Sean was still spark out, lying in a facedown sprawl diagonally across the massive bed. It was odd he hadn’t woken at the phone, but considering the energy he’d expended during the night, I reckoned he deserved to sleep a little longer. So did I, come to that.
“I’m just going to jump in the shower,” I said quietly. “Give me ten minutes—all right?”
My father agreed, reluctant, seemed about to say more but changed his mind.
“Very well,” he said instead, clipped, and left me to it.
True to my word, I was out of the shower, dried, dressed and armed inside nine minutes. Sean stirred as I came back in, rolled towards me. His face was shuttered.
“All right?”
“Yes,” I said, feeling suddenly awkward as the memories resurfaced. “His lordship demands breakfast, so I’ll go down with him.”
He nodded. “And, no doubt, an explanation about last night.”
My face flooded and I paused with one hand on the door handle. “Well,” I said, “he might have to whistle for that.”
My father answered his own door sharply to my knock, already dressed in another of his immaculate, conservative suits. He gave me a narrow-eyed stare as though looking for something he could complain about. Not finding anything immediate seemed to annoy him all the more. He was positively glowering in the elevator, and the waiter who intercepted us at the hotel restaurant entrance almost stepped back in the face of such an obvious black mood, stuttering through his seasoned greeting.
I waited until we were both seated. My father took out his reading glasses and studied the breakfast items on offer with fierce concentration. He closed the menu with a distinct snap when the waiter returned to pour iced water.
“Eggs Benedict and a pot of Earl Grey tea,” my father told him, brusque, peering over the top of his frames. “And please be sure to boil the water for the tea.”
“Yes sir,” the waiter said, flustered. “And, er, are you ready to order, ma’am?”
“I’ll have a half Florida grapefruit, a bowl of Raisin Bran with two percent milk, wheat toast—dry—and a decaf,” I said. “And a glass of juice. Do you have cranberry?”
“Yes ma’am.”
“Great. Make it a large.” For some reason, I seemed to have worked up an appetite.
The waiter almost grabbed our menus, took a last look at my father’s scowling face as though debating the wisdom of some further question, then fled.
“You’ve picked up the language, I see,” my father said when we were alone once more.
“Funny that,” I said equably. “What with us and the Yanks both speaking English.”
He made an impatient gesture with his left hand. “You’ve picked up the inflection,” he amended. “You still sound English, but you ask questions like an American. And what on earth is two percent milk?”
I shrugged, tugging the linen napkin out of its starched origami folds and draping it across my lap. “After the first few weeks you fall into the phrasing, otherwise you repeat yourself a lot. It seemed easier to adapt to survive—at least so I didn’t go hungry in restaurants.” I smiled. “And two percent milk is semi-skimmed.”
“Adapt and survive,” he murmured. “Yes, I suppose that’s what you do best.”
I would have queried that, but the waiter had hurried back again, with a pot bearing an orange tag for decaffeinated coffee, and my glass of juice.
“Your tea will be right out, sir,” he said to my father, beating a hasty retreat before an opinion could be expressed.
I took a sip of my coffee, which was unusually rich and dark and smooth, and propped my elbows on the table while I held the cup under my nose, just for the smell of it.
And all the time my eyes were circling round the restaurant, checking out the other diners, the reinforced glass panels in the service doors that gave me a view into the harshly lit kitchen, the exits, and the positioning of the staff. It was all becoming second nature now and knowing that was so made the colors brighter, the sounds sharper. I lived in that explosive sliver between the what if and the when.
“You better just come right out and say it,” I said mildly. “Whatever’s on your mind, I mean. Right now, there’s an elephant in the room that everyone’s avoiding mention of, and I don’t really fancy it sticking its trunk into my breakfast cereal.”
My father’s face ticked before he could stop it. He took a moment to control the surge of his temper, straightening his knife and fork until they were exactly aligned with his place mat. His hands were absolutely steady but then, in his profession they had to be.
“I used to find your flippancy at the most inappropriate moments somewhat difficult to take, Charlotte,” he said. “But I find it particularly distasteful after last night.”
“Ah yes—last night,” I murmured, keeping my voice lazily amused even though I felt my fingers tense around the coffee cup. I compelled them to unclamp and set the cup down in its saucer without a clatter. “O-kay, let’s get this over with.”
The waiter was back again, sliding a rack of toast and a teapot onto the table before running away. My father winced a little when he saw the string for the teabag dangling out from under the lid, but he heroically restrained himself from complaint.
“I’m not entirely sure what’s worse,” he said then, conversational. “The fact that he obviously hurt you, or the fact that you evidently enjoyed it.”
“Sean didn’t hurt me,” I said in a similar matter-of-fact tone, snagging a slice of toast and a little pot of strawberry preserve from the middle of the table.
My father linked his fingers together and regarded me over the top of them. “You have fresh bruises on your wrists that weren’t there yesterday,” he said, a dispassionate diagnosis. “Which means not only that you were held down with considerable force, but also that you resisted.”
What do I say to that? That Sean was angry? That he didn’t mean it? That I’d witnessed all too clearly the wave of disgust that had crossed his face when he’d seen what he’d done? So, which was the greater evil to admit to my father—deliberate cruelty or careless brutality?
And because I couldn’t think of anything to say that wouldn’t make it worse, I didn’t say anything. Instead, I shrugged and took a bite of my toast, but my throat had closed dangerously and I had to chase it down with a mouthful of juice.
“Has he ever … hit you?”
“Yes,” I said, leaving just enough of a pause to push him for a reaction. There wasn’t one. “We spar together. Of course he has.”
A sigh. “Don’t be obtuse, Charlotte,” he said, and the clip was back with a vengeance. “You know exactly what I mean.”
“No, he’s never beaten me up, if that’s what you’re getting at.” I allowed myself a small smile as I took another swig. “I’m hardly in danger of becoming a battered wife.”
That got a response. Instant, more of a flinch than anything else.
I put down my glass, smile fading. “My God,” I said softly. “Is that what you’re afraid of? That we might get married and then it would be official—he’d be your son-in-law and you’d have to accept him? Is that it?”
“Of course not,” my father evaded sharply. “Do you find it quite so difficult to believe that I—we—might be concerned for your welfare?” And, when my skepticism was clearly demonstrated by my lack of answer, he glanced away and added carefully, “People who have been through the kind of trauma that you experienced, often have a certain amount of difficulty forming normal relationships afterwards.” He looked up abruptly, met my eyes. “They self-harm. They look for sexual partners who will hurt them. They need the pain in some way, like worrying at a nagging tooth. I find it … pitiful.”