Chapter Twenty-Seven
Dearest Laura,
Cousin Sophia has told me she sees no reason why you should not return home to us immediately if that is your wish.
We have prepared a room and a studio in our house for you. Victoria asked a notable local painter to equip it with the finest accoutrements money could buy.
And we have even greater news for you. Lord Hampton-Wyck has secured a private interview for you with Madame Vigée-Le Brun at the beginning of August, so you cannot delay in coming home to us any longer.
I await with eagerness your arrival.
With much affection and anticipation,
Your brother,
Samuel
Laura re-read the letter and added it to her stationery box.
Sophia told her Morwena would also travel with them. She had enough confidence in her younger brother to run the business in her absence, leaving her free to travel and visit her suppliers.
The woman’s brashness could, to an outsider, be mistaken for pushiness, Laura supposed. She took a lot of getting used to, but there was no doubting Morwena’s determination or acumen. How would English businessmen take that?
Laura often wondered how Jonathan felt about it, too. In her experience, it was the men who ran the business. Yet there was nothing she could see that hinted at resentment in him, and definitely nothing that revealed emasculation.
She shut the studio door and locked it with a sigh. The day had been hot, but bearable up here in the hills. Even so, the smell of the desert – hot and spiced – seemed close and it mingled with the scent of the flowering trees and shrubs around the estate.
She would experience nothing like it ever again. Certainly England didn’t smell that way – of sandalwood and cinnamon, of myrrh and lemon. It was a perfume that would remain with her forever.
Tonight, she didn’t wear a shawl, and the heat of the day still radiated off the path. The house was lit festively with festoons of small lamps – an extravagance at this time of year only laid on for friends visiting – and the light drew her to it.
Casting shadows inside were figures dancing; the sound of a guitar filled Laura with a restless yearning.
Oh, she was aware how her friends and, indeed, her own cousin looked at her now, filled with that cautious pity reserved for one who had been declared feebleminded and prone to volatile emotions. They never treated her like that before, even after she and Sophia were rescued from Al-Min.
She resented being compared to her cousin and found wanting, so instead of joining them, she skirted the sitting room and headed for her bedroom. She thought she had better sleep in a proper bed tonight to forestall the notion she was completely unmoored.
She entered her bedroom and paused by the closed nursery door at the sound of laughter. A woman’s giggle. Gina’s giggles. Then a male voice speaking softly, followed by Benjamin’s merry babbling. The sound of Elias’ guitar in the sitting room filled the villa, so who was with Gina and Benjamin in the nursery?
Laura frowned. It was nearly nine o’clock. The boy should be fast asleep by now. How dare that girl—Laura caught herself.
Who was Benjamin to her anyway?
Her son? A boy whose hair was beginning to darken, and so too the color of his eyes? Over the past month she kept waiting, watching for the telltale signs that would reveal Selim Omar.
Better that Gina be the child’s mother. No one except their small circle here at the villa knew otherwise.
Another sound came from the nursery, one she could not identify. It sounded like wooden skittles tumbling on the tiled floor. She halted at the nursery threshold and looked in. Benjamin was on a plaid blanket, clothed in nothing but a napkin, crawling his way to the edge where a trio of wooden soldiers – no, sailors – bobbed drunkenly on rounded bottoms.
Benjamin reached out a hand and pushed one, laughing delightedly as the jolly blue-capped figure spun about and lurched back toward him. Not content, the baby grabbed for the other, a florid, red-headed figure. Before his grip could tighten the toy tumbled away.
Elias and Gina laughed, encouraging his antics. After a moment, Benjamin pulled himself into a seated position before clapping and laughing along with them. Laura’s heart warmed. He was such a good baby. There was no malice in him. He was not the cruel potentate his father was. Why should she be afraid of this child, the very one she gave life to? It was foolish.
The laughter stopped as Elias and Gina noticed her standing in the doorway. Their smiles faded. Only Benjamin turned to her with a grin and he pointed to his toys, calling out “ba-ba” as he did so. Laura kept her eyes on her son and lowered herself to the floor to claim a corner of the blanket on which he sat.
“Ba! Ba!” continued Benjamin, holding his arm out toward the three roly-poly toys. She leaned forward and watched his face for a subtle sign. Her hand hovered over the blue-capped sailor, then the red-headed sailor, and the final one with a yellow cap. A rise of his shoulders hinting at anticipation told her that was the one he wanted.
She picked it up, feeling a bittersweet delight in his enthusiastic response. She handed the wooden toy to him and he offered it back. They played this game for some minutes before his eyes started to droop. Benjamin yawned and reached for her instead of the toy. Laura pulled him into her lap and cradled him.
Benjamin would always be her son. And she would always love him, no matter where in the world she was. Who cares about the opinions of other people? One day, Benjamin would understand everything she did was in his best interest.
