I glance up as Joseph heads out of his den, something in his expression lost, distant almost. Lines are etched around his eyes, and he appears to have been through hell and back and I’m anxious as he approaches and kisses me on both cheeks.
“Did you have a nice lunch?”
“I did.”
He nods to Mrs. Harrington.
“Perhaps you can arrange drinks in the library for six o’clock.”
Joseph grips my hand and nods toward the front door.
“I could use some air. Shall we?”
“Go out?”
I’m shocked, and he smiles. “Is that unusual?”
“It is rather.”
I’ve only been gone for a couple of hours and yet it’s as if I’ve walked into a different house entirely, and as he grips my hand, I follow him outside. Rather than step into the usual car that is waiting, we turn left out of the gate and head down the street.
“Where are we going?”
“There’s a park around the corner. It’s a good place to go to blend in with normal life.”
“Why are we going?”
I’m curious about that, and he grips my hand a little tighter than normal.
“Do we have to have a reason?”
“I suppose not, but well, you always appear so guarded, and this appears a little reckless for you.”
“It is.”
I note the usual guards trailing us and the ones on the corner as we approach, and for some reason it’s as if this is a very big thing indeed.
He is silent, almost somewhere else entirely, and I wonder what happened when I was gone. Mrs. Harrington’s expression alone told me something was amiss, and this excursion, for want of a better word, seems almost contrived.
We turn the corner and Joseph ups his pace, walking more briskly, heading toward a small, gated park with trees and shrubs all around.
As we head inside, I notice one of the guards standing motionlessly at the exit and several others lining the perimeter.
The park is empty.
I say park, it’s more like a formal garden in the middle of a square. Almost private in a public kind of way.
Joseph guides me toward a bench and drags me down with him, and we sit shoulder to shoulder as we gaze on a flower bed that is almost empty due to the winter frost.
“Tell me about your lunch.”
His grip on my hand is tight, and despite my curiosity, I oblige. Telling him everything except for one thing and finishing up by saying, “Eliza was a strange one. She insisted on the door being open and shivered through the entire lunch. She made certain I was surrounded by heat, courtesy of a heater trained on me as she told me that she preferred the chill and Malik preferred the heat, so she was taking advantage of that.”
His low chuckle confuses me.
“And you believed her story.”
“Her story?”