Page 19 of A Delicate Deception
“We’ve been working on vocabulary,” Lex said. “It seems we read English, but we do not speak it, so she’s been reading aloud to me from this book of improving tales you left behind.”
Sydney took a closer look at the book Leontine held and saw that it was his mother’s book of fables. “I’m certain you found it an edifying experience,” he said, trying and failing to keep a straight face. “Do you feel that your morals have been improved?”
“I’m mired in wickedness in ways I never contemplated. I’ve already been lectured in two languages about sugar, cotton, worldliness, and—in a true turn of events—bargaining.”
Now Sydney was smiling openly. “My mother believes haggling is immoral because everyone should be charged the same price for the same good or service.”
“Écoeurant!”Leontine supplied.“Infâme.”
“Indeed, my pet,” said Lex. “I cannot wait for you to lecture your uncle on these topics as resoundingly as you have lectured me.”
Sydney realized that the Lex he saw before him appeared years younger than the man he had parted with two weeks earlier. Not only were some of the signs of weariness gone from his face, but also he was smiling. Sydney had forgotten how dazzlingly handsome Lex could be. It was good to see him looking healthy and well.
Carter arrived with a tray of tea and biscuits. “Don’t eat the biscuits,” Lex warned. “They’re paperweights.”
Sydney picked one up anyway and tested it in between his teeth. Indeed, it was effectively made of bedrock, solid enough to support an impressively vast suspension bridge. He ought to introduce the substance to the men who still argued for building a bridge across the bottomless bog.
“Do I want to know why we have a tray of inedible biscuits?” he asked.
“The cook and I are working out our differences. Leontine,” he said, raising his voice to get the child’s attention. “Go to Mr. Carter and tell him you need a proper tea. Sweets. Bonbons.”
At the last word, Leontine shot to her feet and left the room, stopping halfway to the door to drop into a hasty curtsey. When they were alone again, Lex said, “I’m glad your—our—niece exists and I’m glad to be able to spend time with her. Never thought six days of vomit would endear me to a brat, but there you have it. I confess that I had my doubts about whether you’d come back, but I’m glad you did. I half feared you’d send some formidable matron to whisk Leontine away.”
“Of course I came back,” Sydney said, now feeling churlish for wanting to take Leontine and leave at the earliest opportunity. “Why wouldn’t I have come, Lex?”
“I rather thought you were—well, to say I thought you were cross with me doesn’t quite cover it. These details do get lost to memory, but you may recall that your brother died because I let him keep gunpowder in the hayloft.”
Sydney was stunned. It had never once occurred to him that Lex would blame himself for the fire. “I was too busy blaming myself,” he admitted.
“You were in Durham, I believe, and can wash your hands of all responsibility. You couldn’t have done a damned thing about it. Penny wanted a pyrotechnics display for her birthday, and Andrew was going to give it to her. You know how they were.”
Of course he knew how they were—rash, careless, happy people. Andrew had always needed someone on hand to keep him out of trouble. That waswhySydney blamed himself. “If I had been here, you’d better believe that powder would have been kept someplace safe.” Sydney stopped himself, remembering what Amelia had written him. Grief made the mind revert to comfortable—if demonstrably useless—patterns. “Look,” he said, “you’re not responsible for everything that happens around you.”
“I damned well ought to be. What’s the use of me if not that?” He gestured at himself and his surroundings as if encompassing all of it—the title, the wealth, the generations that had come before him.
“I can think of a number of other uses.”
“Oh, I bet you could,” Lex said, one eyebrow hitched up.
“You know that’s not what I meant.” Sydney sighed. “In any event, it’s the height of arrogance and pride for you to blame yourself for an explosion, when there was a trained engineer on the premises.”
“Is there a man with a gun forcing you to say such reasonable things? I confess I’m shocked and a bit disconcerted,” Lex said. “I really thought I could count on you to make me feel properly ashamed.” He shook his head, as if trying to dislodge the thought. “In any event, what I was trying to say is that I’ll turn three-and-forty this winter. I got rid of any residual angst over my amorous proclivities more than two decades ago, but I do regret not having had the opportunity to have children. I always thought there would be nieces and nephews. I was the oldest, and there were always children about. And now...” He shrugged. “It’s very pleasant to be around a child, especially at Pelham Hall. We were all shipped off here every summer, you know, and we reverted to a state of nature while my parents indulged us. The house was part of my mother’s marriage settlement, and when she married she left it to Penny. I have to imagine that Penny would have left it to a daughter.”
Sydney’s heart clenched. “I wish she had been able to.” If there had been any justice in the world, Andrew and Penny would still be alive, Pelham Hall would still be standing, and—he tried very hard not to think about that cradle in the attic.
Lex tilted his head. “What I was trying to say was that even though Leontine is no blood relation of mine nor of Penny’s, I find it doesn’t matter.” He spoke these words with something very near an actual smile.
“I’m not going to just take her away, all right?” Sydney said, because that was clearly what Lex was asking for. “I thought I’d have nieces and nephews too.”
“I was surprised to find that you hadn’t started a family of your own.”
Sydney laughed. “Are you in league with my mother?” he asked. “I seldom live in one town for more than a year. I work ten-hour days for months, then sit idly at home as I wait for another project to start up, which hardly seems the sort of domestic life most people would want for themselves.” That much was true, but he also doubted his ability to find a partner who wished to spend time with him. He was nearly thirty and hadn’t even come close. The idea of having domestic happiness himself seemed faintly ludicrous. If he were another man, a very different man altogether, he might have thought that whatever he had with Amelia might lead in the direction of homes and hearths; he might even have given it a name. That was for warmer, kinder people; Sydney had steam and steel. He told himself that was enough.
“I’m asking for one little detail,” Amelia pleaded. “A tiny little detail.”
“You’re a ghoul,” Keating remonstrated, crouching on the ground to remove a stone from his horse’s hoof.
“You’re hoarding gossip,” Amelia retorted. “You go up to Pelham Hall every day, for your own fell and mysterious purposes, which I’ve nobly refrained from asking you about, and still you won’t tell me a single thing that’s happening there. Janet says Pelham Hall has a ghost in its attic.”
