Page 21 of Blueprints, Battlelines and Ballrooms (Tales from Honeysuckle Street #4)

Chapter Twelve

Johannes shook out his coat. Flecks of sleet dropped onto the boards in the entrance to the office, then melted into tiny dots. He hung up his hat, his coat, then raked his fingers through his hair. Checked his shirt buttons and necktie for the hundredth time.

He should have sent her a note. Something, anything, to acknowledge their night together.

And he had tried. He had sat in the courtyard with his folder, intending to compose a note…

but instead he’d sat staring at his mute pencil.

His brain could only string together scattered phrases, like you were more than just a night, like I miss you, meet me in the park, like I’ll whisk you through the staff entrance, and we can do it all again because every time I close my eyes, all I see is your face, and every time I breathe, it’s you I inhale, and my tongue, it only tastes…

He could hardly put any of that into a note.

He just wasn’t one for words.

‘Wear the dress you wore to the gardens. You look so lovely in that one.’

‘Mama, please. I can choose my own dress.’

In the Monday morning quiet of the office, Florence and her mother’s voices tiptoed down the stairs.

Johannes smiled to himself. He loved the sound of her voice, even while she was sparring with her mother.

Especially here, where she was most comfortable.

It seemed a little rougher and less refined.

How had she sounded when she’d been living in Sydney?

Had her accent been stronger there? He pulled the door closed—carefully—and unthreaded the top button of his coat.

‘There will be ladies coming to town in the spring. Younger than you and fresh debutantes. You need to spend more time with him. I’ve seen how he looks at you.’

Johannes’s fingers slowed.

‘I thought you warned me to stay away. You said you didn’t want me married to the son of an innkeeper.’

‘He is not the son of an innkeeper, as well you know. I asked the ladies after church, and they said the family was the newest money in town, but that there was plenty of money. What is his allowance?’

‘Mama! Could you be less garish? We don’t talk about such things.’

The joy, the light, the nervous energy that had been buzzing beneath his skin fizzled to damp. His heart thumped in his chest, heavy and sad, cracking in soft silence like ice on the edge of a pond.

Money. They wanted the money.

It was better than what had happened to Rosie, he supposed. Being hunted for her income for all those years had made her so paranoid she couldn’t tell a coward from a cad. Better he found out now than when he was properly lost.

But oh, his chest ached.

Johannes opened the door and shut it, loudly this time, so that its clap echoed and broke their prattling. Normally, he tried to walk gently, aware of the noise he made without trying. But what was the point in being quiet?

‘I didn’t hear the door.’ Mr Holt swept his pencil across his desk in a long arc as Johannes entered the office. He waved dismissively at a small pile of drawings. ‘The colours on these need to be darker. The client has poor eyesight.’

‘Yes, sir.’ Johannes crossed the room and gathered the papers into a stack.

A small cough rose from behind him, and curse his poor heart, it began to race.

He focused on the papers, but just as his pulse had betrayed him with its anticipation, so did his mouth by going dry, and his traitorous eyes darted to her for just a sliver—a sliver that nearly brought him undone.

Why did she have to be so lovely? Why, on a day when the ice whipped around in flurries and the chill sneaked between the windows, did she have to look so inviting and comforting? Why did his memory taunt him with how yielding, how tender she had been, how luscious her body, how hungry her kisses?

Johannes picked up the papers and kept his head bowed as he returned to his desk. He opened his watercolours and added a drop of water to the shades he needed. Green, yellow, blue, red. He adjusted the pen nib and dipped it in the yellow.

‘Turn up the lamps, Florence,’ Mr Holt called from his desk. ‘The clouds have come over. Looks like winter isn’t done with us yet.’

The lamps flared. Tepid light filled the office.

Mr Holt nodded in satisfaction. ‘Not as good as a sunny day, but they will suffice.’

‘Mother asked if you would see her. She’s replying to Mrs Battersea about a party, and she’d like to know if you will look over her phrasing. She says it’s been some time since she’s addressed the wife of a gentleman. She’d like to be certain she’s correct.’

Mr Holt rolled his eyes, but pushed himself back from his desk. He tutted to himself as he left until his mild annoyance was replaced with his step and the squeak of the stairs. Florence pulled her shawl tighter and rubbed her palms together.

