AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Sam accepted the coffee-milk even though he’d normally have opted for black. The night called for sweetness. For compromise. “It’s…good.”
“It’s passable. I’ll get better at it.”
“You can’t just—just show up and move in and learn how to make coffee for me—”
“Am I?”
“What?”
“Moving in.”
“Oh,” Sam said, because he hadn’t realized until that second how badly he wanted that, how right that felt, how something in him had reshaped itself around the idea that John was here now and not leaving him again. “I—I—”
“Well, I hope so.” John devoured a defenseless hunk of gingerbread. “Delicious. I hadn’t looked into property because I thought…actually I don’t know what I thought. I didn’t know whether you’d throw me in the cells or offer to assist me if I wanted to leave the country. I wanted your attention, and then I wanted to see you smile.”
“You make me smile,” Sam said, swiftly, because a flicker of longing had flowed along those words, pale as lilacs and regret. “You know you do. Did you think you’d leave again? You just said—if I’d assist you.”
“Do you want me to stay?”
They both knew that answer; Sam gave it with the sense of stepping over a cliff, with awareness that he did not know how far the drop went, without regret. “I do.”
“Then I’ll stay.” John fed him another bite of gingerbread, by hand. “Eat more.”
Sam swallowed. Sipped more coffee. Watched John’s face, drinking him in, daring to believe.
“I can afford anything you want,” John said. “Or anything you don’t know that you want. And I think I’ll enjoy spoiling you.”
“I…don’t even know what that would feel like. Do you—”
“Oh, you’ll find out.”
“John. Please. Be serious.” He put a hand on John’s knee, an impulse; he felt shy about it after, but he wanted to touch. John’s eyes lit up like Midwinter candles. Sam felt some piece of himself settle, pleased. “About the paintings. What do you want to do?”
John’s jaw set. “They’re ours. No one else would care—no one else loved her like we did. Our sister. Like you did, really; you stayed with her.”
“The viscount—Father—” He didn’t think of Phineas Rookwood in any paternal way, but the fact of the relation was regrettably inescapable. “He sold them after he cut me off. When he knew I couldn’t afford to purchase them on his terms. Torie was good but she wasn’t that famous, not yet. She would have been. But not then.”
“He sold them to spite you.”
“I think so, yes.”
“Because you tried to find me, and protect her.”
“Because I took your side, and hers, against him.”
“I didn’t know she was ill.” John’s gaze fell: drifting past jam tarts, losing exuberance. “She was my sister, too.”
“It was too quick. Sudden.” And he hadn’t had an address, hadn’t had a way to contact John. He chose not to say so.
“We should have brought her with us. Mother—” John shook his head. “She never speaks of it.”
No, Sam guessed not. Emily had made her choice. No reminders. No looking back. “How is she? Emily.”
“Oh, marvelous and resilient and clever as ever. She’s living with a Florentine banker who could buy this house three times over. He’d find a way to give her the moon if she wanted it. She won’t marry him—or anyone, again—even though he’s asked. He’s a good man.”
“Good,” Sam said, and meant it. “Good.”
John poked a bit of cheddar; it crumbled. “I am sorry. I know it’s not enough. For not being here, for—for this, now. Causing trouble for you.” He did not look up.
