Page 12 of The Finest Print

11

Ethan—

Enclosed is my family’s address; I sketched a little map of the most straightforward route. (I took the liberty of noting a possible point of interest—the site of the Duke of Bedford’s botched beheading some two hundred years past. Four blows of the axe, can you imagine?)

While I’m on the subject of capital offenses, please note my housekeeper will expect you to use the boot scraper—you’ll find it on the left side of the iron railing, near the front door.

A good-faith effort will suffice.

—B.

The Sinclairs lived in a narrow brick town house on the northern edge of Lincoln’s Inn Fields. It was hardly more than a quarter hour walk from 62 Fleet, but the minutes belied the true distance between where he and Belle each lived.

Ethan paused outside, feeling a sense of otherness—the neatly stacked rows of windows, the iron fence hedging a lush flower garden, the well-dressed passersby—and wondered what would happen if he just kept walking.

At that moment, the door opened, and a stout, iron-haired woman appeared, looking at Ethan as though she knew he was contemplating retreat, along with every other wicked thought he’d ever had. She ushered him inside, introduced herself as Mrs. Bowers, and took his hat.

“Well.” She surveyed him dispassionately. “Good evening, Mr. Fletcher.”

“Good evening.” He glanced around, unsure if he was meant to chat. “Very pleasant weather?—”

Fortunately, Ethan was saved by a door opening to his right.

“Thank you, Mrs. Bowers,” Belle said hastily, hustling Ethan along. “In here, if you please, Mr. Fletcher.”

She grabbed his arm and pulled him into a dark-paneled room, a pair of gilded oil lamps casting the rich wood in burnished light. Her father’s study, no doubt. Ethan looked at the barely cracked door, wondering what Mrs. Bowers thought of this retreat.

“Your housekeeper is friendly.”

Belle wasn’t listening. “Before we go in, there are some things you should know,” she said very quickly, eyeing him up and down. “Oh. You…” She blinked. “You look very nice.”

Ethan squared his shoulders. He’d asked Tobias last night what the hell he was meant to wear to dinner in a judge’s home, to which his pressman responded he couldn’t imagine Ethan had a plethora of choices, so what did it matter?

Tobias was right. Ethan had only one good coat—the one he’d worn to those detestable society events on Beacon Hill— so he supposed it would do. Besides, Belle saw him every day. She saw him when the ink spilled, when the unsold papers were returned, when he smashed his thumb in the frisket of the press.

She could damn well see him in a dinner coat.

He cleared his throat. “You look beautiful.”

She was wearing the dark green from the first day in the garden, and beautiful insufficiently conveyed the startling decadence of reliving that moment.

“Ah.” She looked down, her lashes dark against her cheek. “Thank you.”

Her blush came slowly, his smile came slower. That rosy stain was his glad affliction.

“Right.” He pulled his gaze from her, taking in the study properly. “What do I need to know?”

She slipped to the cabinet in the corner and hefted a bottle and a glass. “Whisky?”

“Please.”

There was something pleasurably domestic about the way she poured a measure and handed him the glass, as though she did this every night. He could imagine it all too well—Belle in the upstairs residence at 62 Fleet, curled beside him on the sofa, reading the paper and passing a single glass between them until the whisky was gone, and her hairpins were gone, and he was laying her back and making long, lingering work of it…

“Ethan?”

“Yes?” He drank his whisky, a vintage about ten times smoother than what he was used to, a forcible reminder he was in her father’s study, in her family home, and her hairpins were doing their unfortunate job.

“First, don’t forget my family doesn’t know about the penny blood. I’ve told them you are an acquaintance from the publishing industry, unfamiliar with London, and I extended this invitation as a kindness. They believe we are part of a charity group working on a?—”

“Literacy initiative,” Ethan finished wryly. “I’m aware.”

“Second, my parents grant some leniency, but this won’t be anywhere as lax as the shop. While it’s common for our dinner table to have an assortment of guests, this is still a little unusual. You mustn’t call me Belle in front of them, only Miss Sinclair. The whole associates bit is rather dependent on formality.”

“Noted.” He raised his eyebrow.

