“Ah,” she said, her hands flexing on his forearm. “This is it.”
“This is it,” he agreed, and pushed the door open, drawing her inside and up the carpeted stairs. “Easy.”
She hesitated on the landing, blinking in what appeared to be startled awe as he unlocked the second door and nudged it open, guiding her inside his private sanctum. “Roland,” she said warily. “This is beautiful.”
He felt oddly abashed, his cheeks heating as he released her for a moment to turn and pull the door shut.
She floated forward in the absence of his anchoring grip, drifting into a shaft of sunlight that slanted in from the open curtains in the central room and lit up the flowers on the round rug he had in the middle of it. She was gazing around at the art dotted over the would-be empty spaces, at the bright blue upholstery, at the yellow paint on the walls, at the vase of bright, mixed blooms on the central glass table.
Her hands rose slowly to cup her cheeks as she turned in slow, gradual slips of her toes, taking in the room one inch at a time.
It was almost unbearable for him.
“I shall get you something to drink,” he decided. “Tea?”
“Too hot for tea,” she murmured, just as a cool breeze pushed in through the tilted open sash windows and whirled through the room.
He shook his head, uncertain why his entire face was burning, and darted through the chamber and into the kitchen to fill a glass with something cool for her. He had lemon juice in the larder that was reasonably cool, and quickly mixed it into a glass with water and sugar, wondering at why his own throat was suddenly so dry.
He had never brought a single soul here. Not Sybil. Not Tod. Not an anonymous lover in the night.
No one.
But for Mae Casper.
When he returned to the central room to hand her the lemonade, she had crawled onto the settee and was lifted up on her knees, admiring a painting of four young foxes frolicking at the base of a forest glade.
“Kits,” she said, blinking those thick, glossy lashes. “Fox kits.”
“Erm,” he managed. “Yes. Here, I made you a glass of lemonade.”
She turned to stare at him as though she’d never seen him before, not moving an inch otherwise. She collapsed suddenly and softly onto the cushions, her apron fluttering up in her lap, and reached out with both hands for the glass, looking for all the world like she’d been toppled by something monumental.
And perhaps she had.
He sat with her and watched her drink it, his heart hammering in his ears.
By the end, she licked the sugar from her lips and the rim of the cup and inhaled slowly as she leaned forward and set the empty glass next to his bouquet of summer flowers, still dazed, perhaps, but more present than she’d been a moment ago.
“Roland,” she said, staring at the blooms. “What are we going to do?”
He wanted to touch her so badly that his fingers burned. He reached out, running his fingertips over her knuckles, linking his grip through hers. “Is that your question?” he asked softly. “It is your turn to ask one.”
She paused, a little twitch pulling at her lips, and finally turned to look at him. “What?”
“An answer for an answer,” he reminded her. “A question for a question. We were interrupted before.”
“If that was my question,” she said, “would you actually be able to answer it?”
“That is another question,” he pointed out, dragging her hand into his lap and turning it palm up so that he might trace the lines she held inside. “You have to pick one.”
She gave a soft chuckle, shaking her head, and released a sigh, leaning back against the rear cushions for a moment before thinking better of it and letting herself fall against him instead, her head coming to rest on his shoulder.
The weight of it, both literal and spiritual, weighed in his center like a stone.
He turned slightly so that he could inhale her, so that he could smell the beeswax and talcum and cloves. He closed his eyes so that he might remember this particular moment for the rest of his years.
“I don’t want to talk right now,” she said after a moment, and curled her fingers up and around his.
