Laura took a gulp of tea. It burned her throat. “Oh!” she said, choking. She reached for anapkin.
Nathaniel straightened, with a concerned expression. “Are you all right, my dear?”
She would hate for Cilla to suspect that they’d quarreled earlier. She smiled. “It was a little hot.”
“How do you find Wolfram, Laura?” Cillaasked.
“I’ve yet to see much of it,” Laura said. “It’s so big. When Nathaniel told me about his home, I never envisaged anything quite like this.”
Nathaniel frowned. “That doesn’t sound like a ringing approval.”
“I certainly meant it to be.”
Cilla refilled her cup. “I imagine one accustomed to living in a city would take time to get used to the… differences.”
Laura flushed, feeling besieged and strangely inadequate. An outsider. “I already feel very much at home.”
Nathaniel’s somber gray eyes searched hers. “I hope so.”
She had been uncertain about so much since she’d arrived and felt unequal to the task of refutingit.
“In time,” Cilla said with an encouraging smile, “you will come to love it, the lack of modern comforts and all.”
Laura gave Nathaniel a small smile. “I have to admit there are a few things I do miss.”
She felt grateful to Cilla for tactfully changing the subject. Now was not the time to suggest new plumbing. They discussed village affairs, and even though their conversation mostly excluded her, Laura listened with interest.
“Where did you study art, Cilla? At the hand of a master, I suspect,” Laura asked when there was apause.
Cilla’s eyes warmed. “I was lucky to have a very good teacher in Paris.”
“Paris! But you aren’t French?”
“Mother. She was a distant cousin of Berthe Morisot’s. Perhaps you’ve heard of her?”
“I love her work; I was sorry to hear that she died. Did you live in Paris for a long time?”
“While my parents pursued their painting careers. I came back after they both died from influenza.”
Laura reached across and touched the other woman’s arm. “How difficult that must have been.”
Cilla nodded. “It was, for they left me very little money. But I’ve been content here. I can paint. I can’t paint everywhere, you understand.”
“It’s the same for writers, I imagine,” Laura saidsympathetically.
Nathaniel offered little to the conversation. He was allowing them to get to know each other. But even though Cilla’s former life was fascinating, Laura’s thoughts constantly strayed to him. There was a reserve, a gulf between them today, that she hadn’t felt before. Their cross words should not have affected them so much. Perhaps, unlike Wolfram, built to last on a foundation of rock, they’d built their relationship on the shifting sand of attraction, and the slightest disagreement caused a rift. Trouble was, she didn’t really know him. He didn’t allow her to. Even their lovemaking, as wonderful as it was, didn’t make her feel any closer to him. She wanted so much; she couldn’t bear things the way theywere.
Across the sea, roiling purple clouds rolled over the horizon toward them. Nathaniel stood. “We’d best get the horses back to the stables.”
They walked through Cilla’s chaotic little house. A painting Laura had been too distracted to notice earlier hung near the front door. A moonlit landscape where candlelight shone out from the windows of a cottage, the woods in the distance. The painting was eerily beautiful. She stopped to examine it more closely. A woman in a red dress stood at the doorway rimmed bycandlelight.
“We’d best go, Laura. That storm will be upon us before we know it.” Nathaniel took her arm and hurried her out to the waitinghorses.
As Nathaniel predicted, the sky darkened overhead and the wind picked up, tossing the tree branches around. As they reached the stables, rain sleeted down. They made a mad dash for thehouse.
“I must change,” Laura said, climbing thestairs.
“I’ll come up with you.”
