Three
Six Years Ago
W e collided on a street corner.
I was waiting for my family’s driver to pick me up. He was walking home from work. And we ran into each other with the finality of a supernova.
I did not know then that it would become what they call a whirlwind romance. I didn’t know how much he would mean to me.
He was disheveled. There was a smear of dirt on his cheek, a tiredness to his eyes that only darkened to disdain when he saw how nicely I was dressed; how clean I was. The expectation that I’d yell at him for running into me—even though it was likely my fault—just because I clearly came from a wealthier family. Disdain for the purse at my wrist, the crisp dress I wore, the short heels .
But I only laughed and watched as confusion, then relief, fell upon him.
He was attractive. I could see it, even under his hard exterior. His hair was a dark brown that shone red in the sunlight. There were creases at the corners of his light hazel eyes when he tentatively returned my smile. He took off his cap, strands of his hair falling in his eyes.
“Apologies,” he said, somewhat quietly, but his voice was assured, strong.
“Don’t apologize! I should have been watching where I was going.” I smiled, unable to look away from him.
I wasn’t sure what it was about him; he was perhaps ordinary in every way, except for that we’d run into each other.
His eyes roved over me, taking note of my dress, my shawl, my curled hair. The white gloves covering my fingers.
Though it was the truth, a man of his station would be expected to defer to me. To take the blame, to take the verbal lashing I should throw at him. He expected it.
But I would never; I wasn’t Lucas, and I wasn’t my mother.
“Perhaps we’re both a bit caught up in our heads, then, yeah?” he said. His accent was rounder, curling around my neck and my ears as he spoke. It was then I noticed his fingers were stained in black—grease? Ink?—with smudges on his trousers about where his hands would reach, as though he wiped his fingers as he worked.
Of course he worked.
God, what if he was employed in one of our factories?
My cheeks reddened with a peculiar embarrassment. What if he already knew who I was ?
“What do you do?” I blurted.
I only ever saw Lucas with his starched suits and clean hands. I realized I didn’t much ever interact with working people, other than our maids, butler, and cook.
His eyes widened in surprise. “I’m an apprentice,” he said. He glanced down at his dirty hands, as if he was only then realizing his stained skin. “For a printer.”
“A printer? Like newspapers and such?”
I must’ve seemed an oddity, being actually interested in him.
He nodded skeptically. “Books, mainly.” Then he shrugged. “Pamphlets, sometimes.”
“So, you must read a lot.” I smiled.
He smiled back, and a dimple appeared at one cheek that sent my heart fluttering. “I do.”
Completely oblivious to the bustle of the street, we stood there as cars and carriages passed, mothers with their children, working men in the same state as the young man before me. Tired and hobbling home. But he, this man before me, still had a vigor that straightened his shoulders, brightened his eyes.
I sighed and looked out on the street. The scent of roasted coffee wafted toward us from a cafe across the street. A stand with candies and fresh cakes and pastries was stationed nearby, gathering school children on their way home. A florist stood with a wooden cart full of their blooming bouquets out of the way of traffic. The sweet smells mixed with the scent of the exhaust from cars, and the occasional horse created a cloyingly particular sense that was only found in certain parts of the city. Yet once you smelled it, you knew where you were.
“I used to read,” I said. “I haven’t found the time recently. ”
It wasn’t entirely true. I had not read much since my tutoring was completed, but I remembered what I did read fondly: some books recommended by my dashing tutor Samson, and many others I had to hide from Mother. Literature she thought would only lead me to debauchery—Ethan Frome, Dubliners—but they were fascinating to me all the same.
Perhaps, if I had not been so caught up with the society parties, with seeing Flora and spending our days out and about, I would’ve read more.
“That’s a shame,” the young man said simply, his voice soft.
I thought he would offer to bring me some recommendations, if only to see me again—it played out quite romantically in my head. Perhaps he thought of me as frivolous, thinking myself too important to spend time looking at a book.
“You never told me your name.” I turned back to him.
His brow rose, that easy smile still pulling at his lips. “You didn’t tell me yours,” he quipped.
I held out my hand. “Helena Quintrell.”
