Chapter 23
For a few, paralyzing moments, he couldn’t find her at all.
Somewhere in the background of murmuring noise, Vix was midway through her intimidation speech with the inspector, her voice trilling over the muddle.
“I am Lady Aster, and this is my husband, Sir Ambrose, of the Canterbury Asters, you know. We are benefactors of this establishment. Tell me, who is your benefactor, sir?”
Brooms and rags and hammers and nails seemed to be flurrying around him in all directions as he scanned the corners and peered up the stairs.
If she hadn’t been wearing that yellow dress today, he wouldn’t have spotted her through the window at all, tiny and bundled up as she was against the sky. Mercifully, she was, and he did.
“I’m taking her home,” he told Dr. Casper in passing, who only nodded in agreement from his chair by the door, having not moved at all while the various scenes of chaos had unfolded around him this afternoon, his knobby hands clutching the arms of said chair and his eyes still wide with shock.
He wove around the building and into the beating sunlight, taking long, quick strides toward where she dotted the lawn, huddled against herself on the grass. His heart thundered in his ears, fearing that he’d find her tear-stained or shaking or red with fury.
When he reached her, however, when he reached her and touched her shoulder, she turned and looked up at him with a face so utterly blank that it was worse than every prospect he had considered before.
“Come with me,” he said, kneeling down to wrap his hands around her waist and help her up. “I’m taking you home.”
“Home?” she murmured. “But the glass and the patients …”
“There are more than enough people in there to handle it all,” he said firmly. “Come with me.”
She obeyed, a slackness in her body and her movements that implied she no longer had any fight left to give, one way or another.
It disturbed him, but it could be addressed once they were beyond the view of prying eyes, somewhere safe and cool and soft. He wrapped his arms around her as they walked and he felt her lean into that support, felt her rely on his direction and strength to keep her upright and moving.
And when they reached the end of the second block and turned left instead of right, she only hesitated for a moment, glancing up at him briefly.
The fact that she did not comment upon it only concerned him more, but he could not increase their pace without taxing her in a way he was unwilling to do, and so they finished the walk to his little flat on the border of Soho at an easy strolling pace, clinging together like lovers when in reality they were crutch and casualty, at least for this tiny slice of time.
When he fished the key out of his pocket and led her up the steps to the little two-level house where he rented the upper-level flat, she finally seemed to come back to herself a little.
“Ah,” she said, her hands flexing on his forearm. “This is it.”
“This is it,” he agreed, and pushed the door open, drawing her inside and up the carpeted stairs. “Easy.”
She hesitated on the landing, blinking in what appeared to be startled awe as he unlocked the second door and nudged it open, guiding her inside his private sanctum. “Roland,” she said warily. “This is beautiful.”
He felt oddly abashed, his cheeks heating as he released her for a moment to turn and pull the door shut.
She floated forward in the absence of his anchoring grip, drifting into a shaft of sunlight that slanted in from the open curtains in the central room and lit up the flowers on the round rug he had in the middle of it.
She was gazing around at the art dotted over the would-be empty spaces, at the bright blue upholstery, at the yellow paint on the walls, at the vase of bright, mixed blooms on the central glass table.
Her hands rose slowly to cup her cheeks as she turned in slow, gradual slips of her toes, taking in the room one inch at a time.
It was almost unbearable for him.
“I shall get you something to drink,” he decided. “Tea?”
“Too hot for tea,” she murmured, just as a cool breeze pushed in through the tilted open sash windows and whirled through the room.
He shook his head, uncertain why his entire face was burning, and darted through the chamber and into the kitchen to fill a glass with something cool for her.
He had lemon juice in the larder that was reasonably cool, and quickly mixed it into a glass with water and sugar, wondering at why his own throat was suddenly so dry.
He had never brought a single soul here. Not Sybil. Not Tod. Not an anonymous lover in the night.
No one.
But for Mae Casper.
When he returned to the central room to hand her the lemonade, she had crawled onto the settee and was lifted up on her knees, admiring a painting of four young foxes frolicking at the base of a forest glade.
“Kits,” she said, blinking those thick, glossy lashes. “Fox kits.”
“Erm,” he managed. “Yes. Here, I made you a glass of lemonade.”
She turned to stare at him as though she’d never seen him before, not moving an inch otherwise.
She collapsed suddenly and softly onto the cushions, her apron fluttering up in her lap, and reached out with both hands for the glass, looking for all the world like she’d been toppled by something monumental.
And perhaps she had.
He sat with her and watched her drink it, his heart hammering in his ears.
By the end, she licked the sugar from her lips and the rim of the cup and inhaled slowly as she leaned forward and set the empty glass next to his bouquet of summer flowers, still dazed, perhaps, but more present than she’d been a moment ago.
“Roland,” she said, staring at the blooms. “What are we going to do?”
He wanted to touch her so badly that his fingers burned. He reached out, running his fingertips over her knuckles, linking his grip through hers. “Is that your question?” he asked softly. “It is your turn to ask one.”
She paused, a little twitch pulling at her lips, and finally turned to look at him. “What?”
“An answer for an answer,” he reminded her. “A question for a question. We were interrupted before.”
“If that was my question,” she said, “would you actually be able to answer it?”
“That is another question,” he pointed out, dragging her hand into his lap and turning it palm up so that he might trace the lines she held inside. “You have to pick one.”
She gave a soft chuckle, shaking her head, and released a sigh, leaning back against the rear cushions for a moment before thinking better of it and letting herself fall against him instead, her head coming to rest on his shoulder.
The weight of it, both literal and spiritual, weighed in his center like a stone.
He turned slightly so that he could inhale her, so that he could smell the beeswax and talcum and cloves. He closed his eyes so that he might remember this particular moment for the rest of his years.
“I don’t want to talk right now,” she said after a moment, and curled her fingers up and around his.
He was on the brink of asking her why not or what she’d prefer instead when she lifted her face to his, those big dark eyes gazing at him with hope and want, and he lost all powers of language entirely.
“Roland,” she said softly. “Take me to bed.”