She reached for her wine instead of answering.
He watched her do that too.
“You do that when you do not want to answer something,” he noted. “You find your glass.”
“I do not.”
“You have done it twice this evening already.”
“I have not been counting.”
“Ihave,” he said, with no apology whatsoever.
She set the glass down with more composure than she currently felt.
“Tell me something true that is not about the harvest, or the tenancy figures, or anything either of us has any obligation to discuss,” he demanded.
“That’s a very broad request.”
“I’m aware. I’m asking it anyway.”
She considered him across the candlelight with his easy and unguarded posture, the way the formality of the early weeks had simply dissolved somewhere along the way without either of them deciding when.
“I used to hate this house,” she admitted. “When I stayed as a guest with my brother and Cecily before the wedding. I thought it was the kind of place that swallowed people. Too large, too cold, too much history pressing in from every wall.” She turned her glass slowly by the stem. “I do not think that anymore.”
“What changed your mind?”
“You’re going to make me say something sentimental.”
“I would very much like you to say something sentimental. I rarely get the chance to hear it.”
She looked at him. “The house did not change. I think I simply stopped feeling like a guest in it.”
He pursed his lips and nodded. “Good,” he said quietly. “I’m glad.”
The room had gone very warm, and not entirely from the fire.
When the last of the dishes had been cleared, James stood and held out his hand. “Come with me.”
“Where?”
“You’ll see.”
“That is not an answer.”
“It’s the only one you’re getting tonight.” He was still holding out his hand. “Trust me.”
She looked at it for a moment, then placed hers in it and let him pull her up. He did not release it once she was standing. Neither did she pull away.
He led her through the side door onto the terrace, where the evening had gone cool and clear, the sky deepening to that deep blue that came just before true dark, the lake below catching the last gold light like something poured rather than reflected.
She had not been out here in weeks.
When he released her hand, she curled her fingers into her palm, feeling the loss of his warmth acutely.
“It’s colder than I expected,” she said.
“You’ll survive a few minutes.” He stepped toward the south wall, where the rosevine climbed in a tangle that had been bare and unpromising in her first week at Ashbourne and was now entirely in bloom. It was deep pink and heavy-headed, catching the last light with the kind of color that was unique to this hour.
