Never had she seen him in the throes of a creation.
His fingers glided upon those pages with an ease and skill of a man who might as well have been born with a pencil in his hand.
Those hard lips that had been on her mouth and on her body last evening remained in a compressed line, with his flawless bottom white teeth holding it in place as if he sought an absolute stillness so as to not be distracted from—
Just then, he looked up, and Claire felt her cheeks burn hot at being caught observing him. For a brief moment, she thought about turning on her heel and climbing the stairs to oversee the packing of her things. But that would be an act of cowardice, and she was many things, but a coward was not one of them.
Holding her head high, she made her way over to the table.
The moment she reached his side, he snapped the book shut, as effortlessly stealing her right to view his work as she had his last evening.
But then, you only did so because you were sketching you and him together…
Claire reached his table.
“Had a plate made up for you,” he said by way of greeting as he packed his art supplies away in a familiar-looking army sack she recognized from her brother’s time serving in the King’s Army. Coming to his feet with an unexpected gallantry, he tugged a chair out. “It’s not terrible.” He motioned to her plate. “But it’s not great either.”
“Thank you,” she murmured and took the seat nearest him and that bag. She took in the boiled eggs, bacon, sausage, and buttered toast, and then folding her hands on her lap, she lifted her gaze to his. “For so much,” she added. “For sending Dahlia. For the rose water…”
Wonder of wonders, the unthinkable—nay, the impossible—happened. Caleb Gray blushed.
“Nothing really.”
“The small acts are oftentimes the greatest ones,” Claire said softly. “Alone here, away from my family, I…” And that was it. As she said it aloud for the first time, a wave of emotion buffeted her, and she blinked back tears she knew he’d despise and she hated just as much. Claire again made a show of studying her plate. “It was wonderful seeing a familiar face and knowing this kindness.” It had been so bloody long since she’d known any of that from those outside her immediate family.
“Probably would have preferred a friendlier face than my mug,” he said with his usual humor, and she knew what he was doing, knew he was attempting to diffuse her misery while sparing her pride, and her heart filled in the oddest way for this man before her.
She managed a smile. “No, your… mug does just fine, Mr. Gray.”
He chuckled. “That’s likely the first you’ve felt that way?”
Claire infused a twinkle in her eyes. “Oh, undoubtedly.” She softened that with a wink and then reached for her fork. Claire glanced about for a knife.
Wordlessly, Caleb pushed an oddly-shaped blade with a rounded tip toward her.
She eyed the peculiar knife a moment before accepting it to carve up the sausage. Spearing a piece, she lifted the fork to her mouth.
“Not too late,” Caleb murmured, freezing her in midbite.
She stared across the table at him. Claire had three choices—feign confusion as to what he was saying, ignore him and bring them back to the adversarial pair they so oftentimes were, or appreciate his honesty and return it with a directness of her own.
Perhaps any other time, she would have chosen either of the first two options.
This time, however, was different.
He wasn’t mocking.
He wasn’t cold and mean.
Why, it would have been easier if he had been.
Because this concerned version of Caleb Gray was bringing her near to blasted tears time and time again.
“You’re assuming I am having regrets. I’m not.” Attempting a breeziness she didn’t feel, Claire gave a toss of her head. “At all.”
Not in the way he was thinking anyway.
Lowering his elbows to the table, he leaned in. “You don’t seem convincing to me, Claire. You know what you seem?” He didn’t allow her to answer. “Scared. Lonely. Sad.”
Under the table, she curled her toes tightly into the soles of her serviceable leather boots. How did he see all that? “You can’t know that,” she said, glancing down at her fork.
He remained silent until she picked her head up. “I’m an artist, Claire. The same as you.”
It was the first time he’d called her an artist, and that, coupled with all these kindnesses and concern from the unlikeliest of man, pushed her closer to the brink of tears. “I’m a pastel and paint miss who has no place in an art room,” she reminded him, echoing those words he’d tossed at her the day she’d arrived in Poppy’s makeshift art room only to find herself alone with his work before he’d arrived. “Either way, that doesn’t give you insight into—”
“These little lines here.” His quiet interruption cut across the remainder of her challenge. Caleb touched the pad of his thumb to the right corner of her mouth, that callused finger brushing against her lips. “Most people carry their tension here.” He moved his finger back and forth across the middle of her brow. Even his artist’s touch, methodical and measuring as it was, crippled the pattern of her breathing. It cinched her chest and made it a fight to keep her lashes from fluttering closed as she recalled all the power he was capable of with that touch. “But you? You pucker right here.” He caressed the tip of his index finger between her eyebrows, sliding that touch off the end of her nose. Caleb lingered there, his gaze holding hers, searing for the power of his stare. “It’s in your eyes, too, Claire. It is in your eyes.” With that, he drew his hand back, picked up a piece of untouched toast from his plate, and took a large bite.
She waited for him to say more. To press her further. But… he didn’t. He’d laid out precisely what he’d seen—with an unerring accuracy—and now let Claire be the one to decide just what she would or would not share. Because of that, Claire found herself speaking.
“I… don’t really have regrets. I want to marry him.” Caleb gave her a long look over the top of his crusty bread. “I do,” she insisted. “I just… it just occurred to me that I am saying goodbye to my family and previous life.”
“And it was a comfortable one,” he stated, this time without the usual recrimination when mentioning her birthright.
“It used to be a good deal more comfortable.” Before she’d learned the horrendous evil her father had been responsible for. An act her mother had not only been complicit in, but had orchestrated. Before she’d learned everything about her life had been a lie.
“Before Poppy?” Caleb asked, and the frown in his voice pulled her out of her dark musings.
She bristled. “I would never speak so of Poppy. I love her,” she said simply, and she resented to her core that this man should believe her capable of disdaining Poppy in any way.
It is also that he should so readily defend her, all the while believing the worst about you.
Dropping an elbow on the table in a way that would have horrified her mother, Claire pushed a piece of sausage around her plate with the fork in her opposite hand, staring forlornly at the piece.