Neanderthal Marries Human (Knitting in the City #1.5)(4)
Author: Penny Reid

The sound of a siren in the distance brought me back to the present. I shook myself, blinked at him. “Wait, what are we talking about?”

His smile grew. “How you’ve come to expect, at a minimum, groping in the limo.”

“Yes, right. Those are my expectations. Congratulations. Very nicely done.”

“Thank you.” He tipped his head in acknowledgement of my praise. I had the distinct impression that he would have bowed had we been standing. In truth, I had a sudden desire to applaud.

The door to the limo opened, pulling our attention from each other and to the chilly spring evening. Quinn exited first then held his hand out for me.

Sure enough, Dan stood just outside and handed Quinn my jacket, which Quinn immediately placed on my shoulders. He was always doing this kind of stuff—holding my coat while I shrugged it on, helping me take it off, holding doors, pulling out chairs—and it had taken me some time to get used to.

Sometimes it felt nice, and sometimes it felt antiquated and annoying. I couldn’t entirely explain why, not even to myself, but his stringent display of gentlemanly manners made me feel like a hypocrite, which then pissed me off.

When, in western civilization, women were the weaker sex, when they needed protection, the ladies first rule of etiquette made sense. It was an acknowledgement of our place; by placing us first, it was really the patriarchal society’s way of telling women they were fragile and incapable, and that men, through good manners, recognized our feebleness of abilities and were displaying honor by allowing us to precede them.

It’s polite to hold the door for a child or the elderly. It’s good manners to give up your seat on public transportation to someone who is physically disabled. It’s honorable to assist those in need.

Weakest first.

By allowing Quinn to hold my doors and take my hand and help me in and out of my jacket, wasn’t I passively admitting that I was weaker in the relationship? Wasn’t I ceding power every time he displayed chivalrous deportment?

But, dammit, I liked it most of the time. I liked it so much that I let him do it, and I’d never talked to him about my cognitive dissonance on the subject. Hence my constant self-directed irritation and feeling like a hypocrite.

Ruminations running rampant were interrupted by a very pleasing female voice.

“Hello, and welcome to the Tower. You must be the Sullivan party.” The owner of the voice was a very cheerful looking woman in her mid to late fifties. She was dressed in a black and red tour guide costume, complete with a funny looking hat and a red appliqué crown at the chest. Her eyes were a bright blue, and she wore her brown hair pulled away from her face.

We’d walked all the way to the entrance, me tucked under Quinn’s arm and against his chest while I stewed in my feminist guilt. But her voice and expression were so pleasant, I immediately forgot about the inner turmoil.

Quinn nodded to her and I reached out my hand. Her engaging smile made me smile as she gave me a firm shake. “I’m Emma,” she said. “Pleased to meet you both. Is this your first time with us?”

“Yes,” Quinn said.

I added, “I’m Janie; it’s lovely to meet you, and I’m really looking forward to seeing the ancient torture device room as well as where Anne Boleyn was executed.”

Her smile widened and she released my hand. “That’s excellent. You know, however, that most of the executions did not take place within the Tower itself.”

I nodded, licking my lips as a precursor to my enthusiasm. “Yes. Historians agree that there were only seven deaths at the Tower itself, and only for those who might incite a riot if executed publicly. The majority of the executions took place on Tower Hill.”

Emma giggled at my recitation, and I liked her even more. “You’ll pardon me, but most young ladies are more interested in seeing the Jewel House than the torture device room.”

“Ah, I’d forgotten that the Crown Jewels are also here.” It definitely had slipped my mind. I wasn’t opposed to seeing the Jewel House, but it wasn’t the highest on my list of priorities.

Quinn fit his hand in mine and gave it a squeeze as he addressed our guide. “I trust all the preparations have been made?”

Emma responded, “Of course, sir, just as you instructed.”

I only half listened to this interaction as I was distracted by the remains of the Lion Tower drawbridge pit.

Emma turned toward the Tower, called over her shoulder, and waved us forward. “Let’s get out of the cold. It looks a bit like rain, doesn’t it? Come on. We’ve a lot to see and only a few hours to see it.”

