The Kind of Love That Returns Slowly
For the rest of the evening, Clara could not look directly at Margaret without wanting to disappear into another country.
Unfortunately, Margaret seemed delighted by this.
She moved around Blackwater House with the energy of someone who had personally advanced the plot of a romance novel and intended to celebrate it. During dinner, she hummed to herself constantly while pretending not to notice the unbearable silence between Clara and Elias.
That silence was entirely Margaret’s fault.
Not because she interrupted the moment in the library.
Because she interrupted it at exactly the wrong moment.
Clara sat across from Elias at the long dining table while candlelight flickered softly between them. Rain still moved against the windows outside, and the warm smell of rosemary bread filled the room, but none of it helped the fact that every few seconds her mind replayed the feeling of his fingers brushing against her face.
Worse, Elias seemed just as affected.
Normally, he hid emotion behind calmness so naturally that Clara sometimes wondered if he practiced it professionally. Tonight, though, there were small cracks in that composure. Tiny hesitations whenever their eyes met. Moments where he looked like he was about to say something before changing his mind.
Margaret noticed all of it.
Of course she did.
“This is painful,” she announced eventually while pouring herself more wine.
Clara looked up immediately. “What is?”
“The atmosphere.” Margaret gestured vaguely between them. “You two are behaving like emotionally damaged Victorian characters.”
Elias closed his eyes briefly. “Please stop speaking.”
“No,” Margaret replied calmly. “Not until one of you develops courage.”
Clara laughed helplessly despite herself. Across the table, Elias shook his head slowly, though Clara noticed the corner of his mouth lift slightly.
That small smile stayed with her longer than it should have.
Later that night, after dinner ended and Margaret finally disappeared upstairs, the guesthouse settled into quiet again. Most of the guests had gone to bed, leaving only the sound of rain and distant music drifting through the old building.
Clara stood near one of the windows in the sitting room, absentmindedly tracing patterns into the fogged glass while watching the city outside. Edinburgh glowed beneath the rain, all soft gold reflections and blurred lights against wet stone streets.
She heard Elias enter before she turned around.
For a moment, neither spoke.
The air between them still carried the unfinished tension from the library earlier, though now it felt softer somehow. Less frightening. More inevitable.
“I think Margaret’s trying to psychologically destroy us,” Clara said finally.
“That implies she hasn’t succeeded already.”
She smiled faintly before turning back toward the rain-covered window. “You know, normal people would probably avoid each other after a moment like that.”
Elias leaned lightly against the doorway behind her. “And are we avoiding each other?”
“No,” Clara admitted quietly.
The honesty settled warmly between them.
She could feel him watching her now, though not in a way that made her uncomfortable. Elias never looked at her carelessly. His attention always felt deliberate, thoughtful, like he noticed details most people overlooked.
Clara turned slowly toward him. “Can I ask you something?”
“You always ask difficult things after midnight.”
“That’s when people answer honestly.”
A faint smile touched his face before disappearing again. “Fine.”
She hesitated briefly before speaking. “When was the last time you let yourself feel something without immediately trying to escape it?”
The question clearly caught him off guard.
Elias looked down for a second before exhaling quietly. “That’s unfair.”
“That’s not an answer.”
For several moments, he stayed silent while rain tapped steadily against the windows around them.
Then finally, “Before you arrived.”
Clara’s chest tightened immediately.
The room suddenly felt smaller again, warmer in dangerous ways. She had begun noticing how often that happened around him now. Conversations with Elias never stayed light for long. Somehow they always drifted toward honesty, toward the things people usually kept hidden.
Maybe that was why she felt so drawn toward him. Around most people, Clara constantly felt like she was performing some easier version of herself. But with Elias, pretending seemed impossible.
“You know what scares me?” she asked softly.
His eyes lifted back toward hers. “What?”
“I think I understand you too well.”
Something flickered across his expression hearing that. Not fear exactly. Recognition.
“That usually makes people leave,” he admitted quietly.
Clara shook her head. “No. I think it just makes people feel exposed.”
For a second, the silence between them deepened into something almost unbearable.
Elias stepped a little closer then, slowly enough that she could have moved away if she wanted to.
She didn’t.
Rain slid softly down the windows behind her while warm firelight moved across the room.
“You should probably stop looking at me like that,” he said softly.
Clara’s heartbeat stumbled. “Like what?”
“Like you’re trying to memorize me.”
The words hit far too hard because they were true.
She had been memorizing him.
The way his voice lowered whenever conversations became personal. The way grief still lived quietly inside his eyes even during moments when he smiled. The way he always paused before touching her, as though part of him still feared closeness.
Clara swallowed slowly before answering. “Maybe I am.”
Neither of them moved after that.
The distance between them had become dangerously small again, but this time the tension felt different from before. Less uncertain. More honest.
Elias looked at her with an expression she had never seen fully before. Not guarded. Not grieving.
Just vulnerable.
“I don’t know how to do this anymore,” he admitted quietly.
The confession nearly broke her heart.
Not because it sounded weak.
Because it sounded sincere.
Clara stepped closer before she could overthink it. “You don’t have to know,” she said gently.
For several long seconds, they simply stood there listening to the rain.
Then Elias lifted one hand slowly, brushing his fingers lightly along her cheek with a tenderness so careful it made Clara’s chest ache. There was nothing rushed about the moment. No dramatic urgency. Just two people standing very still while something real unfolded quietly between them.
Clara closed her eyes briefly against the softness of it.
When she opened them again, Elias was already looking at her like he’d forgotten how to look away.
And this time, neither of them stepped backward.