“My father won’t say much,” she continued in a rush, moving past him to peer out the door into the corridor. “But he’s listening—always—and not necessarily to what you’re saying. My mother is more conversant, but she’s unlikely to like you, so don’t worry about that.”

Ethan almost asked why Mrs. Sinclair wouldn’t like him, but then he remembered he was an impoverished foreigner squirreling her daughter away on a secret project six days out of seven.

He rubbed his jaw, wondering if he should have shaved.

“My sister…will be a problem.” Belle grimaced. “The more I think of it, everyone is going to act a little strange. I’m not quite sure why I invited you.” She pinched the bridge of her nose. “This was possibly ill-advised.”

“Why?” He knew why it was ill-advised—because he had one good dinner coat and it was worth less than Belle’s flimsiest bonnet.

But he wanted her to be the one to say it.

“Because…” She lifted the whisky from his hand and took one resolute swallow. In the low light, her eyes flickered with unreadable emotion.

“Because?”

“Because I haven’t invited anyone to dinner…” A faint tremor touched her cheek. “Since I ended my engagement.”

A dozen replies fizzled in his throat.

He stared at her, his arm snapping forward to take back the whisky. He downed it, keeping his eyes on her. She held very still.

“What was that?” he finally said.

“I’ll explain later,” she murmured, breaking eye contact.

“You’ll explain now.” He was working a muscle in his jaw with intent to bruise. What in hell was she talking about?

Belle’s breath turned shallow at the intensity on his face. “We don’t have time?—”

He flattened his palm to the door, halting her retreat. He stared at his hand, understanding his body was reacting in confusion and jealousy and some other reckless thing he couldn’t wrap his head around.

“You invited me here, and you’ll tell me what the devil you invited me into.”

“I invited you to nothing more than dinner.” Her voice was very low. “We are expected?—”

“ Who were you engaged to?” He looked at her fourth finger, as though a ring were still there. A ring had been there. A man had lifted her hand the way Ethan lifted her hand three times a day, but instead of jabbing a pen into it, he’d put a goddamn engagement ring on it.

“It doesn’t matter.” Her face shuttered.

Ethan bristled. He’d seen this immediate reserve crash on her before?—

At the Old Bailey.

Understanding thudded into place. Her abrupt retreat from the knot of constables, his unsettling encounter with Detective Inspector Duncan. The way Duncan spoke about her. The way he wouldn’t let another man move past him.

Some men, she’d said.

“The inspector,” he growled, his stomach growing tight.

“What?” She blinked in alarm. “What do you know of it?”

“I met him once.” Ethan scowled. “At the courthouse. He’s…”

She flinched, and a terrible, terrible feeling came over him as he recalled Belle’s name in the lousy prig’s mouth. The oily, self-important swine .

Who she had never once mentioned.

“Yes,” she said quickly, her fingers flitting to her temple. “It was him. It was years ago, Ethan.”

He felt as though she’d bashed him over the head with the decanter of whisky. He’d spent nearly a month in Belle’s company. They talked all day, about everything—they talked about things he’d truly had no interest in talking about before. And never once, in all her chatter, did she mention she’d nearly been some other man’s wife.

Why hadn’t she told him?

“You were going to marry someone? You were going to marry him ?”

“Now is not the time,” she said, interrupting the mutinous questions Ethan battled. “My family is in the parlor.”

“Wait, Belle?—”

But he lowered his arm, and she slipped past him to the corridor. He stared after her, his thoughts a stormy tangle. He badly wanted to pour more whisky but thought better of it.

It was expensive after all.

And she was costing him enough as it was.

“Belle, darling, is something disagreeing with you?” Mama frowned at Belle’s mostly untouched plate.

She looked at Ethan, sitting across from her with a glower as dark as his coat. Something was most certainly disagreeing with her. And she didn’t blame him. She’d blurted out her past with his whisky on her tongue and whipped down the corridor before he could so much as ask a single clarifying question.

“No.” Belle picked up her wine, then put it back down. “I’m fine.”

“Mr. Fletcher, tell us about the paper you worked for in Boston,” Lena prompted cheerily. “Our father is intrigued by New England politics.”

