A Kiss for Midwinter (The Brothers Sinister)

by Milan, Courtney

  He looked up to the sky, which answered only with clouds. “I only said—”

  “I know perfectly well what you meant, Doctor Grantham. You think that after my indiscretion, he should have locked me away, never allowing me to be in the company of another man.”

  “I do not think that.” He bit out those words. “I have never said that. I never will.”

  She wouldn’t look him in the eyes.

  “It would make no sense to think that, as I enjoy being in your company.”

  “Stop,” she said, shaking her head. “Please stop.”

  So Jonas did. He stopped walking in front of the stage, the dark green branches of the tree looming over him like a menacing creature made of holiday cheer.

  “Listen to me, Lydia,” he snapped. “If you’re going to despise me, do me the favor of hating me for the things I’ve said, rather than the ones you’ve imagined.”

  “I’m imagining things?” A wild light came into her eyes. “You think I’m imagining that you look at me like I’m a mistake that should have been put away? You think I’m imagining the way you weigh me on your scale of moral superiority and find me lacking? I know precisely what you think of me.”

  He actually heard himself growl at her. “I don’t have a scale of moral superiority. You know this is all balderdash. You can tell yourself that I’m thinking myself superior to you all you like, but it has no relation to the truth. You see the good in all the world—all the world, Lydia, except me. Why do you think that is?”

  “Because you—”

  “You don’t want to know what I really think of you. It’s easier for you to set me up as a whipping boy for all your aggressions—”

  She made an outraged sound and swung the basket she carried at his black bag. She aimed it at him as if she were a fencer, and their respective bags their swords. He was so surprised that he scarcely had time to step out of the way.

  “Careful!”

  “Go ahead. Tell me it isn’t ladylike to resort to violence. Tell me that it confirms what you believe of me—that I’m impulsive, hotheaded, and foolish.”

  “Hit my person all you want,” he replied, “but by God, Lydia, if you jostle my bag, you could break the bottle of laudanum. It will get all over my stethoscope, and I will be up all night cleaning it. Do you have any idea how many little parts and tubes there are to a binaural stethoscope?”

  Not to mention the mess it would make of his record book. That was three months of visits, symptoms carefully recorded and pored over of an evening, trying to ferret out cause and effect. Plus, the bag had impossible-to-clean corners and seams. It would be sticky for months afterward.

  He shuddered and set his bag carefully on the stage. “Punch me, but leave my medicine out of it.”

  “I’m not going to strike you in public,” she said scornfully.

  He jumped up on the stage, and then, before she could protest, hauled her up to stand beside him. The tree was fat and tall, but there were a few feet of space behind it, shielded from public view by the needled branches.

  He held up his hands, palms facing toward her. “Go ahead,” he said, and this time, he let a note of mocking infect his tone. “Hit me. Or do you think you’re too weak to cause damage?”

  She balled her fist and hit his hand. The shock of the strike traveled up his arm, clear to his elbow. She packed a surprising power for her size, along with better follow-through than he’d expected.

  While he was still blinking in surprise, she hit his other hand, her teeth clenched. “God damn you, Doctor Grantham.”

  “He probably will.” He was doing it right now, presenting her before him, her hair slipping from her coiffure, those curls dangling at her cheeks, asking to be brushed away.

  She swung at him again, a little more wildly. “I hate you.”

  “I’m sure you do.”

  She glared at him. “I am not—I repeat—I am absolutely not—angry at you.” This was punctuated by another blow. If she’d actually been trying to hurt him, he suspected he’d be in pain. But she concentrated on his hands, striking them with all the force of her fury.

  The scent of pine surrounded them; branches tickled his lower back. She shifted her stance, and the tree vibrated as her skirts brushed its needles.

  “Far be it from me to contradict you, but you appear to be quite angry with me.”

  She looked up into his eyes. “I can’t be angry with you,” she snarled. “You haven’t done anything wrong, and if I were angry with you, it would be irrational.”

