Page 76 of Ghost in the Garden
He released her at once. Perversely, she was disappointed. Relief rolled off her, leaving only loneliness, as old and familiar as breathing. She walked away from him, around the corner. She might have imagined the soft “Goodnight” that followed her.
She wanted to cry.
*
“The Strand, please,”Solomon said bleakly to the jarvey, and climbed back into the hackney.
Slumped back against the bench, he missed the warmth of Constance’s nearness and cursed himself for a fool.
The end of a case had always been difficult for them. At Greenforth, he had bolted from his own growing feelings. At the Maules’ house, he had held her in the glow of comfort and so much more, and she was the one who fled. He’d salvaged that with his proposal of partnership, which she had jumped at. This time…
He just had to be patient, to meet at the office when she was ready. For they both knew the case was not truly over.
It hurt that Constance did not need him as he needed her. He would have battered his own hopes into nothing and withdrawn from the lists for good had it not been for the way she’d kissed him. And the warmth of her eyes, her easy friendship and the occasional, betraying catch of her breath. And her mother’s pronouncement: “Shewouldleave it for you. To bewithyou.”
Not tonight she wouldn’t. Something was wrong, and she would not talk to him. That hurt too, for they had both told each other things that no one else knew. About her secret longing for true family, for the identity a father might bring her. About David, whose loss was always with him, a black hole of grief and guilt.
Whatever troubled her did not need to be about him. It could be the Lamberts. It could be her mother, her own business, her own friends. Whatever, he just had to step back and be there if and when she needed him. He was used to his own corroding loneliness.
A light shone in the window above his front door. When he let himself in, his butler Jenks came to greet him—his expression, as always, one of welcome indifference—and took Solomon’s hat and coat.
“Have you dined, sir? Would you care for a bite of supper?”
“I would,” Solomon replied, surprising himself with the truth.
Mounting the stairs to his sitting room, he lit the lamps and candles, poured himself a small brandy, and sat down by the fire.
When had it become not enough to enjoy a solitary drink, a solitary meal, the warmth of his own fireside?
When Constance Silver had exploded into his life. Disruptive, intriguing, funny, unafraid, rabidly curious, and entirely unashamed. And why should she be? It was he who felt ashamed of once disdaining her as less than him. He had been fighting against such disdain all his life, even as he climbed into the ranks of the wealthy and internationally respected. Sought after, he kept his social distance. And yet he would be proud to walk into a dinner party or a ball or Lady Swan’s charity evening with Constance Silver on his arm.
He wanted to dance with her. Court her. Win her.
He gazed into the flames, giving his imagination free rein, while around him, Jenks set the table with one place and brought in a light supper and a bottle of wine, from which he would drink only one glass.
He rose and sat at the table. Jenks bowed and withdrew. And Solomon imagined Constance sitting opposite him, laughing, teasing, talking. Could she want those things too? With him? He ached with not having them, with not knowing. And yet not knowing was better than being rejected.
Tonight, he would think of her. Tomorrow, he would return to Lambert’s murder.
*
“They’ve missed you,”Janey said as Constance drank her first coffee of the morning.
“Who?” Constance asked distractedly.
“The girls. The guests. It all livened up last night when you made your appearance downstairs. It was a good night.”
Constance forced herself to smile. Although she had been tired to the bone, she had forced herself to change and pamper her hair and skin, then go down to the salon, just to prove she still could, just to make sure standards had not slipped in her absence. She knew from the reactions of the men, and the smiles of the girls, that she sparkled. But only on the outside. It was a professional sparkle she had learned long ago how to achieve because it was better for business. She had even sung for them, but that made her want to weep, because Solomon had not heard her as he had at the Maules’ house.
What was the matter with her? She had to find some equilibrium, some way to deal with the new turbulence she felt around him. Perhaps Lady Griz or someone else would introduce him to a kind, beautiful woman who would be his forever. It would break Constance’s heart, but it was better than the proposition he was surely about to make to her.
Why?
At the beginning, had she not wanted that proposition? As something so much better than the blatant transactions of her establishment? A secret yearning that had only grown with their friendship until it was unbearable. And she didn’t even know why.
“What d’you think?” Janey said.
Constance blinked, aware she had missed something. “About what?”
