“Then I owe him one, too,” Mateo said.
Hattie grinned, and the warmth of it sank into his marrow. He imagined how rejuvenating it would be to see such a smile every day.
A knock at the door; one of the footmen wheeled in a cart with two platters covered with domes. Mateo instructed him to place the food on the small table nearby, then invited Hattie to sit there.
The footman uncovered the platters and spooned paella into bowls. She looked on with interest, asking about the ingredients. When the footman had finished, Mateo invited her to have a bite.
She closed her eyes. “It’s divine,” she proclaimed it. “I could eat the entire pan of it.” She opened her eyes. “But I will share with you.”
He laughed.
She asked him, as they dined, about his life growing up among the stars. Mateo told her as best he could—he found it difficult to describe the splendor of those mountains in English. Somehow, he got around to his hunting dogs. She said she’d always been fond of dogs, but that her mother preferred cats, and she’d not been allowed to have one.
From there, they moved to topics that had no bearing on anything. Games they played as children. People they’d met as adults who’d baffled them for various reasons—such as a woman Mateo had heard of who’d left her wealthy husband for a farmer. Or the gentleman Hattie knew who gave all his riches to a slum and then lived in the slum himself.
They chatted like old friends. Or better yet, old lovers. Mateo didn’t want the conversation or evening to end—he couldn’t remember the last time he’d been so at ease over dinner, so compatible with another person at his table.
She asked about Harrington Hall, and he told her that it was really more of a palace. There were so many rooms, all of them furnished, with paintings and porcelain and gold and fine rugs. It seemed too much, as if his grandfather’s wealth had been used not for the greater good of the estate, or to improve wages, or to help the poor...but to feed his ego.
He told her that from one end of the ballroom there was a stunning view of the sea. That French doors in the morning room opened onto a terrace and below that, an amazing topiary that seemed to stretch for a mile.
“It sounds astonishingly beautiful,” she said wistfully. “What a blessing it would be to live in such a place.”
And Mateo wanted, more than anything, for her to live in a place like that.
When the meal was finished, and the footman had taken it away, Hattie sat back in her chair, folded her hands in her lap and smiled wryly. “We’ve spent the entire evening talking. You’ve not yet asked me to do anything for you.”
He’d forgotten about that. He smiled a little, too. “I want you to look at something for me.”
“Of course.”
“Not in here.”
Her brows dipped. “Where?”
“Come with me.” He stood up and held out his hand.
Hattie didn’t leap to her feet. She looked warily at his hand. “Come where?”
“You are suspicious. Please, just come.”
Her eyes locked with his. He saw that light of warmth in them, of affection. Of...friendship or camaraderie, or affinity. Or rather, what he supposed those things must look like. But he felt them at his core, and when she smiled, and slipped her hand into his, and allowed him to pull her to her feet, he felt as if he’d won a very long race. She was standing just before him, and an ocean of regard began to rise between them.
Her gaze narrowed playfully. “Are you quite certain? Because you look a tiny bit unsure of yourself, Teo.”
“The only thing I’m unsure about is if you can see in the dark. Come,” he said, and led her out of the room.
In the hallway, he looked around to assure himself no one was watching, then put his hand on the small of her back and hurried her along to the servants’ staircase. Up they went, him putting a finger to his lips, her giggling. At the very top of the stairs was a hatch door onto the roof. He opened it, climbed to the top, then helped her up.
They were standing on top of his house. London was below them, chimneys at eye level, and the night sky spread above them. “Oh,” she said, looking up. “The whole night is on top of us.”
It was a clear, cool night, and the stars glittered overhead, sometimes obscured by a trail of smoke from a chimney. Mateo stepped behind her and pointed. “Do you see an oval shape? It should look a bit fuzzy.”
“Where?”
He moved closer, his front against her back, and slipped his arm around her waist and pulled her into his chest. She didn’t resist him; he felt a slight tremble run through her that matched the shiver of desire that shimmied down his spine. He leaned over her shoulder. “It looks as if someone pressed their thumb against the night.”
She leaned her head against his shoulder as she looked up. With his hand, he lifted her arm and pointed her fingers directly at the star. “Now do you see it?”
