It wasn’t until hours later, as he was securing the buttons on his pajamas and stifling a yawn, that he recalled what it was that he had wanted to discuss.
And damned if it wasn’t important!
He grunted in frustration, glancing at his wet hair and general disarray in the tilted mirror that sat against his bedroom wall. He grimaced at the shadow of stubble on his jaw and the fact that he’d started the buttons at the wrong place and the top half of his pajama set was now askew.
It didn’t matter.
She might still be awake.
He pushed his toes into his slippers as he grabbed the dressing gown off the bed poster, already moving to exit the room, annoyance battling impatience in his chest as he tried to pull the fabric over his arms without it billowing out around him like a diva’s cape during her aria.
He got it into place as he rounded the corner out of the boys’ wing and made a turn toward the girls’, fumbling for the sashand making a hasty, overly tight knot at his waist as he pivoted on his cushioned toes.
Less than a dozen steps from Hattie French’s door, she emerged, looking a bit panicked herself, with a lantern in her hand that cast a dancing series of shadows onto her orange-and-black dressing gown. “Elias!” she exclaimed, blinking rapidly.
He halted, his feet crashing about in the absurd, fluffy embrace of his slippers, and immediately made a face at the robe she was wearing.
He would have to have that burned, he thought. Or donated to orphans, perhaps.
He’d get her a different one.
“I was about to come and speak to you,” she said, lifting the lantern up by her face as though he’d need to watch her mouth make the words to understand them. “Are you all right?”
He made a face and nodded back toward her room, taking a few steps forward to usher her back into it rather than continue conversing out here in the hall, where any of the other little miracles of talent might emerge at any given moment.
He glanced over his shoulder to ensure that the hall was empty as she made her reluctant path back into her chamber and followed her in, pulling the door shut behind him.
“I thought of a poet,” she said immediately, still holding that lantern up by her face like a ghoul. “But then I was not sure if it would offend you or not.”
“What?” he snapped, crossing the room and reaching up to take that stupid lantern from her. He got as far as wrapping his fingers around the metal hoop at the top before he realized she wasn’t going to just release it. “Harriet!”
She tilted her head up to meet his eye, blinking curiously. “There is an Australian poet,” she said. “He was a friend of Willa’s, a barrister aspiring to become one of Australia’s first lauded poets, but…”
He paused, suddenly aware of their proximity, his shoulders coming down softly as he urged the lantern down from her preferred, aloft position in the air. “‘But’?”
She looked pinker than usual, her lips pressed together. “I changed my mind. It is a silly idea.”
“Harriet,” he said again, his voice going thin in exasperation.
She released the lantern into his grip, her fingers passing over his, and sighed. “His name is Barron Field.”
He almost dropped the lantern. He blinked at her, an involuntary bluster of a laugh rising in his throat. “You are making that up.”
She shook her head, definitely pinker than usual. “I am not,” she said. “I am a terrible liar, you know.”
“I didn’t know,” he answered, a second huff of laughter making its way up. “But it doesn’t surprise me. Barron Field?”
“Well, you see, his mother’s maiden name was Barron,” she said quickly, that shrill rambling quality already starting in her voice.
“At ease,” he said quickly, taking a step back and looking about for somewhere to put the lantern. “I needed to talk to you.”
“You did?” she said. “With words?”
He paused, halfway to placing the lit lantern on her chest of drawers, and deliberately releasing the tension that had immediately shot into his shoulders and jaw at that bizarre question. “Yes, Harriet,” he said slowly, clanking the thing into place and watching the flame jump. “With words. I do have some, you know.”
“Oh,” she said, making him sigh.
He ran both hands over his damp hair, knowing he was only mussing it further, and turned to look at her. “Are they all just going to stay here?” he said, before he could second-guess himself. “For the entire year?”
