The Weird Sisters - Eleanor Brown [7]
He took her hand in his and lifted it to his mouth, kissing her fingertips. “You look lovely,” he said. “I’d forgotten how beautiful you are.”
Rose blushed and shook her head, smoothing her clothes again with her free hand. “I look awful. I didn’t have time to change and—”
Jonathan cut her off with another kiss, this time in the center of her palm. “I wish you could see yourself through my eyes,” he said softly. “My vision is better.”
She drove them back to his apartment and they hauled his suitcase inside. She hadn’t been here since he’d left—he had no pets, no plants, and there was no reason for her to visit unless he was there—and the air was thick and stale. She opened the windows and turned on the fan, and they sat together on the sofa, fingers entwined, until he cleared his throat awkwardly. “I’ve got a little news.”
“Good or bad?” Rose wasn’t quite listening. She reached out with her free hand and stroked a wayward lock of hair behind his ear. It had gotten long—she’d have to make an appointment for him to have it cut.
“Excellent, actually. While I was in Oxford with Paul and Shari—”
“How are they, by the way?” Paul had been Jonathan’s roommate in their doctoral program, and many of Jonathan’s best stories revolved around their misadventures.
“Great—sleep-deprived, you know, but head over heels with the baby, and they seem happy. I’ve got pictures. They’d love to meet you.”
Rose laughed. “Not likely, unless they’re considering a transatlantic flight with a newborn.”
Jonathan swallowed awkwardly. “Well, that’s the thing, love. When I was over there, Paul and I had lunch with his dean.” He paused, searching for the next words, and Rose felt her heart growing colder, a thin sheet of ice covering its surface like frost on a windowpane.
“He’s very interested in my research. He wants me to join the faculty there—a lab of my own, graduate students to work with me. It’s ideal. A perfect opportunity.”
Rose reached for the glass of water he’d left for her on the coffee table. Her mouth was painfully dry, her throat ached. Alone again. It seemed it was Just Her Luck to have finally found her Orlando, her perfect love, only to have him leave her. Shakespeare’s Rosalind had never had this kind of problem; she was too busy cross-dressing and frolicking around in forests with her servant. Rough life. Rose set the glass back on the table and slipped her other hand from his.
“So you’re leaving,” she said dully, when she could push her parched lips into words again.
“I’d like to,” he said softly. He reached for her hand again, but she moved so she was facing forward, away from him, her ankles crossed primly, hands folded in her lap, as though she were waiting to be served at a particularly stuffy tea party.
“But we were supposed to get married,” she whispered.
“And we will, of course we will. I’m not saying that at all. But I’d be a fool to turn this down. You can see that, can’t you?” His voice was pleading, but she turned away.
“When are you going?”
“I haven’t said I am, as of yet. But I could start at the beginning of the third term, just after Easter.”
“Your contract here goes through the end of the year, doesn’t it? You’re just going to break your contract?”
“Rose, don’t be like that. Please hear me out. I want you to come with me.”
Rose turned her head toward him and barked a short, harsh laugh. “To England? You want me to come to England with you? You have got to be kidding, Jonathan. I have a job. I have a life here. I’m not like you. I don’t get to go globe-hopping every time I get a whim.”
“That’s a bit harsh, don’t you think?” he asked, recoiling from the bite. Our Rose, whose tongue more poisons than the adder’s tooth ! He rubbed his hands quickly on his knees and stood up, rumpling his hair impatiently. “It could be good for us—for both of us. For me, yes, but for you, too. You haven’t got a job past next year, right?”
“Is this supposed to make me feel better?” Rose had been told this spring, in no uncertain terms, that