Chapter Ten
INA STOOD, HANDS planted on her hips, staring at the sculpture that was slowly, steadily emerging before her eyes. Two days ago, she’d carefully sketched out the lines of Hero and Leander in chalk on the stone and begun to chisel away the marble, keeping a careful eye out for imperfections in it that might cause it to crack or, even worse, split if she tapped the wrong way.
It was only now, late into the evening, that the block of stone was beginning to resemble a very rough shape of what was in her head. There were shoulders and an angle that would soon become the slope of an arm. One of the points of Leander’s knee canted up, and the rough shape of Hero’s gown pooled at what would soon be her feet.
Setting her hammer down, she ran her fingers along a rough stone that would eventually become Hero’s back.
“You’re making progress.”
Her fingers stilled as Gavin’s voice cut through the quiet of her studio.
“I wasn’t expecting you home so early,” she said.
He chuckled, sending a thrill dancing down her spine.
“You haven’t looked at a clock all day, have you?” he asked.
“What time is it?” she asked.
“Half past midnight.”
She glanced over her shoulder. He’d already loosened his neckcloth and undone the top button of his shirt. He had a sheaf of papers in his hand and in the other was a plate bearing a stack of sandwiches.
“Have you not had supper?” she asked.
“Moray sent one of the errand boys out for tea.” He set the plate down on her workbench and from under his arm produced a bottle of beer she hadn’t realized he’d been carrying. “Have you eaten?”
Ina looked at the statue and back at the sandwiches. It hadn’t even occurred to her until he’d mentioned it, but she was starved.
“I may have neglected to stop for a meal,” she said.
He picked up a sandwich. “I’ll never understand how anyone can forget to eat. I asked Norris if Mrs. Hart had anything at the ready, and she sent up these.”
Ina wiped her gritty fingers on her skirt and took the sandwich from Gavin’s outstretched hand. “Thank you.”
She rested her hip against the workbench but kept her gaze fixed on the partially blocked-out statue. Chewing in silence, it struck her that, for the first time since moving into this house together, something felt familiar. She was used to Gavin in her studio, scrutinizing her work when it was still just an image in her head. She’d missed his company since their engagement.
“You haven’t told me about this one,” he said, nodding at the statue while he popped the stopper off of the bottle of McEwan’s.
Taking another bite of thick-cut beef and spicy mustard, she used her free hand to shuffle through her sketches until she found one that showed the entire work.
“There,” she said, spreading it out for him next to the plate of sandwiches.
From under her lashes, she watched him study the sketch. After a long moment he said, “It’s classical.”
“Of course.”
“And tragic. The dead youth and his lover.” He took a swig of beer. “Alcyone and Ceyx?”
She shook her head. “I don’t remember that one.”
“They were a husband and wife who were so happy together they called each other Zeus and Hera in jest. That angered Zeus, and he threw a lightning bolt at Ceyx’s ship.”
“That hardly seems fair.”
“Not at all. When Alcyone found out her husband had drowned, she threw herself into the sea to join him.”
She scrunched up her nose. “I never realized how morbid these myths are.”
“The gods eventually turned them into kingfishers, if that’s any consolation,” he said, handing her the beer.
“Not really.” She took a long drink and passed the bottle back. “Meet Hero and Leander.”
“Ah,” he said with a nod. “That explains the wet hair. Is it a commission or for your own pleasure?”
Her shoulders tensed. She wanted to tell Gavin of her plans for the Royal Sculpture Society’s exhibition, but the events of the last week made her hesitate. She wasn’t quite ready to let him in again, and whether she liked it or not his approval did matter.
“I wanted a challenge,” she finally said. “I’ve never worked on a sculpture this complex before.”
There. That wasn’t a lie, just an omission of the truth.
“May I?” he asked, his expression unreadable.
Swallowing down her nerves, she watched him cross her studio to touch the marble. He mirrored what she’d done just moments earlier, running his hand along the slope of Hero’s back. But he didn’t stop there. He walked around the block of stone, examining it as though it were the finest Greek marble.