***

Quinn wasn’t irritated, and he wasn’t upset. However, all of his earlier aloof detachment was back, and I was trying not to notice.

Presently we were in the Jewel house standing on a people mover that wasn’t currently moving. During the day, Emma had explained earlier, tourists would stand on the conveyor belt and gaze at the glittering jewels within the thick glass cases.

They’d added the people movers for a few reasons, not the least of which was to encourage people to keep moving rather than crowd around a single case.

I wasn’t sure, but my attempts to draw Quinn out with facts about the different towers, who built them and when, appeared to be falling on deaf ears. As a last ditch effort, I’d pointed out that the Beauchamp Tower marked the first large scale use of brick as a building material in Britain since the Romans departed in the fifth century.

He’d only nodded.

I stood in front of the third jewel case and stared into it unseeingly. Part of the problem might have been that it was so completely full of shiny objects that my mind had difficulty focusing on just one.

“What do you think?”

I pulled my gaze away from the case and found him watching me. “What do I think?”

“Yeah. See anything you like?” He tilted his head toward the glass.

I lifted a single eyebrow at his ridiculous question and at the fact that he was finally speaking. We’d been through half the tour already and he’d barely uttered a word. Now, here we were in the Jewel House—an afterthought as far as I was concerned—and he was suddenly interested in our surroundings.

I shrugged. “Not really. It all looks scratchy and heavy.”

“Nothing?”

I glanced back at the case. Within it was an ornate crown laden with multi-carat diamonds and an obscenely large amethyst at the center. A giant sapphire was at the top surrounded by four equilateral triangles of white gold and diamonds.

It was too much. It was like covering a perfectly good cake with a hundred pounds of frosting.

I twisted my mouth to the side and wrinkled my nose. “You know the diamond trade encourages exploitation in Africa—of the people and their resources—and it fuels much of the heinous crimes against humanity on that continent.”

I slipped my eyes to the side to gauge his reaction to my calmly spoken tirade and I found him grinning.

“I’ve heard that before.” He threaded his fingers through mine and tugged me to the next case. I followed and glanced at my watch. I wasn’t sure how much longer we had for the tour, but we hadn’t yet made it to the ancient torture devices room. This made me feel a little antsy.

“What about this case?” Again he indicated his head toward the case, but his eyes were on me.

I studied the contents at his insistence and recognized a crown inset with the famous Koh-i-Noor diamond from India. “That diamond is over one hundred carats,” Quinn commented. “It was presented to Queen Victoria by the British colonial governor-general at the time. Some people believe it was basically stolen from India and should be returned to atone for the Brits’ past poor behavior.”

“Do you think it should be returned?”

I turned back to Quinn and found him looking interested for the first time since we’d started the tour. I considered the question for a long moment, glanced at the ceiling as I quickly debated the merits and ramifications of both positions.

“I don’t know if I can give you a simple yes or no to that question. Restitution is not a rare concept, but it’s not always—or even frequently—applied in cases where, I think, it would be obvious to do so. In this specific example, the Koh-i-Noor diamond has become part of world history and British history especially. On the other hand, history tells us that it was stolen from India. Then again, that was almost two hundred years ago. The fact that we’d still be debating ownership says more about the perceived value of an object and less about the actual wrong committed.”

“Then let me rephrase the question.” He shifted a step closer to me. “Do you think offering an item of great value would do any good in atoning for past wrongs?”

I studied him for a beat before responding. “Sometimes an apology is enough, especially if it’s heartfelt.”

“But not always.”

“No. Not always,” I allowed, but then I was gripped with an urge to clarify. “Between countries, a heartfelt apology is usually not enough. Between corporations and employees, more than an apology is typically necessary. But between individuals, especially people who love each other, restitution feels like a dirty word.”

He nodded slowly, his eyes moving over my features as though memorizing them. As usual, I lost myself a little under the luxury of his gaze, and tangentially my brain told me that his eyes were more beautiful and precious to me than a hundred-carat flawless diamond could ever be.