Chapter Eight
Kalila pulled her coat around her, marveling at the sight of London so late in the night. The streets were empty, bathed in the light pouring out of the gas lamps that towered above her.
And she was walking with Oliver Booth.
Truthfully, she hadn’t been inclined to believe his little spiel about being jealous of her. But then an air of confusion had come over him as he’d explained himself, almost as if it had taken the words tumbling out of his mouth for him to understand the reason behind his foolishness.
If there was one thing Kalila was weak in the face of, it was sincerity.
Besides, it didn’t help for her to make enemies at the Society.
Not when she needed them on her side for her inevitable confrontation with Comerford.
There was strength in numbers, both in and out of the realm of scientific research.
Booth would make a good ally—he was, for some reason, in Comerford’s good graces and was well-liked by the other men.
All in all, it made more sense for Kalila to be friendly with him than not.
Following Oliver, she listened to the pleasant sound of his voice as he made casual conversation. The silhouette of Regent’s Park came into view, empty and glowing in the weak light. She wondered why he didn’t want to return to his own home. Surely, someone was expecting him.
“How’s that family friend of yours doing?” Oliver’s tone was cheeky as he led them through the grass and onto a path. “Miss Southcott.”
A seed of something Kalila didn’t care to identify lodged itself in her stomach. “Fine. Why do you ask?”
“No reason,” he said. “Merely wondering if you’ve formed an attachment. She’s a pretty thing.”
The statement caused Kalila to stop in her tracks. “An attachment! No. That’s ridiculous. No.”
“Now, now.” Oliver laughed, the sound sending an unwelcome shiver up her spine. “There’s such a thing as protesting too much, Rafiq.”
Kalila began to walk again, mentally agreeing with him. She was Dameer Rafiq right now, not Kalila Darwish.
“Still,” she said coolly, “the answer is no. Why do you ask?”
Do you really want to know?
“Just curious.” A devilish grin graced his beautiful face. “No women at the moment, is that it?”
“No,” she said. She would play along and craft a backstory for herself if need be. Anything to keep him thinking that she was Dameer.
Oliver led them to the lake’s edge. “I heard Jennings might announce his engagement soon.”
“Jennings!” Kalila sputtered. She couldn’t believe a woman agreeing to marry someone so insufferable but, then again, there was no accounting for taste.
“I’ll be sure to send my condolences to the unlucky lady.” Oliver looked out over the water. “Do you think you’ll ever marry, Rafiq?”
“I’d like to,” Kalila said. The response was automatic. Wasn’t that what everyone was meant to say? That they would one day like to get married, even if they couldn’t begin to imagine it happening?
She had never imagined it for herself, and her family had never badgered her about it, either. In truth, she wouldn’t mind marriage. It was just that—
“But?” Oliver prompted, pulling her from her reverie.
“But?” Kalila echoed. “I never said ‘but.’”
How had he known?
“Oh, it was there.”
“I shouldn’t like to be stifled, that’s all,” she said without thinking. She pulled the brim of her hat down lower, embarrassed that she’d said such a thing in front of the likes of Oliver Booth. Friendly meant detached and civil, not vulnerable and honest.
But—there was something about him that coaxed the words out of her. It was vexing.
“Stifled?” He paused, as if considering. “I don’t think I’ve ever heard a man say such a thing.”
Kalila’s spine straightened as fear danced down her vertebrae. Of course men didn’t say such things. Men were never stifled. They continued to go about their lives after marriage, enjoying the same hobbies and taking mistresses as they pleased. A luxury she would never have.
“It’s difficult to explain,” she said, preparing to shift his attention away from her. “And yourself? Is marriage in your future, Booth?”
He hesitated, taking a step back from the lake. “I should say no.”
“You should?” she asked, her embarrassment forgotten. He began to move again, and she followed.
He shrugged. “Marriage did nothing but trap my parents in a cage of resentment.”
Kalila frowned. She’d grown up with parents who adored one another.
Even as a child, it had been hard not to notice her father hanging onto her mother’s every word or the way her mother always reached for her husband, as if seeking comfort.
It had always made clear to Kalila that she, too, should expect unconditional love and respect. That she should expect nothing less.
That was what had saved her from making her own terrible mistake.
“It doesn’t have to be like that.”
