Page 39 of Unforeseen Affairs
Then his hands stilled, and he looked up.
“Well?”
Charlotte looked away at a crack in the plaster on the opposite wall, the one she’d always thought resembled a spider’s web.
“Desire.”
“Desire?” he echoed with hesitation. “Desire of what… sort?”
Of everything.
Anything she could imagine doing, any place she could imagine going. Whatever amazing wonders existed in the world, whatever unique truths it hid, Charlotte greedily wanted to discover it all. She knew that this was not necessarily a common yearning; that even among kindred spirits—seekers of knowledge like her father, and even those who, like him, had the means and time to do as they wished—people were often bound to the familiar by their own fears and worries.
She looked back to Sir Colin, her breath quickening. “I want to know.”
He studied her curiously, but soon relaxed.
“Know what, exactly?” he asked, smiling good-naturedly.
“Everything,” she whispered.
“Everything?”
“Our purpose.” She held his gaze, her body crackling with excitement. “Our place in this world and the next. The nature of man and the vast, uncharted potential of our minds. What exists beyond these decaying, corporeal vessels…”
She trailed off mid-thought. He was staring at her. Charlotte wet her lips before closing them tightly. If she’d been raised more conventionally, perhaps she would apologize for voicing such expansive thoughts. She thought of her mother, of how Charlotte would lie in her tiny trundle bed and listen to her mother sing to herself in the evenings as she unpinned her hair. Sometimes the memories were so real she felt she could simply close her eyes and be back there once more.
“I think I know what you’re after,” Sir Colin said, his voice gentle.
His hands resumed their work, tightly twisting the tangle of straw until it resembled a short piece of cordage.
“It’s akin to sailing. Exploring the ocean.” He pursed his lips, his brows knit. “The scale of it is unfathomable. Who can say what secrets lie hidden in its depths?”
A faint flush returned to his face; he kept his eyes on the cord of straw in his hands.
“That part of it I always loved. Being on the water, with not a speck of land to be seen in any direction. Floating atop this vast unknown, where nearly anything at all could happen.”
His jaw flexed.
He had said he’d no posting, no ship. And now he spoke of sailing as if it were a distant memory and not his current profession. Charlotte had wondered about it before, but now it hooked her attention. What secrets didhekeep beneath his genial façade? What bound him to the shore? A love? A worry? Something stemming from his mother’s grief over the loss of his brother?
Or was it something else entirely?
“And yet you are here,” she observed softly.
“On half-pay,” he added flatly. “For over a year now.”
She could ask why. But she supposed he would not give her a straight answer, despite his honest nature. Instead she crossed the room and took the bit of straw—now a small, rough scrap of rope—from his hands.
“Well done, you,” she said as she examined it closely. “You’re rather capable at most things you set your mind to, I suspect.”
“Do you think?” He smiled shyly.
Charlotte closed her hand around the scratchy thing before returning to the ostensible subject at hand.
“I think I should present myself as your distant relation,” she said. “Should we say a cousin?”
“What?” He brushed his hands off, brows furrowed. “Oh. You mean when we attend this next… séance affair.”
