Julie Anne Long - [Pennyroyal Green 08]

by It Happened One Midnight

  He studied her across the mirrored surface of his enormous desk. He was positively motionless. Not a man who fidgets, decided Tommy. He’s very controlled, my father. He assesses a situation and then—

  And then she saw that his knuckles were white against his desk.

  She slowly looked up into his face, schooled to stillness.

  He was afraid of her.

  “I’m told I have your eyes,” she said.

  And at those words, he seemed to stop breathing.

  And slowly, before her eyes, high, angry color flooded into his face.

  “What do you want?” His voice was even and cold.

  Her hands folded together even more tightly. “She named me for you. My name is Thomasina.” The faintest bit of desperation in her voice now.

  “What do you want?”

  “I wanted to meet you.”

  The ensuing silence did nothing but turn her stomach into a cauldron. He did have a dent—a dimple—in his chin. It suddenly struck her as astonishing that anything could have dented the granite of this man’s features.

  The pendulum on the clock behind him swung with maddening steadiness. Emphasizing a silent few minutes.

  “ ’I’ve heard your name, Miss de Ballesteros. I’m given to understand that you’re a courtesan of some type.”

  The shock blanked her mind for a moment. For a moment she couldn’t feel her limbs. She felt heat rush over the back of her neck, over her collarbone.

  “I fear you’ve been misinformed.”

  “Have I? How is it that you make your way in the world, then?”

  “I’m an investor.” Thank you, Jonathan, for the ability to say that.

  He smiled, slowly and unpleasantly. “And what do you invest? The funds from wealthy, gullible men whom you’ve blackmailed or otherwise coerced into giving you money?”

  She flinched. This was his strategy: attack.

  And her strategy was to charm. It was nearly impossible to smile in the face of his smile. It had frozen her face, as surely as if she’d walked into a snowstorm.

  “I know this must come as a surprise to you, but I swear to you that I’m here only because I wanted to meet you. I grew up without a father, and surely you can understand my curiosity . . . the desire to meet my . . .”

  To know whether I have your eyes, or your chin, or your way of moving, or whether you have a facility with words, or if you can bend your thumb all the way back because I can, or if anything that is good about me is because of you. To feel as though I’m anchored to this world by a family.

  And she’d never stammered in her life. He’d reduced her to a child. She failed to remember who she was before she walked into his office. Such was his power.

  “I’m sure I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  And that’s when her temper slipped its tether. And she spoke with a clenched jaw.

  “You left her. You left us. She was loving and lively and she taught me not to think badly of you. I loved her. She fell ill and died in penury and left me alone when I was seven years old.”

  She might as well have been shouting into a storm. Her words seemed carried away by the cold wind of his entitled indifference.

  “Taught you not to think badly of me? Miss Carolina de Ballesteros and I had a business arrangement, which I concluded when I no longer had need of her services. What she allegedly taught you about me is none of my concern.”

  Services. Her mother had serviced this man, in his point of view. I’m a result of a service, Tommy thought furiously.

  There was no give in him. She could feel herself almost physically weakening, winded as though she’d spent the last ten minutes pushing and pushing and pushing against something immovable. A continent, a glacier. He was a man used to shaping circumstances to suit him. Circumstances probably generally vied for the honor of pleasing him.

  I saw you pull your trousers from your crack, you nasty old sod.

  Two could play at staring.

  “Do I look like her?”

  And she saw it then: a flicker of memory heating the back of his eyes, a twitch, a darkening, a memory.

  But he said nothing.

  “Do I look like her?” This time she said it through clenched teeth. The arms of the medal dug into her palm.

  Another of those supercilious smiles appeared. “Miss de Ballesteros, if that is indeed your name or who you are—”

  She abruptly thrust out her hand, palm up. He flinched infinitesimally.

  She kept her hand outstretched. She was proud of its steadiness.

  He cautiously leaned forward and peered. Then adjusted his spectacles and stared.

  She saw the recognition, surprise, flicker over his features. But what a very controlled man he was. Or perhaps it was just that his emotions were no longer elastic; he’d no choice but to snap back into coldness.

  He leaned slowly back again. “Where did you get that?”

  Just those words, delivered slowly and heavily, sounded like a threat.

  “From you, essentially. For you gave it to my mother, didn’t you? Because you loved her once. Didn’t you? And when she died, she gave it me. She told me to come to you if I ever—”

  She halted immediately. Her pride prevented her from saying anything more, because she suddenly knew exactly how the duke would hear it.

  A cynical gleam was already dawning in the duke’s eyes.

  “Miss . . . whatever your name might be. I am hardly in the business of acceding to the wishes of opportunistic whores. It’s very clear you want money. I will never give you any, because in my experience your sort would never be satisfied with asking just once. If you attempt anything remotely resembling blackmail, I assure you that things will go very badly for you, indeed. I sincerely hope for your sake you do not intend to trouble me or my family again. Now, if you will return my possession to me.”

  She took every one of those words as if they were slaps. Opportunistic. Whore.

  My family. The pride and possession he’d imbued those two words with.

  Her skin felt stung. As though the mill overlooker had taken a stick to her.

