Courtney Milan (28 page)

No. The
last
thing she needed was this
want,
this feeling that he might complete her in a way that everyone else could not. The last thing she needed was to flush when he talked of sexual arousal, to have him tell her in that calm way that it was natural, normal. That she could have it, that it wasn’t wrong
.

If she didn’t acknowledge what she felt, what he wanted, then it couldn’t lead her astray. She wanted to turn away and bury her head in her skirts. She wanted to take that certainty and stuff it back where she’d hid it before. But there was no way to unknow the thing she didn’t want to know. He wanted her, and she wanted him back.

Knowledge led to action; action led to heartbreak.

She knew, now, and she wished she didn’t.

Chapter Ten

S
HE KNEW.

Jonas could tell from the way she no longer met his eyes, the way she wouldn’t take his arm this afternoon. He could tell by the way she scarcely answered him when he spoke to her on the way to their final destination. And he could most particularly tell because when he guided her into the house far down Fosse Street, when he brought her close to him and led her through the labyrinth of rubbish that made up the front room, she drew away from him as soon as they reached the hob in back.

“You should go on ahead of me,” he said.

“But—”

“He’s expecting you,” Jonas told her. “I told him the other night that you would be here, and you can rest assured that he was delighted by the prospect of a visit from a pretty girl. He wouldn’t hurt you, even if he could.”

He looked around the room at the chaos that always reigned here, and felt a full-blown body itch settle into his skin. “I have a few things to do down here first.” Such as washing his hands and wrapping that end of cheese in wax paper. Such as avoiding the fact that he’d intended to introduce Lydia to his father.

When she hesitated, he said, “You’re welcome to stay down here. Alone with me.”

And of course, on that, she went up without him. He washed the teapot and found a bucket for water.

“Call me Lucas,” he could hear his father saying, as Jonas slipped out the door and headed to the pump.

By the time he got back and put some water on the hob to boil, they were chattering like old friends. He couldn’t quite make out their conversation over the clank of the dishes as he scrubbed them out. Trust Lydia to charm his father in a quarter of an hour.

He snorted.

Trust his father to charm Lydia as well. He gathered up tea things on a tray—all clean now, the silver shining and the teapot whiter than it had been in years—and started up the stairs.

“I do want some explanation,” Lydia was saying. “What
is
all of this?”

Jonas could hear the note of distaste in her voice, could imagine her gesturing to the piles of rubbish alongside his bed.

“This is my independence.” Just as easily, he could hear the pride in his father’s voice. “I don’t mean to be a burden on my son in my old age,” his father said. Pride. Overwhelming pride.

Granthams don’t cry
, he remembered his father telling him when he was eleven.
So you’re going back to school, and I won’t hear any more complaints from you. No matter what they do to you.

“Does your son think of you as a burden?”

“He’s just starting out in life,” his father said earnestly. “About to get married, he is. He doesn’t want an old man leaning on him. When I’m back on my feet, I’ll be able to cut this all up for the scrap metal.” Jonas came up the last few stairs, just in time to see his father lean in. “You see this? Everyone thinks it’s junk. But what you can see right now may well be worth ninety-five pounds. You hear that? Ninety-five pounds, if you know what to do with it.”

That last was delivered in the kind of voice that an elderly man believed to be a whisper, but which could have been heard three counties over.

To her credit, Lydia didn’t guffaw. “Ninety-five pounds,” she said quietly. “My, that’s clever of you.”

“Clever. Ha. I’m not the clever one. You know my son. Now,
there’s
a clever boy. When he was three, I said to his mother—this boy is going to be something, if only we don’t get in his way. The local grammar school wasn’t good enough for him, no. We knew we had to get him into Rugby. Not easy for a scrap-metal dealer, do you think?”

She made an appropriately appreciative noise. Neither of them had seen him, standing in the shadows of the stairwell, simply drinking in the sight of them together.

“If there was a penny to be squeaked, my wife squeaked it,” his father announced proudly. “And what she didn’t save, I found. And after she…well, never mind that. My son, he went from Rugby to King’s College. Worked with them over on Portugal Street for a few years, he did.”

“You must be very proud,” Lydia said.

“Well, that’s as might be. Right now, I just want to know, where the devil is the—” He turned toward the stairwell and caught sight of Jonas standing there. All that proud boasting closed in on itself. He folded his skinny arms and looked down. “Took you long enough,” he grumbled.

It had ever been like that between them. For years, Jonas had thought that his father was gruff, that he could never please him. It had taken him until early adulthood to understand that his father was proud—so proud that his pride shamed him.

Jonas set the stacked cup and saucers on the bedside table, distributed them, and poured the tea.

He handed Lydia her cup. “There’s no cream or sugar, unfortunately. It’s not good for his heart.”

“As if I would in any event. Did you know the average man spends one pound six shillings a year on sugar, if you add it all up? I read it the other day. Over the course of a man’s life, that adds up to well over sixty pounds. Just for having a little sweetener. You seem a sensible woman, Miss Charingford. You don’t take sugar, do you?”

“A little.”

“Two sugars. And cream.” Jonas had watched her often enough.

“Two sugars?” His father looked scandalized. “Why, that’s a hundred-pound habit. Best to break it now. But do you know what this fellow has me doing?” He gestured at Jonas.

Lydia shook her head.