He glanced down at her from the corner of his eye. “No. But the odds aren’t very good.”
“What are the odds?”
“Fifty-fifty,” he replied, once again focused on the path before them.
“A fifty percent change of a miserable marriage?” Kalila asked in disbelief. “I don’t believe that. Thirty percent, maybe.”
He shook his head, and she could just make out a smile pulling at his mouth. “A risk is a risk.”
Kalila scoffed. “Spoken like a coward. You’re scared, Booth.”
This time, it was his turn to stop in his tracks. “Scared? Me?”
She bit back a laugh at the offense that had taken over his features. “You’re the one refusing to take a risk.”
“As are you,” he shot back. “There’s a risk you’ll be stifled, isn’t there?”
She opened and closed her mouth, feeling very much like a fish out of water. Finally, she said, “It isn’t the same.”
“I think it is,” he said, turning on his heel and moving down the path.
She scampered to catch up to him. “I noticed you didn’t say no. You said you should say no.”
He stopped again, this time with such abruptness that she almost ran into him.
“Because, like every fool with a heart, there’s a part of me that thinks that my life can’t turn out that way,” he said, desperation strangling his voice. “Surely my life won’t be miserable. Logic, however, dictates otherwise.”
Kalila blinked, shocked at how easily he’d let his emotions spill out. And to an utter stranger, no less. “Booth—”
“Oliver,” he corrected her, his tone gentling. “How’s this—we’re both scared, and for different reasons. Will you admit to that, at least?”
Kalila hesitated, splintering beneath his unguarded gaze. “Fine.”
He began to walk again. “Fine.”
“Oliver.” When she said his name, he turned, a hopeless expression complimented by a lopsided grin on his face. “Is there a reason you’re here and not at home?”
*
Oliver.
His name tripped off her tongue with a beautiful cadence, husky as she kept her voice low in some semblance of masculinity.
The sound of it made him feel like he’d downed a glass of champagne, and far too quickly at that.
The defensiveness that had overtaken him during their conversation melted away as a stupid smile began to pull at his mouth.
But then she followed it with a gutting question. Naturally.
He’d already said far too much as it was. There was no reason to lie now.
“My father’s at home, terror that he is,” he said. “My mother has been in Kent for God knows how long. For the country air, or so she claims.”
She studied him with her haunting eyes, her teeth sinking into her full lower lip. God, if he weren’t trying to respect her little charade, he would be tempted to—
“I’m sorry,” she murmured, brow wrinkling. “That’s—it shouldn’t be that way.”
“Indeed,” he said, tone devoid of emotion. Of course it wasn’t meant to be this way. He’d just been unlucky, drawn the worst lot, done something that had made beautiful Rosewood feel more like a prison than a home.
“Have you ever considered—” She cut herself off, and he turned to her in question. The moonlight filtered through the trees, giving her an ethereal glimmer that made it impossible for him to look away. “I don’t want to overstep,” she admitted. “We are mere acquaintances.”
“Acquaintances!” he said in mock offense. “I thought being on this excursion made us friends, L—Rafiq.”
He’d almost said Lady Impostor there, genius that he was.
She regarded him with an intense seriousness before continuing with, “Have you ever considered that marriage might give you the family you deserve?”
A brief exhale of disbelief escaped him. “I could still very well end up with a mirror image of my family the way it is now. A husband and wife who cannot stand each other and a child who—”
“You wouldn’t put a child in your position.”
His brow creased at the sharp certainty in her words. How could she say such a thing—and with such confidence? Nothing had stopped his parents from hurting each other, from hurting him. Breaking the wheel seemed an insurmountable task, given how long it had been turning.
But he couldn’t discuss this any further.
He didn’t want to begin to dwell on all the ways he hadn’t been enough to inspire love in his parents.
He didn’t want to think of how different things might have been, because it was far too late for that—both literally and figuratively.
So he did what came easiest to him—he attempted to lighten the mood.
“I suppose not,” he said, injecting a lazy lilt into his voice. “At least I can be comforted knowing that there are no shortage of women who would be willing to take a trip to the parish with me.”
Rafiq snorted, just as he knew she would. “Yes, I’m sure your popularity with women provides you much relief.”
“Oh, more than you know,” he drawled, despite being all too aware of his self-imposed dry spell. “Although I suspect you’ve enjoyed even more success than I have, Rafiq. Perhaps I should ask you to teach me your ways.”