‘Are you cold?’ Johannes asked.

She nodded. ‘Winter does seem to have decided to give us one last shake, hasn’t she?’

He pushed himself from his seat and took the few steps to the furnace, where he crouched down.

Anger and pity rolled and writhed inside him, all of it indistinct bubbles and a mass of feeling, none of it resolving into words.

He wanted to rail and shout but couldn’t, not at his employer’s daughter in his employer’s office.

He opened the cast iron door and threw in another lump of coal.

Metal squeaked on metal as he fixed the door closed again.

‘I was going to send you a note, but my mother insisted I go calling with her. And she is so strict on Sundays.’

Johannes returned to his desk.

‘You looked so peaceful sleeping that I couldn’t wake you.

I didn’t think it wise to stay until morning.

’ Her skirts whispered along the wood as she approached.

‘Is something amiss? I don’t normally behave like I did with you.

I’ve never done such a thing, never been so bold in my life.

And yesterday, I… I missed you. I couldn’t wait for it to be Monday. ’

‘Please stop taunting me,’ he whispered.

‘Taunting you? I’m trying to tell you that I’d like to spend more time with you. If you wanted to call on me, like you said in the gardens at Miss Delaney’s, I… I’d like that.’

This was too much. ‘Was it all just a play?’

‘A play?’ She came so close that her faint shadow fell over his desk, and her soap and orange water filled his air. ‘I’m trying to tell you that I’d like you to court me.’

‘Me? Or my money?’ This time, when he dared to look up, he was fortified by his anger, and his resolve held. ‘I heard you and your mother. You were just trying to find a rich husband. Has that been the plan all along?’

‘You think that’s why I went upstairs with you?’ Her eyes shone with hurt, and part of him took a selfish satisfaction in seeing her as wounded as he felt. But her sadness twisted, and when she next spoke, her voice was as low and cold as the wind. ‘You are a cad. How dare you.’

‘We are the newest money in town. I heard you.’

‘And money is a terrible thing for a woman to consider, is it? It’s wrong to long for stability? You and your simpler times before industry, when the world was better… yet you refuse to look beyond the surface of your ideas because it does not suit you to reconcile people like me.’

They stared at each other, holding bitter daggers.

The furnace cracked as a gust of wind filled the flu and ash clicked against its sides.

Florence looked away first. For a moment, his anger faltered as she closed her eyes, drew a slow breath, then shook her head.

‘I should have known,’ she muttered, and before he could let the crack widen enough to ask what people like her meant, a shout came from down the hall.

‘Surely not.’ Mr Holt entered the room in a fluster, a copy of The Architect and Builder held open at arm’s length.

He grabbed his spectacles off his desk, pushed them on, and pulled the paper so close it almost touched his nose.

‘Eureka!’ He looked up, eyes darting fast between them.

‘Mr Harris is no longer the New Water Company’s chief architect. ’

Florence took the magazine from him and scanned the page. ‘Father, the poor man died.’

‘The details are not important.’ Mr Holt snatched the booklet back and ran his finger over the page.

‘What is important is that they are reviewing all his plans and holding a competition for the design of their new offices. A victory on this scale will change everything. It will bolster our name, bring in steady commissions, private clients… no more competitions unless we choose to enter. And Florence. We can pay the surgeon. He can fix you.’

Fix her ?

Florence kept her focus on the magazine. ‘How can you be so certain you are going to win?’ she asked.

‘Because I am going to bribe one of the judges. Don’t look at me like that,’ Mr Holt chided his daughter.

‘This is just how this place with its infernal system works. And for once, I have a contact, but if he is going to use his influence to convince the others, we must give him something worth fighting for. Something grand, a well-designed, functional office, that makes a statement about the company and its future. The winning plans will be published. There will be much public interest in this. The entry must be sound. Johannes, find the copies of the last entries we sent in. We need to come up with a list of what they want, what they have selected in the past. And Florence—’

‘Yes?’ she looked up from the magazine, her eyes bright with anticipation.

Mr Holt settled into his seat. ‘I’d love a cup of tea.’