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Can you not take anything seriously, Jay? Do you care about anything besides your own pleasure? How old had he been when his father first asked those questions? Seven?
“Really?” She cocked her head. “So how do your trips to New Orleans and New York comport? Why were you permitted to fail out of multiple schools while Hugo has to give up everything that he wants?”
New Orleans. She had to mention that city, the place he’d left his soul if he ever had one. He gritted his teeth. “I wasn’t ‘permitted to fail out of multiple schools.’ My parents weren’t pleased. We just had enough capital that it wasn’t a problem. Life isn’t fair, Ursula.”
Why did she needle so much? She had no idea who he was or what his life was like. She had no responsibilities except to marry someone who wasn’t a complete imbecile and wouldn’t destroy one of the fastest growing banking empires in the world. More, she’d never failed anyone.
His skin itched. Jay dug his nails into his palms so he didn’t scratch. Despite two years of going without, the moment he reached Delaware the sensation returned. He could smell it too, even if his father had burned every trace of the stuff in the Truitt properties, and, apparently, found everything he’d hidden. The temptation inflamed his senses. Despite his family’s precautions, he could obtain the substance his body craved. He still had sources. He’d have already gone to them if he hadn’t been so distracted by Ursula.
“Says the man who always wins in that equation.” She pouted and pressed her face to the window, oblivious to his discomfort.
The monkey shot him another glare before it nuzzled her cheek.
He gripped at his trousers. “Your life will be satisfying, Ursula, even if you don’t marry Hugo Middleton. You’ll find someone. I’m sure someone of your own kind—”
Her head whipped around. “My own kind?” Her voice rose an octave.
Jay grimaced. Not exactly what he intended. What had gotten into him today? People were his strong suit, but with Ursula, she rubbed off on him instead of the other way around. Disastrous. The course needed to be righted and fast.
“I beg your pardon, Ursula.” He forced himself to pause, breathe, think. “I meant that wouldn’t your father be happier if you married someone more like him?”
“My father is special. But if you meant another Jew, possibly.”
She fingered a golden tassel on one of the seat cushions. “I don’t really know. My parents were never really part of the community. We pray in the morning, light candles, don’t eat pork, fast on certain days, but for us it’s more a lack of engaging in activities that people who aren’t Jews do.”
No pork? How tragic. Jay licked his lips in honor of his morning ham.
“We limited our interactions with the community in Philadelphia, though my uncle is very involved. It all had something to do with my mother not getting along with my father’s family. They didn’t like her or she didn’t like them.” She frowned. “No one ever told me the whole story.”
A secret. Jay stifled a gasp. “And you never asked?”
He would’ve inquired until his father sent him to bed without supper, after which he would’ve broken into every office the man owned searching for the truth. Considering how much she’d recalled about him, a mere acquaintance who’d left Delaware when she was still a child, how could she not have studied and analyzed every detail of her parents’ lives?
There was a catch again in Ursula’s voice. “My mother was always ill and when she was gone it didn’t really matter any longer.”
Didn’t it? How could Ursula be so uncurious about her own family—her own life? Though, if her mother was sick, maybe she was preoccupied. “How long ago did she die?”
“Seven years.” Ursula stroked the cat, her hand running over the creature’s ears. Her swallow was visible. “A cancer.”
“I’m sorry.” The reply was automatic, but true. Whatever troubles he had with his own parents, at least they both were present.
He picked his brain for memories of Ursula’s mother. A vague image of a woman with ash-colored curls popped into his head. He’d been home, in between schools, and overheard a conversation between his aunts regarding the late Mrs. Nunes, and not a complimentary one, as it centered on the woman’s rather prominent bosom. Well, Ursula had inherited one feature from her.
Where did Ursula get the blonde hair though? Her father was so dark. She possessed his mannerisms, that was certain—particularly the obnoxious ones.
As if she could hear his thoughts, Ursula waved a hand at him. “It’s fine. I feel terrible for my father though. He’s all alone.”
Jay pictured Nunes’ smirk at his predicament and, widower or not, he couldn’t quite muster the requisite sympathy for the man to consider him “poor.”
“You desire to give him grandchildren?” Was pleasing him why Ursula was so bent on marriage to Hugo?
“Perhaps. I don’t know. I’m not sure what will improve his life or mine. I’m twenty-one so I suppose I only have so much time.”
Her cloak slipped down her shoulders, rewarding him with a view at last.
What sort of woman already talked like a jaded widow this early in the season? She was a mystery.
“How romantic. Hugo must be so flattered,” he said.
