Dreaming Of The Bones

her cheeks were stained with pink.

Watching her while he filled two tumblers from the bottle he kept in the kitchen cabinet, Nathan wondered if she might be coming down with something. Come to think of it, she’d been behaving very oddly these past few minutes. She’d not often touched him, yet tonight when he’d let go her arm on reaching the level path, fearing he’d overstepped his bounds, she’d walked so close beside him that their shoulders bumped.

Nathan delivered her glass and raised his. “Cheers.”

Vic took what on anyone less delicate looking he would have labeled a swig, then coughed and sputtered. When he patted her solicitously on the back, she shivered.

“Honestly, Vic, I think you’re not well. Let me—”

“No, I’m fine, Nathan, really,” she said, her eyes still watering. “I just got a bit carried away with this stuff” She took a much smaller sip. “See? I’m quite all right. Now, tell me about those books for Kit.”

He went to one of the bookcases that lined the wall opposite the garden windows, and she came to stand beside him. “Gerald Durrell,” he said, running his finger along the shelves as he scanned, then stopping on some slender spines. “Has he read these? They’re marvelous, all about his childhood on Corfu with every kind of insect and animal imaginable. And what about Laurens Van der Post? He made me want to see Africa, follow in the tracks of the Bushmen. Or Konrad Lorenz, the grandfather of animal behavior?” Stop it, he told himself, pulling books from the shelves. You’re chattering like a bloody adolescent on a first date. And to make it worse, he was probably imagining that her nearness was deliberate.

When Vic took the proffered books and retreated to the chair beside the fire, he excused himself. “Idiot,” he said aloud as he stepped into the darkness of the hall, then took a deep breath before going up to his study. When he returned, he found her leafing idly through a book, but her gaze was focused on the fire, and he suspected she hadn’t the least idea which volume she held.

“I found this the other day,” he said, sitting opposite her. “There were still a few boxes from the Cambridge house in the loft. I thought you might like to have it.” She blinked and smiled a bit vaguely as she took the book from his hand, then her breath caught as she took in what it was.

She touched the cover. “Oh, Nathan, it’s lovely.” Opening it, she lifted the tissue-paper flyleaf with care, then smiled as she looked down into Rupert Brooke’s eyes. “And what a wonderful photograph. I’ve never seen this one.” She went back to the cover, then looked at the back of the title page. “It’s a first printing of Edward Marsh’s Rupert Brooke: A Memoir,” she said unnecessarily, as if Nathan didn’t know perfectly well what it was. “Nineteen nineteen. Where ever did you get it?”

“It was Lydia’s.”

She looked up. “But… are you sure you should … are you sure you want to—”

“I can do whatever I please with Lydia’s things, and I think it only fitting that you should have it.”

“Surely it must be valuable.”

“It doesn’t matter.”

Vic laid the book in her lap and spread her long, slender fingers over the cover, and he took it as acquiescence. “Nathan, there’s something I’ve been wanting to ask you.” She paused and took another sip of her almost empty drink. “Lately, I’ve wondered if this biography was jinxed from the start. When I began, I’d never have imagined that two of the people who could help me the most were the two I’d feel the least comfortable asking. Does that make sense?” she added, tilting her head to one side and frowning. “Anyway, you can imagine how difficult it is to talk to Darcy …” She rolled her eyes and Nathan laughed. “He’s insufferable enough without further instigation.”

“Are you saying you’ve found me difficult to talk to?” asked Nathan, refusing to be diverted.

“It just seemed such an imposition. I was afraid it might upset you to talk about Lydia, and I didn’t want to do anything that might damage our … friendship. And the others …” Grimacing, she tossed back the last of her whisky. “Of course her ex-husband, Morgan Ashby, refused to see me at all.” She colored as if she found the memory unpleasant and hurried on. “Daphne Morris was perfectly cordial and as bland as unbuttered toast. You’d have thought she barely knew Lydia, from the way she talked. And Adam Lamb …” Vic looked away from Nathan, into the fire. “Adam Lamb wouldn’t even talk to me on the telephone.”

“Vic, what is it exactly that you want me to do?”

She placed the book on the side table, then rose abruptly and stood before the fire, her back to him. “I hate asking favors. That’s all I seem to be doing lately, asking favors and apologizing to people. And now I sound churlish when you’ve been so kind.”

“Vic—” He got up from his armchair and stood beside her, so that she had to turn and face him. She held her arms crossed tightly across her chest.

“Would you talk to Adam Lamb for me?” she said in a rush. “Ask him if he’d see me for just a few minutes?”

Nathan laughed. “Good God, is that all? I thought you were going to ask me for something I couldn’t do. Of course, I can’t guarantee I’ll have any influence with Adam—sometimes the Lord moves him in mysterious ways— but I’ll give it a try.”

Vic smiled and seemed to relax a little. “And you don’t mind talking about Lydia?”

“It’s not that I mind, exactly, it’s just that it was all so very long ago. You’ve been immersed in Lydia’s life in a way I never was, and you must understand that it’s much more immediate for you than it is for me. But you can ask me anything you want, and I’ll try.” He resisted the impulse to touch her cheek. Surely he had said nothing to deserve the intentness of her expression?

“Nathan.” Vic took a breath and dropped her arms to her sides. “Take me to bed.”

“What?”

“You heard me. This has nothing to do with Lydia, or Ian, or anything in the past. It’s just between us. Do you not want to?”

So she had drunk the whisky for the Dutch courage to seduce him, and all the while he’d been bumbling round like an idiot, trying not to presume too much. “Of course I want to. But I didn’t think… and I’m old enough—”