Chapter 11 #3
Not a political ally. Not Lyness, who would listen with care and say the right thing and who Roman would feel, the entire time, that he was repeating an old tale. No. Roman wanted to speak to someone who had looked at the Bar that afternoon and said the stone doesn’t distinguish and meant it.
He halted that line of thinking with a scoff.
Tamsin would not want to hear about this. They had been engaged for approximately eight hours! She had agreed to a practical arrangement, to their mutual benefit: not sitting up with him while he catalogued his losses to a Corporation vote which hadn’t happened yet.
She barely knew him. He barely knew her.
The thought made no sense.
His feelings on the matter were irrelevant.
He dismissed the thoughts and looked out the window at the dark streets of his beloved city as the carriage reached Hartwell House and rolled to a stop.
After bidding the coachman goodnight, he entered the quiet house, a sleepy footman taking his hat and gloves. No one was awake.
Except Apollo and Athena. Both dogs were waiting for him, ears perked, eyes alert, until he gave them the soft command to come. They were at his side immediately, both leaning against his legs on opposite sides. He rubbed their heads with a smile.
At least he had them. They were wonderful creatures; the companionship of loyal hounds could not be overstated.
“Come along,” he murmured to them, walking into his study instead of going upstairs. He stood there for a moment without lighting a candle, the fire banked, the room quiet in the way rooms were after performing for several hours in someone else’s home.
Slowly his bearing relaxed. Roman walked to his desk, opened the drawer, and took out his notebook. He jotted several lines while his thoughts on the dinner remained fresh.
About Micklegate. Not a plan to counter whatever horrible fate Patchett and his cronies had thought up, not yet, there wasn’t enough information.
But he emptied his thoughts on the page, including the significance of the barbican.
What a vote of principle in November would mean procedurally and what it would mean to the city’s memory of itself.
Patchett’s timing of the vote was of interest. He wrote until the shape of it was clear on the page.
The weight of it that had rested on his shoulders, that he had been unable to show in a room full of people, eased.
There was more worth noting from the evening, of course. Reverend Vernon-Harcourt and Mr. Salmond’s conversation about a Philosophical Society. That was something worth pursuing carefully.
Twisting his pen between his fingers, Roman sat back. The formation of such a group of concerned, influential citizens had the possibility of aligning with his own desires for the city. York needed defenders now as much as it had in the time of the Romans, and the War of the Roses.
Apollo whined and dropped his head on Roman’s foot. Athena had spread out in front of the fire, her bright eyes watching her human. They both knew his routines. They both knew he would sit and think until he grew tense, then finally take himself off to bed with a heavy sigh.
“Nearly there, hounds.” He reached down to scratch Apollo behind the ears. “Writing it down helps me put it aside. For a time.”
He much preferred to talk through such things. There simply wasn’t anyone to talk to.
He still wanted to tell Tamsin. But she would not want to hear about a Corporation vote. They had been engaged for less than a day. It was not the sort of thing one entertained a woman with after proposing on one’s single outing.
Perhaps, in time, she would come to take an interest in his concerns.
Putting his pen down, Roman turned back through the notebook on a whim.
The list was where he had left it. Several pages back, written in the careful, deliberate hand he used when he was thinking rather than recording.
Capable of managing a household. Sensible.
Not prone to theatrics. Comfortable in York society.
Willing to engage with civic obligations. Not easily alarmed.
Interesting. He had no doubt Tamsin fulfilled those qualities. Yet they seemed lacking, both as requirements and as a description of her qualifications.
Roman reached for his pen again, thinking to amend the list, but paused as his fingertips brushed the implement.
It wasn’t necessary to change a thing. He had secured the engagement. Whether he changed the list or not, it did not signify. The matter was settled.
He closed the notebook.
He sat with that for a moment in the low firelight, uncertain what to do with the fact that he had written that list two weeks ago and had intended to look for a woman to fit it, and instead had spent an afternoon driving through York with someone who had looked up at Micklegate Bar and understood it without being told why it mattered.
He finally rose to go to bed, his dogs both rising to follow him on their big, silent paws.
He thought about Micklegate Bar for another hour before he slept. He did not think about anything or anyone else, or at least did not allow himself to acknowledge doing so.