“I’ll do that. Talk soon.”
Louise put the phone back on ring and stared at it. “He called, but.”
“But nothing. He called. If you’re not going to eat that bread, I will or Dunstan will. I’m off, and I will expect a report by close of business, Louise. Liam is family, and Dunstan’s worried about him.”
In other words, Jane was worried about Louise.
Louise tore off a nibble of bread. “Liam sounded fine, but… focused. He has an agenda.” He’d always had an itinerary for their day. She suspected he’d taken an itinerary to bed with them, too, and they always reached their destination.
Several times.
Jane packed up her half of the largely uneaten meal. “When a man calls with an agenda, then his objective is not ditching you, though I can understand why you might want to ditch him.”
“Go,” Louise said. “I want to listen to what Liam has to say, and not only because his accent is luscious.”
Jane left with a hug and a kiss, bustling off to make Damson County dangerous for opposing counsel, and doubtless to make a report to Dunstan.
“If I moved to Scotland,” Louise told her silent wheel, “Jane would visit, because Dunstan’s folks are there.”
Scotland had cast a spell independent of Liam. The light; the sense of an orderly society balanced with a long, tumultuous history; the natural beauty… the tablet.
“Aunt Ev would not visit, a definite plus.”
The studio had a single comfortable chair, over by the one north-facing window. Louise took her ale there, cracked the window, and sat down to wait for the longest nine minutes since minutes had been invented.
Liam had had such hopes for his plan when he’d been in Scotland, but now… He should have called, he should have discussed this with Louise, he should have waited.
He could not wait. He dialed, heart thumping against his ribs.
“Hello, Liam.”
“Has Jane left?” The soul of charm, he would never be. “I mean, how are you, Louise?”
He’d meant: I’ve missed you, every night, every day, everywhere.
“Jane executed a tactical, if dignified, retreat. I never asked you: Do you like Eritrean food?”
Would an upset woman ask such a thing? Would an indifferent woman ask that question?
“I enjoy the vegetarian dishes and particularly the bread. It wants a good ale, though.”
“I like you, Liam. I do not like waiting two weeks for you to be in touch.”
They’d been a busy, fraught two weeks. “In future, I’ll call more frequently.” He wouldn’t overtly promise that. Louise had probably heard plenty of sly, casual promises from men. “I would enjoy the occasional call from you as well, Louise, in case you were wondering.”
“I’m wondering,” Louise said, the hint of a Southern accent adding nuances to a mere two words.
“About?”
“Aboot? I’ve missed hearing your voice, Liam. I’ve wondered how you are, how the classes for the new term are shaping up, and if you’re happy.”
A hint of reproach with an entire hug’s worth of caring. Liam cast around for something witty, sophisticated, and charming to offer in return.
And failed. “I miss everything about you.” Pray God the condition was temporary. “Will you meet me in New York this weekend?”
An indrawn breath and then a pause. “New York is not my favorite place.”
Well, of course not. Louise had attended art school there, and nobody wanted to revisit the scene of their worst nightmares.
“I have a meeting to attend Friday in the city,” Liam said. “We can stay out in Connecticut, the Hudson Valley, wherever you please. I’d really like to see you.”
Fight for us, Louise. Please, I’m begging you, fight for us. Though if she declined, Liam would simply drive down to Maryland and put his case before her there. New York was important to his plans, but Louise was indispensable to his happiness.
“Cromarty, your technique needs work. You, I want to see. New York, I don’t much care for. Next time we do this, it won’t be New York.”
Relief, sweet and precious, coursed through him. “Next time we do this, we’ll follow your itinerary to the letter. Come up Friday afternoon, and we’ll go out for dinner. I want to take you somewhere fancy.”
“Do you like heather ale?”
“When a Scotsman says he wants to spend a fortune on your meal, you ask about ale?”
“You’ve never been parsimonious, Professor. Not in any sense. Find us a hotel in the Village, and I’ll take the train up from Baltimore. I’ll text you the details.”
