Chapter Twenty-Two
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
T HOMAS RETURNED TO THE BALLROOM IN A DESPERATE STATE. T HE gentlemanly costume he perpetually wore chafed against his real self. He struggled to keep up appearances.
But he endured. Miss Cross would take care of herself. She didn’t need him. Perhaps, even, she needed him here more than she did at the police station. After all, if he lost The Empire, then she lost her employment, and then where would they be?
It was on this possibly tenuous logic that Thomas found himself playing Prince to Miss Constance Alban’s Cinderella as her father beamed, and her current suitor, Edward Langmore, grimaced from across the dance floor.
It was becoming clear that Miss Constance Alban was a very lovely woman of very few words. She had gone rod-stiff in his touch. Was she frightened? Aloof? Annoyed? He couldn’t tell. But after a full sixteen measures of silence, he attempted to change that.
Not necessarily because he wanted to, mind. But because this was all a game, and if he didn’t play it right, her father might toss the board.
“I’m gratified that you favored me with a dance, Miss Alban,” he said as they executed a perfect turn. Her face was as impassive as ever—bored, even.
“Yes, I suppose that makes sense.”
His heart tugged. That sounded like something Evelyn might say.
No. He couldn’t think about her or where she might be at this very moment. He had other matters—more important matters, surely—at hand.
“Quite confident of your charms, then,” he said. “I’m glad for it. Most women wouldn’t dare admit that they know how fetching they are.”
It was a light flirtation, but a false one all the same and he hated himself for it. He didn’t care about Constance Alban. She was a means to an end—impressing her father.
“No, it makes sense that you would want to dance with me. There’s a reason I’m always the most popular young lady at parties, Mr. Gallier, and it’s not because I’m particularly skilled at the waltz.”
She nodded in her father’s direction. Thomas lost a step, but recovered as best he could, well aware that a room full of people watched them with great interest.
“You don’t have much faith in yourself, do you?”
“I am a realist.”
“Are you this forward with all of your partners?”
She hesitated. “Only those I think may have real potential.”
A burden lifted from his shoulders. It was almost confirmation that choosing this dance over saving Evelyn had been worth it.
“And I do?”
“My father likes you. I don’t think you’re so bad. Not as bad as I was expecting, anyway, given how tongue-tied you were during our first meeting.”
That slight, even-toned insult sank under the weight of a million unasked questions and unleveled accusations. He marveled slightly at the ease with which she spoke of matters he’d never heard a woman comment on in polite company.
Constance saw this dance just as he did. As an extension of his father’s interest in him.
“And to think,” he said with a dark, humorless chuckle, “I came to this dance planning to be quite romantic.”
“Dancing isn’t about romance. These parties aren’t, either. They’re just boardrooms and offices—by a different name and with better lighting, perhaps. If men treat this space as a place of business, then so must I.”
He didn’t know what to say to that. He wasn’t sure he ever would.
“If you think you’re here for love, Mr. Gallier, you’re going to be terribly disappointed. Life doesn’t work that way.”
Her eyes drifted, and when the dance carried them into a spin, he realized what caught her attention. Or rather whom. Edward Langmore—the portly, unsuitable man her father despised.
Yet it was clear from Miss Constance Alban’s expression that she thought he hung the very stars in the heavens just for her.
Thomas suddenly felt quite dizzy. And this waltz’s twirls had nothing to do with it.
He was a realist, too. Despite how terribly he’d wanted it, he knew he could never marry for love. She was right. Marriages were a contract.
A lifelong.
Inescapable.
Contract.
But was he really going to sell his life, his forever, his bed to the highest bidder? Denying his heart because it might make him a little richer or accrue him a bit more power?
Was he really going to let Evelyn rot in a jail cell so he could ally himself with Mr. Alban?
And what about love?
Was he really going to endure the rest of this lonely existence without it? Or even the possibility of it?
Evelyn’s words from this afternoon rattled around in his mind. You’re a coward. You’re letting the press control you.
