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“Well, I can’t imagine that’s true.”
He winced, unsure both how to reply and how he’d gotten himself into this mess to begin with.
“I haven’t seen you the last few days,” she went on. “I thought maybe you were cooling it on the babysitting duty, but I guess you’ll do as a chaperone for my road trip.” For the life of him, he couldn’t tell if she was being flippant.
“The king has asked me to accompany you.”
“But no cute villages and no skiing,” she said.
“Correct. No leisure activities whatsoever.” Oddly, he couldn’t tell ifhewas being flippant, either. Not knowing the intentions behind the words that came out of one’s mouth was a most unsettling feeling.
Her phone, which she had resting on the bar, lit up, and she started. “Oh! I have to take this.”
Imogen appeared. “Is it your mother, m’dear?” Ms. Delaney nodded, and Matteo wondered how Imogen was in a position to know that. “The last snug over there is empty if you’d like some privacy.”
Ms. Delaney, in the process of picking up the call, waved her thanks and hopped off her stool.
Imogen set a glass of Matteo’s preferred scotch down in front of him. “She’s homesick. She misses her mum.”
“Shedoes?” He turned and caught sight of her disappearing into the snug. He was truly astonished.Homesickwas not a word he ever would have thought of applying to Ms. Delaney.
“She and her mum have been playing what she called ‘telephone tag’ with each other all day.”
“Hmm.”
Imogen tapped the bar. “What are you plotting?”
“Nothing.” He truly wasn’t. He was taken aback. Clearly, he needed to do some mental rearranging of his image of Ms. Delaney. It was difficult to imagine such a corporate warrior missing her mother. It was difficult to imagine such a corporate warriorhavinga mother, frankly, but of course she’d mentioned her parents. Still, he rather imagined her having been spontaneously birthed from a copy ofThe Seven Habits of Highly Effective People.
She never came back. Every time he looked over his shoulder at the snug, there was no change. After nearly twenty minutes, Matteo said to Imogen, “Do you think perhaps I should check on her?” He eyed Ms. Delaney’s plate. Her slice of pie had only a few bites out of it. He thought of her saying she was ravenous.Homesick he couldn’t do anything about, but ravenous was easily solvable. “Perhaps I should deliver her dinner?”
Imogen’s eyes were twinkling a great deal, even for her, but he chose not to try to determine why. One woman behaving uncharacteristically at a time. “That’s a fine idea.”
The half-dozen snugs at Imogen’s lined one side wall, a row of overlarge, elaborately carved floor-to-ceiling wooden booths that formed their own small rooms. Most were full of villagers chatting and dining, and their doors stood open. As Matteo approached the one on the far end, he could see that the door wasn’t closed, as it had appeared from his vantage point at the bar, but was standing a few inches ajar. He lifted a hand to knock. His intention was to whisper a brief apology for interrupting Ms. Delaney’s call, set down her food, and retreat, but he could see through the opening in the door that shewasn’ton the phone. She was sitting there, staring into space. She looked positively forlorn.
This continued to be unexpected.
He almost left. Her melancholy was none of his business. But once again, the wordravenoussurfaced in his mind. Better to be melancholy and satiated than melancholy and ravenous. So he pasted on a neutral expression, rapped, and briskly pushed open the door. “Ms. Delaney, apologies for the intrusion, but I thought you might want your dinner.”
She blinked, seeming to take a moment to register what he’d said, who he was, even. He was supposed to be retreating, but she looked so befuddled, he entertained a momentary fear that something was truly wrong.
She shook her head as if to rouse herself, and her face rearranged itself into an expression he suspected was supposed tobe pleasant, but he saw through it. “Thank you. That was kind of you. I shouldn’t be taking up this large table by myself. I’ll . . . go back to the bar.”
That last sentence had come out sounding rather tentative—and puzzled, as if she were bewildered by her own hesitation, unfamiliar with a strange new emotion she couldn’t quite name. He knew the feeling. “You needn’t if you’d rather not. I’m certain Imogen would be quite happy to have you stay here if you’re comfortable.” He paused, wondering if he should say more. Offer to fetch her a box so she could take her food back to the palace? Call her a car?
“Would you like to join me for dinner, Mr. Benz?”
It was his turn to blink, startled. She smiled, and this one seemed real. “I promise, no talking about work. We don’t have to talk at all, in fact. You can just sit there.” She looked away quickly, then back at him. “It’s Thanksgiving in the United States, and I’m finding myself missing my family.”
He was astounded. He wasn’t sure why. What she’d said was not unreasonable. He gathered that American Thanksgiving was a family-oriented holiday. He just never would have expected Ms. Delaney to be so forthcoming about a vulnerability.
She must have taken his shock for disinclination to accept her invitation, because she quickly said, “I’ll go back to the bar.”
“No, no. I’d be delighted to join you,” and, strangely, it was the truth. “I’ll go retrieve my beverage and be right back. May I bring you anything to drink?”
She looked down at her plate. “I was only drinking water, but I think a glass of red wine would be lovely with this pie. Maybe you can have Imogen recommend something?”
He nodded and was back in a few minutes, sliding into the booth across from her with her drink and a plate of chips for himself. Before they settled into the combativeness that seemed to be their default, he asked, “What do you generally do on Thanksgiving?”
