“I should’ve thought of it sooner than that.”
“I don’t think it would have stopped her,” Ellie pointed out.
“No,” he agreed tiredly.
“I suppose I should’ve thought of it as well,” she confessed uncomfortably.“I know this isn’t England—not that England is entirely free from such attitudes.”
“It’s not like here,” Adam replied shortly.
Ellie studied the tight expression on his face.“Or like America?”
Adam gazed out over the rooftops.“America’s… bad.”
“Is that why you left?”
Adam laughed.The sound was dark and uncharacteristically edged.“I left for a whole lot of reasons, Princess.”
“I’m sorry.”
“For what?”Adam demanded.
“You don’t like to talk about it—your life in San Francisco, I mean.”
Adam gripped the rail, still holding the cigar between his fingers.The familiar lines of his face were brushed by the faint light coming through the doors.“It was a different world.Not a very nice one.”
Ellie felt a tug in her chest.“I can’t see you ever fitting in someplace like that.”
“I didn’t,” Adam returned shortly.“That’s why I kept finding ways to run away from it—not that I knew that was what I was doing at the time.”
“What did you think you were doing?”
Adam turned to lean against the rail, the lines of his body projecting a deliberate insolence as he crossed his arms over his broad chest.“Screwing up.”
She thought of the golden compass in his pocket.“You’re talking about your father.”
Adam didn’t respond… which was answer enough.
Ellie didn’t know very much about Adam’s relationship with George Bates, but what she did know made her dislike the man immensely.
Adam had never been good enough for his father.Ellie knew that Adam blamed himself for that, at least partly.
Ellie blamed George Bates.
She wondered what it would feel like for home to become a place where you not only didn’t belong, but were no longer even welcome totry.
Where the doors were only open if you pretended to be someone entirely contrary to who you really were.
She imagined going back to Canonbury and telling her parents that she was involved with a man in a manner that would never end with marriage.
Her stepmother, Florence, would be hysterical.Ellie could already envision the tears and dramatics, just like she could picture the startled worry on her father’s face.
What she couldnotimagine was the pair of them ordering her out of the house and telling her never to come back.
Adam had suffered that, fundamentally betrayed by the people who should have loved and supported him most.
The thought made Ellie burn with a hot, protective rage.“It takes a great deal of courage and integrity to see past the world you’ve been given and realize that there is more out there—and then leave everything you know behind to go and find it.”
Adam uncrossed his arms, gazing down at her.“You did that too.”