Liam didn’t want to break the connection. “Or you could call me, anytime.”
“I just might, but for now, I have pots to throw, Liam. Stay out of trouble until I can get my hands on you.”
And mine on you. “I’ll do that. See you Friday, Louise, and thank you.”
For Louise, the thrown pot was the canvas, and the finish work—the glazing and texturing, the etched designs, the surface ornamentation—was where she expressed the greater part of her creativity. Shape, contour, heft, and other physical properties of ceramic art all mattered, but appearance made the first and greatest impact for her.
After Liam’s call, Louise allowed herself to glaze, fire, and finish a piece for the first time in five years. She was rooting in her shoulder bag for that small vase when she decided to instead grab her cell phone and check e-mail.
She still hadn’t dealt with messages Robert had left several days ago.
The train was barreling toward Penn Station, where Liam would meet her, and Louise wasn’t about to listen to Robert’s messages once she and Liam had connected.
The last two messages were simply, “C’mon Louise, call me,” and “This is rude behavior between colleagues, Lou. Pick up, would you?’”
Colleagues? They’d been roommates with a few unimpressive benefits.
The first message was broken up, something about a showing, and Robert would love to be her date for the evening. He was pleased about something.
Huh? If Robert said he was pleased for her, and using that eager, conspiratorial tone, then he was pleased for himself.
Delete. Delete. Delete.
The train pulled into the station, a subterranean dungeon of modern engineering and urban efficiency. Louise stepped onto the platform and extended the handle on her rainbow suitcase. New York was a place that moved forward at a dash not a dawdle, and Louise was moving with it.
Delete Georgia, delete lawyering, delete regrets. Maybe delete the entire USA except for the occasional visit. Good-bye to all of it; hello, creativity, courage, and happiness. Louise came up the escalator, into the regular chaos of the station, and there, standing motionless in the middle of it all, was Liam.
He’d worn a kilt, the colorful clan tartan he’d worn to climb Arthur’s Seat with her. For a moment, Louise simply beheld him, a calm, handsome guy oblivious to the few glances his attire earned.
Louise rolled right up to him, dropped the handle of her suitcase, and threw her arms around him.
“I love you, Liam Cromarty.”
His arms came around her, slowly. “I beg your pardon?”
No regrets, no looking back, no waiting around for good fortune to sprinkle some random luck her way.
“I love you, Liam Cromarty. I’ve enjoyed every moment I’ve spent in your company, and I’m very glad you’re here. I brought you some sambusas.”
“Sambusas are good, if they’re not too spicy.”
His embrace was desperately snug—and dear—while his words were tentative.
“Relax, Cromarty. When I say I love you, I’m stating a fact that makes me happy. I’m not handing out a pass/fail quiz for you to complete. Let’s get out of this noise, and out of our clothes.”
Liam turned loose of Louise enough to grab the handle of her suitcase, but kept an arm around her shoulders.
“Aye to both. The sooner, the better.”
<
br /> Louise’s lovemaking had changed in only a few weeks, become more passionate and tender, more lyrical and demanding. Her very walk had changed, from a businesslike gait to an open stride that said she knew exactly where she was going.
She loved him . If Liam had doubted Louise’s words, he could not doubt her actions. As she wrestled Liam over her and wiggled her way beneath him, her smooth, warm curves, and strong hands eased aches in his heart even before they’d tended to other aches.
“You’ve missed me, then?” Liam asked, kissing her cheek. He could wallow in the simple scent of her.
“Desperately. How about if we screw like bunnies now and save the romantic stuff for later? This is Manhattan. We can have Eritrean delivered with a side of Thai fusion and designer ice cream chaser.”
A sure recipe for indigestion.
“We’ll compromise,” Liam said, angling his head to take a nipple between his teeth. “We’ll be romantic bunnies.”
Louise retaliated by grabbing his bum in a potter’s very firm grasp, and his hair, and kissing him witless while she wrapped her legs around him and muttered about how he’d better have brought her some tablet.