  A heavy silence ensued. He was quite satisfied he had, in fact, vanquished her. He was clearly equally confident she’d give the medal to him.

  “It isn’t your possession any longer. You gave it away. You could always, of course, try taking it from me.”

  She got up abruptly enough for him to flinch just a little. She stood looking down at him, the desk between them, and she calculated how quickly he could lunge.

  And she knew he wouldn’t.

  “I thought not. I find it ironic that the hero who faced down his enemies in war and won this”—and she dangled it before him—“is so very afraid of me.”

  And she curtsied before she turned her back on him and departed, because God help her, she didn’t want her father to think she was a peasant.

  Chapter 22

  “JONATHAN, ARE YOU UNWELL, dear?”

  “I’m fine. Thank you for asking, Mother.”

  “It’s just that you’ve stared at your food without tasting it for the last several minutes.”

  Jonathan gave a start. He had been staring down at his plate.

  His father glanced up, ascertained his health, glanced down again.

  Suddenly Jonathan remembered when his father had taken his boys—Jonathan, Lyon, Miles—fishing. And his father had been so patient, so exacting, so filled with pride when Jonathan had caught his first trout. Learning to ride. Learning to shoot. Manners and comportment.

  Regardless of who Isaiah had become, Jonathan knew he owed many of the best parts of himself to his father. Both directly, and indirectly, he was who he was because of his father. He took for granted not only his father, for better or worse, but his entire family.

  And Tommy had no one.

  He knew now why he hadn’t been able to touch his food. He was actually nervous on her behalf. For she’d intended to speak with the duke yesterday, and
Jonathan couldn’t bear not knowing whether this had actually transpired.

  She could, of course, even now, be immersed in warm reminiscence with the duke, and seated at the table with his family, gathered into their bosom.

  He doubted this.

  He was actually worried. Not that she would take a sharpened stick to the duke. But that the duke had somehow taken a metaphorical sharpened stick to her. Which struck Jonathan as infinitely likely, because he knew how men like the duke could turn a single word into a weapon. Droll, for instance.

  She’d borne enough alone.

  He shoveled a few more bites of breakfast into his mouth, chewed with a rapidity that made his mother wince, and excused himself with graceless haste before either of his parents could say another word.

  HE WAS BREATHING hard by the time he’d reached the Building of Dubious Occupations. He knocked. Twice. Hard. And waited.

  Nothing happened. He pressed his ear against the door. He could hear no one stirring..

  He did it again. This time, insistently, rhythmically, a fancy elaborate knock, with his fist.

  The door was flung open.

  She stood.

  “Didn’t you hear me knock?” he said mildly.

  “My apologies,” she said tonelessly, after a strange hesitation. She stared at him, but he wasn’t convinced she truly saw him. When he arched his eyebrows, she stirred into life, and finally turned around and headed back to her rooms, leaving the door open.

  He followed her inside. But her silence continued. It was an empty, heavy silence, as if she were a chair or a rock, something that had never possessed the powers of speech.

  So he spoke. “Did you . . . meet with the duke?”

  She stirred again. “Yes. I met the duke.”

  It was that same flat, abstracted tone. She was holding herself very still, as though if she moved too quickly in a particular direction she’d risk disturbing an injury.

  And then she smiled. But it was as though her face was a frozen snowbank, and her mouth couldn’t force its way into a curve. Quite the travesty of a smile.

  It was really very alarming.

  He didn’t know which question to ask next, or how to ask it. Nothing about her stance encouraged questions.

  “What happened?” he asked quietly. Suspecting he probably already knew the answer.

  “What happened . . .” She twisted her mouth, and crossed both arms around her, and looked up at the ceiling. She inhaled deeply, then exhaled. “Well, he quite elegantly, mind you, told me how he felt about opportunistic whores. He assumed I wanted money, told me he would give me none because my sort would never be satisfied with asking just once. He sincerely hoped I wouldn’t trouble him or his . . . f-family again. His manners are really very elegant, and he’s a very handsome man.”

  He couldn’t make a sound.

  She seemed to stir to life; she smiled, and she’d tried for rueful this time and mostly succeeded.

  “I showed him the medal.” She uncurled her hand and it lay there like something crushed to death. Her voice was faintly wondering, almost amused. Full of self-mockery.

  She looked up at him. That bitter, resigned, half smile knotted his lungs. There was defeat in it, and that terrified him.

  He still couldn’t breathe to speak. Fifty emotions pinned him like a martyr to a Catherine Wheel.

  “I actually showed him the medal,” she repeated, faintly, incredulously. And she gave a short laugh. The talisman, the lifeline of her childhood. Its power stripped by a man who could take away meaning from things or people simply by virtue of his title. Who could take things or people to use or throw away at will. “But I wouldn’t let him have it back.” Her chin shot up then. “You should have seen his face then.”

  He’d never hated himself more for being silent.

  And then before his eyes her face slowly crumpled in on itself. Like a rose blooming in reverse.

  And her fist went up to her mouth.

  Oh God. Oh God, oh God, oh God.

  He would much rather be flayed raw and dipped in vinegar than watch a woman weep.

