He was, she thought, either the most confident man she had ever met or the most oblivious. And she genuinely could not yet tell which. Mr. Carter, she said. I work for Mrs.
Caldwell. I don't have time for I already spoke to Mrs. Caldwell, he said. She blinked. You spoke to Mrs.
Caldwell. She said, "You have until 10:00 before the rooms need turning down." He glanced at the clock on the wall behind her. "That's 18 minutes." She opened her mouth, closed it. "You spoke to Mrs. Caldwell before you asked me," she said.
He had the grace to look slightly abashed, which was the first time she had seen him look anything other than entirely composed. "That was probably backward," he admitted. "You're right. I should have asked you first. Yes, she said.
You should have. I apologize. She looked at him for a long moment. He waited without fidgeting, without filling the silence, without doing anything to manage her decision. He simply waited, his hat in his hands, his eyes steady.
18 Minutes, she said. 18 Minutes, he agreed. They sat on the front steps of Caldwell's boarding house in the bright Thursday morning, which was Amelia thought about as publicly exposed as two people in a small town could possibly be, and which was somehow also exactly right. No dark porch, no quiet edges of a party. Right there in the middle of an ordinary morning where anyone could walk past and see them and draw whatever conclusions they chose to draw.
Mrs. Harrington came to call on me yesterday, Nathaniel said. Did she spent 20 minutes explaining why you were unsuitable? Amelia watched a horse and cart move slowly down the main street. And what did you say?
I said I hadn't asked her opinion. He turned his hat in his hands once. She didn't take that particularly well. No, Amelia said, "I imagine she didn't." She also mentioned three other women she thought would be more appropriate for me to be acquainted with. Of course she did.
I told her I was capable of deciding my own acquaintances. Amelia looked at him sideways. "Are you capable of that?" He met her eyes. "Yes, because Victoria Harrington is a very determined woman," Amelia said. "And she has known you a long time, and she has a very particular idea of how things should be, and she is not above making life difficult for people who inconvenience her." "I'm aware she'll make things difficult for me," Amelia said.