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Theconversationmovestoother topics after that, and I try to take small bites of food whenever nobody’s looking at me. When the main course gets brought in, my heart sinks, but soon after, I feel a warm touch on the low of my back.
Zachary leans into me, his fingers gently rubbing into my back.
“Are you alright?”
I nod. At first, I don’t realise why he’s suddenly asking me this.
Then, he says, “You don’t have to force yourself to eat if you don’t want to. I can take you to the kitchen later if you like.”
It falls so easily from his lips that it takes my breath away for a moment. Of course, Zachary would have noticed my unease. Of course, Zachary would wish to comfort me when I’m distressed. Observant, sharp, lovely Zachary.
“Don’t worry,” I murmur back. “I’m alright.” I give him a smile. “The food is lovely.”
“Then eat as much as you like, Theo.” His thumb traces my spine through the fine wool of my jumper, and I resist the urge to close my eyes with a sigh of contentment. “Nobody will notice—not when my father is so intent on monopolising as much attention as possible.”
He gives his father a wry look.
Lord Blackwood is in the middle of an impassioned story about an argument he had in the House of Lords. He has the same diction and elegance of speech as Zachary, but his voice is deep and booming, carrying like the rumble of thunder down the length of the table.
“Your father seems to be a very… passionate man,” I say cautiously.
Zachary raises an eyebrow. “Mm. My father is like a preacher whose own sermons whip him up into a frenzy. His passion stems from within. I’m afraid he finds it very difficult to accept any thought or idea that was not born in his own mind.” His gaze softens as he looks at me. “I always promised myself I would never be like him, that I would always seek to enrich my mind with new notions, that I would seek knowledge from others rather than conviction from within myself.”
“You really have no intention of going into politics?” I ask in a hushed tone.
He shakes his head. “Never.”
His hand is still on my lower back. He’s not moved it, and I find that I don’t want him to. His touch is warming, comforting, and so natural it makes me wonder why we don’t always sit like this.
“Your father seems like he really wants you to follow in his footsteps, though.” I glance back at Lord Blackwood, his features set into a grim expression underneath the black and grey of his beard. “Are you not afraid he’ll be…”Angry, I want to say. “Upset?”
“He is upset,” Zachary says. “Don’t let his playful tone and whimsical analogies fool you. He’s more than upset, in fact. I suspect he’s probably furious at me.”
As he speaks, I can’t help thinking of my father, the mere idea of his fury freezing the blood in my veins and sending a shudder through me.
“Does that not make you… I don’t know, hesitant? Nervous?” Afraid?
Zachary shakes his head again. “Why should it? My life is mine, I may do with it what I may. By that same respect, my father’s emotions are his, he may be as angry as he wishes. He cannot compel me to change my university applications or my dreams any more than I can compel him to stop deriding me.”
I think of my father, his cold, dark eyes, his hand gripping my arm, his icy commands.
My father’s word has always been law in my life, and he has always spoken and behaved as though it could be no other way. Objectively, I see the truth in Zachary’s words—my life is mine, and my father’s emotions are his, and he cannot compel me any more than I can compel him.
Except that I cannot picture Lord Blackwood compelling Zachary to do anything at all against his will.
But my father?
My father could easily compel me, with his fingers around my arm and his armed men flanking us and his privately chartered jets and the connections he has all over the world. My father could easily compel me to bend to his wishes. I doubt I would be the first person he would have forced into doing something they did not wish to do.
“I admire you,” I murmur, turning into Zachary, smiling to mask the dark torrent of despair that seems to be drowning me. “Your bravery, your resolve, your dauntlessness.”
“My dauntlessness?” Zachary lets out a soft laugh. “You’re the most dauntless person I know.” His fingers, in stroking my back, find the hem of my jumper and slip underneath it to brush against my skin in an ephemeral caress. Then his hand moves and his touch is gone.
“I wish I existed in this world as the version of me that exists in your mind,” I tell him.
“You would,” he says, voice full of tenderness, “if only you saw yourself as I see you.”
Chapter 34
