Talk Sweetly to Me (Brothers Sinister #4.5)(15)

“I’m not one of the astronomers,” she said in a low voice. “I’m just a computer. There’s only so much space, and everyone else wants to see it.”

Just. She still didn’t believe him.

“Well, then.” He gave her his best smile. “Next time, you must attach yourself to one of the scientific teams going to…where was it you said? Bermuda?”

But she was shaking her head again. “No, no.”

“You think you can’t?” He paused, considering her. “The fact that you are female poses some difficulties. The race, I assume, is also a hindrance?”

She nodded.

“But then, those must be overshadowed by the utter brilliance of your mind.”

She smiled, but it was a shaky, wavering smile. “It’s not that, Mr. Shaughnessy. I mean, it is that, but in this case, it wouldn’t help.” She swallowed. “You see, the transit of Venus is a rare astronomical event—exceedingly rare. There is no next time, not in my life. It won’t happen again until June of the year 2004.” She gave him a sad shake of her head. “So yes, Mr. Shaughnessy. I’m not one of the people who will watch this happen in all its glory. Women like me will have to content ourselves with glimpsing the phenomenon in smoked glass.”

Stephen hadn’t known what he intended when he first approached Dr. Barnstable. But looking at her now, her head bent, disclaiming all importance… Now, for the first time, he knew what he wanted.

Chapter Four

“ROSE,” PATRICIA SAID THE NEXT MORNING, “I particularly think you should read this.” She slid a paper across the breakfast table to sit alongside Rose’s teacup.

Rose looked up from her toast to see the Women’s Free Press opened to Mr. Shaughnessy’s latest column.

“I thought you didn’t want to encourage me in this.”

“This isn’t encouragement,” Patricia said gravely. “It’s a reminder of who he is, what he is. He’s flirting with you…”

Rose felt her cheeks heat. Patricia didn’t know the half of it.

“…and at the same time, he’s carrying on like this, in public. In a newspaper.”

Rose had read a good number of Mr. Shaughnessy’s columns. She had an idea of the sort of things he wrote. She doubted anything he could write would shock her—and if Patricia only knew the sorts of things he was saying to her face, she’d know that she would need a more powerful arsenal than a few lines in a newspaper. Still, Rose dutifully picked up the paper.

Dear Man, she read. I am sorry to say that I have spent the last five years in a madhouse. My uncle and guardian had me put there when I refused to marry my cousin. I passed my time in that horrible place by making a list of all the things I would do if ever I were released. Now he is dead and I am free, but I find I cannot bring myself to do even one of them. How does one go about setting oneself free?

—Not Mad.

Rose swallowed hard and read on.

Dear Not Mad,

Normally I approach my columns with a certain amount of jocularity. (Never tell this to my readers; they would never believe it.) But your situation has moved me to seriousness. You must work yourself up to your desires, bit by bit. Before you can dance on your uncle’s grave (I assume this to be on your list), you must first visit it and stand upon the grass. On the next visit, be sure to tap your toe and hum a ditty. Before you know it, you’ll be waltzing in the cemetery.

Should you need a dancing partner, consider yours truly.

Sincerely,

Stephen Shaughnessy

Actual Man

“You see?” Patricia said. “He’s flirting—publicly—with another woman. That’s the sort of man he is. Just keep that in mind the next time you encounter him.” She nodded as if she had proven a point.

Rose shook her head. It wasn’t flirting, no more than the time he’d done the Actual Man thing to Mrs. Barnstable had been flirting. It was…kind of him, in a sweet, outrageous sort of way. It hurt to read it, not because she thought him unfaithful, but because she could hear him in it, all of him.

I don’t have hidden shallows, he’d told her. Maybe he didn’t. She suspected that if she judged him by his column, she would see…

A man who offered to dance with a woman who had been badly wounded. A man who mocked other men when they made too much of their own importance. A man who wished to make others laugh, even when they suffered. She had never looked at him and seen a bad man, and the more she looked, the deeper she fell.

That, perhaps, made him the most dangerous specimen of all.

He liked people. He liked her. She suspected he’d told her the simple truth: He wasn’t trying to seduce her.

He was just succeeding at it.

“THIS WILL BE OUR LAST LESSON,” Rose said, when Mr. Shaughnessy had settled himself into her office two days later. “There is only so much you need to learn, and after tomorrow I shall be flooded with work. We’ll have data from the transit of Venus—and once we have that, there will be star charts to update, and I shall be up to my ears in calculations. I shan’t have time for you any longer.”

Mrs. Barnstable looked up at that, but she had a report to type for her husband, and the noise of the typewriter drowned out their conversation.

The truth was that Rose should never have made time for Mr. Shaughnessy. He was… Charming was the word she’d used, but charming sounded so sweet, so innocent. And by nature, Mr. Shaughnessy was never innocent.