Chapter 9: No Questions

Clara woke in a bed that was not hers.

It was wide and dark-wooded, with grey linen sheets, and a man's arm lay heavy across her waist.

Alexander was asleep behind her, with his face turned into her shoulder.

She lay still and let herself enjoy it for a full minute.

He slept the way he did everything else, with discipline.

He did not stir, and he did not sprawl.

A line of morning sun lay across the quilt, and a clock ticked somewhere in the room.

On the table beside the bed sat a cup of tea.

It was still warm, and it had no sugar in it.

Clara looked at it for a long time.

She had used her left hand on the pen and on the soup spoon.

She took her tea black, and she had never said so in this house.

Chase had never known either of those things, in sixteen months.

"Alexander," she said.

His arm tightened, and he woke all at once.

"What is it?"

"How did you know I take my tea black?"

The silence went on long enough that she turned over to see his face.

His eyes were open and very still.

"Rule three," he said.

"I know. I'm asking anyway."

"Clara."

"You've known things about me since the first night that no one told you. I'm done guessing, Alexander. Say where you got them."

He sat up and swung his legs to the floor with a small grimace.

His back was to her.

She could see a long line of muscle, and the scar on his ribs, and the stillness of a man who had decided not to move.

"Your father told me," he said at last.

"My father doesn't know I take my tea black."

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