Chapter Fourteen
When Ravenna sat down at the foot of her bed, she thought Paul seemed different. There was relief in his countenance. The pain in his face, his anger over Fiona and getting back home, these things had been replaced by a tranquility of sorts, and yet Ravenna sensed it—he was still uneasy.
He hesitated before sitting down, carefully distancing himself so that even their clothes didn’t touch. “I’ve been thinking about our row,” he said, “about us being meant t’be here together.”
“Paul, I’m sorry.” And she really was, wished with all her heart she’d never said those things. “I shouldn’t have criticized Fiona or your marriage, or—”
“Yes you should have.” Rubbing at his neck, Paul gazed at the carpet, at the bedpost beside him before daring to continue. “And in fact you were right. I didn’t want to accept it, but you an’ me together, it’s just…God’s put us here for a reason, and the woman isn’t part of His plans, y’know?”
“No, there’s something else,” he said, “something I have to tell you.”
Wearily, he let his hand slip from his neck, down to the coverlet beside her fingers. “When I first saw you,” he said, his thumb moving over the damask pattern, “you see, I was telling you a lie. I did remember you, and…an’ I knew I’d been in love with you.”
Ravenna didn’t move, didn’t dare believe what she’d just heard.
“I don’t know how I knew it, and I’m not saying I still am,” he went on, “but it’s there, rollin’ around in the back of m’mind. That’s why I danced with you, though I haven’t had a date in me life, why I took you round to Christ Church instead of going home. That’s why I’ve been so surly with you.”
“You know, it does? But that doesn’t change me having t’get back to Fiona.”
“What? But you just said—”
“I know what I said, but you see, whether I love my wife or not isn’t the issue now. I can’t just abandon her. She might still want a divorce, even from Killiney, and how do I know he’ll not keep it from her on general principles?”
“So you are going to divorce her?”
Ravenna watched him carefully. She could tell he wasn’t angry, for he still hadn’t taken his hand away. “If you’re talking about marriage,” she said, “I’m sorry about what happened with James. I didn’t know he would force you like that.”
“But I knew he would. I knew it. He wasn’t going t’have it any other way, and if we’re gonna get on that ship of Vancouver’s, being engaged can’t hurt, now, can it?”
She glanced down at his hand in hers. “It might hurt you.”
Paul’s jaw stiffened. “It might,” he said, and raising their fingers clasped together, he kissed the back of Ravenna’s wrist. “But lookin’ at you, I’ll get used to it.”