“Gina, I want to talk to Laura,” said Elias, interrupting Laura’s thoughts. His voice grumbled low like distant thunder. There was silence for a moment.
Laura remained gazing down at Benjamin but imagined the scarcely veiled look of hostility the young woman would throw her way. After a few seconds more, she heard rustling fabric and retreating footsteps.
Laura started to get up, but Benjamin was heavy in her arms. She felt the warm touch of Elias’ hands at her elbows. She rose, and he supported her, adding his strength to her own, so she could rise from the floor with the child in her arms.
Finally, she had the courage to look into Elias’ eyes. In them was warmth that had been missing between them for the longest time. The final embers of hope, long dampened by disappointment, were fanned in Laura by that look.
He loved her still. She knew he did, despite the hurt she had caused him.
Now they stood face to face, the sleeping child between them. Elias stepped forward, and his work-roughened hands slid across the bare arms of her summer gown. They came together just under her breasts, reaching to take Benjamin from her.
Elias might think of their night together with regret, but she could not. It had been liberating and freeing – she had reclaimed her body that night. One look in Elias’ face told her he had not forgotten the searing passion. He seemed in no hurry to accept Benjamin’s weight and she was in no hurry to relinquish him.
She moved closer, her lips parting as Elias’ head lowered to hers. The taste of his kiss was sweet. Like the one in the olive barn back at the beginning of the year – before she had given birth to the child held between them now. The kiss was warm and tender, full of longing and passion held in restraint.
His hands brushed the underside of her breasts. Laura sighed. Elias’ arms lifted, taking Benjamin from her. She wasn’t sure which loss was worse – his lips or her child.
She watched Elias bend over the cot and touch the cheek of the sleeping boy, brushing it gently.
The kiss was a mistake. It made it harder to keep her resolve to leave.
How easy it would be to accept what Elias offered – a father for her son, a husband for herself, a man she knew without a doubt loved her. Yet the glittering promise of having the life she was supposed to have amongst the highest echelons of British society, the chance to be recognized for her work as an artist, to become a Lady, a Baroness, even a Countess was, she told herself, a pull no less strong.
She didn’t know where her heart belonged. Until she knew for certain, she would regret it forever if she did not see where a return to England would take her.
She had to regain control over her life again and shake off the lingering uncertainty over her sanity.
“Elias, I need to speak with you,” she whispered.
He bent to kiss the sleeping child on the cheek and softly followed her from the nursery into her bedroom.
“If you’re asking forgiveness,” he said, “there’s no need. It was given weeks ago.”
“Then why won’t you look at me? You’ve barely said two words to me since you got back from sea. Why is it you seem a thousand miles away when we’re in the same room?”
Elias lowered himself to her dressing table stool, letting out a long sigh. “We’ve rarely been in the same room since I returned. You live in your studio, you even sleep there. And I am only a man, Laura. I can only undertake fruitless quests so many times before realizing I might at least salvage something by giving up. At least, I can see that the rest of my life might go on and perhaps recoup some purpose and happiness from it.”
Tears pricked her eyes and a lump formed in her throat.
“You hate me.”
Elias surged to his feet. She thought he might charge over and sweep her into his arms. Truth was she hoped he would. But he remained standing eight feet away.
“Don’t you understand? I could never hate you. Never. But you’re leaving. How do you expect me to react?”
His words were delivered without inflection. He was withdrawing from her once again and Laura feared, this time, it was for good. The thought broke her heart.
“I can’t stay. If you were honest, you’d acknowledge the truth of it,” she said.
“You love me,” he challenged.
Yes, she was sure she did. But if she told him again now, it would make leaving even harder on both of them.
“I wish I could be as certain about life as you. I used to be,” she said. “I’m grateful to you in a hundred different ways, Elias. You’re everything a woman might dream of in a husband.”
“Every woman but you.”
This time, he didn’t hide the accusation and she felt committed to defend herself.
“This is not the life I expected. I was a naive debutante when we first met. All I ever dreamed about was finding a titled husband and exhibiting my paintings. I’m not like Sophia. I miss England, I miss society. I wasn’t meant to be a sailor’s wife.”
He turned his head away, hiding a pained expression.
She licked her dry lips. This was harder than she thought it would be when she rehearsed this in her mind this afternoon.
But it was not fair on such a kind and generous man to give him false hope, to let him go on believing there could be any future between them, despite their feelings.
Better he should find a woman who could love him wholeheartedly.
“I… I want to thank you for everything you’ve done for me a… and for Benjamin.”
Elias turned his body away now, exposing a broad expanse of back, his shoulders stretched taut.
He did not answer. He remained there, unmoving. Laura swallowed down the lump in her throat and left the room.
It was for the best, she told herself all the way back to the studio. Better he should hate her. If she stayed, she would make him miserable and, in the end, he would hate her anyway.
Far better they part now. After a few months, he would see she was right, and he would find a woman worthy of him.