A Kiss for Midwinter (The Brothers Sinister)

by Milan, Courtney

  Toford came up behind him. “Well? What number is she?”

  “Eleven,” he answered.

  “Not on the list, then.” Toford shrugged.

  “No.” He still couldn’t take his eyes off her. “No, she is. This list goes to eleven.”

  It was a lie. He knew it was a lie even as he said it. His rational mind, usually so predominant, kicked up a protest. He had hoped to establish his household within the next few months. And he had really been looking forward to securing that source of safe, regular sexual intercourse. There were literally dozens of women who would be willing to provide it—pretty ones, who actually smiled at him in encouragement instead of accusing him of seduction.

  Miss Charingford didn’t even want to talk to him. It made no sense to consider her.

  But it was too late. Miss Lydia Charingford wasn’t just on the list.

  She was the list, and he hoped God would have mercy on his soul.

  Chapter Two

  Sixteen months later

  MISS LYDIA CHARINGFORD STOOD UP FROM HER SEAT in the Nag’s Head Hostelry and began to gather her things.

  “Good of you, Miss Charingford,” Corporal Dalling said next to her. “Very good indeed, to take on the role of secretary on such short notice.”

  Lydia smiled at him as she put the stopper in her bottle of ink. “I told Minnie I would be happy to take her position on the Workers’ Hygiene Commission,” she said. “And you deserve as much commendation as I do, filling the shoes of those who…are no longer here.”

  “Indeed,” Dalling said, with a sober bow. “Indeed we are.”

  In the last month, Miss Wilhelmina Pursling—Lydia’s best friend, who she missed dreadfully—had married and gone to London. Shortly thereafter, Captain Stevens—Lydia’s former fiancé, who she missed not in the slightest—had been sentenced to six months of hard labor. Good riddance.

  Lydia didn’t want to think of Stevens. Instead, she blew on her notebook one last time, slipped the blotting paper between the pages, and checked the stopper on her ink.

  “You’re rather livelier than Miss Pursling,” old Mr. Crawford said from across the way.

  “And less practical,” Lydia responded. “Happy Christmas, Mr. Crawford. Is your daughter coming up from Buford?”

  Mr. Crawford’s face creased in a smile. “Imagine your remembering a thing like that! Yes, she is coming, and bringing her little ones.”

  “How lovely! And why you think I shouldn’t remember, I don’t know. I played with Willa until I was nine. Please say I might stop by and bring a basket for her and the children. You wouldn’t deny me the pleasure.”

  As she spoke, Lydia gathered up her things and placed them carefully in her satchel, securing the container of ink in a side pocket so that it wouldn’t be jostled about. She was aware that she was humming as she did so—a rendition of “Good King Wenceslas.”

  Christmas was almost on them, and she couldn’t have been happier. The air smelled of cinnamon and ginger. Pine boughs decorated lintels, even here at the Nag’s Head. It was a time for wassail and cheer and—

  “Happen we all miss your Miss Pursling—that is, the Duchess of Clermont,” Crawford said softly. “Yes, my Willa would love your company.”

  The smile froze on Lydia’s face.

  Wassail, cheer, and the slight, selfish emptiness she experienced when she remembered that her best friend was no longer a mere hour’s journey away, but a hundred miles distant.

  But she forced her lips into a wider grin. “La, silly,” she said. “I’ll see her again next autumn, just as soon as Parliament lets out. How could I miss her?” If she smiled wide enough, it might fill that space in her heart. She pulled on her gloves. “Happy Christmas.”

  The group scattered in a shower of holiday greetings. Lydia waited until they were all gone, waving cheerfully, wishing everyone the best for the holidays.

  Almost everyone. Her cheeks ached from smiling, but she would not look to her left. She wouldn’t give him the satisfaction.

  “Well,” a dark voice said to her side as the door closed on Mr. Crawford, “you are chock-full of holiday spirit, Miss Charingford.”

  Lydia looked pointedly in front of her at the ivy-and-pine centerpiece on the table. “Why, yes,” she said. “I suppose I am. Happy Christmas, Doctor Grantham.”

