“It is,” she said, with a genuine smile. “Please, go on.”
“Was I speaking?”
“Weren’t you? Something about Austen?”
Something about Austen.He could talk about Austen all night, if it made Amelia stay. And the thought of her staying the night…
“The thing I don’t get about the Austen fandom—no offense—is the glorification of the past,” he began, making it up as he went along. “And I know that’s precisely what we’ve been doing here to try to keep this place going, but I can’t help scratching my head over it all. All these people come here searching for a fantasy that doesn’t exist—never existed… Bollocks. Did that make any sense?”
“All of it. But I’m just as smiffy as you.”
He frowned. “Squiffy?”
“That too. To be fair, Austen’s books were widely considered fantasies even in her time. People worried that romantic novels would give young girls outlandish ideas, like, you know, that they could expect to marry a man who would treat them with respect.”
“Good lord, the whole system would have collapsed!” Tom was gratified when Amelia laughed, her eyes shining. “People have this idealized version of the past, but I guarantee you that the average person from back then would look at our indoor loos and jumbo jets, and antibiotics and robot vacuum cleaners, and say, ‘I wish I lived then.’ The future is scary because it’s unknown, and the past is comforting because it’s known, but it shouldn’t be that way around. It’s not like in the TV show. It probably never was. Do you know, they literally made the grass look greener? Which cheesed Duncan off because he knows every blade of grass on the estate by name.” Amelia toyed with her bottom lip again, and Tom forced himself to look away in case he lost his already precarious train of thought. “And then we go and stage a tiny part of the house with our last remaining valuables for the tours, to create an illusion that the entire place is like that. People happily fill in the rest with their imaginations—so long as they don’t go wandering off the path…”
Amelia gave a cheeky, guilty grin. “Maybe theywantto believe.”
Her eyes were lit with the glow they got when she spotted an antique fabric. Passion was such an attractive trait, no matter what it was for. His own eyes must look dull in comparison. He hadn’t realized how much he missed that inspiration, that drive. Going to bed at night already fired up about getting up again, to get stuck into plans or funding applications, or just to sit in the folly with a coffee and watch the morning sun suck up the dew. There was no peace in the world quite like the peace out here.
“There’s definitely an element of wanting to time-travel when you come to a place like this,” Amelia continued, “but I like that you can come here and occupy multiple dimensions at once.” She stretched out on the carpet, taking in the room, which gave him carte blanche to blatantly stare at her. Her hair fanned out around her face like she was floating in water. “You can feel the layers here. It’s not about going back to a particular era, but feeling them all at once. Look at this room.” She flung her arms up, and he’d subconsciously hovered so close he had to lurch away to avoid getting whacked. “You can appreciate the feeling of history, of multiple lives having been lived in this room, while still living in the right now.”
The house creaked again. “I think she agrees.”
“I can see why you talk to her. She puts new meaning into the term ‘character home.’ You can almost feel her cycling through her emotions—or maybe that’s just the wine. And I do love her taste in green velvet wall hangings with silk embroidery.”
“Fabric really fires you up, doesn’t it?” And seeing her fired up fired him up. Not just in the obvious places, but in his chest, in the warmth that spread through his limbs… Even his bloody fingertips felt alive.
She met his eyes, with a look of surprise. “I’m happy!”
“Is that unusual?”
“It didn’t used to be, but … I came here to get out of my head—to the UK, I mean.”
He was getting ever more curious about what she was escaping from, but every time he asked, she deflected. “And how has that worked out?” he said, trying again.
“Not so well, until this afternoon. Turns out that traveling solo is all about being in your head. That’s why wine caught on, I guess. Gets you out of your head. And I amsoenjoying being out of my head!”
Tom didn’t have the heart to burst her bubble by digging further. “Glad I finally found a good use for the family wine collection.”
“You hadn’t thought about drinking it before?”
“It’s hard to justify drinking a bottle of something that could buy you a new car. Though when my brother and I were teenagers, we did steal the odd dusty bottle and take it somewhere secret to consume it. You think this stuff is wasted onyou? Which it isn’t, by the way. But I’ve always considered the wine cellar to be the most useless of my forebears’ various collections.”
“Oh, I don’t know. I consider wine very useful. Especially right now…” She gazed at him with a meaning he hoped like hell he was deciphering correctly. She wasn’t the only one who was feeling happy for the first time in a long time. If a genie popped up right now and gave him the option of living in this afternoon forever, he’d take it.
“As a social lubricant, sure. As a collection? Hmm.” He lowered himself to his side beside her, propping up his head with his hand, which again gave him the achingly appealing sensation of lying beside her in bed. “See, art can be looked at. Even if it’s hideous, it still makes you feel something, makes some kind of point, starts a conversation. Rare books can be read, if you’re careful. Jewels can be worn. But you can’t have your wine collection and drink it too. And if you can’t drink it, what’s the point?”
She sat up and lifted her goblet, almost ceremonially. “To drinking illicit wine.” She upended it, let the last sip drop onto her tongue, and seemed to toy with it before swallowing, unaware that she was toying withhim. This was it. She would say a polite thank-you for the wine and food and leave. She put it down with a curious level of deliberation and met his eye with a half-grin. And there was that shy look again. He couldn’t read her at all. And that intrigued him.
“What?” he said. It came out quieter than he’d intended. He could smell her perfume. He was reminded of the jasmine that flowered over the brick wall in the kitchen garden in summer, which he would never smell again. The next week would be full of never-agains. After all these years, it wasn’t enough time.
Amelia blinked, several times. “This still feels a little other-worldly.”
“As it should. We’re having a break from the real world.”
“Take the risk,” she said, so quietly he had to watch her lips to check he heard right.