  Panic was the reflex; fleeing was the impulse. They so often wept for baffling reasons and at baffling times. God help them if they would tell you why.

  She turned swiftly away from him. Clearly she was going to try to be quiet about it. Or subtle about it.

  And all at once it was like that dive from the bridge into the river. He didn’t remember crossing the room. He only remembered his hands on her shoulders, turning her to face him. She wouldn’t look up at him, wouldn’t take her hands from her eyes; she didn’t want him to see her. So he wrapped his arms around her like armor, making a shelter for her to fall apart.

  She clutched his shirt and wept hopeless, shamed, wracking near-soundless sobs. Every one of them was a hammer swung at his heart.

  She would survive this, too. Of this he was certain. He didn’t like to think of how this particular wound would heal. What part of her she would decide to scar over in order to create an even more effective shield from the world.

  He surreptitiously rested his cheek against the top of her head. That rich hair was too silky and fine and warm, and her narrow pale part seemed ridiculously pale and vulnerable as a fontanelle. Here, it seemed to say, was proof that Thomasina de Ballesteros could be broken. Cracked like an egg. That she was human.

  The rage he felt then toward the duke was almost euphoric. Almost holy.

  This is how crusades are born, he thought. With this kind of a certainty about right and wrong, good and evil, and the need to avenge.

  And that’s when Jonathan knew, with surprise and a certain distant fatal amusement, that he was sunk.

  So this is what it feels like, he wondered. It’s horrible and magnificent all at once.

  And it’s even a little funny, given that she doesn’t love you.

  This, he realized, didn’t matter.

  He’d never been conscious of fragility in himself. Before today he’d been well-nigh indestructible. Now he felt as breakable as she was, and more powerful than he’d ever dreamed he’d feel. He was in love.

  She was breathing evenly now.

  And for a moment he simply held her and she held onto him.

  It might have been the most perfect moment of his life so far.

  Then she sniffed noisily and looked up into his eyes. Her eyes were particularly brilliant green in their scarlet rims.

  “I never cry,” she said finally, bemused.

  “Remind me to bring you a dictionary so you can look up the word ‘never.’ ”

  She laughed, and gave another mighty sniff and another sigh that sounded conclusive.

  “Here. You need a bit of mopping up.”

  He both reluctantly and with relief put her away from him and fished a handkerchief out of his pocket. His initials had been exquisitely embroidered into it by his sister, Violet, who was meticulous about such things: JHR. He thrust it at her.

  “Thank you.” She examined it, running it through her fingers, admiring its fineness. Then she looked back up at him. “And oh, look at your shirt. You’ve a soggy patch. The second time in as many weeks I’ve gotten you wet.”

  “I suppose that makes us even.”

  She frowned slightly, puzzled. And then a gratifying array of expressions stormed her face as his meaning set in. Outrage and shock and then, bless her, always that wicked delight. She concluded by turning a glorious shade of vermilion.

  “Jonathan! H.! Redmond!” she scolded on a scandalized hush. And with that, he’d effectively vanquished every last bit of her tears.

  She looked away toward the window, flustered. He enjoyed that. “What does the ‘H’ stand for?”

  “Horatio. Are you going to mock me for it?”

  “Of course,” she said, surprised he would even ask. She dabbed at her eyes and gave her nose a honk, then held it out to him.

  “Keep it. I’ve enough wet linen for now.”

  They were silent for a m
oment, and it was a more comfortable silence than one might have supposed.

  “Sorry I acted like such a girl,” she said hesitantly, twisting the handkerchief in her hands.

  “It was bound to happen one of these days.”

  She smiled again, the slow crooked one that was like a fishhook that yanked hearts from chests. “I haven’t offered you any tea.”

  “And I’ve been holding a grudge about that since I’ve arrived. I’ll make it.”

  “Can you?”

  He rolled his eyes. “You really do think I’m helpless, don’t you?”

  He found a tin of tea and filled a kettle full of water, settled it on the fire.

  “You frightened him, you know. The duke.” He said it carefully. “His world is very orderly. He’s used to things the way he wants them to be and . . . he lashed out at you. He wasn’t prepared for you.”

  “He’s cruel. Really a ghastly man. He said such hateful things.”

  “That may be. But keep in mind . . . we all have different ways of showing our fear. Of adjusting to change.”

  And he thought of his father.

  Jonathan, in truth, agreed that the duke was “cruel” and “ghastly.” But he found he didn’t want to take her hope away completely.

  And in some ways it was his hope for her, too, that one day she really would have a father in her life. That the duke would perhaps magically transform.

  He could all but hear her considering it. And he was aware of her eyes watching his every move.

  She was steeling herself to say something. He could feel it.

  “Jonathan?”

  “Mmm?”

  “Why did you come today? Was there a particular reason?”

  He turned. Her breath seemed to be held.

  Because I couldn’t stay away from you. Because I couldn’t bear the idea of you hurting alone. Because I love you. What would happen if he said it? The thought gripped his throat like a fist. He would likely frighten her away completely. Could he withstand her pity, and then the loss of her as a friend?

  But if he never said it, he could remain in her life, and make sure she was happy and safe.