Chapter 11 #2
“Our business won’t take long at all. The documents were prepared in advance at my direction.” He led Hope through the bank’s front doors.
Because the days between Christmas and the New Year were a period of intense commercial activity, they found the bank lobby, usually a quiet, airy space, thronged.
Customers stood before every teller’s window.
More stood in small groups chatting, and others enjoyed servings of mulled cider from a punchbowl attended by a liveried footman beneath the rotunda skylight.
“This is very grand,” Hope said, voice lowered. “Like a museum or even a palace.”
Joshua paused to let her take in the splendor of the lobby, which had been built mostly to his specifications.
“We wanted abundant light and plenty of space. Customers should enjoy coming here and being seen here.” Joshua hadn’t missed the place, exactly, but it did show to good advantage with a few tasteful wreaths on the balcony rails and a pretty red ribbon threaded along the carved bannisters.
As they stood, taking in the scene, the conversational hum ebbed, and Joshua realized that the tellers were no longer transacting business. All eyes had turned to him and Hope, standing by the door.
A tall, exquisitely attired figure advanced along the balcony.
“Who is that man?” Hope whispered. “He’d look like the Wrath of the City, except for that little boutonniere on his lapel.”
“My partner,” Joshua whispered back. “His Grace excels at exuding consequence.” Quinn was looking exceedingly dignified, as only Quinn could, even amid holiday trappings and customers slightly tipsy on the bank’s punch.
“Mr. Penrose.” Quinn had adopted ducal tones, his voice filling the now-quiet bank. “Welcome back at long last. Your return is the best holiday gift that I or this bank could have asked for. You were much missed.”
Joshua endured the chorus of welcome back, sirs and the hip-hip-hooray that coalesced from them. Hope stood beside him, making he knew not what of the greetings.
“Come along,” Joshua said when conversation had resumed at a considerably higher pitch, and people were raising glasses and beaming in his direction. “I’ll introduce you.”
“To the duke?”
“To the duke, whom I occasionally refer to as Wentworth, though that’s no longer proper address. He’s just a man, Hope, and rather shy, especially when he hasn’t his duchess on hand. He’s a very good banker, though, and an excellent friend.”
If one didn’t mind the company of a ducal porcupine on occasion or little welcome-home fetes conducted before half of Mayfair, with the prodigal all unaware of his impending honors.
They got through the introductions mostly because Ned took on the role of host, served the cider, and kept the paperwork moving all without appearing to transact any business at all.
Quinn, of course, exhorted Joshua to bring Mrs. Burdette around to meet the duchess, which caused Hope to blush and Joshua to think longingly of weeks on the high seas.
Not how he’d seen the day going, though this was very close to the planned version of events and proof of the most successful outcome possible for Hope.
“You are quiet,” Hope said when they were again in the coach. “That was quite some welcome, Mr. Penrose.”
Don’t Mr. Penrose me now. “Quinn has a good sense of how to handle the appearances. He did not want me sneaking up the bank’s back steps, the bitter widower who cannot be bothered to greet clerks and tellers he’s known for years. I suspected there’d be some sort of fuss, but not that.”
Not in front of Hope, for pity’s sake.
“If that was a mere fuss, I shudder to consider what your welcome-home ball will entail.”
“As do I, so please don’t mention the notion.” He’d spoken with less humor and more asperity than he’d intended, but Jane was entirely capable of pulling exactly that sort of stunt.
Joshua was on the point of extracting a promise from Hope that she’d attend any ensuing balls with him, as his devoted escort and bodyguard, when the coach drew up in front of the house.
“Holly has apparently recruited more urchins,” Hope said as the footman let down the steps. “I don’t recognize them.”
Several children were on the front terrace, and they were not attired as urchins. Three girls counting Holly and two boys.
“Those,” Joshua said, “might be what is referred to as playmates.” Holly was waving madly, and somebody had ensured she was properly bundled up.
Snow adorned the clothing of two of the children, attesting to a battle fought to completion. Smiles all around confirmed that neither side had suffered any grievous wounds. The girl on the end had the same red hair Holly did, and that realization left Joshua feeling unaccountably wary.
A plump lady of middle years joined the infantry, soon followed by a tallish man in a greatcoat, but no hat.
“Mama! Joshua! Look! I have cousins! For Christmas this year, I have cousins and an Auntie Alma and an Uncle Orson, and we played hide-and-seek and ate stollen and sang the wrong words and everything!”