His eyes widened briefly at the mention of my name, then he sheepishly looked down at his hands, afraid to touch me. I rolled my eyes and took off my glove, offering him my hand again.
“Adam Vering.”
His rough hand encased mine hesitantly, his grip so light, like he thought me fragile. The moment our fingers touched, a shiver trailed down my spine. Like I was doing something scandalous, something I wasn’t supposed to do. I didn’t care if the ink stained my own skin. It would be a story to tell Mother: how I’d met a working man on the street and shook his hand .
He didn’t let go, the warmth from his palm spreading through mine. A comforting, secure sort of warmth. And a part of me didn’t want him to let go.
We stood like that for a moment, hand in hand, as his eyes searched mine. Could he read me like a book? Did he know everything about me just by looking at me? By touching me? I wanted to tell him everything about me; wanted to know everything about him.
A blush bloomed across his cheeks, the dimple appearing and disappearing, and he glanced at the ground, pulling his hand away and shoving them into the pockets of his trousers.
My hand came away clean, the ink on his flesh having dried long ago.
“Adam Vering.” I tried the name out, letting it roll off my tongue. A flash of darkness in his eyes, the sparkle returning a moment later.
“Helena…” My own sounded like golden, hot caramel from his lips. Indulgent cream and berries. My last name dropped. Quintrell.
My father’s name, and his father’s, and so on. Not wholly mine.
But I was wholly me, completely Helena.
“Do you make a habit of running into girls on the street?” I asked.
Calculation behind those hazel eyes. “Not normally, but perhaps I should.”
“You’d run into any woman?”
“Not any woman.”
He looked at me directly, intensely, through his lashes. But he didn’t move closer, his hands rooted in his trousers .
A nervous laugh slipped from me, my mind going fuzzy.
He sensed my struggle and smiled, just a little, the corner of his lips lifting in amusement.
In the span of a few seconds, I imagined what he was like at home. I imagined what we could become before I scolded myself—he was just a boy on the street, and I had met plenty of boys before. None that Lucas liked, or let me speak to, but still. My mind went wandering, conjuring up a future that would likely never be.
Oh, Flora would want to hear about this on the telephone later. We had a new shiny receiver that Lucas had bought, so I didn’t have to wait until the next day to speak to Flora anymore.
Mistaking my silence for disinterest, Adam’s smile faltered. He glanced past me at the crowd across the street, as though in that mass of people were directions for his next move. “I fear I’ve kept you,” he said, replacing his cap.
He opened his mouth to speak further, but I cut him off, afraid he’d leave. And the car wouldn’t come for a few more minutes.
As soon as he walked away, that would be that, and he’d be gone forever. I’d never find him in this big city.
“No!” I reached out to grab his arm, but froze at the look on his face. I withdrew, blushing madly. “You haven’t kept me.” I floundered over my words, feeling like a little girl all over again.
But I couldn’t help it, not under his gaze like that.
He exhaled a laugh, and I felt ridiculous.
“You—do you work near here?” I asked.
He nodded, lifting a thumb over his shoulder. “On Exbury Street. We’re the only printer there.”
“Okay,” I said, committing it to memory .
“Why, you want to come watch us work?” He chuckled.
“I—Can I?” I wasn’t so much interested in the printing. I knew how it worked; I wasn’t dull. But the thought of him caught up in his work, smearing ink on his face absentmindedly, the strength in those arms, putting all his weight against the press, those fingers on delicate paper. I blushed.
Adam paused for a moment, stunned. “I don’t see why not.” He swallowed. “I can… I can save one of the books we’re printing for you. That is, if you want me to—”
I nodded, not realizing how close I’d drifted to him. But the way those hazel eyes flickered to mine—I didn’t think he minded.
“How far is your house?” he asked, forcing casualness into his voice. “I can walk you. It seems your driver is taking a while.”
I’d hear all about it later. How irresponsible it was of me to walk home with a strange boy; how rude of me to leave while the driver was on the way, and how he wouldn’t have known I’d taken an alternative route home.
I didn’t care.
