Page 10 of Lover
I was about to see her in the daylight. Overwhelmed by this knowledge, I could only grunt in response, lifting my eyes.
She’d pinned her curls in their usual style, adding a finger wave at her temple. The gaunt lines had gone from her cheeks, now full with health and slightly flushed, and there, the dimple in her chin she hated, but I adored. She was wearing an outfit that was several years outdated.
“Did the clothes I had delivered not fit you?” I asked.
“I brought my own clothes, Professor Hughes.”
Pride. Not a new personality trait by any stretch of the imagination.
I had to look away, resist my smile. “There’s a tear in your skirt.”
She glanced down in a slight panic.
“Consider the clothes a benefit,” I offered, flipping the book closed, no longer needing the prop.
“I’d prefer a higher salary, sir,” she said.
Caught off guard by her brashness, I let out a genuine laugh.
“Is the wage not agreeable to you?”
“It’s satisfactory,” she replied stiffly. I worked heroically to keep a straight face. The wage offered to entice her was more than I’d made as a professor.
“Well, prove your salt in this jungle of research and perhaps it can be negotiated. Hannigan told me you have extensive knowledge of Celtic folklore.” I muddled around with some papers.
I explained to her the goals of our task, appreciating her focus and the glint of anticipation in her eye. We’d always spent so many wonderful hours together doing this very thing.
“What are you hoping to gain from this research?” she asked, likely searching for an understanding of why she was there, what the goal of everything was.
I could tell her about my wish for tenure or go on about the importance of understanding our history, but chose instead to answer with a deep, forbidding truth.
“Insight into the human mind. Into our love of superstition,” I said. “Or perhaps I’m just hoping to remind myself that it’s all make-believe and there’s nothing but the flesh.”
To remind you.
I’d taken up this research in an attempt to reach out to her, to reach across a chasm that had formed during her illness and find her on the other side. A new anxiety I hadn’t yet considered blanketed me like a coroner’s sheet. Had she maintained her belief in all the horrible things that had once so terrorized her?
“Do you believe in monsters, Miss Foxboro?”
“Yes,” she replied, then added, “The human kind.”
“Well done,” I muttered, trying not to sound too relieved. I motioned to the disaster surrounding us, one made by design, though not an unfair representation of how I’d once kept my study, and we set to work, neither of us speaking much. I didn’t want to interrupt her while she sorted through pages, some of which she’d written herself. I had no guess whether she would recognize her writing, as by the time we’d begun our work together the first time, she’d developed a slight, nervous tremor in her hands, making her script sharp and dodgy.
I stole glances at Millie throughout the hours, watched the stories call to her, praying one would be the final blow to the dam her mind had built. By the devil, she was a sight. For a short moment I granted myself the self-indulgent luxury of pretending no time had passed, and if I laid down my work and went to her, she would take me in her arms, the warmth of her radiating through me dismantling the misery her absence had built.
When the daylight faded, our task began to wear on her. Though I wasn’t ready for us to part, it wouldn’t do to overexert her. I selfishly allowed myself another moment, running my gaze over the lines of her profile, the slope of her nose, the soft curves of her mouth.
She sighed and glanced up, catching me. There was no reason to pretend I hadn’t been looking, so I continued to.
A pink hue crept into her cheeks, giving me the damnable urge to kiss them. “I think we made some progress.”
“Yes,” I replied, finally breaking our gaze before I endangered myself. I’d spent an entire glorious afternoon with her, and now I was having to say goodnight, let her go when there had been no change, no recognition in her eyes. A headache knocked around in my skull, and I pressed my fingers into my temple. “Thank you, Miss Foxboro. We’ll resume tomorrow after breakfast.”
She offered me a lighthearted goodnight and left with a notably less wary step than she’d entered with.
***
The days continued to pass similarly. I couldn’t dine with her, the setting too intimate, requiring a level of personal discussion I didn’t believe I could navigate yet, so I spent as much time separate from her as possible outside of the library.
