“It sounds quite wonderful, to be truthful.”
For a long moment, Peter was silent, and Cam gazed around the smal apartment he occupied. He had already made the space his own. At the front, near the windows that overlooked Washington Road, he had placed his paints and an easel. The couch on which they sat was a wide, rich brocade, the likes of which she had not seen outside of Versail es or Architectural Digest, and beside it stood a gleaming mahogany secretary that reached nearly to the ceiling. On the shelves stretching over its intricate warren of cubbies were art books covering topics ranging from Romanticism to Cubism to Op Art. An armchair education, she thought. Then she saw the lone silver hairpin in a low black bowl.
He caught the direction of her gaze and flushed.
“’Tis yours,” he admitted.
“It is?”
“I-I have carried it with me since.”
She felt her heart skip a beat. It was a stirring tribute, one that she did not take lightly. She didn’t know what to say.
“I did not tel Mertons,” he said. “It seemed the least of my transgressions.”
“Where is Mertons?” she asked.
Peter’s thumb, which had been gently brushing her knuckle, stopped.
“Mertons is where I need to be,” he answered careful y.
Cam hadn’t forgotten what Mertons had said to her—that the Peter here was not the Peter of 1673. The Peter here was a man from the Afterlife who’d been broken by sadness and now awaited release in the form of a new life in which he could forget al that he had once lost.
Nonetheless, Peter’s words started a quiet thrum of worry in her.
“What do you mean?” she said.
“I mean I shouldn’t be here. Apart from the foolish pride which informed this misadventure, my being here is, as Mertons has advised, something akin to yel ing ‘fire’ in a crowded theater. My actions here, in a time that is not my own, wil play Old Harry with variables I cannot even begin to understand.”
“So what?” Her bel igerence surprised her.
“Like a cursed bil iard bal , I may force people into directions they shouldn’t be moved. I may force you down a road you should not travel. I have already hurt you in a way I could not have foreseen.”
“I am entirely capable of making my own bad decisions.
Believe me. I don’t need you shouldering any of the responsibility for them.”
He laughed, but she could see he was unmoved and the thrum rose to a buzz.
“How long can you stay?” The petulance in her voice made her sound like a child.
“In truth, not as long as I could wish.”
Their eyes met and he reached for her. The kiss was hungry and sorrowful and told her everything she already knew.
“How long?” she whispered. “How long?”
“Cam, I cannot—”
“I’m leaving the museum.”
“Cam!”
“I may have to anyway. You probably don’t know this, but I’m in line for the directorship. If I don’t get it, I’l leave.”
“You’l get it.”
“You don’t know my competition. Oh, wait, you do.” She met his eyes. “Anastasia.”
His brow lifted. “She mentioned our meeting?”
His deliberately vague reply made her uneasy. “Yes.
She’s the other candidate.”
“She’s also your sister.”
“She has excel ent credentials.”
“Credentials cannot replace rectitude. She is unkind to you. The electors wil see that.”
Cam flushed at his protectiveness, and he gazed at her, unblinking.
“Unfortunately my extracurricular activities aren’t exactly what the electors are looking for—especial y the hundred and sixteen acres of activity about to break on Monday—”
She caught herself. He felt bad enough about the paintings, and the fault had been hers.
“Nonsense,” he said. “Do you think my portrait of the Duchess of Portsmouth made her any less a dynast of society? Do you think the nude of Nel diminished her influence? Self-confidence breeds power, Cam. Frank, unapologetic self-confidence is the ultimate currency.”
“Real y?”
“Their concerns are beneath you. Show courage in the face of judgment and you wil have them in the palm of your hand.”
His eyes shone with the same sort of undemanding admiration they’d
