Talk Sweetly to Me (Brothers Sinister #4.5)(4)

“My wife is an absolute enthusiast of your work.” Barnstable’s eyes sparkled. “She reads me pointed bits from your column. I ought to take you to task—giving away all our masculine secrets—but ah, well.” That last was met with an amused shake of his head.

“They’re not secrets,” Stephen explained. “Women already know everything I say. The only reason anything I say is amusing is because a man is saying it.”

“Ha!” Barnstable jabbed Stephen’s shoulder in a friendly fashion. “You’re just as clever in person as you are on paper. Well. I can’t say I disagree. Times are surely changing, and for the better. You have no idea how much easier some of those recent advances have made my work.”

Stephen actually had every idea. One of those “advances,” he suspected, was Miss Rose Sweetly—and from what little he could tell, she’d done very well for Barnstable indeed. The man had better praise her.

“But never mind that,” Barnstable said. “We can talk politics some other time. What can I do for you?”

“I’m doing research on astronomy,” he said.

“For your next novel? Are you writing an astronomer, by chance?”

Stephen considered this and decided it was as good an explanation as any other he could offer. “Yes.”

He’d made something of a career of speaking outrageous truths, but there was a time and a place for outraging people. Even he knew better than to admit what was really going on. No, I’m just fascinated with a woman, and I want to know everything about her would not go over well.

Barnstable nodded thoughtfully. “What would you like to know?”

“Oh dear.” Stephen sighed. “I’ve tried to swot up on my own with woeful results. I need help with every detail, starting from how to calculate astronomical distances by parallax, on up through Kepler and the theory of planetary motion.”

Barnstable blinked. “That is…quite a lot.”

“Oh, I don’t expect you to instruct me yourself. I’m sure you’re too busy for that. I had imagined you would fob me off on someone else,” Stephen said. “An assistant or a student—someone who wouldn’t mind a little extra income.”

“Ah.” The man’s expression cleared momentarily, but then he shook his head and frowned. “Hmm. My student is in the Bermudas at the moment—he’s observing the transit of Venus, lucky boy. Were it not for my knee…” Barnstable trailed off, shaking his head. “That leaves only my computer. And…” He hesitated delicately. “She’s a woman.”

“Your computer?” Stephen asked with studied nonchalance. This was what he’d hoped for, after all. “What’s that?”

“Precisely what it sounds like: a person who computes. Absolutely necessary for those of us engaged in any sort of dynamics. All those calculations come to a dreadful mess; if I had to do them all myself, I’d have no time to think of anything. And yes, my computer is a woman.” He cleared his throat. “A woman of African descent. Those of my colleagues who are prejudiced on that score only deprive themselves of Miss Sweetly’s assistance.”

“Surely you don’t think I would share their prejudices,” Stephen said. “Your wife has been making you read my work, yes?”

Barnstable’s smile became pained. “It isn’t that. Or it isn’t only that. You see, she’s a woman. And you…”

“Oh.” Stephen smiled. “That. I suppose I do have something of a reputation.”

It was hard-earned, that reputation. Occasionally inconvenient, but it was what it was.

“Yes,” Barnstable said apologetically. “That. And Miss Sweetly is, alas, a very young woman. She’s not quite of age yet. I’ve an arrangement with her father—my wife must be with her at all times in the building. He’d not like to see anything happen to her, and quite selfishly, I’d not like to lose her, either. She would be ideal if only she were a man. But…”

Stephen wouldn’t be here if she were a man. He still couldn’t quite believe he’d come.

“Maybe she could manage a lesson or three? Just something to get me started until your student returns. Your wife might stay in the room with us, of course, to avoid any impropriety.”

“I don’t know…” Dr. Barnstable rubbed at his beard.

“Ask her what she thinks,” Stephen suggested. “After all, ‘not quite of age’ for women often means we’d send younger men into battle. Or to the Bermudas to watch the transit of Venus.”

Barnstable nodded thoughtfully at that.

“And I do have a reputation. I won’t pretend I haven’t earned it. But I’ve never seduced an innocent before. In truth, I do more acquiescing than I do seducing. So unless you fear that your computer will seduce me…”

Barnstable snorted. “Well. I suppose a few hours with her, with my wife present, could not hurt. If she agrees, that is.”

The older man left, and Stephen paced to the window. From here, he could see bare tree branches and grass, once a brilliant green, now fading to a less vibrant color.

He really wasn’t sure what he was about. He wasn’t planning to seduce her, not really. It would be a terrible thing for a man like him to do to a woman in Miss Sweetly’s position, and he had a very firm rule that he did not do terrible things to people in general, and to women in particular. Liking a woman—even liking her very well—was more reason to adhere to the rule, not less.