.
By the end of it, when Rebecca had at last taken her leave to go home to her husband and children in advance of those bedtime rituals which her family held sacrosanct, Kate had felt much improved.
Calmer. Less overset by the chaos of the last day.
More certain of herself; more certain of what she wanted than she had ever been.
That tattered box of dreams she had packed away when she had been only a girl had been with her all along. When she had dusted it off and opened it up, they had all still been there just as she had left them years and years ago—still beautiful, still just as dear.
Only possible now, as they had not been in such a very long time.
Those treasured happily ever afters within all of the books through which she had vicariously lived a thousand lives while her own had passed her by—there had been a time when she had thought they were the closest she would ever come to one of her own.
And now…now there was one meant for her, right at her fingertips. She had only to close her fingers around it.
Another plink against the window. Well, she had expected a hard rain eventually.
Kate settled at the edge of the bed, pulling the pins out of her hair one at a time until the simple style came loose all at once.
A few strokes through it with her brush, and she snatched a ribbon off of her nightstand to bind it up once more in a plait for bed.
With a book pilfered from the library at hand, Kate slid beneath the cool covers draped over the bed and settled back against the pillows to read.
A violent burst of plinks burst against the window.
Not hail, surely—not come and gone so swiftly as that.
Baffled, Kate slung her legs over the side of the bed and trudged to the window, easing it open cautiously.
The brick facade of the house was dry. Not a drop had fallen…
but a lone pebble sat upon the window sill.
“Katie. Thank God; I’ve run out of pebbles.”
Kate jerked at the sound of Elliot’s voice from below, slamming her head into the frame of the window opened above her head.
“Ouch,” she muttered, wincing as she rubbed her aching head.
And then: “Elliot? What are you doing here?” In the garden, at this hour!
“Have you gone completely mad? It is going to storm at any moment!”
“I had to speak with you,” he said up to her. “Would you come down? Please?” His hands flexed impotently at his sides. “Even just—just a few minutes.”
That hesitation; that slight crack in his voice—they squeezed Kate’s heart in her chest. She had not been the only one of them whose life had been cast into chaos recently.
He’d stayed all night upon the steps of his brother’s house, well into the afternoon today, for only the shred of a chance to speak with her.
Even at this distance he looked haggard and torn and not at all himself.
So far removed from the confident, carefree Elliot she had always known.
There was nothing of his characteristic whimsy and joviality in him at this moment.
There was only wrenching uncertainty. Desperation. All evidence of that roguish dimple in his cheek was erased, leaving such strain etched into the lines of his face that it looked for all the world as if he might never smile again.
“Please, Katie,” he said, and she wondered what it had cost him to plead with her in that abjectly miserable voice. If there existed any pride left within him, she could see no hint of it.
It really was going to storm at any minute, but he had arrived here at this hour, looking as he did, having clearly gone through a similar sort of hell as had she.
And she did not have it in her heart to refuse him.
To make him wait it out another day, only for a conversation that would, by necessity, be less than private.
There was a reckoning still to come between them. A great many words to be said, words which she was ready at last to speak. Words meant for his ears alone.
“I’ll come down,” she said. “Don’t go anywhere.
” Certainly not within line of sight of any of the downstairs windows.
Last she had seen, Hodges was still about his work—and Mrs. Norris liked to take tea in the kitchen before she retired for the evening.
If he moved from his spot, he might well be spotted and summarily ejected.
“Thank you,” he breathed, lifting one hand to press it over his heart. “Thank—”
Kate shut the window upon him and grabbed up her notebook on her way out the bedroom door.
Silently she crept down the stairs, peeking carefully around corners as she wove her way through the house and toward the door leading out into the garden.
The subtle scent of tea from the direction of the kitchen suggested that Mrs. Norris had not yet finished her nightly ritual, and so Kate held her breath as she tiptoed past the open door—unnoticed, thank God.
She eased open the garden door and stepped out into night, past the stone bordering the house and onto the grass.
And there, just beyond the perfectly-manicured rosebushes, was Elliot.
His golden hair ruffled and disheveled, as if he’d been tugging it in his hands, with an expression of such relief upon his face only to see her.
A muscle in his jaw jumped. He took one reflexive step toward her—and stopped. Waiting, she thought, for her to decide how close she wished to come. If indeed she wished it at all.