She offered Belle an encouraging smile. Her sister thought her reserve was due to nerves, not from the crumpled confession she’d flung at Ethan in the study.

“Is that so, dear?” Mama turned to Papa. “You’ve never mentioned New England politics.”

“It seems I’m interested tonight,” Papa said mildly. Nevertheless, he turned to Ethan. “I do find myself curious. Was it a political paper?”

Belle pushed her mutton across her plate as the conversation unfolded around her. She couldn’t hear anything but her own stupid admission, hanging heavy in the air between them.

She’d meant only to warn him dinner might be awkward. Well…she’d seen to that, hadn’t she? Because a warning required a reason, and she refused to lie to him. From the start, he’d been clear about his shortcomings—the debt, his obstacles. He never coddled her about the serial, always telling her, in his blunt way, when she needed to fix things, when he expected more of her.

He had earned her trust; he deserved her honesty, delicate and fractured as it was.

“The Sentinel wasn’t affiliated with a political party,” Ethan was saying, and Belle forced herself to rejoin the conversation. “It was a working-class paper, priced at a penny.”

“A penny?” Mama sounded surprised. “I can’t imagine it would be profitable?”

“There’s no news tax in America,” Belle murmured. She chanced another glance at him, then looked away, overcome.

She wasn’t used to seeing him dressed so well. Every day, she was tortured by his ease—his sleeves rolled, his tie yanked sideways, his leather apron strapped across his chest. Sometimes, in the honeyed light of afternoon, his tie would come loose and reveal a smattering of dark hair in the open collar of his shirt.

It was intimate , the way she saw him at the shop. She hadn’t realized just how intimate until she’d watched his approach from the study window tonight—tucked in his dark coat, so unreasonably handsome—and she’d wilted with longing.

She wanted all the versions of him. What he showed the world, what he didn’t.

Was it so naive to hope he could want all the versions of her in return?

“The paper was meant to be produced for the masses,” Ethan explained, swirling his wine. “Free of political influence, covering issues of import—abolition, worker’s rights, women, immigrants—but the editor died, and his son took the helm, and somehow, the goals changed. I always counted myself fortunate to be a reporter until I stopped being able to report on very much.”

“You know,” Papa murmured thoughtfully, “there was a large unstamped press movement here, about ten years ago. A great many publishers were arrested in the thirties. It’s why they reduced the duty from four pence to one.”

“But newspaper prices are still abhorrent,” Ethan said. There was a glint in his eye, a glowing purpose Belle hadn’t seen before. “Not only does it keep people uninformed, it keeps them illiterate. If you want a population to read, you have to give them affordable material.”

To Belle’s surprise, Mama was now looking at Ethan with friendly interest.

“I agree, Mr. Fletcher. You know, some refer to stamp duty as a ‘tax on knowledge,’ and for good reason. I remember the frustration in my own youth. By virtue of my employment, I lived in homes that could afford books and newspapers, but when I was between households…”

Ethan was clearly caught unawares by this wildly unexpected anecdote.

“My mother worked as a governess,” Belle explained. “Before she…married.”

She fumbled the last word, and Ethan lifted his scalding gaze to hers.

“So that’s what this literacy initiative is about?” Mama said, ignoring the tension blossoming between them. “You’re producing reading material for the laboring class?”

“It’s…a bit of that,” Belle conceded, and Ethan thankfully did not elaborate.

“So if I may ask, what will you do here in London, Mr. Fletcher?” Lena inquired. “We don’t have newspapers like the one you published in Boston.”

Ethan set down his fork, looking away from Belle. “No, unfortunately, you don’t, and it’s a damn shame—ah, pardon.” He glanced at the fine china in front of him, attempting to wrangle back both his grimace and his curse. “Truth be told, when my current endeavor is completed, I don’t know what I’ll do. If I can sell my shop, I’ll possibly return to Boston. Or go to New York.”

Belle froze. She tried to recall if this was new information. In a way, it couldn’t be, for it made perfect sense, given his aims. And yet hearing him say it so casually…

Papa glanced at Belle. “Is that so?”