“I’ve no idea why you would think that,” she sniffed, pulling her coat tighter around her willowy form.
Oliver came to a sudden stop in the middle of the path. Bending, he placed his nose level with Rafiq’s. Much to his delight, he heard her breath hitch in her throat. “Call it a hunch.”
With that, he straightened and awaited her response.
She frowned, considering. “Do you believe all men have ways they rely on?”
“I don’t doubt it,” he said, not really meaning it but desperate to hear her thoughts on the subject all the same.
“The only recommendation I can make is to treat women like the intelligent, capable beings they are. But I would think that an obvious, well-known avenue to affection.”
He raised an eyebrow in her direction. “Obvious? Do the other gents you know treat women that way?”
“Of course.” Catching herself, she began to stammer. “T-that is, I think they do. I don’t know how the women of my acquaintance perceive the way they’re treated, but—”
Deciding to save her, Oliver interrupted. “Plenty of men I know treat women as overly emotional playthings. They do not deign to listen to them—truly listen to them—nor do they consider their thoughts and feelings as objects of significance.”
“And you do?”
“Of course I do.”
She pressed her lips into a firm, unimpressed line and continued to advance down the trail. “You seem quite proud of yourself for what should be considered the bare minimum.”
He caught up to her in two easy strides. “I hope I do a bit better than that.”
“You should also reconsider the company you keep.”
“Indeed,” he agreed. “I only meant to suggest that your approach is not quite as obvious to the average gentleman as you might think.”
At the lake’s edge, Oliver took an unceremonious seat on the ground. Rafiq hesitated before joining him, keeping a healthy distance between them.
“I’ll admit to being a bit sheltered,” she confessed. “I haven’t seen much of what you’ve described in Painswick. I’ve mostly interacted with my family, and—”
Something seemed to occur to her, because she snapped her jaw shut.
In the stillness that followed, Oliver began to ask himself just what it was he thought he was doing.
His mind was now fixated on how he might prove to her that he would never stifle her.
But what did that matter? It wasn’t as if—he reminded himself once again that he should say no to what his heart was presently eyeing with great interest.
But, then, if it were someone like her, then perhaps—
“I have seen the best humanity has to offer,” she continued. “For the most part.”
“Until you came here,” he murmured, playing at seriousness. “And met the likes of Andrew Jennings.”
She laughed at that, the sound unrestrained and sweet. He felt it in his bones, wished that he could see the way it undoubtedly lit up her eyes. Being Rafiq, she swiftly caught herself and cleared her throat.
“Tell me more about Painswick,” he said, trying to coax her into speaking again. “It’s in Gloucestershire, isn’t it? I’ve never been.”
“It’s quiet,” she said. “And green. It’s like a comfortable cocoon. I’ve always wondered why my father chose to settle there, but he gives me a different answer every time.” When he didn’t respond, she lifted her mouth in a half smile. “A Mesopotamian province called Mosul.”
“I—”
“I could tell you wanted to ask. As I was saying, Painswick is comfortable but that’s also because of the way my family is.”
“The way your family is?”
She shrugged. “Loving. Supportive. The only pressure I’ve ever felt has been self-imposed.”
“Pressure to be a better scientist?”
“A better everything.”
A long, heavy silence fell as they examined one another.
He wanted to ask her how she could possibly be better than she was.
She was as sharp and fearless as one had to be to fake their identity to overcome whatever held them back.
And it was so obvious, made so clear to him in the three days he’d known her.
And, like someone who couldn’t commit to his own ideas about finding happiness with another person, he was overcome with the desire to know more.
Comerford had been right, he thought. Rafiq was smarter than him, and Oliver had wanted to remove the buffer of paper, ink, and time to reassure himself that he was every bit her equal. But he wasn’t her equal. She was better.
And, somehow, he didn’t feel worse for it. She was the sort of better that made him want to be better. She looked at him like he held promise.
Everything suddenly held promise.
His eye caught a stray curl that had escaped her wig. It brushed against the nape of her neck, and the fact that his mind immediately recognized it as a deep brown, the fact that his heart lurched at the mere suggestion of who she was beneath the disguise, told him one very important thing.
Oliver Booth was in trouble.