  “Not irrational. Just not very fair.”

  “If I were angry, it would mean that I still hurt, that I still cared about what happened to me. It would mean that I hadn’t put it all behind me. And I have.”

  Her eyes dropped and she looked at her fists, as if just realizing that she had been hitting him. Her hands flexed. Her face turned up to his, stricken, as she recalled what she had just said. “I have,” she repeated. “I don’t think about it all.”

  He couldn’t say anything.

  “Do you know what I hate most about your eyes?” Her voice had fallen to a whisper, and he couldn’t make himself look away. “When I look into them,” she said, “I see my own reflection in them. Mirroring back all the things—” She choked.

  Her skin turned white. That meant the capillaries in her skin were constricting. He could almost have guessed her pulse from the labor of her breath. She’d be feeling cold and light-headed right about now.

  “Breathe deeply,” he suggested.

  She didn’t. Instead, she doubled over, as if she were the one who had been struck. She held her stomach.

  “Oh, God,” she whispered. “I haven’t put it behind me.”

  He stepped closer to her. She made a sharp, keening sound, wind whistling between her teeth. She wrapped her arms around herself. He wanted to touch her, to lay a hand on her shoulder. But just as he was on the verge of reaching out, she straightened and looked in his eyes.

  “I am angry.” She said those words carefully, trying them on as she might put on a hat in a shop. She must have found the fit to be superior, because she gave a little nod. “I’m furious. Absolutely furious. I could kill Tom Paggett, if he were here.”

  Tom Paggett. Jonas made a mental note of the name. He was already wondering what to do about the man, when Lydia burst into tears.

  It was absolutely the last thing he’d expected. She didn’t cry daintily. She stood in place, fumbling in her skirts for a handkerchief. And finally, Jonas let himself move. He took those final steps toward her and did what he’d longed to do for so many months.

  He put his arms around her. And to his utmost relief, she not only let him, she curled her hands around him and pulled him closer.

  For that moment, he could let himself glory in the feel of her—the sweet softness of her, the feel of her warmth against his body. He could simply hold her and pray.

  He could almost have cried alongside her.

  Those gut-wrenching sobs—even if he’d cared nothing at all for her, they’d have tugged at his heartstrings.

  “Shh,” he whispered. “Shh. I’m sorry.”

  He knew she didn’t care who he was—that she was too anguished in that moment to do anything but weep, and take what little comfort he could give. He was nothing more than a shoulder to her.

  Still, he was glad that it was his arms enfolding her, that his lapels took the brunt of her grief. He was the one who stood there as she wept, the one who felt when those shudders began to subside. Each minute that passed seemed precious. When the sobs faded to sniffles, he wiped her eyes with his handkerchief.

  “I don’t know why you’re doing this,” she sniffed as he dabbed at her cheeks. “You’re being kind, but you always make fun of me.”

  He ran his hand down her shoulder. “I never make fun of you.”

  “You say such horrid things about me.”

  “I never say horrid things about you,” he contradicted. “I tell you exactly w
hat I think of you, and you never believe me.”

  “You’re sarcastic and contradictory.”

  He sighed and breathed in the smell of her, sweet and uncomplicated. “Well, yes. That, I must admit to. But half the things I say to you in sarcasm, Lydia, I really mean. I just can’t bear to leave them unsaid.”

  “But if you don’t think badly of me…”

  He didn’t answer. He wanted her to lift her head at this moment. He wanted her to look him in the eyes and realize that he loved her. He wanted her to love him back. For now, he’d settle for this—for Lydia in his arms, Lydia finally talking to him like a man rather than a monster to be scorned. For once, the size of that dreadful Christmas tree seemed welcome, affording them this small amount of privacy. He could hold her, and nobody would see.

  “You told me,” she said accusingly into his chest, “that I was welcome in your bed.”

  He looked up at the top of the tree. For a brief moment, he contemplated giving her a polite response. But… No use pretending he was anyone other than who he said. “You are,” he said quietly. “Any man who says otherwise is probably not being truthful. And my faults usually run to too much truth, rather than too little.”

