He shrugged, clicking his tongue. “Perhaps tomorrow. Perhaps next year. There is time.”
“Is there, indeed?” she asked, leaning back with her hands planted in the mattress behind her. “How very intriguing. When will you be vacating my flat?”
“‘Vacating’?” he replied with a grin. “I shan’t be. It is yours, as agreed. But so am I, I’m afraid. Sorry about that.”
She gave a dramatic, chest-creaking sigh. “There is always a catch with you, Townsend.”
“Always,” he agreed. “And I keep my receipts.”
“Yes, I’ve seen that you do,” she answered, tilting her head to the side. “I shall have to separate out a very good printing of theRomeo and Julietplaybill for your collection. But I must insist upon a frame. The corkboard is too risky. Too exposed.”
“A frame,” he repeated thoughtfully, nodding. “I have a man for that.”
“You have a man for everything,” she said, finally letting herself grin. “I am very excited about my chandelier, you know. Malcolm said there are bits of jasper in that barrel. I think they should be included.”
“Jasper isn’t transparent,” he pointed out, his own grin emerging. “It won’t refract the light.”
“It will absorb it,” she said. “And be all the more beautiful for doing so.”
“Do you ever speak plainly, Lib?” he asked, leaning forward. “Ever?”
“I try not to,” she answered, continuing to recline in the opposing direction. “Why? Is there something plain you wish for me to say?”
His eyes darted over her face, her eyes, her mouth. He released a little gust of breath, taking in the impression of her there on the bed. “No,” he decided. “I like you as you are.”
“Hm. Well, then, I suppose you’ll be disappointed when I get up in a moment to go begin my evening toilette. I shall come back, of course, but I will not be as I am.”
“No?”
She shook her head slowly, smirking at him. “No. I’ll just be in my tatty, old robe. And my hair will be wrapped up. It’s a tragedy, really, how mundane I am under all the plaster and paint.”
He paused and then groaned. “You’re going directly for the throat, then?”
“Directly,” she decided, pushing herself off the bed and standing, stretching her arms up over her head. “Are you prepared?”
He nodded and he sighed. “Oh, yes,” he said. “I think I finally am.”
She couldn’t help going just a little soft in response, her eyes hooded and her lips curving as she beheld him. “We shall see,” she told him fondly.
Chapter Thirty-Three
Jasper paced fora bit. He muttered to himself. He shook off his jacket and waistcoat and cravat and socks.
He did not like waiting.
He had always been a poor sport for being still.
And what man could be still with the promise of the robe and turban lingering on the horizon? Honestly, the waiting was so exhausting that part of him considered trying to sleep, just because it was the direct opposite of the fretting.
He suspected she was drawing out how long it took deliberately. He suspected she had slowed time itself.
And finally he collapsed onto the bed, his head hitting the goose-down pillow and its satin pillowcase with the kind of resigned self-judgment that one can only find in the aftermath of realizing one had pointlessly withheld something so good from oneself for such a very long time.
And bizarrely, for a time, he did nod off.
It was as though for a moment, the colors and lights of the world dimmed. His anticipation of watching the door faded and blurred. The sounds of the shore beyond the window and the wind and the creaking of shedding trees blended and diffused into static.
And then she was there, curled against his side with a twine-bound booklet open in front of her nose as a lantern burned down on the bedside table.
