“Welcome to St. Jack’s,” Silas said as he got out. “If you haven’t already been here.”
Ivie opened her own door and met him in front of the Bentley’s glossy hood. “I’ve heard of this place! There are commercials on local TV for it all the time.”
“It’s a source of goodness in this world, I promise you.”
Silas was gallant as any aristocrat as he offered her his arm and escorted up to the entrance. As he held open the door for her, she walked past him and was hit with a wall of warmth that was like sinking into a bathtub.
The ceiling was low, the beams exposed, the floor planks wide and scuffed. The place was packed, but then again, the seating area was filled with only ten four-tops, the tables and chairs unmatched just like the silverware and the plates and the glasses. There was only one vacancy, right in front of the fireplace, and as the sixty-year-old hostess came up, Ivie knew he’d gotten the best spot for them again.
“Are you Mr. Ivie?” the woman asked him.
“I am.”
“Right this way,” she said with a cheerful tone.
Silas slipped his arm around Ivie’s waist, and together they wended their way through the other customers. “Hope you don’t mind the name,” he whispered in her ear.
“I love it.”
After they passed over their coats to the lady, he settled Ivie in her chair, and then he was sitting across from her and they were picking up parchment menus as house wine was poured.
While Silas mulled over the short list of options, Ivie glanced around. He was attracting a lot of attention in the room, even the servers looking across at him. Then again, he was like a sports car on a country road, she supposed, something unusual and fancy.
“Do you not like it?” he said. “We can go?”
“Oh, no. This is right up my alley.”
“Good. So what are you thinking?”
Shaking herself, she checked out the entrees. “Shepherd’s pie. That sounds perfect. Hearty and will last me through the night.”
“I think I’ll have the same.”
Extending his arm, he reached across and took her hand. As his thumb rubbed back and forth, she stared into his eyes and marveled at the color—or lack thereof—of them. His stare was so pale, it reminded her of the moonlight on snow.
“I missed you,” he said quietly. “There. I admitted it.”
“I missed you, too.” She tilted her head. “You know what I like about you? I don’t have to hide. Well, let me rephrase that. I can be myself and you seem to like that—I’ve never been good at hiding.”
“And that’s what I like most about you. Life can be very…obstructed sometimes. As I’ve gotten older, I’ve learned to value reality over fantasy and optimism.”
“All joking aside, I’ve heard the glymera is pretty polluted with posturing.” She smiled. “So I’m the anti-aristocrat, huh.”
“I also like you because you make me feel alive.”
Ivie squeezed his hand. “You know what’s funny?”
“What?”
“That’s exactly what happens for me, too.”
* * *
—
Two hours never passed so fast—which kind of sucked. But that was what happened when there was never a lull in conversation and you cared about every word the other person was saying. Silas told her about his childhood, growing up in a castle in the Old Country and haunting humans over the moors. She gave him the definitive list of eighties’ movies he had to watch. They enjoyed the food. Well, she did, at any rate. He didn’t eat much, but explained that he’d had a huge First Meal at four in the afternoon.
“I can’t believe I have to go to work now,” Ivie said as she pushed her empty dessert plate away. “And oh, my God, that trifle was the best thing I’ve ever had. I want to thank you for not asking to share it.”
He smiled at her over the rim of his coffee cup. “I enjoyed watching you enjoy it. That was sustenance enough for me.”
“Are you going to let me pay?”
“No. But not because I’m a chauvinist. I like to think I’m traditional so if it was my idea, I cover the check.”
“Some night, you’re going to let me take you out.”
As she said that, a spear of sadness went through her chest. The idea they didn’t have an endless stream of these evenings to look forward to seemed like a tragedy.
Melodramatic much?
“So tomorrow night,” he said, “I have something else planned—”
“Oh, shit.” She clapped her hand over her mouth. “Sorry.”
“I don’t care that you swear. You have plans?”
“I, ah—yeah, sorry. There’s this family birthday party, and I have to go to it. It starts at like ten tomorrow night, but they go for hours. I’ll be lucky to get out of there by three a.m. I was looking forward to being with you, though.”
“I can come with you. If you don’t mind being seen with a reprobate like me in front of your bloodline.”
Ivie lowered her coffee cup onto its saucer. “You would do that? I mean, Silas, seriously, these are not your peeps. My dad has tattoos and a Harley. He and my mahmen live in a prefab house out on a farm, and eat their own chickens. We’re talking beer out of a can, a store-bought cake, and hunting dogs running around under the table.”
Silas shrugged. “I’d love to meet your family.”
“Well, if you’re looking for an exotic meal,” she muttered, “you’re going to get it.”
When she didn’t say anything further, he leaned in, the firelight flickering over his face. “Listen, if it will lead to questions you aren’t going to want to answer, I get it. I’m happy to wait until your next night off.”
Ivie ducked her eyes and picked up her spoon just to give her hand something to do. As she stirred her going-cold coffee for no good reason at all, her foot was tapping under the table.
“I’ll skip it,” he said with an easy smile. “And I’ll come see you after you’re back—”
“I don’t want you to judge them. I mean, I know you’re cool with me, but that’s probably because of our sexual attraction. My family is all I’ve got for assets in this world, and as far as I’m concerned, that makes me rich. They’re good, honest folk who have nothing to apologize for.”
He frowned. “I’m not a snob.”
“You know your car? It’s probably more expensive than their house.”
“And that makes me disrespect them somehow?”
“It’s a different world. You have no idea how they’ve struggled, Silas. You haven’t walked in hard shoes. You’ve had everything given to you on a silver platter, from what it sounds like. I mean, your childhood home was a castle. That’s a step up from a mansion, for godsakes.”
He looked away to the fire. “No hard shoes, huh.”
“I mean, come on. What’s the most difficult thing you’ve ever had to confront? Seriously, I don’t want to come across as a bitch here, but my parents lost everything in a fire ten years ago. Because the electric heater, which was the only thing keeping their house warm, shorted out. My cousin Farle almost died—and that never would have happened if they had been able to afford a real furnace. Have you ever had to face something like that? Have you ever had to choose which of your kids went hungry? When you were starving yourself?”
His brows dropped down low and he stayed silent.
And the longer things were quiet between them, the more the incompatibilities became apparent. Not that he was going to be around for much longer, anyway.
“I can’t have young,” he said gruffly. “I’m never going to get mated. And the last thing I want to do is leave Caldwell, but there’s nothing I can do about it because the decision isn’t mine.”
Ivie felt a cold wash come over her head. And the sensation got worse as he eased to the side, took his wallet out, and pulled free two hundred-dollar bills.
As he rose to his feet, he looked down at her. “I don’t blame you for being suspicious of me or my character. The aristocracy has more than earned any commoner’s distrust by its reputation alone. What I do resent the hell out of is your not giving me a chance to prove myself otherwise and assuming that just because I have money in the bank that my life is a cakewalk. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to leave. I know you’re dematerializing to work anyway so there’s no need to give you a ride. Good night, Ivie.”