  She sighed; he could feel her chest move against his. Lovely feeling, that.

  “I only mind a little bit,” he said. “As I said before, I wonder sometimes how you can have a kind word for any man at all. You’ve singled me out. I’d rather be special in some way than no way at all.”

  “That’s ridiculous,” she said.

  “I know.”

  She hid her face against his shoulder. He’d never noticed before how much a breath could say. It seemed more than the transportation of air to lungs. The act of breathing with another person—of accepting silence together, of simply living in tune with the rhythm of someone else’s existence—was deeply intimate. They said more to each other with quiet respiration than they’d managed in sixteen months of bickering.

  Lydia spoke first. “I think, Doctor Grantham, that I’ve been unfair to you.”

  He shut his eyes. It wasn’t love, but by God, he’d take it. It was hope, one little ray of hope, that there was a chance for him. That she might know the worst of him and want him anyway. And she didn’t let go of him. He liked the feel of her against him. She was warm and sized right for his arms.

  “You didn’t do anything wrong,” she finally said. “You were—how old when you accompanied Parwine? No older than I am now. You were there to learn, not to speak. I should never have blamed you.”

  He let out a breath.

  “There.” She gave a little hiccough, and then, of all things, a smile touched her face. “Now you can’t say that I never have a kind word for you. Did you really say back there that you would rather I hit you than disturb the cleanliness of your bag?”

  He couldn’t help but smile back. “I did. And it’s true. I’m a horribly flawed man, Lydia.”

  Another long moment. She rested her cheek against his shoulder, and for those moments the world was perfect.

  “I have never given you leave to use my Christian name,” she pointed out.

  “Yes, you have,” he responded. “I’m no expert in these matters, but when a lady cries on my shoulder, I take it as tacit permission to address her by name.”

  “Hmm,” she said, but didn’t disagree.

  Holding her in his arms was having its inevitable effect. He shifted against her. “Little as I wish to suggest we end this embrace…it would probably be a good idea.”

  “Would it?”

  Jonas paused, this time a little longer. He wasn’t going to say it. He really wasn’t going to say it. He was… Oh, hell. He was going to say it.

  “It has been eighteen months since I last had occasion to make use of a French letter, and I am becoming physically aroused. It will become apparent in a minute or so, and that will prove embarrassing.”

  Lydia gasped against his chest. “My God. Are you always this plainspoken?”

  “It’s a natural physiological reaction,” he returned.

  She pulled away, but just enough that she could look into his face. “Doctor Grantham, never tell me that you’re ashamed of a natural physiological reaction.”

  She hadn’t let go of him. She hadn’t let go. Hope was not just present, it was incandescent. He found himself smiling down into her face. “Yes, I am. I have not completely crushed the restrictions that social mores place on me, however absurd they are,” he countered. His hand stroked her hair as he spoke. “I’m working on that.”

  “Then work on it for another two minutes,” she said quietly. “I’m not done.”

  “Ah, Miss Charingford.” That was all he said, but he put his arms around her, pulling her closer, breathing in her old hurts, and exhaling the emotions he had not yet managed to voice.

  “The part that makes me angriest,” she whispered into his chest, “is that I miss this. I miss being held. I miss the feel of lips on mine, of arms around me. I miss the feel of warmth. Sometimes, I even miss all those things that he did to me. It’s a palpable hunger, one that eats me up inside. I shouldn’t want that. There’s something wrong with me.”

  Jonas cleared his throat. “Actually …”

  She made a little noise.

  It wasn’t as if he was suddenly going to fool her into believing him proper. “This is not my area of expertise, Miss Charingford, but there are specialists in London who do nothing but treat women who do not enjoy intercourse. It is physiologically normal to feel as you do.”

  His erection was becoming all too apparent. She had to have noticed by now. Even if there weren’t that thick bar growing between his legs, pressing lightly against her body, there was the change in his breathing.

