Someone to Care (Westcott #4)(25)

She set down her coffee cup with a grimace. She had added more milk to counter the bitterness, and now it was too weak.

It is all quite sufficient to make one want to run away and hide, is it not? she had said earlier, before they made love for the last time. She supposed she would continue to hide, as she had done all her adult life, deep inside herself. She had burrowed deeper after the great catastrophe that had followed Humphrey’s death—only to have everything erupt out of her for no apparent reason a few days ago. She would press it all deep again and deeper yet from today on, and she would go inward with it. She would go so deep no one would ever find her again. Perhaps she would not even find herself.

The thought made her bite her upper lip to stop herself from crying—or laughing—and for a moment she thought the panic was going to return. But the dining room door opened and saved her.

“Good morning,” he said, all elegant formality. “Or have I already said that?”

“Good morning,” she said.

The innkeeper came hurrying in behind him and indicated a table a little removed from Viola’s.

“Perhaps, Mr. Lamarr,” she said, “you would care to join me?”

“Thank you,” he said. “I would.”

The innkeeper went to fetch more toast and coffee.

“Nothing else,” Marcel said firmly when the man tried to suggest eggs and beefsteak and kidneys.

They spoke of the weather until the innkeeper returned and had gone again. Viola was not sure if she was glad Marcel had come down or if she would have preferred him to stay in his room until after she had left. Her stomach was clenching about the little food she had eaten.

She hated goodbyes, especially when they were forever.

“Well, Viola.” He was leaning back in his chair, the fingers of one hand playing with his quizzing glass, a habit that was becoming familiar to her. He was making no effort to butter his toast.

“Well.” She made the effort to smile. There was never anything to say when there was all the world to say. She had to remind herself that there was nothing unusual about this to him.

“Well,” he said softly again. “Shall we run away?”

The absurdity of the suggestion struck her at the same moment as a great wave of yearning washed over her. Oh, if only . . .

If only life were that simple.

“Why not?” she said lightly.

“We will travel in your hired monstrosity of a carriage until we can replace it with something altogether more roadworthy,” he said. “And then we will go somewhere, anywhere, everywhere until we are ready to return. Next week, next month, next year. Whenever the urge to run away wears thin, if it ever does.”

“Well, I would like to see my grandchildren again before they grow up,” she said.

“Then we will return in fourteen years,” he said. “All the time we have not spent together since you commanded me to go away.”

“And where exactly will we go?” she asked. “Somewhere, anywhere, everywhere sounds a trifle vague.”

“But enticing, one must admit,” he said. “There are no limits upon where we can go. Scotland? The Highlands, of course. Wales? Within sight of Mount Snowdon, that is, or Harlech Castle. Ireland? America? Devonshire? I own a cottage there, nestled on a hillside above a river valley, not far from the sea. An ideal place for an escape. No one else lives nearby. Let us go there for a start, and if it proves to be not far enough, then we will move on. There are no permanent destinations in the land of running away.”

“That would be a splendid title for a children’s story,” she said. “‘The Land of Running Away.’ Though I am not sure it would teach a worthy lesson in life.”

“Why not?” he asked. “Do not all people, especially children, need to escape from their lives now and then—or all the time? Even if just through their imagination? Why else do people read? Or listen to music? Or travel?”

“Or dance.” He had still not touched his breakfast or even his coffee. “Do you read?”

“I am better at running away,” he told her.

“That can be done through reading,” she said. “You have just said so yourself.”

“But it is all too easy to be intruded upon when one is reading,” he said. “Or listening to music. Or traveling according to a planned itinerary one has shared for the convenience of all one’s relatives and friends who may wish to join one or call one back on some flimsy excuse.”

“Ah. We would send no notice of our intent to our families, then?” she asked. “Nothing to allay their anxieties, should they miss us?”

“That is exactly why it is called running away,” he said. “My family will not think of the Devonshire cottage, even supposing they think at all, which is highly unlikely. Your family does not even know about it. Or about me.”

He was gazing steadily at her, and she felt that wave of yearning again.

“How very tempting you make it sound,” she said with a sigh.

“But . . . ?” His eyebrows rose.

“Yes, but,” she said. “It is time for me to leave. Time to go home.”

“You are a coward, Viola?” he said.

And for the first time—oh, foolish, when she was dealing with a man she very well knew to be selfish and reckless and a law unto himself—for the first time it occurred to her that perhaps he was serious. That he was in truth asking her to run away with him to his remote cottage by the sea. Without a word to their families. Without any long-term plan. Without any careful consideration. He was seriously suggesting that she do the most irresponsible thing she had ever done in her life.