Page 79 of Dark Tides
“I don’t know,” she said with a smile. “I’ve only just arrived. I haven’t looked for them yet.”
“They leave them on that table for you,” he said. “They don’t bring them to me.”
“I know.” She was as self-possessed as if he were a visitor to her house and not the other way around. She moved with easy grace to the half table that he indicated, took the letters, and sat on the chair beside the table.
“If you need to write, you may use my study,” he said. “There are pens, and paper.”
At once she rose up and followed him into his study. He gestured that she might take the seat behind the great desk. It was tidy, but there was a closed ledger marked Avery House, and another marked Northside Manor, and a third marked Douai. Her quick glance flickered over all three but when she sat on the great chair and looked up at him, she was blandly uninterested.
“Pen,” he offered. “Paper. If you leave anything that you want posted I can frank it for you.”
“Frank it?”
“I’ll sign the envelope and your letters go for free, under my frank, as I am a member of the House of Commons,” he explained.
She inclined her head to hide her triumphant smile. “Thank you. If someone wants to see the antiquities again, may I invite them?”
“Of course,” he said. “I can be here.”
“I wouldn’t take up your time,” she said politely.
“It would be no trouble, and… if they were acquaintances of mine it would be wrong of me, it would be impolite—not to be at home.”
“How right you are!” she exclaimed. “People would wonder what I was doing here without you. I should be taken up for a burglar!”
He did not laugh with her.
“And so, shall we say a week on Tuesday?” she went on smoothly.
He did not think she would suggest a day so near, but he bowed. “Certainly,” he said. “Of course.”
Her smile was very charming. “And may we give them—I don’t know—tea? Or something?”
“Yes, of course. I’ll tell the cook to be ready.”
“Oh, please let me,” she said. “You should not be worried about things like tea for the ladies.”
“I do entertain.” He was nettled. “This is not a complete bachelor den. I am not a barbarian.”
She made a little apologetic gesture with her black-mittened hands and placed them on either side of her face so that he looked, despite himself, at her warm rosy mouth. “I never thought such a thing,” she protested. “I wanted to spare you more trouble.”
He nodded. “It is my wish to help you. Ordering tea is nothing.”
She smiled and took up the three letters. “I am so pleased that we can do this together,” she said. “The warehouse family would never accept help from you, but this way, they don’t even know what you are doing for them. I am your gateway to helping them. We do it together. I have very high hopes that we might buy them a better warehouse upriver, in a cleaner part of town, and they might be happy.”
“You’re generous,” he conceded, though there was somethingabout her tone that grated on him. “And knowing that the money is going to them makes all the difference for me.” He looked out of the window at the garden that ran down to the river and then turned back to her. “I would like to buy the statue of the fawn. It looks so well out there.”
She nodded, not at all eager. “Ah, you are the second person to admire it. Well, the third in truth. But I will sell it to you. At the discount we agreed.”
“I don’t want the discount,” he said, a little irritated. “If you are going to buy a house for Mrs. Reekie, I want to contribute to that. Indeed, I should like you to let me know if I can help with the cost of the house, or the hire of the servants, or the cost of moving, or anything that she needs.”
“You would have to give the money to me,” she specified. “They would never accept it from you.”
“I understand.”
“So, you would have to trust me with a large sum of money,” she pursued.
“I do trust you, of course. I know your plans for the ladies are nothing but generous and good. I know that you love them.”
