Talk Sweetly to Me
She did not look up from the telescope. “Mr. Shaughnessy,” she said slowly, “that sounds suspiciously like a hidden depth.”
He let out a gasp. “You’re right. It is!” She wasn’t looking at him, but still he played it for all it was worth, setting a hand over his breast. “I do have a secret trauma—my many prior love affairs. There can be no sharper pain then to make love to a vast number of women—but I have masterfully accepted it as my due. I soldier on under the burden.”
She shook her head. “Are you ever serious?”
“I suppose some other man might have been wounded by that. But I’m like a cashmere jumper: comfortable, soft, and as fabric goes, not much given to wrinkling.”
“No wrinkles? Not over even one of them?”
“Aside from the obvious, it was all to my advantage. If one wishes to be a grand, outrageous name in society, one must do a few grand, outrageous things. Absinthe is too dangerous; gambling is too expensive. Opium is a dreadful habit—one has only to look at those in an opium den to know the effect. No; if I was going to be an outrage, I wanted the safest, least expensive vice I could find. So women it was.”
Rose inhaled. “Are you telling me that you seduce women as a calculation?”
“It’s been mutual. And I don’t seduce women—at least not the way you mean it. The Countess of Howder wanted an affair with me to let everyone know she was out of mourning and didn’t intend to be a pattern card of propriety. I’m an outrage, and the women who are so placed as to wish to be outrageous, well…” He shrugged. “And besides, I like women. I like them a great deal.”
She straightened. But instead of upbraiding him, as he’d expected, she gestured to the telescope. “Come take a look.”
He did. It was unnerving to not be able to see her—not after what he’d confessed. The dark spot had begun to traverse the sun’s disc.
“Aren’t there dangers in using women that way?”
“There are. There are also ways to minimize those dangers. Technically, they’re also forbidden to me, but…”
A longer pause. “Do you confess those ways to Father Wineheart as well?”
“I confess all my sins.”
He could hear her behind him, but with his eye on the disc of the sun, he could not see her. He had no idea if she was outraged or interested, if he’d disgusted her forever or set her mind at ease.
“I can’t imagine that. You tell all these salacious details to Father Wineheart, and in turn, he lets you put a telescope in the spire.”
“I only moved to this parish three months ago, Rose.” He shrugged. “I met you almost the first day I was here. I’ve had nothing to confess since that moment.”
She inhaled behind him, sounding almost shocked. “Nothing at all?”
“Nothing but lust, which he rather expects from a man my age.” He straightened, gesturing her back to the telescope. “You’d better take it back, Rose. The clouds are coming in—I’d hate to have you miss anything.”
She held his eyes for a long moment. He didn’t know what she was seeing, didn’t know what she was thinking. She bent back down.
She had to adjust the telescope yet again to track the sun in its descent. She didn’t say anything for a while, but he could see her hands nervously tapping against the optical tube. Her breath was uneven.
“Tell me, Mr. Shaughnessy. Is that what you had hoped for from me? To…” She stopped briefly, swallowing, and then continued. “To seduce me and then not fall in love?”
“No,” he told her. “I’m tired of having to remind myself that the women who are after me wish only an experience or a reputation and not a lifetime. I’m tired of holding myself back. I’m tired of having to flatten all but the barest hint of affection.”
Her breath caught.
“I’m tired,” he said, “of not letting myself fall in love.”
She didn’t say anything for a long time. “They’re idiots,” she finally said. “Complete idiots, the lot of them.”
“No,” he replied. “They aren’t. I don’t tend to hold idiots in affection.”
“No?”
“Of course not,” he said. “Why do you think I like you best of everyone?”
She didn’t say anything. He could see the clouds coming closer now, dark swells creeping across the sky.
“I am not outrageous.” Her voice was small. “I don’t wish to be outrageous.”
“I know,” he said. “And I’ve forgotten how to be anything but the most flagrantly outrageous man ever.”
She drew in a breath. “This was supposed to be the last time I saw you.”
“It’s the only sensible thing to do. We sound like the most ridiculous match; I know we do. But I can’t help but think, Rose, that if we could get over this awkward beginning bit—if we could just get to the part where you tell me about mathematics over breakfast and I buy you telescopes and we spend half the evening kissing—”
She made an annoyed noise.
“Too much? A quarter of the evening kissing?” he amended.
“No.” She straightened from the telescope. “The sun’s gone behind the clouds.” She glanced at him. “We’ve lost it for now. Maybe the weather will clear up.” She glared out over the city.
He didn’t put the chances high. The clouds had gone even darker; they stretched as far as he could see. She rubbed her gloved hands together briskly, and he realized that she was almost certainly cold.
He was, too—his hands and feet were uncomfortably chilled. He just hadn’t noticed, because…he’d been watching her. Hell, he’d been spilling his heart out to her, such as he did these things. He’d just told her he hoped to marry her, and he wasn’t even sure if she had noticed.
“An eighth of the evening kissing?” He looked over at her. “I can go lower if necessary.”
She shut her eyes. “Stephen.” That single word, long and drawn out. It was neither yes nor no; he wasn’t sure what it was.
“Every time I’m with you,” she said, “I tell myself I must beware. That this is what you do—make women comfortable, make us forget ourselves, principle by principle.” She rubbed her forehead and slowly opened her eyes. The light in the spire was waning even as she spoke, and yet for some reason, it seemed to find her, glinting in her eyes, reflecting off the warm brown of her skin. It caught a faint tilted smile on her mouth.