Amelia stopped again, and he had to do some fancy footwork to avoid running into her. “Tom, you don’t think…?” She went quiet. He could just make out that she was nibbling her lower lip.
“Amelia?”
“You don’t thinkwecould have killed someone last night, do you? I mean, we don’t remember anything, and all these weird things happened and… How would we know if we had?”
“Sure, we might have been spaced out enough to, I don’t know, hit someone over the head—God forbid—but to clean up after a crime? Dispose of a body? You saw the state we left the kitchen in!”
“You’re right,” she said, relaxing her posture.
“Besides, we didn’t hallucinate those gunshots.”
“Or did we? I could very well have hallucinated the figure on the road. The seed was already planted by your tour guide. We’re obviously still feeling the more, uh,physicaleffects of the brandy, so why not the?—”
“Eggs!”
“Yeah, you said that already?”
“No, I mean, that’s what we ate last night. Just before we turned out the light. I cooked us?—”
“Omelets,” she said, blinking fast. “With feta and chorizo. I remember! They were so good. I would murder some… No, not murder. God.”
“And then I…”
“Swept everything off the table! That’s why there were smashed plates on the floor this morning.”
“And then you…”
“Untied your apron…”
“Yes,” he said, pointing at her to confirm she was correct. “I was wearing an apron?”
“Because you were naked and the chorizo in the frying pan was spitting.”
“I was, wasn’t I? It must have been freezing!”
“We’d cranked up the fire.That’swhy we turned off the lights. It wasn’t because of the moon fog, not at first. It was so we could…”
“‘Screw by firelight.’ I believe that was your term?”
“I think my phrase alliterated.”
They stared at each other. By the series of heated expressions cycling through her face, he guessed her memory was coming back as solidly as his was.
“And then afterwards, we noticed the spooky light in the sky, and I got us blankets and we sat there and talked about…” He trailed off. What did they talk about?
“The fire! You told me about some fire in 1876, in the west wing. And about how having children makes you immortal, because your DNA can potentially live forever. Or at least until the human race blows itself up.”
“Or fries itself or whatever we do to screw it all up in the end,” he finished. “You told me how you clean antique carpets, at the museum.”
She gasped. “I did? How tedious.”
“I remember thinking it was fascinating. We talked about curtain fabric, too.”
“I do tend to go on, once you get me started.”
“I’m reasonably certain I delivered a lecture on the evolution of architectural styles of the English country house, so…”
“Yes! You told me in great detail about how they first installed running water, using waterwheels. This is all coming back to me! Pretty sure you drew me illustrations?”
