might not have known Edward for as long as Isa had, but she knew him. Well.
“Do you know the reason he won’t accept love?” Rosalie hadn’t moved, still leaned against the far wall, near the door. “He is consumed by this paper, by the danger it brings. Has he told you yet that this is not the time to indulge in love? in life? because death could be so close?”
Her words, each of them, stabbed Isa’s heart. Did she and Rosalie have a bond, then? Both rejected by Edward?
She leaned closer to the window just as a figure caught her eye, one moving briskly but oh so familiarly. Ignoring Rosalie, Isa hurried to open the door, watching him enter from the street and take the stairs two at a time. Attaché in hand.
“I was beginning to worry.” Her words sounded so breathless it could have been she who’d just bounded up the stairs. She closed the door behind them.
“Yes, I thought you might.” He barely looked up, only thrust the case on the table and opened it. “Father Clemenceau needed several hundred copies and couldn’t wait until later, so I went there first.”
“I was wondering what could have kept you.” She hadn’t realized she was trembling and so near to tears. Results of worry or Rosalie’s words. . . .
Where was she? Isa scanned the one-room flat, seeing that Rosalie had moved behind them, into the shadows. Edward hadn’t yet seen her.
Edward took one of Isa’s fidgety hands. Despite the cold outside, his fingers were warmer than hers. The radiators in the flat were unheated today; undoubtedly there was no coal for the boiler in the cellar.
“I thought you didn’t worry?” Edward brushed away a tendril of her hair that had escaped the neat bun she’d twisted at the back. “You said God is protecting us.”
“God, Edward?”
Isa had wanted to make the inquiry, but if it had been her, those same two words would have been hopeful, inviting. As it was, Rosalie’s voice teetered between surprise and skepticism.
He turned to Rosalie, still holding Isa’s hand. For a moment Isa was tempted to withdraw, even though Edward had held her hand before. Letting him hold it now, in front of Rosalie, seemed to say something it didn’t mean.
“Yes,” he said. “Isa spends most days reminding me to pray. And I must admit I haven’t minded.”
Then he did drop her hand, but not before sending an extra smile her way.
“I’m glad,” Isa whispered. “Perhaps you’re growing into your vestments.”
Rosalie approached and took up the copies, already bundled, that she would conceal in her satchel. “You should consider the priesthood permanently, Edward.” She looked at him. “It would give you a solid reason to refuse the women who fall in love with you.”
She transferred that fixed gaze to Isa before stuffing the copies of the paper into her satchel, and then she left the flat.
Isa moved to busy herself by separating the remaining copies from the attaché while Edward removed more from beneath his coat. Additional distributors were expected, but neither she nor Edward needed to wait. She wanted to leave now, right away, before Edward had a chance to dwell on Rosalie’s words.
He stacked the copies from his coat next to those Isa took from the attaché. “Did you and Rosalie have some sort of . . . discussion while she was here?”
“Barely. Why do you ask?”
“You didn’t think it odd, then, what she said before she left?”
“For you to become a priest? Perhaps you should.”
He laughed. “Me? With the history of my faith? I’m not even Catholic.”
“Your faith never left you. You didn’t acknowledge it for a while, but it’s been there.”
“Let’s not discuss the possibility of my becoming a priest, shall we? Let’s discuss why she said that to begin with. To give me an excuse to refuse women who love me? She made it sound as though there were a number of them, so would you please direct me to such a line?”
She couldn’t make light of the topic as he seemed eager to do. “Perhaps there are more women than I’m aware of, but as it is, I know of only two.”
They stood not a foot apart, but a barrier filled that narrow space. If he refused to discuss this with any sort of sincerity, Isa would know she and Rosalie did indeed share that bond. Maybe someday Isa might thank Rosalie for making Edward face this topic once and for all. For helping them to get it