“I’ve told him a thousand times that if you mix lard with rice, you can scarcely taste the difference between that and meat. Can you believe he’s had the temerity to instruct the grocers not to send me any more lard?”

Lydia’s eyes only widened a fraction at that. She blinked a few times, but then managed to answer. “I can believe it,” she said. “He is a most officious man, when he puts his mind to it. But…” She glanced once at Jonas, and then looked away. “But I do think he means well,” she whispered.

“A
RE WE STILL PRETENDING THIS IS ABOUT A WAGER?
” Lydia asked, as they left his father’s home.

He looked over at her. “There is a wager on the table. And if I win, I still intend to collect.” The last thing he wanted, though, was to
win.

She looked away. “I have no idea what you’re doing.” Her voice was quiet. She threaded her fingers together, looking down. “You could have shown me a great deal worse than you have. You aren’t even trying to win. I don’t know what you want.”

She still hadn’t looked at him.

“I think, Lydia,” he said carefully, “that you do know.”

She shook her head furiously. “I don’t,” she insisted. “You can’t want me to say that I see nothing good about that old man. That’s ridiculous. He’s not well, and his mind seems…not what it might once have been. I surmise that his house is the cause of Henry’s injury, and I could weep for that. But the pride in his eyes when he talked of his son, his sense of familial feeling… There is love there. And that means I win the wager.” Her fists balled. “I win, and you don’t care, and I don’t understand you.”

“There is only one thing you don’t understand,” Jonas said quietly. “I didn’t intend to ask you if you found something good in the man we visited today. There is a great deal that is good in him. I wanted to ask you what you thought of his son.”

That stopped her in her tracks. She frowned. “His son?”

“His son. That’s all I’ve ever wanted to discover. How you felt about his son.”

“But…” She swallowed.

“Let me tell you a little about the family before you proceed,” Jonas said. But he didn’t think he could finish this, not on the public streets. Instead, he put his hand in the small of her back and led her across the street to the park.

In the last day, the tree had been trimmed. Little metal candleholders graced the ends of the branches. Snowflakes made of quills and goose feathers nestled among the greenery, and a gold ribbon had been threaded around it. As he came closer, he could smell the orange-and-clove of constructed pomanders mixing with the smell of fresh pine.

“Are you well acquainted with the family?”

“You might say that,” he said, guiding her to the tree. He left her standing at the edge of the stage. He himself leaped up and examined the ornaments. It gave him something to do other than look in her eyes.

“As you may have surmised,” he said, “Lucas was born poor. He was the sixth son of a costermonger, one who learned only the rudiments of reading and writing. He started buying and selling scrap-metal, rummaging through middens to find bits that he could trade. He saved every penny he could and worked arduously to build not just a living, but a thriving business. He married late in life—it had taken him several decades to build himself up. Even after he married, his wife had a difficult time having children. His only child was born after twelve years of marriage; his wife died five years later. Lucas was solely responsible for his son from that point on.”

There were painted angels made of tin hidden within the branches of the tree, angels that would reflect the light of the candles once they were lit. He supposed a tree wasn’t the worst of traditions.

“I would wager he was a good father,” Lydia said, coming up on the stage to stand by him, and Jonas felt a twinge.

“A very good father.” Jonas’s throat closed, and he leaned in to look at a bugle of frosted glass. “Strict, mind you, and frugal, but he made sure his son got a good education. And when the parish teacher came to him and told him that his son had a real talent for learning, he…”

A little string of bells hung on the tree, and a passing breeze made them ring lightly. It reminded him of his father waking him on Christmas with bells, making the holiday feel like a large family affair when it had really just been the two of them. That Christmas, his father—his father who thought carefully before purchasing a pair of socks, if the ones he had could possibly be mended—had given him a wildly extravagant gift.

Jonas swallowed. “He didn’t hesitate to purchase his son an expensive set of encyclopedias. That from the man who once picked horseshoe nails off the street, who refuses sugar to save a few shillings every week. Another man might have insisted that his son take over his business; instead, when he found out that his son had the chance go to university, if only he could find the money… Lucas sold the scrap yard that he’d spent two decades building.” The one his father had thought was the beginning of not just a business, but a real empire. “He gave up all that, just for his son.”

Lydia looked over at him. “This is the son who allows him to live…”

He breathed in pine and closed his eyes. “This is the son who lets him live in that pile of refuse,” Jonas told her. “That very one.”

Her eyes grew shadowed. “I suppose he has become a barrister or some other sort of important individual.”

“I suppose he has.”

“And he no longer has time for his father,” she said sadly. “He cannot have visited, not since…not since all this started. Or he would never have allowed it to happen.”

Jonas let out a long breath and forced himself to turn to her. “He visits,” he said softly. “He visits every day. But he is at a loss as to what to do with him. He’s tried to have the wreckage forcibly cleared, but…the last time he attempted it, the constables were called. He’s afraid his father will work himself into an apoplexy if he tries again. At this point, his only option is to have his own father—the father who sacrificed everything to make him what he is—declared incompetent, his house cleared by force, and his father sedated during the whole process so that he does himself no injury. What kind of son does such a thing?” He balled his hands into his fists. “What kind of son does nothing? I fear for his heart, if he were to be removed from those surroundings. I fear for his health, if he stays.” He took a long, shaking breath. “My God, Lydia, I wish you would tell me what you think about his son.”