If this is the real you, then … you were right. He does nothing but hurt people. Including himself.
And then, of course, there was Miss Matterly.
You spiritless coward . You’re willing to throw people away if it will put even a penny more in your pocket.
He was a coward, wasn’t he?
Or … he had been. He didn’t have to be anymore. Not if he made different choices.
“And I’ve shocked you,” Constance Alban said, after a long silence.
“No. I just …”
The music stopped. There was polite clapping, more chatter, bodies moving all around them, but Constance and Thomas lingered.
“I believe you’ve opened my eyes to something,” he said.
“Really?”
“Yes.” He smiled down at her, certainty settling in him. “Thank you.”
“I … I’m happy to have been a help, sir. Until we dance again.”
“Oh, no, Miss Alban. I hope you and I never dance again. I believe there is a partner much better suited to you than I.”
She returned his smile, but there was something different about it now. Maybe he’d opened her eyes to something, too. Giving the smallest of bows, he immediately exited the scene. Without farewells, he fled to the front entranceway and called for his coat.
He should have known better than to think he could get away so easily.
“Thomas?” Dr. Samson called, following him to the front door. “Where on earth are you going? Alban will surely want to speak to you after that display. Miss Alban seemed quite taken with you—”
“Something’s happened to Evelyn. I must go to her.”
“Are you certain? This could mean the end of this little alliance of yours with Nehemiah Alban.”
Thomas gazed at that fuzzy line on the mansion’s second stone step, that place where the false light of the fine home met the seductive night. Andrew was right. He should return inside, secure Constance’s hand, accept her father’s help, and go on with his happy and prosperous future, uncaring of Evelyn Cross and all the mixed-up ways she complicated his life.
But there was no going back. Not now.
“Yes. It most likely will. But it will also mean the start of something much, much greater.”
And with that, he descended the steps and let the night welcome him.
Present Day
A FTER T HE G REAT T - S HIRT I NCIDENT, I DECIDED TO KEEP MY DISTANCE from my boss. Not literally, of course. The boxes kept in the Fifth Avenue residence were the basis of my entire research, and he was always hanging around the house. Physical proximity was just part of the job description. But otherwise, I was polite, distant, and kept my friggin’ mouth shut.
It wasn’t easy. Sitting in stuffy rooms with Armitage, saying nothing, watching slanting nineteenth-century handwriting blur on the pages in front of me as I tried not to think of how he’d set my gift aside like someone getting macaroni art for Christmas, hating the fact that he still brought me tea and kept the nearby plates filled with fresh cookies from some bakery down the street, wishing he would be the one to break the silence and prove me wrong, prove that he actually did like me and he’d just been awkward about the shirts …
But at least Evelyn had the benefit of knowing Thomas liked her, even if he worked his ass off to keep his distance. He’d been obsessed from the start. With Armitage, I was totally in the dark. Did he even like me? Did I dare think it could be even deeper than that, something like want? Or was I some needy, lonely girl he tolerated only when he had to?
I didn’t know. I couldn’t know. And I didn’t suspect he’d ever tell me.
Do your work , I always thought to myself. The sooner you finish, the sooner you can put Armitage Gallier out of your mind forever.
I wasn’t anything to him, I told myself. He shouldn’t be anything to me.
That’s why I didn’t think anything of it when I came down with a cold. The day I woke up with an obliterating headache and swollen eyes, I groped blindly out from beneath my quilt, scraped out a message to Armitage about staying home because I was sick, and immediately went back to sleep. No harm, no foul. He was going to some gala that night anyway, so it wasn’t even like he’d miss me.
Not that I thought he would miss me otherwise.
But then, I woke up to the sound of banging on my shitty, barely lockable front door. Not just annoyed DoorDash driver banging, either. Biblical , knocking on the gates of Heaven knocking. As well as I could with my joints screaming to return to the merciful haven of bed, I shuffled to the front door, opened it …
And immediately became convinced I hadn’t woken up at all but was still in a literal fever dream.
