I didn’t know what to say. I didn’t even know what I should be feeling. I knew what I was feeling, but it definitely wasn’t appropriate.
I wanted this room.
“Your description of Applewood was accurate. Are you certain you haven’t been here before?”
“I would have remembered this.”
“Still, some things we can’t remember, no matter how hard we try.”
I pulled my eyes from the roses and fairies and dared to look him in the eye. “I haven’t been here before but––” I paused. I couldn’t finish my thought. I couldn’t tell him I wished I could come to know this room better.
He didn’t press me.
We worked together, pulling off sheets and revealing furniture until the room was open and linens piled up in the center of the floor. Without discussing it, we both plopped down on the floor next to them. The room was filled with bookcases and toys, desks and chairs, and, most intriguing of all, a mechanical model of the solar system on a clockwork base. The room darkened for a brief moment. I looked up to see a soft cloud covering one corner of the glass ceiling. It was moving so quickly that after only a moment it was gone and the room was bathed in bright light again. The return of light felt like the room had taken its first stretching breath after a long sleep.
Captain Calder fell back into the linens behind us and looked up at the sky.
I put my hands behind me and glanced up as well. Now that the cloud was gone, all I could see was blue.
“Arthur and I used to lay like this and look for different shapes in the clouds.”
“There is only blue today.”
“True, but that makes its own kind of beauty. As does the rain.” He closed his eyes and I could almost see the memory of rain falling on the glass behind his eyelids. A finger grazed my skin just above my wrist, then curled around my arm and tugged. It could be considered a friendly, playful touch, and no doubt that was exactly what Captain Calder meant it to be, but I couldn’t help the soft shiver that ran up my arm because of it. “Come, friend,” he said softly. “Will you join me?”
I pursed my lips together. He was inviting me to do something he’d done a thousand times with his brother. There was no romance in his suggestion—he’d made that abundantly clear when he called me his friend.
I slowly shifted down until my head was next to his. As he said, we’d done far more inappropriate things. Lying down, I could just make out the edge of the cloud that had passed over us earlier.
“What about your sister? Did she also join you?”
“Often, but she preferred the rain.”
“And which did you prefer?”
“I loved all of it,” he said simply
“There is one cloud,” I said with a smile and turned to him. He kept looking up and I had a moment to study the sweep of his nose and the beginnings of stubble on his cheek.
He squinted. “I can’t decipher its shape, though.”
“Not everything has to have a shape,” I said softly. He turned then and ran his eyes up and down my face as if he would memorize it while I did the same to his.
After too long a moment he turned back to the sky.
Our arms were lined up next to each other, my shoulder inches from his. It would take only the smallest amount of effortto wrap my littlest finger around his, a smaller amount of effort than it was taking to keep them separated. The idea was so far apart from where we had been only a few days ago that I should be reeling with the strangeness of my thoughts. But I wasn’t. I’d been comfortable with him in the croft when we first met. Being comfortable again was natural. It was fighting against Captain Calder that had been arduous.
What would he do if I let my hand do what it wanted? Would he welcome the gesture? Would he see it as an act of friendship, or something more?
The back of his hand brushed mine and I sucked in a breath.
But instead of prolonging the contact or reaching for my hand, he snatched his away and rested it on his chest. Even our breaths were quiet as we watched the shapeless cloud slowly pass out of the ceiling’s frame until we were left with only blue sky once again. After a moment, he cleared his throat.
“Do you think,” he said, his voice low and husky, “there is a chance Harriet prefers Brookhouse over me?”
That was what he’d been thinking about? I’d been waging a constant and losing battle against the desire to touch this man and he’d been sitting here stewing over the fact that Hattie had chosen to spend time in his friend’s company?
Even though he’d already removed the temptation, I pulled my hand right up against my side and balled the fabric of my skirt in my fist.