  He didn’t thank her for the sentiment. He surely didn’t return a polite greeting of his own. Instead, Doctor Grantham laughed softly and her spine prickled.

  Lydia turned to him. He was tall—so very much taller than her that she had to tilt her neck at an unnatural angle to stare him down. His eyes sparkled with a dark intensity and his mouth curled up at one corner, as if he nursed his own private amusement. He was handsome in a brooding sort of way, with those eyes, that strong, jagged nose. All the other girls giggled when he looked their way. But Grantham made Lydia remember things she didn’t like to think about.

  He particularly made her remember them now. He looked at her down his nose and gave her a faint, mocking smile, as if she’d made a terrible error by offering him holiday greetings.

  Lydia straightened. “Happy Christmas,” she repeated, her voice tight. “You’re allowed to say it back even if you don’t really wish the other person happy. It’s a polite nothing. I won’t imagine you mean anything by it—just as you know that I don’t truly care whether you’re happy.”

  “I didn’t think you were wishing me happy,” Grantham responded. “I thought you were simply describing events as you saw them. Tell me, Miss Charingford, is it really a happy Christmas for you?”

  Lydia flushed. Christmas memories were not always fond. In fact, Christmas brought to mind the worst moments in her life. Leaving home with her parents and her best friend six years earlier. A dingy house let in Cornwall, and that awful, awful night when the cramps had come…

  “Yes,” she said forcefully. “Yes, it is. Christmas is a time for happiness.”

  He laughed again, softly—mockingly, she thought, as if he knew not only the secret that she kept from all of Leicester, but the one she held hidden in her heart. He laughed as if he’d been there on that dreadful night that had seemed the absolute opposite of Christmas—an evening when a girl who was very much not a virgin had miscarried. There’d been blood and tears rather than heavenly choirs.

  “You,” he said to her, “you of all people…you should relent from this incessant well-wishing.” He shrugged. “You do know that it doesn’t make any difference, whether you wish me well or I wish you happy.”

  Lydia’s eyebrows rose. “Me, of all people?” He’d so closely echoed her thoughts. Sometimes, it seemed as if he knew precisely what she was thinking—and when he spoke, it was designed to make her feel badly. Lydia bared her teeth at him in a smile. “What do you mean by that? Have I less of a right to good cheer than the average person?”

  “Less of a right? No. Less of a reason, however…”

  “I couldn’t know what you intend by such veiled assertions.”

  His eyes met hers, and he raised one sardonic eyebrow. “Then let me unveil them. I am, of course, referring to the man who got you with child while you were one yourself.”

  She gasped.

  “I am always astonished, Miss Charingford, when you manage to have a happy word for any member of my sex. That you do—and do it often—never ceases to amaze me.”

  The room was empty but for them, and he stood two feet from her. He’d spoken quietly, and there wasn’t the least danger of their being overheard. It didn’t matter. Lydia balled her hands into fists. The smile she’d scarcely been able to form moments before was forgotten entirely.

  “How dare you!” she hissed. “A gentleman would do his best to forget that he knew such a thing.”

  He didn’t seem concerned at all with her accusation. “But you see, Miss Charingford, I must be a doctor before I allow myself to be a gentleman. I do not recall such a thing in order to hold you up for moral condemnation. I state it as a simple m
edical fact, one that would be relevant to further treatment. Certain female complaints, for instance—”

  Lydia bristled. “Put it out of your mind. You will never treat me as a patient. Ever.”

  Doctor Grantham did not look put out by this. Instead, he shook his head at her slowly, and gave her a smile that felt…wicked. “Ever?” he asked. “So if you’re trampled by a runaway stallion, you’d expect me to express my wholehearted regrets to your parents. ‘No, no,’ I will say. ‘I couldn’t possibly stop your daughter from bleeding to death on the cobblestones—my professional ethics forbid me to treat anyone who has unequivocally refused me consent.’”

  He was laughing at her again. Well, technically, he wasn’t actually laughing. But he was looking at her as if he wanted to, as if he couldn’t wait for her to scramble and reverse her prior edict. Lydia gave him a firm nod instead. “That’s exactly right. I would rather bleed to death than have your hands on me.” She tucked her gloves under her arm and reached for her shawl.

