Chapter Twelve #3
For a moment we stare at our adhered hands, perplexed and about as awkward as two humans could be.
The fire crackles beside us, and from her chair, Sylvie gives a soft snore.
All at once, we both burst into laughter, his a deep, chest-borne rumble that vibrates the floor beneath us, mine high as a twittering sparrow’s.
I throw my other hand over my mouth to suppress the mad giggles, while he buries his face in his broad shoulder, his entire frame shaking.
I feel completely absurd, the whole situation some ludicrous farce invented by a deranged playwright.
“Watch it!” I gasp out, as he leans to the left, toward the hearth. “You’ll catch fire—”
Then it hits me. And, by the look in his eyes, it hits him too.
At the same moment, we both say, “The fire!”
“Of course,” he adds. “Gently, now.”
We raise our joined hands to the hearth and wait.
In hindsight, this solution probably should have been obvious from the start, and perhaps I’d have realized it if I hadn’t been so addled with horror and embarrassment.
My laughter evaporates in the light of this new burst of rationality, and I self-consciously avert my gaze.
He does the same, both of us struggling to look at absolutely anything but each other.
The fire warms our hands, taking its precious time.
But eventually, the heat softens the paste.
We manage to peel our fingers apart without much damage.
At least, not the physical kind. My pride may never recover.
I clear my throat. “We need never speak of this again.”
“A fine idea,” he replies quickly.
I look down at my hand, the drying glue peeling on my skin, unsure what to say or where to put my hands or how to even sit properly in front of him. My legs seem folded in a terribly awkward angle. Why am I sweating so much? Can he tell?
And why is my heart halfway up my throat, making it suddenly difficult to breathe?
“So.” Mr. North settles back, one long leg outstretched, the other knee drawn up to his chest with his arm slung over it.
His hair is still damp from his ride home, his face still red from our regrettable .
. . encounter. “I was going to ask how the first day of instruction went, but you’ve put your pupil to sleep, I see. ”
I glance at Sylvie, a bit startled at the fondness I feel for the girl after only two days. “Geography is hard work. It’s no easy task, putting the world back together.”
“’Tis not,” he replies softly. He picks up one of the torn bits of map, rubbing the northern half of India between his thumb and forefinger. “Not my best work, I admit. In my defense, I was eight years old when I tore this up.”
“Out of boredom? Or merely a wanton love of destruction?” I ask, still peeved at the idea of ripping up any book, much less such a beautifully illustrated, no doubt expensive atlas.
He sets down the piece, restoring India to its place. “It was rage.”
“At the world, I presume?” I sweep a hand over the piecemeal map.
He gives a dry chuckle. “I was regrettably literal, as a lad.”
For all that I find Mr. North to be a heartless brute, I feel a moment’s softness toward the boy who tore up the atlas.
I wonder what sort of childhood he had, and if he was as lonely as Sylvie is now.
Is that why he keeps her so close? For fear of losing her and becoming that lonely boy again?
At eight, he would have just lost his mother, and what child would not react so to such loss, clinging desperately to whatever family he had left.
“Eight is a hard age,” I say softly. “All raw feeling and no control over one’s destiny. One might make any number of understandable mistakes when eight years old.”
Mistakes that might haunt one for the rest of one’s life. I rub at my collarbone, just over my heart.
Feeling his eyes on my face, I look up and meet them. Mr. North’s expression is enigmatic, an odd puzzle of curiosity and guarded suspicion. Does he suspect I am hiding something?
“Did you ever see them, sir?” I ask, raising a jagged sliver of Egypt. “The pyramids, I mean.”
He looks at the fire, his eyes shifting from dark bronze to bright gold in its light. “Nay. They are a long way from Scotland.”
“Mm. Most places are.” Dipping the brush into the paste, I glue Egypt back together, concentrating on lining the edges up as precisely as I can.
I feel Mr. North’s gaze drift back to me, the weight of his eyes making my stomach tighten inexplicably.
I ruin the Gulf of Aqaba and am forced to pry it apart to start over.
I remind myself of my conversation with Sylvie as we tramped back over the moor earlier today.
This man has trapped her in his isolated little world, withheld her from friends, school, society.
He is prejudiced against magic and intractable in his arrogance.
I remind myself of all these things until a cool current of anger flows through me and settles the senseless fluttering in my belly.
“It is late,” I say tightly.
“Indeed. Of course. I should put Sylvie to bed.” He rises and lifts his sister into his arms, cradling her as effortlessly as a lamb. But at the door, he pauses and looks back. “Thank you, Miss Pryor.”
I look up. “For?”
“Piecing the world back together.” His eyes fall on the map. “Even if you did put South Africa upside down.”
Startled, I look down, and he makes his final exit with a low, husky laugh.
Fates damn him, he’s right. I thought something had looked off about the map. I stare at the inverted tip of Africa for a long while, my stomach in knots. Curling my hand into a fist, I find I can still feel the warm press of the laird’s skin against mine.
“Truly, he is a most insufferable man,” I murmur to the flames.