Thank you for having so much patience with me.
Her last remark, so instinctively made, seemed to hang in the air for much longer than it had taken her to form or utter the thought. There was a moment of confused silence; there could hardly help but be one.
"How did he ask you?" he enquired conversationally.
She smiled sadly.
"More eloquently than you did," she replied.
He smiled it reply.
"As I seem to remember, you never exactly gave me the chance to get the words out," he told her, "You don't know how eloquent I might have been."
"Oh, alright," she replied, "I suppose I'll have to take your word on that one."
There was another pause.
"Lord Merton told me that he's in love with me," she told him at last.
"And do you think he is?" he asked her.
"I don't know," she replied, "Why? Do you think he's foolish to?"
"You know that's not what I meant," he told her quietly.
She tilted her head to the side a little and smiled again.
"No, I know," she replied, "I must admit, he did take me very much by surprise as well."
"I wasn't surprised," he responded, but then stopped himself abruptly.
She tried to catch his eye, but his gaze flitted back down towards his desk so quickly that she missed him, and was left looking at his frame behind his desk, somewhat dejected, somewhat-… forlorn. With a sense of-… oh, she didn't know. Embarrassment? Yearning? Curiosity? Or was that merely what she was feeling? Certainly, she was feeling curious.
"Do you mind if I ask you a question, Richard?"
He looked up at her. That was better.
"Of course not."
"If I'd given you a chance to get the words out-… What would you have said to me?"
A slight frown creased his brow.
"I don't know," he confessed, "That was part of the problem, really."
She smiled, though she managed to admit to herself that his answer disappointed her just a little.
"Quite," she replied.
But now it was him with his eyes fixed on her.
"Do you want me to say that I would have told you I loved you?" he asked her.
"No," she replied, "I only want to hear the truth. Nothing else. I didn't want you to tell me anything just because you think it's what I want to hear."
"Good. Because I wouldn't have said that. I may have thought it, but never ever have told you so then. As you could tell, I didn't know how to."
There was a pause.
"What-.. You mean,- You loved me then?" she asked.
He ran his hand over his brow, his eyes closed. He was frowning again.
"Yes," he replied at last, so softly she could barely hear him, "And no. No past tense, Isobel."
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