Chapter Eleven

H eloise and Sarah sat in the garden drinking tea and watching leaves shiver in the cool March breeze. Sparrows were noisy in the hedges, and the naked stems and branches seemed to quiver in the sun, ready to be coaxed into bloom. Heloise frowned down at her empty teacup. She hoisted the pot and gestured with the spout.

"Another?"

Sarah raised an eyebrow but allowed Heloise to pour. "Never thought I'd see the day you were avoiding the library."

Heloise had thought she was being subtle, though she could admit it was not one of her strengths. "I needed to clear my head."

Sarah gave her a sympathetic look. "You wouldn't be the first lady to find herself out of sorts over a handsome gentleman."

Heloise rubbed her fingers against her brow. "I suppose I thought myself immune. Had you asked me a month ago, I would have said I preferred my own company."

"You were accustomed to your own company." Sarah took a self-satisfied sip of tea. "Make the most of things. Try not to think too much."

"That's terrible advice." Heloise rose from the wrought-iron chair and stretched. When Sarah gave her a sly wink, Heloise huffed and went into the house.

Peter was already seated at the writing table when Heloise arrived at the library. He raised his head as she entered, his face full of a pure gladness that made her stomach flip. It was illogical, but she felt more deeply moved each time she saw him, as if his effect on her was not diminishing with familiarity, but rather increasing. The force of his smile and his intense dark eyes hit her like the invisible hand of a giant; gentle but staggering. She went forward on unsteady feet and took the seat beside him.

He seemed to be putting the finishing touches on a composition he had been busy with for the past two weeks. Heloise leaned over and tapped the pages. "What's this?" She was a little embarrassed that she hadn't thought to ask, wrapped up as she was in her play.

"A treatise. The result of years of study and debate. My hope is that it will become a defining work." He fussed with the pages, not quite meeting her eyes.

"What is the topic?"

"Nominalism. In brief, the theory that universal essences exist in the mind only. Categories such as man, animal, color, have no corresponding reality."

Heloise put her chin in her hand. "It would be silly to think otherwise."

Peter's head went up, his expression cautious. "Further, only individuals exist. Concepts give names to individuals, not the other way around."

"Of course. You and I are human. But we are not interchangeable members of a larger conceptual category. Rather, the category serves to reflect us as individuals."

"Precisely!" Peter pointed a finger in the air, and she smiled fondly. He talked with his hands when he was excited. Now, as he went on about his theory, he gestured with them, or clasped them as if in prayer. She wanted to kiss those hands, the sensitive palms and wrists, the fine, strong fingers. Lord, what was happening to her? To distract herself, she went to the bookshelves, going up on her toes in the philosophy section. She retrieved a volume and brought it to the table just as Peter was finishing his brief lecture.

"This anthology contains an essay by Chrysippus. I believe he espoused similar views." She opened the book and flipped to the index, Peter leaning in over her shoulder. She smelled shaving soap, and linen, and fought the urge to bury her nose in his neck.

"Wait." Peter put his hand over hers. He turned back to the cover page, revealing an inscription in her father's long, flowing handwriting.

For my dear Heloise. I've no doubt it will be your words, bound in leather, that I read in a few years' time.

Heloise felt the bittersweet ache that always accompanied memories of her parents. Her father had brought home the book, and her mother had helped her with some of the more difficult translations.

"Your parents championed you." Peter's voice held wonder and a little envy.

"Always." She touched the long-dried ink of the message. "Did your parents know they were raising the standard-bearer of nominalism?"

Peter was quiet. When she turned, his face was grim.

"My parents thought fairies switched me in the cradle," he said. "My father was a tailor. He and my mother mended clothing and sold ribbons and silk in their shop. I wasted their candles writing all night, and demanded books they could ill afford. I refused to learn how to sew."

"That sounds difficult."

He gave a wry smile, lips curling humorlessly. "They weren't unkind. We simply couldn't understand each other. When the vicar of our church arranged for me to be sponsored at school, I left gladly. I was ten at the time."

"Did you never reconcile?"

"I felt more at home in school than I ever did with my parents." They both looked at her father's writing, his declaration of love and admiration. Heloise wondered if it was better to lose such a gift or to never have had it at all. She and Peter were sitting very close, their arms almost touching. She fancied she could feel the heat of his body, the current that drew her towards him whenever they were together. She cleared her throat and picked at the ragged edge of her thumbnail.

"I've found our lessons very satisfactory, thus far," she said. "I've learned much more than I expected. The psychological effects have been somewhat surprising, as well."

"Such as?"

The words felt too difficult to say to his face, so she continued the careful examination of her fingernail. "I think of you all the time. Things I wish to say to you. Things I wish to do. It's confusing, but exciting. Overwhelming, I suppose. As you cautioned me."

She looked up to find Peter's expression carefully composed, save for two splashes of color high on his cheekbones.

"Some onset of sentiment is common," he said, his voice unusually tight. "Physical intimacy can lend itself to such notions."

"I see."

"Do you wish to end our lessons?"

She searched his dark gaze for a hint of something; longing, a plea, an echo of the vulnerability she felt.

"No," she said. He nodded, but she couldn't read his expression. He resumed his writing, and she read the chapter on Chrysippus. When she looked up again, he and his papers were gone. She waited, but he didn't return to the library that afternoon.