“I brought you tablet,” Liam said, levering up onto his elbows. “I’ve brought you all manner of sweets, including,”—in one hard, sure thrust, he ended their mutual teasing—“this. God, I’ve missed you.”
They went still for a moment, smiling at each other. Liam needed to see that same smile on Louise’s face when the evening ended, too. The thought helped him hold back, helped him impersonate a very romantic, hopelessly besotted rabbit who’d do anything for his lady.
Except change their plans for the evening.
Louise was asleep, her head in Liam’s lap, when his phone chimed six-thirty. Outside, the ceaseless screech, thump, and horn blasts of traffic had shifted from the day to the evening song of the city, and the sun was taking its light away.
“Wake up, love,” Liam whispered, tousling Louise’s hair. “Time for bright lights, big city.”
Time to risk everything on the hope that they had a future. A better man would have spent the afternoon sightseeing with her, but Liam simply hadn’t been able to. Louise had lived in New York for several years. She didn’t need another visit to Rockefeller Plaza, not as badly as Liam needed to have her to himself.
Possibly for one last time.
“Sleep,” Louise muttered, nuzzling at him. Thank goodness the sheets came between her cheek and his equipment, because she’d already proved her mouth was a powerful weapon against his best intentions.
“No more of your tricks, Louise Cameron. We need sustenance.”
“Carryout.”
Any other night with her, in any other city, even in this city. “I brought my Highland dress regalia, and by God you’ll help me into it.”
Her head came up. “The fussy kilt? With the jacket and vest and knee socks?”
“The very one, though I can still stash some tablet in my sporran.” A dress sporran, complete with tassels and silver trim.
Liam explained each piece of the full outfit and affixed his sgian-dubh to his left calf, because the evening ought to be a hospitable outing. The only other sharp knife in evidence might be the one Louise would take to his heart.
Liam’s cell phone had been quiet for once, an encouraging sign.
When he was properly attired in formal Highland dress, Louise shimmied into a dark green silk sheath that was lovely, but not half so intriguing to Liam as her shimmying.
“Down, laddie,” he muttered in the direction of his sporran.
“Will you get the hook at the top of my zipper?” Louise asked, turning her back and sweeping her hair off her nape. The engagement ring Liam had brought with him would go wonderfully with her dress—an encouraging omen, surely.
Liam obliged, though fastening the small hook and eye took several tries. “You’ll wear your hair down?”
“Not quite, but give me five minutes for some lip gloss and eyeliner, and I’ll be ready to go.”
Hotel rooms in New York were priced in proportion to their square footage, and Liam had not splurged on a penthouse. Preparing for the evening together had an extra intimacy because of the cozy quarters, and because getting dressed up for a night on the town was another new, shared experience for them.
A vision in green and grace emerged from the bathroom. The dress made Louise’s natural movements shimmer and slide, and she’d done something with her hair—left it cascading over one shoulder, not up, not down. All manner of curving lines, from her hips to her shoulders, to her knees, danced as she moved.
“I don’t believe I’ve ever seen you in heels,” Liam said. Inane remark, but it made her smile.
“These are low heels. I can stand around in them all night, but only you would notice a lady’s shoes.”
The shoes were a seafoamy green and sparkly, like magic slippers. Gold dangled from Louise’s earlobes, and a single jade teardrop hung from a gold chain right above her cleavage.
“I wish, for the first time in my life, that I could paint,” Liam said. “We’d need a bed in my studio, though.”
“If you keep talking like that, we’ll never get to the restaurant,” Louise replied, Georgia swaying through her vowels. She picked up a gold clutch purse from the night table and the vision of luscious, relaxed sophistication was complete.
Seven fifteen on the nose. “I’ve reservations at eight,” Liam said, not exactly a lie. “Not far from here, in fact.”
“Then lay on, Cromarty, because somebody helped me work up an appetite.”
