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“I could not agree more.”
“Not like that Miss Clara. Her smile was positively radiant, wasn’t it?”
“Yes…I suppose it was, yes,” said Edward.
She did look quite pretty then, didn’t she? Edward found himself thinking. Once she seemed no longer to be afraid of her sisters, she really came into herself in the most enchanting way. The way her eyes looked in the candlelight, and the way she closed her eyes when she laughed…
“I say, old boy, there appears to be something the matter with your face!”
Edward put a startled hand to his cheek before looking up at Jonathan’s wicked grin and realizing he was being put on. “Oh, no, my mistake,” said Jonathan, pinching Edward’s cheek. “I believe that was in fact a smile, wonder of wonders! It just looked so very unusual on your grim mug. Edward Morton, smiling at the thought of a pretty young woman. I never thought I’d see the day!”
Slapping his hands on the table, Edward shot to his feet and wagged a finger in Jonathan’s face furiously. “Now, see here, Fletcher,” he spat. “I’ve been as polite as I possibly can—not that you make that easy by any means—but now I find I have to tell you this much more clearly: go away. I’ll have time enough for your idle fripperies later, but today I just have not a moment to waste. I cannot spare the time for whatever pastime you have decided to squander your day upon, so kindly find some other fishmongers to share your gossip with and leave me alone.”
“Morton,” Jonathan said pleadingly, his hands raised as if in surrender. “Edward. Please. I know what you are doing seems very important to you right now—”
“It is important, Fletcher—”
“—And it must feel that it simply won’t get done if you don’t take care of it right this moment.”
“It won’t get done if I don’t—”
“But for pity’s sake, Morton, you’re still a young man!” Jonathan pronounced in a loud, dramatic tone. “Though you won’t be for long if you don’t take these opportunities when they do come to you by some miracle. When are you going to have a little fun, flirt with interested young women, see the best things in our world? Damn it, man, when are you going to enjoy life?”
“We can’t all be as carefree as you, Fletcher,” Edward said, folding his arms. Flirt with young women? he thought with a start. Where on earth did that come from?
Feeling the sting of his friend’s accusation, he added, “Besides, this is a particularly bad time. With the estate to take care of, and Christopher as well—”
“But that’s just the problem, Edward!” protested Jonathan. “If you keep waiting until everything you need to finish has been finished, you will be a dried-up old man before you know it!”
“You don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Oh, of course, I don’t,” Jonathan answered as he took a step back. Edward detected an edge in his voice he had scarcely heard before, a shadow across his face. “Jonathan Fletcher must be going on about nothing like a fool as he always does.”
“Fletcher, I—”
But Jonathan would not be stopped. Like a man possessed, he wandered about the room, orating with an angry finger pointed in the air. “Of course I couldn’t know anyone who spent their whole life at work and wound up finding themselves too broken and old to even squeeze an ounce of joy out of their existence. I couldn’t possibly be giving advice to a friend—I must be coming by just to drink up better men’s wine and waste their time.”
As soon as he had finished this last word of his tirade Jonathan hastened out of the room, not even pausing to bid farewell.
“Fletcher, I—” Edward began to say, but by then his friend had disappeared down the corridor.
“Damned fool,” Edward muttered, returning his pen to the inkwell. “As though I would flirt with Miss Clara. What a ridiculous fantasy.”
He shook his head as he searched for his place in the letter. But now he found he was so worked up from what Jonathan had said that no words would come. He groaned in frustration and leaned back in his chair, closing his eyes as he massaged his temples.
As soon as darkness fell across his vision, Edward saw once again the smiling face of Clara. It turned to the side, looking at him with a demure grin on her pert rosy lips, then mouthed something he could not make out. Whatever it was, judged by her marvellous smile it was something she found very pleasing to say.
“Not now,” he said aloud, shaking his head to clear this ridiculous daydream. “No time for idle thoughts. Much work to be done.”
The quiet ticking of the clock was paired once more with the soft scribbling of pen on paper. One letter was completed scarcely before he could blink, then he pressed on to the next task without pausing. On some level, Edward knew that even stopping to take a breath might take him still further from the narrow mental path he needed to treat. He had to stay focused on his work.
“Time enough later.”
