“Are you sure you’re quite well?” she asked when he came to a sudden stop in the middle of the sitting room.
“Perfectly,” he said tightly, laying down the tray and picking up his brandy glass. He tried sitting in a nearby chair, but found his gaze repeatedly drawn to her.
Why can I not stop staring at her?
She shifted under his gaze and rather slowly returned to playing her cards.
“Did you wish for company?” she asked, rather knowingly in his opinion.
“Maybe I am just tired of my study.”
Maybe I desiredyourcompany.
Though it was not something he would have admitted aloud, not even if a large sum of money was promised to him for it.
When he found he still could not stop staring at her, for he was busy admiring the curve of her neck as she bent over the cards, and the way a loose lock of her hair teased her cheek, he stood again. Holding himself back from pacing, he moved to her side and peered over her shoulder.
The cards were not the only thing on the green games table. There was also a strip of paper where she had made some notes in pencil.
“What is this? For the ball?”
“Yes.” She nodded.
To his surprise, he saw that she was trying to keep costs down. Each thing she had suggested they buy for the event, she had allocated a budget beside the note.
“Why are you doing this?” he said softly, pointing at the notes she had made.
“You may be happy to spend money wildly, but I am not. Have I not spent enough of your money recently on changing this house?”
“You’ve spent a little, that does not matter.”
“I just think there are other things we could be doing with the money.”
“What things?” he said impatiently.
Many people would have flinched at his suddenly harsh tone. He would not have blamed her for it. Anyone who met him flinched at some point or another under his gaze and sharp words.
When he had grown older and his mother had begun to flinch, too, at the tone he could command, he knew she was right about him after all.
The image of my father. Yes, that is what I am.
“I…” She hesitated, turning pink in the face as she abandoned her game and swiveled in her seat to look up at him. “I’d like to send some money to my father, please. If you can afford it. If you can spare the money…” She swallowed, the movement obvious in her nerves. “That is what I’d like to do.” She held his gaze.
He stared back. By now, most people would have looked away from meeting his eye.
She never has been afraid of me, has she?
The realization made him want to reach out and take her hand, to indulge in a simple intimacy that was not something he frequently experienced. He wondered if she would mind him taking her hand to his lips again, kissing the back? The mere thought alone had an excitement passing through him.
“I wish to help him,” she said softly.
“No, you don’t.” His sense came back to him. “Surely, you are trying to help your sisters, not him.”
“Well, yes!” she said with vigor. “Yet I know not else how to do it. He is asking me for money. It can help them.”
“Ah, Maggie.” Theodore sighed. “Do you think your sisters would see a shilling of what you give him?”
Her mouth opened and closed. Whatever she had been thinking of saying, she clearly thought the better of it and chose to stay silent.