“What the hell is this?”
At least, I think that’s what I said. I mostly just slurred—maybe this cold was more of a flu situation. Maybe I was dying. Maybe I’d already died.
What else would explain stick-up-his-ass Armitage Gallier, standing at my front door in a white-tie tuxedo, hair in total sweaty disarray, collar wrinkled, shoes muddy, holding a giant tub of wonton soup in one hand and a mega-pack of orange Gatorade in the other?
“You’re sick,” he said, obviously. Like I was the weird one for not getting it.
“That doesn’t explain anything. Do you think that explains anything?”
Polished shoes squeaked as he shifted from left foot to right. My head swam. It was a little like being irretrievably drunk—foggy and fuzzy and exhausted and heavy-eyed and without rules or manners.
Armitage cleared his throat. Looked anywhere but at me. “Well. You don’t have anyone to look after you.”
That was true. I’d told him how I’d left my family back home in Cleveland, and how I hadn’t yet made a ton of friends—read: any—here in the city. I was alone.
I just didn’t think he’d care about that.
“And the tux?”
“I was at the British Ambassador’s Ball. I left.”
“Why? Because you think I might die from a cold and take my valuable historical insights to my grave?”
It was at that point my knees decided keeping me upright was no longer in their job description. They buckled, nearly taking me on a one-way trip to the unforgiving laminate floor.
But Armitage caught me. And I don’t know if it was my raging temperature or the brain fog or what, but when I looked up at him, he seemed to glow. Like he was meant to hold me like this.
A moment of contact. Of stillness. Of breathlessness. And then, he launched into action. To me, it was a headachey blur, but thinking back on it, the pieces kind of come together. Checking my forehead with big, soft, snow-cold hands. Shuffling me back inside. Leaning me against him for support. Tossing aside his jacket and white scarf. Dropping off the supplies. Feeding me two large flu gel caps from my medicine cabinet. Reaching for a nearby rag and turning on the kitchen faucet.
“You’re burning up.”
“Who died and made you a doctor?”
“I don’t think you can inherit an MD.”
“Shame. That’s the only way a guy like you could get one.”
“Why? Too stupid?”
“No. You just don’t have any bedside manner. Zero out of ten stars.”
He folded the cold compress he’d just made in my sink, then nudged me onward.
“You need to get into bed.”
“Alone?” I joked before I could think better of it. Evelyn was wearing off on me. All that wishful thinking about becoming more like her, and I’d just inherited her worst traits: impulsivity and yearning instead of courage and confidence. Not to mention that my fever had clearly burned off the increasingly flimsy sense of inhibition that lately kept me from saying anything too ridiculous.
“Trust me,” he said, pulling back the covers. I got under them without complaint. My body hummed at the familiar comfort. My eyes drifted closed, and he laid the cold compress across my forehead. His voice was barely more than a whisper. “When I work up the courage to get into bed with you, you won’t have to ask. You’ll know I want to be there.”
“Hell of a thing to say to your employee,” I mumbled.
A breath—a sigh or a laugh? I wasn’t sure. “I’m not worried. That cold medicine is pretty strong stuff. You’ll forget any of this ever happened.”
“Doubt it,” I breathed.
How was I ever going to forget this? Armitage Gallier sweeping into my home because I needed someone. Taking care of me like he wanted to, like it was a law of the universe that he would, as natural as the sun coming up. Me accepting it.
It didn’t make any sense.
“Even if you do remember, you’re under an NDA,” he said. “You’ll never be able to tell the world that Armitage Gallier just might have a heart after all.”
Vaguely, I heard the kettle whining across my tiny studio. The sound of hot water being poured. The scent of bergamot. The weight of a large body just barely sitting on the edge of the bed.
A trembling hand, brushing hair away from my forehead.
“Armitage?” I asked.
“Hm?”
I know you have a heart now, I wanted to say. Why do you try so hard to hide it?
But I dozed off before the words could make their way out.