He discarded his plans to ply her with expensive wine. He was, for the first time, feeling somewhat ashamed of himself.
When the wine arrived, he drank; she politely sipped. Even in measured moderation, Emma deemed the Latour ’57 remarkably intoxicating. Perhaps the effect was more attributable to the ever-increasing charisma of her romantic companion. Either way, they were soon holding hands across the table.
Both pretended not to be thinking of kissing.
“Can I tell you something?” Emma asked.
“Will it embarrass me?” He was already feeling chagrined.
“No. Unless you don’t like to be trusted. My energy research: It’s done. Well, sort of, almost, nearly.”
“Marvelous,” said Simon. “I have no idea what your energy research is, but I’m pleased for you.”
“Someone should be,” commented Emma, “considering I was practically run out of America for pursuing this project.”
Simon’s expression prompted an explanation.
“The concept is called cold fusion. The entire idea is not taken too seriously back home in the good ol’ USA, and it reached the point where I couldn’t get any more research funding.”
“So?”
“So, I still don’t have any sort of fund or trust or grant paying to develop my research. But I do have a little lab in my apartment, a supportive staff at Oxford, and I give several lectures a week — that pays the bills. Plus,” she added, “I love England.”
He knew she was minimizing and being modest. He liked that.
He eyed her and she eyed him.
It was as if there were searchlights behind her eyes, and he was trapped in their illumination with no dark corners to melt into, no false-identity alleyways to dart down.
He felt vulnerable and exposed, but stayed in character.
“Thomas More?” She pondered his name.
“Yes?”
“That’s not your real name, is it?”
The room seemed to shift beneath him. Her next words echoed as if bouncing from the high ceilings of St. Ignatius.
“I think you didn’t like your name, so you made one up.”
He was incapable of immediate response.
“You were an orphan, maybe?”
She may as well have hit Templar with a baseball bat. He was astonished, but kept his reaction in check. The expression in his eyes, however, confirmed the accuracy of her assessment.
Emma Russell leaned dangerously close to him and squeezed his hand.
“It’s okay. I’m an orphan, too. Mom died when I was three, and then Dad. I’ve been pretty much on my own since my teens. I’m just damn lucky I was born with brains and instilled with morals. Otherwise, who knows?”
Simon knew the otherwise.
It was difficult for Templar to recall that he had initially approached this job with heartless, cynical materialism.
“Have you done any research,” asked Simon, deftly changing the subject, “on the romantic effects of warm chocolate?”
His phrasing was almost erotic. Emma’s pulse quickened.
“Is it safe,” she asked in jest, “to mix cocoa and Latour ’57?”
He smiled a conspiratorial smile and ordered them each a steaming cup of hot cocoa topped with a dollop of real whipped cream.
“You look lovely with a mustache,” intoned Templar.
Twenty-five minutes later she was almost dragging him into her apartment. When Emma applied herself to a project, she saw it through to consummation. She hadn’t had a boyfriend, a lover, an anything, in ages.
“Welcome to the new age,” said Emma cryptically as she led Simon into her apartment. He pretended he had never seen it before.
She set the mood, lit the candles, and put on music as if she were preparing for a scientific demonstration.
“Now what?” asked Templar with a touch of innocent curiosity.
“Trust me, I’m a doctor,” advised Emma, and she told him to take off his shirt.
As he complied, she began to unbutton her blouse.
“What, exactly, are we going to do. Doctor?”
Emma tossed aside her blouse.
“First things first, Mr. More. I suggest we lay our cards on the table.”
She removed the cards from her bra and placed them on the table.
“I’m not wearing a bra, and I have no cards,” said Simon with the sweetest smile.
“But you have something up your sleeve just the same, Mr. More,” responded Emma playfully. “Besides, I just want to look at you.”
“Look to your heart’s content.”
Emma’s eyes suddenly widened as if remembering something important.
“Oh! Thanks for reminding me.” She grabbed her purse and dug inside for a small medicine bottle. “Hold that pose and hold that thought.”
She moved to the refrigerator, opened it, and took out what appeared to be a beer bottle. She twisted off the top.
Standing there, bathed in the refrigerator light, she was a vision of eccentric, individualistic beauty, unpretentious, and thoroughly herself.
“Inderol and root beer,” explained Emma wickedly, “a heady combination.”
“I’ll pass on the Inderol, but if you have two straws, we can sip it together in front of the fireplace.”
Emma laughed, searched her cupboards, and found two straws. She placed them in the bottle.
“Light the fire, Mr. More, I’m feeling a chill.”
“Shut the refrigerator,” suggested Simon, and he built the fire.
As the dry logs began to ignite, Templar’s eyes drifted to the cards resting on the coffee table. He was genuinely attracted to Emma and distracted by his primary objective — stealing the prized contents of her bra.
Together in front of the fireplace, sharing one root beer with two straws, the fake Thomas More romanced the real Emma Russell.
“I’m not the kind of woman who brings strange poets home on a regular basis,” said Emma as she seriously considered kissing him passionately on the mouth.
“Am I that strange a poet?”
She spared him an honest critique of his journal entries.
“I don’t date much,” confided Emma. “Most men aren’t comfortable dating a research scientist who keeps file cards in her bra.”
“You’re my first scientist,” said Simon comfortingly, “and the only woman I’ve ever known who used her brassiere as a file cabinet.”
She leaned closer, setting the root beer aside.
“I’m not sure what it is about you, but you’re different... I mean, I’m different, too...” Emma was becoming tongue-tied, and Simon helped her untie it with a kiss.
When their lips parted, she fanned herself with her hand.
“Whew! That’s some fire you’ve built here, Mr. More.”
They laughed, intertwined, disarmed.
More than anything, Simon wished he could level with her. “I wish I could tell you my story, everything about me.”
“You could... you can. You don’t have to hide. Really, it’s very safe here in this little apartment. No one will know, except me and the fish.”
“It’s not as safe here as you think,” stated Simon honestly. “In fact, it’s very dangerous.”
She snuggled closer.
“Oh, tell me about the danger,” she teased.
“I might take from you what’s most precious.”
“A football player did that my senior year in high school,” recalled Emma sardonically.
Simon looked at her lovely face. She was an authentic beauty.
“You are an authentic beauty,” he said, as if having read the previous paragraph, “and I will treasure this night—”
“Till morning?”
He looked down with a penitent expression. “I’m not that kind of man.”
There was a moment of tentative silence, augmented by the crackling fire and bursting bubbles of carbonation from the root beer bottle.