Part 10 (1/2)
”Terribly sad. Do you want to know something?” Her voice was a conspiratorial hush. I didn't want to know anything more, in fact, only wanted to jump out of my seat and run, but Marta kept talking like nothing had happened. ”When he lost her, he blamed himself for it.”
”L-lost her?”
”In the car accident. He was driving, but of course it was a bad road, icy. They never do maintain those back roads too well. Not enough salt to keep the ice away, even if the paparazzi hadn't been chasing them around it would have ended the way it did. Just a bad patch of ice, anyone would have hit it.” Marta didn't notice my exhale, my fingers wiping away the unshed tears from my eyes.
A rush of conflicting feelings jostled for place in my heart. Relief, that Eliot didn't have a wife-guilt, for feeling relief. A newfound hope that I crushed down inside myself with caution, for I knew I couldn't get too close to him. And an overwhelming sense of sorrow, not just for Eliot's loss, but for the burden on himself that such a loss must have created.
”I'm sorry. I didn't know.” I managed to stammer out words, even if I didn't know what I was saying.
”Of course you didn't, poor thing, he doesn't talk about it with anyone. Too proud, too distant. Otto is the same, in many ways. Keeps to himself.” Marta sipped at her water and snapped her fingers above her head. ”Waiters aren't worth a d.a.m.n here. Are you alright?” She had just now noticed the expression of shock on my face.
”I'm fine.” I wasn't, but that wasn't Marta's fault. I couldn't help but think of how guilty Eliot must feel. Marta reached across the table and took my hand in hers,pressing her palm down sympathetically.
”Well, I'm so glad he's found himself someone to keep company with.”
I extricated my fingers from her grasp and took a sip of the water in front of me. It tasted faintly bitter and I swallowed, my eyes downcast.
”I'm just here for the interns.h.i.+p,” I said. In my heart, though, I hoped against hope that I could be more to Eliot than a student.
CHAPTER TEN.
Eliot pa.s.sed the time in his study, working on his projective algorithm problem. He knew that he was on the cusp of something, but he couldn't figure out exactly how to make it work. Each avenue he tried got cut off at the crucial pa.s.s, and then he would have to start over again with a new guess.
Brynn came back from the lunch later in the afternoon. He opened the door to her knock, only to see her carrying a half dozen shopping bags in each hand. He waved to Marta in her car as she sped off down the driveway. A tension inside of him released when he saw Brynn again, safe and whole. He leaned forward to take her bags from her and was surprised when she kissed him on one cheek, then the other. His heart stirred at the pressure of her soft lips against his skin, and he wished he had taken the opportunity to shave while she was gone.
”I'm sorry,” he said, hefting her shopping bags in one arm and looking at her new outfit. ”I'm hosting an ill-dressed American girl here in my home. Do you know where she might have gone?”
”I was not ill-dressed, only ill-dressed for Budapest,” Brynn said, a frown crinkling her nose in mock anger. She strode past him and knelt down to pet the kitten who already seemed to know her step and who had come out of the recesses of the castle's rooms to greet her.
”So glad to see you've adjusted to the climate.”
”It's adjusting to me...the sun is so nice outside, I'd swear I was in California if there wasn't so much snow on the ground.”
”You bring the suns.h.i.+ne with you,” Eliot said, the words escaping his lips before he could stop them. He knew he shouldn't be saying sweet things, shouldn't be leading her toward anything unprofessional, but he could not help the swelling in his heart when he looked at her bright face.
”Can we go exploring?” Brynn looked up from petting the kitten, and her eyes sparkled.
”Yes, of course,” Eliot said. ”Just let me put on some boots. I was working on the projection proof.”
”Oh, well, I don't want to keep you from your work. I can go by myself.”
”No, let's go together!” Eliot felt a rise of enthusiasm in him, and he did not know from where it came. ”I could use some time to clear my head. And I don't want you out there alone.”
”Right, right. Can Lucky come?”
Eliot looked at the small kitten and tilted his head in consideration.
”I wouldn't chance it. There are owls out there.”
”Ah, you wouldn't like the snow anyway, Lucky.” She placed the small kitten on the couch, but he promptly jumped off and skittered away into the corridor.
”He's been doing a lot of exploring inside,” Eliot said.
”He hasn't been bothering you, has he?” Brynn said.
Eliot shook his head, thinking of the kitten clawing his ankles while he tried to work on his math, then meowing for more food as soon as he had finished eating the leftover bits of turkey Eliot had given him.
”Not at all,” he said.
They walked out through the gardens in the back of the estate. Eliot had been through the paths so many times before that he could have walked through them blindly, but Brynn stopped every few feet to examine the different plants that had frosted over in the winter. She found a spider's web sagging with the weight of frozen dewdrops, the spider nowhere to be found. With every turn of the path came a new treasure for Brynn to muse over, and Eliot soon found himself engrossed in the minutiae of the walk, seeing the trail in a way he hadn't seen it in a long, long time. With someone else to see Budapest for him, he was beginning again to fall in love with his homeland.
”Come,” he told Brynn, once they reached a fork in the path where the snowdrifts rose before them. ”I want to show you something.” He clambered up the side of one snowdrift, feeling utterly awkward and ill-equipped for such exertions. But when he got over the s...o...b..nk and squeezed through the rock pa.s.sage, he found the spot just as he had left it. A bed of rocks overlooked the pool of a small stream, now frozen over. The pine branches overhead drooped with a thousand tiny icicles off of its needles. Moss partially covered the rocks, creeping green and alive even under the frost, and he brushed the snow aside to sit down.
”This is beautiful,” Brynn said. She stood beside him, looking down into the frozen pool. Under the gla.s.sy surface, dark waters still roiled, fed by an underground river. Eliot felt his heart swell with the love of a place that can only come about through a long and intimate familiarity. He knew this bank better than he knew his bedroom.
”I used to come here all the time when I was a child.”
”You grew up here? In a castle?”
Eliot paused. He didn't know how much to tell.
”It's my family's.”
”Did you ever have to defend the castle from marauding hordes?” Brynn grinned, and Eliot breathed a sigh of relief that she had not not pushed further back.
”Of course,” he said. ”We just poured boiling hot oil on their heads, though.”
”No archers from the roof? Or a moat?”
”This is the only moat on the property,” Eliot said, nodding to the small stream.
”Aw,” Brynn said. ”What about a torture chamber in the bas.e.m.e.nt?”
”No torture devices in our bas.e.m.e.nt, at least none that I knew about. We do have the baths, though.”
”Baths?”
Eliot pressed his lips together. He should not have mentioned them.
”They're just bathing rooms, fed by hot springs that run underground.”
”No way! Like a hot tub?”
”Yes, like that.”
”How neat! I'd love to see them!” Brynn caught his eye and blushed, her skin turning a sweet pink color even in the cold. He thanked heaven inwardly that she had been the one to commit the fatal blunder and not him, but it was his fault for bringing the idea of the baths up in the first place. He turned away mercifully to stare at a branch heavy with the weight of snow.