Page 14 of A Holiday By Gaslight

He fell silent for several seconds. “It’s a dinner party at my parent’s house,” he said at last.

She looked at him, bewildered. “In Cheapside?”

He gave a terse nod.

“But I thought your parents had retired to the country? Kent or Essex or somewhere.”

“They have a house in Kent, it’s true. They mean to retire there someday. Until then…” He shrugged.

Her sense of confusion only deepened. Mr. Sharpe had never mentioned his parents. Not directly, at any rate. She knew they were in trade. It was how they’d made their fortune. But those days were long past, surely? Papa had said something to that effect. Something about how he and Mama would never have to suffer the indignity of dealing with Mr. Sharpe’s uncouth relations. “I’m sorry, but are you saying that your parents are presently living here? In London?”

“They have apartments above their draper’s shop.”

“And you never thought to mention that fact?”

He leaned back in his seat, stretching his legs out before him. “To you? Why should I have?”

“Because you were courting me. Presumably, if things had progressed, I would have been obliged to meet your parents.”

“Would you have wanted to?”

“Naturally. And it needn’t have waited. I would have been happy to meet them from the very first.”

“Is that so?”

“Did I ever give you reason to doubt it?”

Another long pause. And then: “Perhaps you’re right, Miss Appersett. Perhaps I don’t know you at all.”

“No, indeed,” she said with some asperity. “You appear to be laboring under a misapprehension about my character.”

“Which is?”

“That I’m a shallow, self-centered creature, too full of my own importance to see past the end of my nose.”

“I assure you, ma’am, such thoughts never crossed my mind.”

“Then why did you never talk to me?” She searched his face, what little she could see of it in the weak candlelight cast from the carriage lamps. “You’re not ashamed of your origins, are you?”

He snorted. “Hardly. Just because I don’t see fit to bandy my lack of pedigree about in the streets—”

“Confiding in me is a far way from the streets, Mr. Sharpe.”

“Is that what you want from me, Miss Appersett? My confidences?”

“I’d like us to be candid with each other. To make an effort to understand one another.” Her self-assuredness faltered. “Unless you truly don’t wish to renew your addresses to me. In which case—”

“Candor,” he repeated. “Very well.” He folded his arms, his face growing solemn, as if he were contemplating his words with a greater than usual degree of care. “You asked me earlier why it was that I wished to court you. The answer I gave you was incomplete.”

“You said it was because you thought me a beautiful creature.”

“I did. But there are many beautiful ladies in London. I’ve never wished to court any of them before. With you, however, there was something different.”

Sophie waited for him to explain, expecting she knew not what. Was it her intelligence that had appealed to him? Her grace and charm?

“I believe it was your dress that first caught my eye,” he said.

She blinked. “I beg your pardon?”