Grinning, I told him our address and let him lead the way. At the next street corner, he looked left and right, giving me an opportunity to study the strong profile of his nose, straight, like a Roman god, cheekbones striking under the tan skin of his face. An angular jaw with the dusting of a shadow. His auburn hair curled under the edges of his hat, messy after a day of moving around.
I wanted to run my hands through those waves, wanted to feel that stubble on my cheek.
God, if Mother knew I was even thinking of a boy, she’d lock me in the house for fear of my turning into a floozy .
He caught me staring and grinned, offering me his arm. “Do I have something on my face?”
I shook my head, averting my gaze to the ground. “No, not at all.” Tucking my hand into his elbow, he stepped down into the street and led me around the traffic, stopping when cars seemed not to slow down for us.
The streets of the city used to terrify me as a child, but as I grew older, Lucas made fun of me for it, going so far as to push me out in front of a carriage. I had enough time to move out of the way, but it only put me further in the street, and at that point I’d been shouted at so many times, I could do nothing but cross and cry once I got to the pavement across from our house. Lucas only laughed, and when Mother asked why I refused to move, he said I must have wandered off. When she sent him to fetch me, his fingers dug into my arm like a vise, leaving little purple bruises.
Adam’s hold on me was gentle, his hand sitting atop mine. My heart stuttered in my chest as his fingers cradled mine. I willed my palm not to grow clammy.
“Let’s hope no one recognizes us,” he said from beside me.
“And why not?”
He leaned in just slightly, so he could lower his voice. “Because you’re holding on to me like I’m your lover.”
I gasped, nearly pulling away, because he was right—the way our fingers nearly intertwined, anyone would think we were familiar with each other. And here I was, in my crisp day dress, and he in his work clothes.
But I didn’t pull away, ignoring the heat in my cheeks. “Well, it’s none of their business,” I grumbled .
“Have you had any boyfriends?” Adam asked, turning onto a different block. We were nearing the neighborhood I lived in, and the passersby began staring at us more, gazes lingering as we passed.
“No, I haven’t,” I said, keeping my eyes forward, refusing to look at any of them. Maybe they wouldn’t notice me, wouldn’t spread any talk that would make its way to Mother.
Adam hummed. “A shame.”
“Oh?” I glanced at him and melted all over again under those hazel eyes.
“Though, if I’m honest, I’m glad, because it means no one is calling on you.”
I bit my lip to keep from smiling. “Why, do you want to call on me?” Nervousness nearly had me covering my face with my gloved hand. “Mother would never let you.”
Adam sighed. “No, I suppose not,” he said, acknowledging the fundamental differences between him and I. The differences that every other person on that sidewalk noticed as they sneered at him, at our joined hands.
“Though I suppose I could do it, anyway.”
His words sent a thrill through me. No boys I’d spoken to at those seasonal functions ever spoke this way—there was a way to do it, rules we had to follow. Calling on each other under the guidance of our mothers and fathers, and if we liked each other enough, perhaps they’d let us go to the next dance together. A stilted politeness, a script we all followed, ensured the utmost propriety.
Maybe Adam didn’t know the rules. Maybe he was used to falling in with girls .
I frowned. “But—have you had any girlfriends?”
He glanced at me and laughed. “Would it bother you if I had?”
“No, of course not,” I said. “I just met you.”
The mirth didn’t leave his eyes. He let go of my arm, only to keep holding my hand as he came to a stop in front of me. We were face to face, inches apart, and he loomed over me, a good few inches taller than me. I hadn’t realized it, but we’d walked blocks and were outside the short gate to the walk up our townhouse.
Mother or Lucas could be watching through a window.
But all thoughts left me as he lifted my hand to his lips, and I finally got to feel that stubble against my skin. I couldn’t move as he pressed a kiss to the tops of my fingers, never shutting his eyes, never looking away from me. The touch of his lips sent a foreign feeling through me, and I almost melted there on the pavement.
“I hope to see you again, Helena,” he said, gently dropping my hand.
The absence of his touch felt like ice water down my back. I nodded, willing words to come out of me.
“You will,” I whispered, and those eyes lingered on me before he turned and strolled back down the street, like he’d never been there to begin with.