“I’ve never understood how you can look at a piece of rock and see the art that’s lying dormant inside of it,” he said.
“I’ve never really been able to see it any other way,” she said.
He smiled. “Do you know, I think that’s what I’m most jealous of. You create beauty. You make things people treasure and look at with wonder.”
“Then I suppose I should be envious of you,” she said.
“Why?”
“You forget, I’ve long admired your writing,” she said. “I was waiting outside the bookstore before it was open the day your novel came out.”
“You were?” he asked quietly.
She nodded. “And do you know what I did when I finished it? I flipped back to the beginning, and I read it all over.”
“Why?”
“Because I was trying to figure out what it would be like to write like that. I can pen a serviceable letter or answer an invitation, but the written word eludes me in a way I’m sure you’ve never even thought of.”
A long pause stretched out between them, but it wasn’t awkward or fraught. Instead it felt . . . contemplative, as though he was letting her confession sink in.
Finally he said, “I don’t know what to say.”
“Then don’t say anything at all. Just know that’s how I see you.”
“Moray and Eva think I’ve been in the office too much,” he said.
Her lips quirked. “Of that I have no doubt, but then, I can hardly judge. You had to bring me a sandwich because I’d forgotten to eat.”
“Both married to our work,” he said.
“And neither of us would have it any other way.”
Yet she knew in her heart that it wasn’t enough. She wanted him wandering into her studio at odd hours to distract her and him sliding up to her at parties with a glass of wine in hand at just the right moment. She missed the companionship that came along with long rides in Holyrood Park and discussions about some novel or another they’d both just read.
But that’s not all you miss.
Her friend. Her lover. She wanted them both, but she didn’t know how to bridge that gulf again.
“I think it’s time for me to retire for the night,” she said.
Instead of bidding her good night, he took two steps forward. Then another. He was standing in front of her, his body throwing off heat and wrapping her in his masculine scent. It took everything she had not to lean into him. His lips were so close, if she just went up on her toes she could slip her arms around his neck and pull him into a kiss. But she didn’t dare. Instead she stood stone-still, fearing that one wrong move might break the spell of reconciliation that seemed to have settled over them that evening.
Hesitating, he settled a hand on the top of her arm and slid it down, tracing over her elbow and down to her exposed wrist. He circled his fingers around it, showing just how small she was compared to him. Another shiver, this one of satisfaction, for feeling delicate and diminutive was a foreign idea to a woman whose dressmaker clucked in disapproval at the developed muscles of her arms.
The press of flesh against flesh heated her cheeks. She didn’t know how much longer she could bear his touch without combusting.
“Gavin, I should go to bed,” she said, her voice cracking with the strain of holding back.
His thumb skimmed over the tops of her fingers, caressing ridge after ridge. “I know I’ve been neglectful.”
There were the words she’d thought herself a dozen times over the last week.
“I hadn’t noticed,” she said, straightening her shoulders.
“You’ve always been a terrible liar,” he said.
“I haven’t had much cause to lie in my life.”
“Another thing I’ve always admired about you.” He breathed out a heavy sigh. “Forgive me, Ina. This has been more difficult than I could’ve predicted. I didn’t think saying a few words in front of a few witnesses would change things so much,” he said.
“There’s a weight to them that I hadn’t expected either,” she admitted.
“When you came to me on our wedding night, I wasn’t prepared.”
She pulled back a little, but he held her hand fast. “And you think I was?”
“No, I meant I wasn’t prepared for how good it would be. The passion there . . . I’ve never felt a force like that before.”
She looked down at their clasped hands. “I was angry when you left, and hurt. I was trying to understand why I would be so repulsive to you—”
“You’ve never repulsed me,” he said fiercely.
“You may not feel that way when I tell you that I read the letters you left behind.”
With his chin down and his eyes hidden under thick lashes, she couldn’t see his expression as the silence between them stretched out to a painful breaking point. She’d made a mistake in reading the letters. She’d made a mistake in telling him. She’d ruined everything again.
“I’m glad you read them,” he said.
“You’re glad?” she asked in surprise.
