Page 12 of Blueprints, Battlelines and Ballrooms
‘There,’ he said, as he passed her the drawing.‘It’s official.’
Florence took the paper, cupping her palm against the back of his hand.He wasn’t wearing gloves, his skin warm despite the chill, and with a confident recklessness, completely sunken by a whim, she ran her thumb over his knuckles.The effect was more than she could have anticipated.Johannes jerked, his eyes widening.He juggled the folder when it slipped to one side but missed.It fell to the ground, his papers and sketches scattering over the stones.A light evening wind flipped and spread some of them further.
‘Bother,’ Johannes muttered, as he crouched to collect them.
Florence ignored her knee’s protest, descending the stairs and reaching for a few stray sheets before they were caught by the wind.He had an excellent hand… She bundled up flourishes, a cat, an acorn, a leaf—so many beautiful small observations.‘These are wonderful.’She picked up a sketch of a window, then another drawing, holding it higher to see better in the low light.‘You have an amazing eye for…’
It was a drawing of a lady.Not just a lady, but anakedlady, lying on her side, her back to the viewer.Florence blinked a few times, and the longer she stared into the twilight gloom, the more distinct the form became.He had captured the lovely lines of her elongated spine, the gentle bump of her hips, a hint of breast, and her bare bottom.The plumpness of her thighs and the darkness in the space where they met.Her head rested on her fist, her curls cascading onto the cushions beneath her.A perfect body, a beautiful, lush body, free of knots and scars, with bones that behaved.Even the angle of her elbow spoke of a woman who walked without stiffness and wandered the world with elegance and ease.
Johannes snatched the page away.‘Thank you for returning my folder.I should not have been so careless.’The paper scrunched as he shoved it inside, along with his other drawings.He fastened the buckle.‘I will show you out.’
And he brushed past her.Her hands still held the shape of his paper, her mind still caught on the image of the woman he had so lovingly rendered in lead and charcoal.Had the small moment at the office been her imagination?She followed him through the dining room, down the hall, and back to the entrance.Past the cosy vibrancy of his home and back onto the indistinct chill of the street.All the while, he kept his head down.He did not even meet her eye when he handed her into the cab.As the vehicle pulled away, Florence found herself twisting in her seat to try to catch a glance of him, half a hope that he might watch her leave still stirring inside her.
But the cab rounded the corner, and then the street disappeared.
Chapter Six
‘Lookingalittleroughthese days, Mr Spencer.Second best in a fight, or just old age?’
The cat regarded Johannes with narrowed eyes, as if he was offended by the mere suggestion that he would lose a fightorbe bothered by old age.Johannes shifted the parcel he was holding to his other arm and scratched between the tom’s ears.To judge by the roaring purr, he was forgiven.
He checked his watch again.She wasn’t coming.Of course she wasn’t coming.He hadn’t seen Mrs Murray all week, although he’d heard her light laugh and her mother’s chiding float down the hallway.He’d tried not to think about their last meeting, but now the clock ticked past the hour he’d written on his hastily sketched page, he had to accept the truth.His drawing, made last Season, had offended her, and she had formed a low opinion of him.She likely thought him a pervert, or at the very least a reprobate—
‘It’s Saturday afternoon, Johannes.Shouldn’t you be out enjoying the freedom of a single man with half a day off work?You look as serious as a member of Mrs Crofts’s society.’
His sister Rosanna descended the short flight of stairs from her own home at Number 1, then ascended to stand beside him on the parapet outside Number 3.She’d filled out since her Christmas announcement, and the bump in her middle made the fabric across her stomach stretch smooth, instead of gather loosely.Unlike their mother, who seemed to battle nausea and fatigue for weeks on end at the start of each pregnancy, Rosanna had sailed through her first few months with barely a hiccough.
‘I am enjoying my freedom.I am meeting a friend.A new friend,’ he mumbled, even as his worries weighed his words.‘Hopefully.If I haven’t offended her.’
Such a short word…her.Yet the moment it tripped off his tongue, he regretted it.Not only for the way that Rosanna turned to face him fully with bright delight in her eyes—but because Benton Hunter, their neighbour at Number 9, ground to a halt before them that very instant.
‘Her?’they asked, almost in unison.
Johannes twisted the string on the paper-wrapped parcel.‘My employer’s daughter.She has not had much chance to see London since she arrived.She’s interested in architecture.I am showing her some interesting examples of different styles.’
Benton burst out laughing.‘Different styles?Is that what they’re calling it these days?’
Rosanna hummed, but her forehead twisted into a frown.As the children of parents raised rough, of parents who worked long hours and who were not bound by middle-class ideas on regimented childhoods, Rosanna and Johannes had been given a tremendous amount of freedom.They’d explored the streets outside the hotel, sneaked into kitchens, played games between ladders and scaffolding, even invented their own language.Most of the time, he’d count Rosanna as his best of friends, and the rest of the time as his most annoying sibling.She thought far too quickly and knew him too well.She could follow a slipped thread faster than he could gather it up and hide it away.
‘You cannot be serious.You are far too young to be courting,’ she said.‘This is your first proper position.Your employer’s daughter?What are you thinking?’
‘You are not much older than me,’ he countered.
‘Don’t do it, Johannes,’ Benton said.‘Mixing affairs of industry and affairs of the heart will only end in disaster.’
‘I don’t remember calling an advisory meeting.’He raised his voice to smother them.‘I am a grown man, with prospects and steady employment.There is nothing wrong with considering the next stage of my life.Married life seems to have made you happy.’
‘Phineas and I were a happy accident,’ she replied.
‘An accident?’Benton barked a laugh, as gauche as ever.‘He was just walking along, tripped, and that happened.’Benton smirked as he waved at Rosanna’s midsection.
‘When are you heading abroad again, Mr Hunter?’Her smile was forced.
‘I have decided to stay.I have no fixed date of departure.Enjoy your young years, Johannes.They will be gone before you realise.’And without so much as a good day, he sauntered across the street to Miss Delaney’s.
‘That was somewhat profound.As far as Benton is concerned, anyway.’Rosanna turned to observe the diplomat’s departure.
‘How long until an angry husband bashes down his door?’Johannes asked.
