Chapter Nine
Nine
“Nah, I gotta get going,” Ryan said, pushing his plate away and standing up.
Henry hoped they would have the opportunity to talk again, for Ryan clearly had a superior intellect. And he’d surprised Henry by calling him brother. Henry had never been the kind of man that others befriended easily…but perhaps his station had been a barrier, as well as his personality.
Ryan surprised Henry further by clapping him on the shoulder in a familiar manner. “I’ll bring you a few books about multiverses. You’ve got to read about gravitational time dilation.”
“That would be most kind.” The opportunity to learn about futuristic scientific theories and discoveries was certainly one advantage of being hurled forward in time.
He couldn’t deny to himself that Rose’s company was another. She was impulsive, and occasionally maddening, but even in this strange new world, he found himself surprisingly at ease with her.
Ryan added, “Oh, and you should go to the Adler.”
“We should!” Rose exclaimed, squeezing his other arm. “It’s a planetarium.”
This meant nothing to him. Ryan said, “It’s like a science center about the universe.”
“Ah. I would very much like to go,” Henry said. Perhaps there would be other men of science there who could shed light on his predicament.
“Let’s do it!” Rose said. “Shoes, and then planetarium.”
After Ryan departed, Rose got the attention of the server and gave her two of the bills Jason had given them, asking for change. A short, awkward pause hung between him and Rose once they were alone again.
Then Rose asked, “If you don’t mind my asking, what was your wife like?”
“Ah. Well…”
He wanted to give her an adequate answer, because Charlotte deserved that much.
And because it might suggest to Rose that he was not as disagreeable as he seemed, having secured the love of an excellent wife.
Perhaps, too, if Rose knew what he had lost, she would have a better understanding of why he was the way he was.
“Charlotte was the daughter of a gentleman, but not of the nobility. That caused some to cast aspersions, though not to my face.”
“Oh, really?” Rose’s face lit up. Given her egalitarian nature, he was not surprised this pleased her. In fact, he’d probably said that first in order to impress Rose.
“Yes. I met her at a country ball.”
She leaned forward, apparently fascinated. “You didn’t strike me as someone who’d like dancing.”
“I did not say I liked it. But it would be absurd to not know how. It would be like not knowing how to ride a horse. Or to catch a fish, which I also do not like.”
“Right.” Rose had a soft look in her eyes. “But I bet you liked dancing with Charlotte.”
“Well, yes. You will, perhaps, appreciate the nature of our first conversation. She said she’d heard I was a man of science, and talked about her collection of minerals.” Which had not been easy to do during a Scotch reel, given the loud music and the skipping about.
“Seriously? This is a woman after my own heart.” She was smiling, but he caught a hint of wistfulness in her tone.
In Henry’s time, he had experienced a few uncomfortable social situations, but none of them had compared to being the apparent answer to a lady’s love spell.
He hardly knew how to behave. He could only console himself with the fact that she’d already declared it a mistake…
which, somehow, did not feel like much of a consolation at all.
“Did your wife have a favorite stone?” Rose asked.
“Yes. A rose quartz, although they are hardly rare.”
“It’s my favorite, too! It’s a love-stone. I mean, for all kinds of love,” she hurried to add. “Including self-love.”
Unlike Rose, Charlotte had not ascribed magical powers to minerals. He surely would’ve known if she had. Yet was it not strange that he should find himself in the close company of another female who was fascinated by stones?
Another female who fascinated him.
There was no need to deny it, at least to himself.
Affections were fickle things. He’d often observed this in others.
No doubt his shocking circumstances had confused his brain.
The server returned and set a tray with banknotes and coins in front of Rose.
If the woman was surprised that Rose was paying, and not Henry, she didn’t show it.
Rose set a few banknotes on the table and put the rest, along with the coins, in her purse. “I love hearing people talk about things they’re obsessed with. They get this energy in their voice and this light in their eyes, and it’s adorable. Like when you and Ryan were talking about particles.”
Was she saying that she’d found him attractive, just then? Henry felt a smile creep across his face.
“In my youth, I was somewhat given to impromptu lectures about topics such as asteroids and battles, much to my father’s chagrin.”
“I don’t believe that,” she said loyally—though why she should be loyal to him, he had no idea.
