Chapter 13 #4
His brow knit momentarily. “You know I like walking. I was not trying to flee from you. I don’t often host house parties for good reason. I like my time alone.”
She nodded and opened the book. The grain store was dim. The small window was grey with a sheet of dust and then the rain. She tilted the page toward the light from the door's gap and tried to read as Evander leaned back against the wall and closed his eyes.
“The truth is… that I left because I was embarrassed.”
He cracked open an eye.
“In the morning, after the storm.” She turned the page.
“I woke up and I was… on top of you, essentially. I panicked and left.” She paused, feeling her neck and face burn with embarrassment.
“That's the truth of it. It wasn't a statement about anything, if that’s what you were thinking. It was just panic.”
“I see,” he said.
“You don't need to say anything.” She looked up from the book. “But aren’t you going to?”
“I was going to ask why you were embarrassed.”
She looked up out of awkwardness, then sighed.
“Because I’m confused and I don’t trust my own mind..
I don't know what the rules are anymore, if there ever were any. Sharing a room felt like a violation of our agreement. And now we are sitting here, and I’m telling you all this in some blasted barn–”
“Grain store.”
“Be quiet,” she said and was grateful to hear him laugh. “I didn't know what I was supposed to do next after I awoke that morning… So I left, which was cowardly, I know, but the alternative, staying…” Her megrim was coming back and she rubbed her temple. “I feel like I’m not making any sense.”
“You’re making enough sense for me.” He rose from his seat and she looked up at him. His green eyes were somehow still green even in this damp, dark space. “I am glad you told me why you left… But you did not tell me why you came to me in the first place.”
“On the chaise?” She gulped. “I was cold and… I thought… It looked nice.” She blinked the remaining rain out of her eyes and looked for his expression. “What?”
He shook his head then crossed the floor to kneel in front of her. “It must be obvious to you now that I am not good at this. And I do not want you to be offended by my inelegance in this and my questions…”
He stopped again, looking almost tortured. She wanted to help – to draw the words he couldn’t say properly out of him even if they were I hate you and I want you gone. Instead, she said, “But you invited me first that evening, don’t you remember?”
“And so you were just answering my call?” His voice took on a new note. It sent a shiver down her spine. “You would place the blame on me, Aurelia?”
“Not entirely, but… You have to account for what you asked me too.”
It sounded like a challenge. Evidently he was going to rise to it. Because the next thing she knew he had leaned forward to kiss her, his hand cupping the back of her head gently, and then fiercely as he drew her into him.
She kissed him back, unsure what to do but burning to be held by him.
Her hands were in his coat, and his were in her hair.
The book was on the floor where it had fallen.
There was a natural rhythm to it that she found when she stopped thinking so hard about what it all meant and the way his lips were making her feel.
She sighed against his mouth, begging him wordlessly to come closer as his lips locked hers. Kissed for the first time in a grain store. It seemed fitting, as unconventional as everything else had been between them.
“Evander,” she whispered, just to confirm he was there. He kissed her harder, moving closer. Something scratched beneath them. He had trodden on the book. He glanced down when she did, and she laughed against his cheek.
“I'm sorry…” he said. “I shouldn't have done that.”
“Don't be sorry,” she said. She sat up and pushed her hair out of his face. His cheeks were flushed. She was so close she could kiss him again. He said her name, and she put a hand over her mouth. “I… liked it.”
He slowly retrieved his coat. The thunder had moved off, and the rain was already beginning to ease. He stood and offered her his hand. She took it and stood, and they looked at each other in the grey light of the grain store, the heat and madness of the moment slowly receding.
Against her better judgment, she reached up and straightened his collar. The gesture was so ordinary and so specific, but it seemed to genuinely unsettle him. He put some distance between them and faked a smile. She removed her hands quickly, feeling embarrassed.
They walked back through the easing rain toward the house. She realised when they reached home that the kiss hadn’t helped clarify things in the slightest. She still didn’t know where she belonged.
And it didn’t help that once they returned to the house, Rosdale’s party had returned before even making it to the coast making it impossible to speak about things again. Lydia wanted to spend the night with her talking, and her husband slipped off to bed early by himself.
And that the next morning, Evander was gone again to Suffolk without warning, and without taking her with him.