  He was still smiling at her. “I’ll pay my respects at your funeral.”

  “I don’t want you there. If you dare come, I’ll haunt you in your sleep.”

  But that only sparked a wicked gleam in his eye. He took a step closer, forcing her to tilt her head up at an unnatural angle. He leaned over her, bending his neck. And then he whispered.

  “Why, Miss Charingford.” That smile of his tilted, stretching. “There’s no need to wait until you’re dead to visit my bed. In fact, I’m available right now, so long as we finish before—”

  She didn’t think. She pulled back her arm and slapped him as hard as she could—slapped him so hard that she could feel the blow reverberating all the way back to her shoulder.

  He rubbed his cheek and straightened. “I suppose I deserved that,” he said, somewhat ruefully. “Your pardon, Miss Charingford. I was in the wrong. I should never have spoken that way.” He looked down. “In my defense—and I know this is a weak defense—we were talking about death, and that always brings out the worst of my humor. Which, as you have no doubt discovered, is abominable to begin with. I pray that I do not one day watch you bleed to death on the streets.” His voice was solemn, and for once, that twinkle vanished from his eyes. “I hope it is not you. But it will be someone.”

  For a moment, she felt a tug of sympathy. To deal with death every day, to have only humor to keep the specter of darkness at arm’s length… But then she remembered everything he had said to her—those pointed reminders that she was a fallen woman. She remembered his all-too-knowing eyes, following her across the room whenever she encountered him. She might have been able to forget her mistake for months on end were it not for him.

  She wound her scarf around her neck. “Now you’ve made me regret striking you.”

  “Truly?” That eyebrow rose again.

  He stood close, so close that when she picked up her coat, he was able to intervene and hold it out for her. Nice of him to act the gentleman now, now when it meant that she sensed the warmth of his hands against hers, his bare fingers brushing her wrist. His touch should have been cold like his depraved, shriveled heart. Instead, a jolt of heat traveled through her.

  “Truly.” She set her hat on her head and adjusted the cuffs of her coat to cover her gloves. “You see, I interrupted you before you told me how long you were giving yourself to finish the deed. I’d not have given you above thirty seconds, myself.”

  His crack of laughter followed her out the door. She could hear it echoing in her mind—laughter that sounded jolly and fun, without a hint of meanness to it, the kind of laughter she would expect to hear next to the sprightly ring of Christmas bells. It wasn’t fair that Doctor Jonas Grantham of all people could laugh like that. Still, she heard it playing in her mind—saw him, his head thrown back, delighted—until the windswept streets swallowed up the sound of his merriment.

  Chapter Three

  IT WAS NOT TO HIS COMFORTABLE BELVOIR STREET HOME that Jonas went after the meeting. He had a much longer journey—up Fosse Road, picking his way carefully across paving stones that were slick with ice. The houses became smaller the further he went from the center of town: shoved together in a row, shrinking from three- and four-story stone affairs to squat two-story cottages fronted by brick walls that enclosed only enough room for the most meager kitchen gardens.

  The only break from those small, depressing abodes was a space of dry dirt, ringed by a low stone wall. In summer, it served as a park where the children might play. In winter, with the weather so cold, it usually stood vacant. A rough structure had been erected several years ago in the middle, little more than a stage with a roof and three walls surrounded by wood benches. It was used for the occasional gathering—mostly amateur productions put on by the children. The structure surrounding the stage had been plastered over long ago, making it an unrelieved dingy white breaking up the monotony of the dirt.

  Today, though, he saw a few men setting up a tree on the stage, one so large that it scarcely fit under the roof. It was a monster, maybe fifteen or sixteen feet high, and the sound of laughter rang out as the men hauled it erect.

  Yule logs and holly, the traditions of Jonas’s childhood, had fallen out of fashion in favor of new German practices popularized by the late Prince Albert. To his eye, the tree seemed overlarge, a towering presence that demanded attention. By the time the tree was decorated with glass bugles and quilled stars, it would have transformed this space into something that felt alien. It left him feeling oddly disconnected from the upcoming holiday. Maybe it would still be Christmas if there were trees instead of ivy, if Boxing Day were replaced with visits from Kris Kringle, but it didn’t seem the same to him.

