The Map of the Sky (Trilogía Victoriana #2)(122)

“Yes, it’s a nuisance, isn’t it?” he heard Emma say, and then, gazing at him gently, the way a mother might her disappointed child, she added playfully, “You won’t have time to make me fall in love with you.”

Murray grinned.

“I wouldn’t be so sure,” he said. “How long do you think I need?”

She shrugged.

“I don’t know. I wish I could tell you, but I’ve never fallen in love,” she lamented. “And I’m afraid I’ll die without ever having done so.”

At this, she fell silent, surprised at her own candor. This was the first time she had shown her vulnerability to a man. In fact, it was the first time she had shown her vulnerability to anyone. As vulnerable as a little girl. And she didn’t care. On the contrary, it gave her a pleasant feeling of relief. In the current situation, there was no point in continuing to pretend, but if she had taken off the mask she wore to protect herself from the world, it was not only because it was meaningless to do so in a world that was about to be destroyed. It was also because this giant of a man before her had shown he loved her, her and only her, in spite of who she was. Yes, this man who treated others with contempt and even cruelty, and yet spoke to her so gently, this man who had even tried to milk a cow in order to quench her thirst, had won that privilege. She did not want to go on pretending to him. She was probably going to die a gruesome death quite soon, and she did not want to meet her end pretending to be someone she was not. If she was going to die, she wanted at least one man on the planet to know who she really was. A vulnerable little girl, who would have liked the world to be the way her great-grandfather had described it, and who would have liked to fall in love just once. This was the real Emma Catherine Harlow.

And this man, the man destined to see her as no one else had ever seen her, opened his mouth to tell her once more that he would not let her die, but then stopped himself. No, he thought, I must not lie to her. What good would it do when it was obvious they were all going to die? And just then, as though confirming this, a loud explosion resounded above their heads. They both looked up at the ceiling, terrified. The blast had sounded very close, which could only mean the tripods were in Bloomsbury. They might even be coming down the Euston Road at that very moment, marching victoriously on three legs, firing randomly at buildings, wreaking destruction as they advanced, ruthlessly mowing down everyone, without considering for a moment that these humans falling beneath their ray were more than just cockroaches, they were beings with dreams and desires, and he himself had one desire in particular: to go on living in order to make the woman he loved fall in love with him.

“Tell me what I can do to make you fall in love with me,” Murray asked gently, once the echo of the blast had died away. “I might have time to make it happen before we die.”

Emma smiled, grateful to Murray for not having lied to her one last time by assuring her they would come out of this alive, or something of that sort, as anyone else would have done. And she liked the fact that this great bear of a man also differed from the others in that way.

“Well, I already know you’re capable of killing for me, even of hurling a monster through a window on my behalf,” she said, grinning. “That might be enough for any other woman, but I need something more, even though I can’t tell you what that is. In any event, there isn’t time for you to do much more.” She gazed at him with a mixture of tenderness and resignation even as she clasped his hands in hers. Murray acquiesced with a downcast look that made Emma sigh. Suddenly, her eyes lit up. “You’ll have to make me fall in love with you because of something you’ve already done! Yes, that’s it! What have you done in your life that could make me fall in love with you, Gilliam?”

Murray sighed. He loved hearing her say his name. In her mouth it sounded like a slice of cake or a segment of orange.

“Nothing, I’m afraid,” he replied with bitterness. “If I’d known I would have to make you love me by my actions, my life would have been very different, believe me. But I never thought I’d have to impress a lady that way, not a lady like you, at any rate.”

He leaned back in his chair and looked at her despondently. He loved her, and perhaps for that reason he knew her while scarcely knowing her. And he would go on loving her, even if she told him she had robbed or killed someone in the past, because he loved her and nothing she did would ever make him see her in a bad light. His love for her was so intense and irrational it even prevented him from judging her. He loved her for what she was, regardless of what she did or did not do. He loved her for her beauty, even though that would be a feeble way of putting it. Perhaps it was truer to say that he loved her way of being in the world, he loved her eyes, her smile, her mannerisms, the gentle way she would have robbed or killed. In contrast, she did not love him for who he was. How could she? he told himself, glancing at the reflection of the lumbering giant in the mirror opposite. His way of being in the world was worse than that of a cactus. She could only love what he was inside, what he was capable of doing, or perhaps what he had done, but unfortunately there was not much more he could do now, nor was there in his stockpile of memories any noble gesture of which he could be proud, no selfless act that he could now use to his advantage to conquer this woman’s heart.

“What must a man do to make you fall in love with him?” he asked, more out of curiosity than anything else, for he assumed that, whatever it might be, he could not have done it, even unintentionally. “Has any man ever done anything that made you feel you could fall in love with him?”