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‘This weekend I went back to Trebordi for the first time in a decade. I was hoping to find out what had happened to her.’
‘No luck?’
‘In truth, when I got there... I didn’t actually try. I realised it’s perhaps best left...’ She shook her head, and for a moment it felt as if the day that had started in tears might end the same way. ‘Really...’ Beatrice nodded a little urgently ‘...it’s best left.’
‘Okay.’
He said it kindly.
Patiently.
She met his eyes and he gave a slight nod, as if he understood how hard it had been for her to share, even though she hadn’t told him very much.
So hard.
The silence between them felt like an invitation to say more. But Beatrice dared not, or she really would cry, and so she did what she did best and deflected the conversation back to him.
‘I think it might be my turn to ask a question.’
‘I walked into that,’ Julius admitted, then gave a short, rueful laugh. ‘Go ahead,’ he said. ‘I think...’
Beatrice swallowed, and as she did so tasted the salty tears she’d been holding in at the back of her throat. Julius held her gaze and she found she had just one question: she wanted to ask if the eyes that held hers really were laced with desire. She wanted to know whether, if she dared to stand up and walk over to him now, he would reach for her and hold her...just for a moment. And then, after that moment, would she be allowed to give in and stop battling desire? Or was she crazy to be thinking such things?
That was her question.
Quite a long question.
She left quite a long pause as she considered asking it. And yet the whole time his eyes never left her face as she fought to be brave and voice it.
Come on, Beatrice, his eyes seemed to say.
Nothing moved. Even the hands on his watch had surely stopped, for there was not a sound she could hear—not even her breathing. So sure was she, when held by his gaze, that she almost risked asking it.
It was her own mocking voice that hauled her back. The voice in her head that reminded her of her complete inexperience and the agony of his brush-off if she was reading this wrong.
Rejection.
Oh, God.
She was terrified of it.
Ineveryarea of her life.
And so she blinked, hauled herself back from the dangerous edge, and searched the thick air for a question.
‘What promise?’
‘Sorry?’
He frowned, and then his mouth opened in a smile so incredulous, so confused, that she wondered if he’d misheard her.
‘What promise was your mother referring to—?’
Even though the lights hadn’t been off, it felt as if they’d suddenly come back on. Whatever spell had been cast was now broken.
‘YouknowI can’t answer that.’
Beatrice couldn’t quite believe she had asked. Except it still felt safer than the other question.
