“I am utterly confounded.”
“Are you.”
“I am quite overcome. I may require smelling salts.”
“I have none. I have only a handkerchief. It is regrettably occupied.”
She laughed again, low, under her breath, and this time she did not try to hide it. He let the handkerchief fall from her cheek. He did not step back.
“The truth is,” he said, because he had been carrying it around for a week now like a stone in his pocket, and the stone had begun to make a hole, “I do not come to the schoolroom to review charts.”
“No.”
“No.”
“Then why do you come.”
“I believe you know the reason why I come.”
“I would like to hear it.”
He had not expected her to say that. He had expected her to spare him the words, to meet him halfway as she always did, to acknowledge what was between them with her sharp, sideways mercy and leave him the dignity of not having to name it. She was looking at him quite directly, and she was not sparing him anything at all.
“I come,” he said, “because you are the only person in this house who asks me hard questions. And because you are the only person who has ever laughed at one of my mistakes without using it against me. And because you have ink on your jaw and I would like, very much, to keep standing here until Anna wakes and reports us to the authorities.”
“Papa.” The word came from the doorway.
They moved apart. He with considerable haste, she with that quality of speed that Mel possessed which was simultaneouslyinstant and unhurried, so that she was back at her desk before he had quite registered the voice.
Anna stood in the doorway in her nightdress, holding a register that had no business being out of her room at this hour.
“I heard voices,” she said. “I came to investigate. Miss Grace, your sleeve is ruined.”
“Your father has been making an effort,” Mel said.
“His efforts are expensive.”
“They are.”
Anna regarded them both for a long, assessing moment. Rhys felt, with absolute conviction, that his ears had gone red. He did not know whether Anna could see it in the candlelight. He suspected she could. Anna could see most things.
“I will return to bed,” She said, “And record this entry as unresolved.”
“Anna.”
“Goodnight, Papa.”
She went. The door closed.
Mel looked at the ruined chart. He looked at Mel.
“Unresolved,” he said. “So she has decided.”
“I am inclined to agree with her.”
“Yes,” Mel said, after a small, careful pause, and she did not look up. “So am I.”
CHAPTER TWELVE
