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 The pain in his face, his anger over Fiona and getting back home, these things had been replaced by a tranquility of sorts, and yet Ravenna sensed it—he was still uneasy.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?”
Ravenna bit her lip. “Maybe that is the reason. Maybe He put you here so you’d see how you really felt about your wife.”
“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.”
Hearing those words, that he’d felt something even in Dublin, that he loved her…Ravenna nursed a shudder. When he leaned a little nearer, his eyes imbued with unwitting warmth, she found herself reaching for his hand, covering it with her own awkward caress. “The longer we’re here, the stronger the feeling gets, doesn’t it?”
“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?”
“I’m gonna go back and tell her I’m alive even if it takes four years, t’make sure she’s taken care of one way or the other. Beyond that, I don’t know what I’ll do, but I’m telling you, I’m not doin’ it here.”
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.”