Chapter 14 #2
“If you chose to let anyone see the real version of you, the man who was paying attention would not need very much help from me,” he said, and turned to look at her properly. “You guard yourself and you probably do not notice you are doing it. But from the outside it is very visible.”
She looked at him, stunned.
“Furthermore,” he said, and his voice had changed again, quieter now, “you could have your pick of any man in that room if you simply allowed yourself to be seen properly. You are the most beautiful woman in any room you walk into and if you ever chose to actually make use of that fact instead of walking around as though you are entirely indifferent to your own effect on people, you would have no difficulty at all and you certainly would not need me to find Lord Pemberton for you.”
A silence fell in the carriage as she tried to wrap her mind around what he had just said to her.
The heat in her face arrived without any permission from her whatsoever, which she found both inconvenient and deeply annoying, and she turned to look at her own window.
“You do not mean that,” she said at last, though there was less certainty in it now than she would have preferred. “Or at least, you cannot possibly mean it in the way you have said it, because that would suggest you have been paying a degree of attention that is unnecessary.”
“I am allowed my opinion.”
“And you believe,” she said, “that you have understood me so completely that you may explain my own behavior to me as though I have simply failed to notice it myself? Your observation, however well intentioned, is not as straightforward as you appear to believe.”
“Then explain it,” he said.
“When you say that I could have my pick of any man in the room, you say it as though it is simply a matter of deciding to, as though the men in that room are a reasonable selection of options and I simply need to apply myself more diligently. Most of them are perfectly adequate, none of them are…”
She stopped herself, halfway.
“None of them are what?” he said.
She looked at the window.
“It does not matter,” she said.
“Suit yourself,” he let the matter drop.
But what she really wanted to say was, none of them are you.
The next morning after breakfast, Joseph approached her.
“Are you quite all right?” Joseph asked.
Temperance looked up from her book. She had been in the garden for the better part of an hour, ostensibly reading, actually doing the thing she did when something was occupying her mind and she needed the particular quality of outside air and apple trees and dogs going about their business to help her think through it.
Joseph was standing a few feet awa, hands behind his back and his posture was correct.
“I am perfectly well,” she said. “Thank you for asking.”
“You have been out here for quite some time,” he said.
“I enjoy the garden in the morning.”
“You do,” he agreed. “Although you have not turned a page in the last twenty minutes, which suggests that the book is not the primary activity.”
“Sit down, Joseph,” she said.
He sat on the other end of the bench.
“Breakfast was strange this morning,” Joseph said.
“Was it?” she said.
“You and my father were very polite to each other,” he said.
“We are generally polite to each other,” she said.
“Not like that,” Joseph said. “Usually when you are polite to each other there is something underneath it.”
She looked at him sideways. “You are very perceptive for someone your age,” she said.
“I have been told,” he said.
“By whom?”
“Various people,” he said. “My father also tells me, occasionally, though he usually follows it with a suggestion that I direct my perceptiveness toward my Latin exercises.”
She almost smiled. “And do you?”
“Sometimes,” he said. “Latin is less interesting than people. Something happened last night?”
“We went to the opera,” she said.
“You usually come and find me to say goodnight, which you didn’t do last night,” He said it without accusation, just as an observation he had made. “And my father sat in his study for a long time after you went up. I could see the light under the door.”
She said nothing.
“I am not asking you to tell me what happened,” Joseph said. “I only wanted to ask if you were all right.”
She looked at him. He was looking at the garden still, his face composed and patient, and she thought about what it had cost him to come out here and say this.
“I am all right,” she said.
“Good,” he said.
They sat for another moment.
“Joseph,” she said.
“Yes?”
“What made you come out here this morning?”
“I thought that whatever had happened, it would be better if someone said something to someone, and since neither of you appeared to be making any immediate plans in that direction, I thought I might as well be the one to say something.” He glanced at her briefly.
“Even if what I said was only to ask if you were all right.”
“You know,” she said, “you are rather remarkable.”
He looked at her.
“I am only being sensible,” he said. “Can I tell you something?”
“Yes,” she said.
“My father is not very good at saying things,” he said, “not because he has nothing to say but rather the opposite sometimes.”
She was very still.
“I have also noticed,” Joseph said, “that since we came here, he says things more than he used to. I think that is because of you.”
She looked at him. He looked back at her with the clear, direct honesty that was entirely his own, without any of the management that adults put around difficult things, just the plain truth of it offered simply.
“Joseph,” she said.
“I only mention it because I think it is worth knowing.” He stood up, “I should go and do my Latin.”
“Yes,” she said. “Probably.”
He gave her the small, formal nod he had when something had been concluded to his satisfaction, and turned to go. He was almost at the garden door when he stopped and looked back at her.
“Miss Hosmer,” he said.
“Yes?”
“I hope you will not go away,” he said. “Whatever happens. I hope you will stay.”