Liam was the envy of every man who saw them, and he’d never had such quick luck hailing a New York cab. As he handed Louise in, and gave the cabby directions, Liam prayed his luck would hold for the rest of the night.
A student could live in New York for several years and not learn much more of the town than the nearest cheap restaurants, a couple of suds-yer-duds, and a half-dozen coffee shops. Louise had fared a little better than that, but not much.
“Is this restaurant one of your favorites?” Louise asked as Liam handed her out of the cab.
“I hope you’ll like this place,” Liam said, winging his arm at her, though nobody walked down the street in New York arm in arm.
What did that matter? Louise took Liam’s arm, though they were in the skyscraper canyons of the Financial District. By day, all would be sunlight reflecting off of new construction, and bustling crowds of sharply-dressed professionals exuding stress and self-importance in equal measure.
“In here,” Liam said, gesturing to a discrete, formal façade in the middle of a block. A limousine waited by the curb.
Maybe the restaurant was in the basement or on the roof?
Louise walked with Liam past a reception area where a guard at a desk asked for their names. Louise was too busy studying the frescoes and paintings on the walls to pay much attention.
“This place is gorgeous,” she said, when Liam would have hauled her over to the elevators. “Can you imagine what that stained glass looks like in daylight?”
“It’s magnificent,” Liam said, “and the patterns the window glass makes on the floor on a sunny afternoon are intended to dance with the inlays on the tiles. We’ll come back and admire it someday.”
A note in his voice caught Louise’s attention. They’d have a someday, a lot of somedays, of that Louise was increasingly certain. She didn’t need pretty words when she had that steady, tender regard in Liam’s blue eyes.
“Let’s go to dinner,” she said, taking Liam’s hand. “We’ll do the Met tomorrow, assuming I let you out of bed.”
“We’ll do the Met,” Liam answered, kissing her on the mouth. “Or whatever you please.”
He was dangerously good-looking in his finery, not simply because he was a handsome guy. He knew how to wear Highland formal attire, knew exactly where the sporran ought to rest, knew the feel of the kilt draped against his thighs.
“I still want to sketch
you,” Louise murmured as they stepped off the elevator. “Without your clothes, Liam.”
They were in another lobby of sorts, a mezzanine space that stretched for much of the floor. People milled about here, and to one side of the area, a buffet had been set up.
The flowers along the buffet were gorgeous without being too showy. Purples and greens with the occasional dash of yellow or red.
“Liam? This does not look like a restaurant.” It looked like a reception… or a showing. Louise’s gaze returned to the flowers, beautiful, understated and vaguely disquieting.
“There’s plenty to eat,” Liam said. “I made sure of that, and the bar’s in that corner. Let’s have a look at the main attraction, though, shall we?”
Restaurants did not have main attractions. One of Louise’s former professors, a woman who’d done quite well with textiles, waggled her fingers at Louise and disquiet threatened to coalesce into anxiety.
“Robert’s here,” Louise said, her middle abruptly recalling the bleak feel of Culloden Battlefield. “I never wanted to see him again, Liam. Why would you ask me to get all dressed up just so you could take me someplace where I’d have to deal with him?”
And God help her, Larry O’Connor, the grand old man of studio art reviews was over at the bar.
“Robert has come to practice his skills as a hanger-on,” Liam said. “The show is public, so I couldn’t keep him out even after what Jane had to say about him when I interrogated her yesterday. You needn’t speak to him, but you might enjoy his groveling.”
Through a set of glass and chrome double doors, somebody moved and Louise caught a flash of a tall vase on a white stand. All manner of blues and greens blended and swirled in the glazes, gold lurked at the edge of every color, and light seemed to pour from the surface.
“Liam Cromarty, what have you done?”
O’Connor waved, a jovial little troll of a man who’d spoken to Louise’s classes about art criticism throughout history.
“I have put right a wrong I did nearly a decade ago,” Liam said.
His hold on Louise’s hand was all that kept her from bolting for the elevators.
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