  “Really?” she asked.

  “Really.”

  He could detect the changes in her. He was standing too close to her, too attuned to her, to miss the signs. Those telltale capillaries in her skin widened, and her skin flushed pink with blood flow. Her lashes fluttered down; her mouth opened a little bit. She held him too tightly, too precisely.

  “Sometimes,” she said, “it feels like there are some hurts that can only be cured by this. By warmth. And touch.”

  He slipped two fingers over her wrist, taking her pulse. He knew all too well the difference between a resting heart rate and an aroused one, and that knowledge of her body’s response only fed his own desire.

  He bent over her a little more, his lips breathing warmth against her ear. Just a little kiss. He could give her a little kiss, now.

  But he didn’t. He knew all too well that physical arousal needn’t mean that she liked him. She’d only just decided not to hate him. She’d needed a shoulder to weep on, a form to hit, a generic repository for all the emotions that she couldn’t fit in her life. She didn’t need a kiss from a specific man, no matter how much he specifically wanted to give her one.

  “Miss Charingford,” he said, “Henry awaits, and I shouldn’t delay any longer. We must go on.” He pulled away from her. She looked up at him, her eyebrows screwed up in quizzical confusion.

  But when he offered her his arm, she took it. He set his fingers over her wrist and took comfort in the beat of her pulse—a little faster than could be explained by the mild exercise of walking.

  Chapter Eight

  JONAS HAD SET AND SPLINTED HENRY’S LEG LAST NIGHT. He’d given the boy a dose of ether when he’d set the leg, enough that he’d not been in his right mind by the time he left. Henry had waved him off, grinning goofily. It was his father who looked on grimly.

  This morning, the drug had worn off. Henry was propped up in a chair with nothing to do but look out the window. His pupils had returned to normal size; his eyes were sunken and dark.

  Lydia came forward and sat in a chair next to the boy. While Jonas checked his vital signs, she introduced herself.

  “I am Miss Lydia Charingford,” she said warmly. “Doctor Grantham asked me to come because he thought I needed
to see an example of someone who conducts himself with decorum under difficult circumstances.”

  Henry—who had slouched every minute that Jonas had known him—straightened subtly. “He did?”

  “He did,” Lydia said, with absolutely no regard for the truth. “And I can see that he chose a good subject.”

  “Right.” Henry nodded. “Speaking of difficult circumstances. Doctor, I don’t suppose you could give me more of that…whatever it was you gave me last night, could you? My leg aches something awful.”

  “No,” Jonas said. “I can’t. I don’t carry around ether as a general matter. And I prefer not to administer laudanum unless it’s absolutely necessary. It contains morphia, which causes constipation and impotence.”

  “Uh.” Henry glanced at Lydia, and his cheeks flushed. “Did you just say—uh—”

  Jonas gave him a repressive look, and Henry bit his lip.

  Lydia simply smiled angelically. “Someday, you’ll thank him for it.”

  If anything, Henry turned pinker. “Don’t need laudanum,” he muttered. “Doesn’t hurt that much, anyway. I’m practically healed already. I’ll be walking in no time at all.”

  He probably thought that was true. And in a few days, the worst of the pain would fade. Last night, there’d not been much chance to explain matters.

  Jonas sat down on a chair next to Lydia. “Henry,” he said, “you fractured the lower end of your tibia right by your foot. If you walk on it before it is healed, you will displace the fracture, and any subsequent weight you place on it thereafter could very well make the fracture a compound one.”

  Henry frowned. “What does that mean?”

  “If you walk on your leg, you might break it again in multiple spots. A compound fracture so close to your joint would likely mean amputation. You must not walk on it until it is healed.”

  Henry gave him a stoic nod. “How long’s that going to be? Once it’s stopped hurting?”

  “You won’t be able to move your leg for three weeks.”

  “Three weeks!” Henry’s eyes widened. “Doctor Grantham, I can’t go three weeks without pay.”