Centuries of Sin : Book IV

4

“Don’t tell anybody?” Elizabeth laughed dryly. “Who am I going to tell? I know three people outside of this house and they were all at or involved with the birth of that child. It’s not like I have anyone to gossip with, is it?”

“No, but…” Sawyer glanced down the stairs, trying to determine whether Klara might overhear before he continued. “Elizabeth, she really is special; I can’t stress that enough. She’s also an infant, and if the wrong people hear about this, she could be in danger. I’m not trying to patronize you, but it’s important that you understand that.”

She nodded; she knew that he wasn’t trying to be condescending.

“We should probably go out, anyway. We have no food here and I would rather not go begging for scraps. I didn’t think about that when we got back, but I guess it’s not a bad thing that…” she stopped talking as Sawyer walked towards the stairs. “What are you doing?”

He looked confused by the question.

“I’m going downstairs. Is that going to be a problem?”

“You can’t just walk around with no shirt on.”

He smiled and bit his lip teasingly.

“You’ve never complained about it before.”

“I know, and I am not complaining now; I just don’t want you to make Klara feel weird and you didn’t feel a need to parade around with your top off before I told you she’s shy about that so I don’t know why you are insisting on it now.”

“You weren’t complaining last night, either. You were the one who instigated things, even though you insisted we shouldn’t go near each other in case she felt bad. I don’t know what is up with you, but you need to treat Klara like an adult.”

Elizabeth was blushing at the reminder of how easy it had been to get her to change her mind, and it made her feel defensive.

“There’s nothing up with me; no more than usual, anyway. It’s just important to me that Klara doesn’t feel like an outsider, because she didn’t end up alone for a reason the way that we did and she’s clearly been f****d up by it. And from what she told me yesterday, my dad wasn’t very nice to her while she was growing up and it may actually have been because of me, so… I just think being nice to her is the right thing to do. You’re the one who said being compassionate costs nothing but a lack of compassion can cost a person everything, remember. Wearing your shirt and being a little more subtle than we’ve been used to while we’ve been on our own is the compassionate thing to do.”

“That’s probably the only insightful thing I have ever said, and I already regret it,” he went back to grab a shirt, and Elizabeth smiled. She was glad he had respected her request in the end, even if he was acting begrudgingly. “And I don’t care what you say; there was definitely something up with you last night. You picked a pretty strange time to tell me you love me.”

She blushed, but tried to hide that from him so he didn’t know it was making her self-conscious to talk about that.

“I just had a strange night. I had a weird conversation with Klara and I didn’t expect you to come back, but then you did and I wanted you to know how I felt in that moment, even if it was an odd time to feel it. She made me realize how much going away with you helped me see things differently, and when she asked me if I want to settle down with you, I realized I actually might. I don’t know what that even means, but it’s the first time I have felt like I want to find somewhere we can make our own and I want you to know that because I know you’ve wanted that since long before we found each other. It’s an instinct for you; you need somewhere to call your own, and you have had to fight against that drive because it’s not what I have wanted. You keep finding places that feel right to you, and we start to settle down and you start to feel content and then things happen and we have to leave. It means nothing to me - I was sad when Robin died and we had to leave the first place you had ever felt settled, and I don’t really want to think about how things ended when you had to leave your family home, but then we found something else that worked for us and we had somewhere new to live and we had to leave that behind to come here and… I was fine with that, too. It must be painful for you, though. Traveling with me the way you did must have been difficult, and I think you need to stay in one place for a while for your own sanity. I don’t want to make a big thing about this, but this is the first time I’ve felt like I’m not unwelcome or that I don’t belong, and I don’t have a clue what settling down even means for us, but I think we could be happy here.”

She didn’t want to carry on talking; she had said far more than she intended because she expected Sawyer to interrupt her and he hadn’t.

He had gone to sit on the edge of the bed and he was staring past her at the wall.

Of all the ways he could have reacted, this was not one that Elizabeth anticipated, and it left her feeling anxious that she might have majorly misjudged him or left him unsure of what she actually meant.