“It is quite true. Once after a particularly fine dinner party, with no less than the King of Prussia also in attendance, my father told me, ‘Many people envy me my position. But when they learn how much you talk about the stars, and how little you manage to say in response to anything else, I believe they envy me a bit less.’ ”
Her mouth fell open in indignation. “That’s a terrible thing to say to a child!”
“I was fifteen.”
“Still a child,” she said stoutly.
He would’ve called a fifteen-year-old a young man, but maybe there was some truth to this. By then, he had grown to nearly his full height, and his voice had deepened, but his moods had been fickle as ever—perhaps even more so—and he had not yet developed his confidence.
She asked more seriously, “Was your father always mean to you?”
“Not at all. He was kind enough.” Henry had a great deal of sympathy for his father. Every man hoped for a certain kind of son, with an amiable manner and conventional interests, and Henry had never been that.
“And he only said that in jest,” Henry added truthfully. It was a curious thing, how people could say countless things to you over the years, and yet one careless comment could become lodged in one’s heart.
“Well, you can always be a nerd around me,” she said. Nerd meant an artless enthusiast, he supposed. “Once I dated a guy for a year because every time I was about to break up with him, he’d talk about crypto and he’d look so cute and excited.”
“Crypts? He was an archaeologist?”
“No, sorry. Cryptocurrency.”
Henry looked down at the banknotes in front of her. “How can currency be cryptic?”
She laughed. “Well, I don’t really understand cryptocurrency. But he finally broke up with me because I wouldn’t invest in it.”
“He sounds like a cad,” Henry declared. “You must avoid men with strange currency.”
“It might be a red flag,” she said doubtfully. “That’s what we call a warning signal about someone.”
“Ah. Such as a reason to avoid them?”
“Exactly.” She gave him a sheepish smile. “Unfortunately, when there’s a red flag, I tend to run toward it like a bull. And I’m not even a Taurus!” She pushed her chair back and stood up.
“Astrology again,” he said wryly, getting to his feet.
“I get to be a nerd about something, too,” she said as she picked up her purse.
“Fair point.” They walked toward the door. “If you are not a Taurus, then…?”
She gave him a playful look over her shoulder. “Henry Leighton-Lyons. Are you asking me what my sign is?”
“It was you who originated the subject,” he said in his own defense.
“I’m an Aquarius.”
“And what is an Aquarius lady like?”
She grinned. “I guess you’ll find out.”
Out on the sidewalk, Henry walked a half step behind her, clasping his hands behind his back in his usual manner.
They passed another mural, this one depicting a woman with monarch butterfly wings.
Butterflies, he knew, were a symbol of rebirth.
They went into the slumber of a chrysalis and emerged in a triumphant new form. Why did the idea tickle at his brain?
“So you’re staying with me for a while,” Rose said lightly. “In my reduced circumstances.”
She was smiling, but he winced. Rose, he now suspected, was not poor, despite her trousers with a hole in them. She was just not rich, and he was used to everyone being rich.
“Miss Novak. I fear that I have been…a jagoff.” Surprise lit her features, and then something that looked like actual delight. “I did not mean to insult your home. I would say more, but my father often told me to never spoil an apology with an excuse.”
“That’s good advice,” Rose admitted. “Though it sounds impossible to follow.”
Henry gave a rueful chuckle. “Isn’t most good advice?”
“Well, you’ve got a right to make excuses. One minute, you’re in your nice castle, and the next minute, you’re in bizarro world. I think you’re doing pretty well, under the circumstances.” She gave him a sideways look. “And you didn’t mind sitting down with a criminal, after all.”
He’d all but forgotten that. “Your brother clearly has a lively intellect,” he said, aware that his assessment was influenced by the fact that Ryan seemed to like him. “And he strikes me as a good man.”
“He really is. But he had an expensive drug addiction.” The sudden sadness in her eyes made Henry want to embrace her. At the same time, hearing her words, everything made sense.
“I understand perfectly,” he said in a low voice.
She peered up at him. “You do?”
“I know of a man who has come under the thrall of opium.” He was thinking of an astronomer who had once published a theory about an invisible sort of radiation emanating from the sun.
“It has been my unhappy observation that a fine mind is no defense against the world’s troubles, and there are cures that become their own disease. ”
An unwelcome bright ray of realization pierced his consciousness. He could’ve been speaking of himself.
His hands were still clasped behind his back, but Rose slowed down, reached over, and extricated one of them, taking it in her own. “What’s the matter?”