“You have company,” Joshua said, the wary feeling shifting toward resignation. “You have company, Hope, and I…”
She gaped at the tableau on the porch. “That’s Orson and Alma, and the children are half grown, and Holly is so…”
Joshua passed her a handkerchief, directed the footman to retrieve the baked goods, and kissed Hope’s cheek.
“You have family, Hope. I will finish up at the bank. I’ll send the footman around to the chophouse for some comestibles, and you can catch up with your family in my absence.”
Before Hope could reply, the largish lady approached at a purposeful trot, her arms outstretched, the whole group on the terrace swarming after her.
“Hope, oh dearest Hope, it has been too long!”
As Hope was thronged with hugs and borne into the house on cascades of laughter, Joshua gave the footman directions, climbed into the vehicle, and instructed the coachy to head back to the bank.
“Mrs. Burdette, good day.” Joshua rose from his desk, looking tall, fit, exquisitely turned out, and utterly businesslike. His desk was twice the size of the one at the house and intricately inlaid along the edges.
Hope would bet her sewing basket that no cat had ever sat, licking its paws, on that tooled leather blotter.
The whole office exuded good taste, from the plush floral carpets to the perfectly draped green velvet curtains, to the deeply cushioned wing chairs next to the merrily blazing hearth.
Though Hope would have added some camellias cheerfully blooming on the sideboard. And to think Joshua had slept on that lumpy sofa…
“This is a pleasant surprise,” he said, though the reserve in his tone would pleasantly have frozen the Thames. “Might I take your wrap?”
“You may not, and you may keep for all time your polite little invitation to discuss a rental agreement.” Hope brandished the offending epistle, which had arrived on the third day of the New Year.
If Hope survived until sunset, the evening would see the arrival of Twelfth Night, the final hurrah of the long holiday season.
“My invitation?”
“Holiday greetings to me and my household,” Hope retorted, “by which I assume you meant Heifer and Holly. You state an availability at my convenience to discuss real estate matters as yet unresolved.” Respectfully, Joshua Penrose.
“I am happy to call upon you at the house, and the matter is not urgent. Shall we make an appointment?”
She could read nothing in his question. Not curiosity, boredom, eagerness to be rid of her, or pleasure in her company. He was once again the half-frozen stranger she’d met on that frigid, snowy night nearly a fortnight ago.
“Now suits me very conveniently, Mr. Penrose, and I’m here to tell you that you may keep your house. I know it means a great deal to you, and it’s been in your family for some time. I never meant to see you homeless.”
“Lord Stephen is putting me up for the nonce. He dwells in a bachelor’s version of luxury, though he keeps very irregular hours.” Joshua gestured to the wing chairs. “Shall we sit?”
At least he didn’t intend to put her before his desk like some penitent at the altar of finance. “Her Grace worries about Lord Stephen,” Hope said. “She says his brooding casts the duke’s efforts in the same direction in the shade.”
Surprise flickered through Joshua’s politely arranged features. “You have made Her Grace’s acquaintance?”
Hope took a seat in a chair so comfortable, it begged for good books and full tea trays. “The duchess called on me just as I was going out to call on her. I like her very much, and she is worried about you.”
“She worries about you too.” Joshua took the second wing chair.
“If you notice a dapper, dark-haired fellow occasionally chatting up Slivers or one of the other crossing sweepers, that will be Mr. Edward Wentworth, affectionately known as Ned, whose acquaintance you have made. He is her elf, minion, and vassal-at-large.”
“I haven’t any elves worth the name at present, hence I am calling on you myself. Holly assumes our presence is what’s preventing you from coming home. She thinks we should go live with Alma and Orson.”
Joshua drummed his nails in a steady one-two-three-four-pause, one-two-three-four-pause rhythm on the arm of the chair, then stopped himself.
“You must dwell wherever it pleases you to dwell. I don’t want the house back, Hope.
I thought when I returned to London… I thought being under that roof would help put the past to rest, but instead…
I can deed it to Holly if you’d like to keep it in trust for her.
I will also sell it to you very reasonably, if you insist on paying for it. You have only to say what you want.”
I want you, you dunderheaded man. Why was it so hard to put that into words? Though Hope knew why. Anybody who’d loved and lost knew the potential dangers of loving again.
Of living again. “You truly won’t reside there?”