“Thank you for telling me,” she said.
He nodded.
She gently released his hand.
He slid his fingers from hers in a slow caress.He looked at her a moment, and then with a nod, he stood. He left her to hail a hack, striding off, she supposed, to find his next battle.
She watched him go, hating it still, because some part of her was taken away with him. The part of her he had forever changed. She stood, blinking and disoriented, as though she’d moved from the dark into the light or from the light into the dark. She didn’t know which. Not yet. She only knew that somehow she would need to relearn how to be in the world. Almost as though she’d once again lost someone she loved.
Chapter Twenty
Not since his school days had he been required to report to a certain place at a certain time upon pain of expulsion. He’d always thought of himself as an unstoppable force.
But the more time he spent in it, the more he could almost feel this sitting room at The Grand Palace on the Thames subtly reshaping him. Like an excellent mattress might both make a spine creak into alignment while absorbing the weight of his day. Or the way an ocean lapped away at a cliff. In his arrogance, all his life he had not thought he could be changed without his permission. He’d traditionally resented any attempts to try.
He would leave here understanding that his life had long been missing all the rests and grace notes that transformed noise into a symphony.
And he ought to leave straightaway.
He should find another room in another hotel, one without rules, and without a beautiful girl always in the periphery of his vision, leaning as she was now toward Mrs. Pariseau, as if she could hardly wait to hear the next sentence ofThe Arabian Nights’ Entertainments.
Or chatting happily at the dinner table about riding in Rotten Row in Lord Holroyd’s high-flyer.
They kindly, carefully skirted each other as if they each were human bruises. No one else seemedto notice. They passed gravy or jam as the case might be at the dinner table. They did not exchange words. This had gone on for a week and a half now, and he’d begun to think he would be able to endure it until he moved back into his home.
For his days were as full as ever, and his house repairs were coming along. The walls were restored; the roof would take longer. It would be at least two months, perhaps more, before it would be fully habitable again.
He wondered if Catherine would be engaged to Lord Vaughn by then.
Another breathless gossip item had appeared in the newspaper insinuating such an event might be imminent. The newspapers seemed to be basing this on very little more than a few dances, granted, but this had never stopped them from printing anything.
“Kirke, I’ve something to ask you,” Mr. Delacorte said with great dignity. “It’s a bit delicate.”
One of his favorite things about The Grand Palace on the Thames was never knowing what might emerge from Mr. Delacorte’s mouth.
“Given what I’ve learned about you in the past few weeks or so, I doubt very much that it’s delicate, Delacorte.”
“Ha ha! How do you feel about donkeys?”
“Fine beasts,” Kirke replied, as if this was an ordinary question to ask of anybody.
“I don’t suppose I could interest you in attending a donkey race with me?”
Kirke stared at him, eyebrows diving. “I don’t know if our relationship has progressed beyond chess to the donkey race stage yet, Delacorte.” He was only half-jesting.
“Only one way to find out,” Mr. Delacorte coaxed.
Kirke studied him thoughtfully.
Mr. Delacorte seemed to be holding his breath.
“What does this entail?” He couldn’t help himself: he was curious. “This donkey race?”
“It involves loud cheering and wagers and donkeys running. And drinking. From what I understand you’re loud when you want to be.”
“I am at that.” Kirke was amused.
“If we leave now, we can get a spot close to the finish line.”