  It would never be the same, not without his father ringing a string of bells at his bedroom door at six in the morning. Not without his father putting his mittens on and dragging him out-of-doors to examine the snow—if there was any—or to show him the countryside. This Christmas promised none of the things he remembered from childhood. His father couldn’t get out of bed any longer, and Jonas wasn’t sure he could bear hearing the bells, knowing that his father wasn’t ringing them. He turned his head away from the tree—from the men who hauled it erect, and the women who looked on, passing out steaming mugs amidst much laughter. They were thirty feet away, but it might as well have been a mile.

  The house he was looking for stood on the far corner. A trickle of smoke issued from the chimney. The garden in front was nothing but mud, stones, and a few decrepit weeds. As Jonas opened the iron gate, he looked for some sign of life aside from the smoke. But the curtains, as always, were drawn shut.

  He bent, picked up a crumpled paper that had blown inside the gate, and balled it up for future disposal.

  So doing, he knocked on the door.

  As always, the reply was minutes in coming.

  The paper was wet and dirty and his hands were cold. His hands were perpetually cold these days; he chafed them together for warmth, but remembered at the last moment that he wasn’t supposed to blow on them. He was about to knock again when the door finally opened.

  The smell always struck him first. It was an earthy, musty scent, the smell of dank places hidden from sunlight, of air that sat still and unmoving. It always took him a few breaths before he grew used to the odor.

  “Good evening, Henry,” Jonas said. “He’s here, I take it?”

  He could scarcely see the figure at the door, so dark was the interior. Henry was a silhouette, scarcely five feet tall, skinny and slouched.

  “Aye,” Henry said, moving back. “Where else would he be?”

  Jonas spread his hands—his cold hands—in supplication to the universe and looked up. “Where else,” he sighed, “indeed.”

  Every time he came here, he told himself that it couldn’t possibly get any worse. Every time he returned, he was proven wrong.

  The front room—could one even call it a room when there was no room at all?—was completely filled. A little bit of
illumination beckoned; a hint of reflected fire filtered down a narrow hallway.

  It looked like a narrow hallway, at a first glance. At a second glance, one might have concluded that the walkway was a natural tunnel made in some underground cave. The walls seemed like jagged, discontinuous rocks.

  It was only when one got close that one could see that this cavern was not made of limestone. It was made of discarded bits of furniture, old copper pots that had been broken and tossed in the midden. There were curving pieces of iron that looked to have been taken from the broken wheels of carts and barrels that had been staved in. These were all stacked together precariously. Dimly, he recognized the newest article to join the collection: an old stove, its boiler ruptured. It added a faint metallic rustiness to the bouquet of the room.

  “Henry,” Jonas said, “you realize that to get to the bedroom, I’ll have to actually scuttle sideways at this point.”

  The silhouette of Henry shrugged in the darkness.

  “There is no room for anything else. You’ll have to tell him there’s no room, the next time someone brings something by. He must stop buying rubbish.”

  Another shrug. “That’s what you said last time. But actually, if you can shove some of the smaller things over the barrels, there’s still nearly a foot of good space there.”

  “Of course. Over the barrels.” Jonas rubbed his forehead. “And pray it doesn’t cause an avalanche. It doesn’t matter. Whether there’s space now doesn’t matter.”

  Henry shrugged again. “If I tell him he can’t, he’s going to sack me like he did the others.”

  Maybe it wasn’t as bad as it looked. Maybe…

  Jonas knew he had failures enough, and a tendency to too much neatness and order was one of them. His fingers twitched if he saw a single picture frame skewed out of alignment. The disorder of this house gave him a full-body itch, one that settled just beneath his temples and could not be relieved.

  He picked a few spoons off the floor as he made his way through the wreckage and set them, neatly in order, atop a metal box. It felt as if he were trying to close a mortal wound with two inches of twine.