“They were a part of my past I should’ve told you about. I was eighteen, and I loved a woman when I was still green enough to think she might not care that I was a second son with no desire to make my living in the military or the clergy. In the end, she didn’t want me,” he said.
“Have you ever seen her again?” she asked, fighting to keep her voice neutral. It was cruel, but she couldn’t help being happy at the news that the affair had happened nearly ten years before. Still, she was human, with predilections to jealousy just like any other woman. She needed reassurances that his past was firmly in his past.
“She was a local girl from Ashington who grew up near Oak Park, so it was inevitable that I would see her again when I traveled home,” he said slowly.
“And you spoke?” she asked.
“We did, but I can assure you, I have no affection left for her. She’s happy in her marriage.”
“I’m sorry for asking, Gavin. It’s not that I doubt your word, it’s just . . .”
He shook his head. “I should’ve told you years ago. I pined for her for much longer than any rational man would’ve, but I was ashamed. You shouldn’t have had to find out this way,” he said.
“I was trying to understand what had happened between us. I know we agreed to a marriage without intimacy, but—”
“That clearly didn’t work,” he said with a wry smile.
“No, it didn’t.”
“Perhaps it was wishful thinking,” he said.
“I don’t like not speaking to one another. I’ve spent nearly an entire week feeling as though I’m living with a stranger when that’s not true at all. We’ve been friends for seven years.”
Given the way the last week had been going, she wouldn’t have been surprised if he’d brushed aside the point. Instead he straightened his shoulders and looked her square in the eye for what felt like the first time in weeks.
“You’re right,” he said.
“What?” Her hand flew to her chest. “Did Gavin Barrett just admit I was right about something without being under duress?”
He grinned. “Remember the day, for it won’t happen again soon.”
“Typical man,” she said, more pleased than she could say that the playfulness had returned to their conversation. It had been conspicuously absent.
“I want to start again,” he said.
“Start what again? Our conversation? Our friendship?”
“Our marriage. We’ll start with a honeymoon,” he said.
“It hadn’t even struck me that we might have one,” she said with a shaky laugh. “I’d assumed we would both want to get back to work. And it isn’t as though we can pick up tomorrow and travel to Rome for a month.”
Honeymoons were sprawling, decadent trips that required months of planning and a healthy dash of romance—two things they most certainly didn’t have a surplus of at the moment. They were also, according to Lana and Christine, an unspoken time for the couple to become better acquainted with every curve of each other’s body and every sound of pleasure.
“I can’t promise you Rome or Switzerland or even Nice, but I can promise it’ll be a surprise,” he said.
“When will we find the time? You just took a position at the paper and I have my work,” she said, gesturing to her statue.
“Don’t make excuses or create reasons we can’t go. Just promise to give me one night. That’s all we’ll need,” he said.
“We’ve already had one night,” she said, the words slipping out before she could think about the implications there.
His stormy blue eyes pierced her. “Not like this.”
She sucked in a breath at the promise of sensuality and sex. He was offering her one more night to lie in his arms. To feel his body stretched over hers and his weight pressing her into the sheets. To relish the flick of his tongue between her legs.
She wanted it—wanted him.
“What will we do?” she asked, emboldened by her curiosity.
He lifted her hand to his lips and pressed a light kiss on the back of it. “That, my wife, will be a surprise, but I can promise you it’ll be something you’ve never done before.”
Excitement prickled her skin. Finally they were back on solid ground, and they’d taken steps together along the unknown path ahead of them.
“I’ll look forward to whatever you come up with,” she said.
“Next Tuesday?” he asked.
She nodded and wondered for a fleeting moment whether he would kiss her. She couldn’t think of a single more romantic place than this studio, with the stars glittering above them and the oil lamps she’d been working by casting a soft glow over everything.
But instead he let go of her hand.
“Good night, Ina. Sleep well.”
“Good night,” she said, trying not to let creeping doubt settle in.
She watched him walk away, knowing she too should retreat to bed. It was late, and Hero and Leander would still be here in the morning, but rather than following her own good advice, she picked up her tools and set about her work once again.