“Perhaps.” Ethan raised a shoulder. “I have acquaintances there, men I knew from the printing chapels. We used to talk about establishing our own newspaper. We had a plan.”

“You did?” Belle blurted. A plan. A plan was very different from a daydream…wasn’t it?

“Yes.”

“You never mentioned you had earnest designs to return,” she said quietly. “I thought it was just something you said when you were feeling sore about London.”

“There are many things that never come up in our conversations,” he said. “As it turns out.”

An inscrutable injury flashed across his face and worked its way deep into her chest.

This was her fault. She should have told him about Duncan sooner—but when? How ? Her courage failed her, that day in the courthouse…though it seemed Ethan had run into him all on his own.

The inspector , he’d murmured in the study, his jaw so tight, it moved a muscle in his neck. She newly considered that Ethan had met Duncan, had spoken to him.

What must he think of her now? That she was unwanted, unwantable. A harlot of the heart, loose with her promises. Loose with everything else.

I’m not , she tried to tell him. The message was likely lost, seeing as she was staring at her plate. I’m not those things. No matter what you heard, you’ve seen more of me than he ever did.

Harriet, the housemaid, arrived to serve the gooseberry fool. Belle allowed her nearly untouched plate to be cleared.

“Now, Mr. Fletcher, you mentioned a printing chapel?” Lena leaned forward. Belle had to hand it to her; her sister was heroically conversant. “I must confess, I’m unfamiliar with your trade. I’m interested in learning more.”

“It’s not very refined,” Ethan warned, but he reluctantly launched into a description of his apprenticeship. Mama and Lena were both quite taken with his explanation of typesetting, peppering the poor man with incessant questions.

“Does it take a long time to learn?”

“He taught me,” Belle found herself saying. “It takes some practice, but it’s not so different from any puzzle.”

Her neck grew hot as she remembered his lesson—Ethan’s palms curving around hers, his breath moving the hair at her nape, the prose she helped him finish. There is no exquisite beauty…

“You’ve always enjoyed unraveling puzzles, Belle,” Papa said thoughtfully.

“She enjoys making them too,” Ethan muttered, but his green eyes had softened.

She wondered if his thoughts, too, were back in the shop. She wished they were there now. She wanted to speak to him alone. She wanted to climb in front of this silent flush and take his hand and make him understand?—

“What does it look like?” Mama wondered. “A typeset sentence?”

“Belle can show you.” Ethan looked swiftly at her. “She’s getting quite good.”

She startled; he’d called her by her name. But if her family noticed, nobody said a thing, for now there was an experiment afoot.

There was a general commotion as plates were cleared and paper and pen procured. When everyone was settled, Belle wrote a few lines, right to left, carefully reversing each letter. She turned the paper to face her mother and sister.

“How peculiar.” Mama laughed, now fully relaxed. Apparently, tales of working-class hardship and word puzzles were enough to charm her. “Let me see.”

“Dinner…” Helena scrunched her nose, angling the paper. “ Dinner was lovely. ”

“Yes.” Belle nodded. “Very good, Lena.”

“Let’s do another. Mr. Fletcher?”

Ethan took the offered pen and quickly scratched his own backward sentence, keeping his eyes on Belle.

She glanced at his scrawl and exhaled softly, relief lifting in small, hopeful sunbursts as she recalled their conversation outside St. Bride’s.

“Especially the fool ,” she read aloud.

He passed her the pen, his littlest finger nearly brushing hers. She hesitated, then laboriously wrote another sentence.

“These two words are the same,” Lena pointed out, bending her head next to Mama’s.

Ethan craned his neck, read the sentence, and looked sharply at Belle.

“Mr. Fletcher knows it,” Lena smiled.

Belle stayed silent, watching his face.

There was a long pause.

“ Let bygones be bygones ,” Ethan murmured at last.

“Yes…though I now see I got the second s wrong.” Belle’s fists curled in her lap. “Even so, I hope the meaning is clear.”

His hand tightened around his wine glass. “It’s clear.”

“You know, you two could have your own language,” Lena said lightly, looking between them. “Everything upside down and backward.”

“Indeed,” Belle whispered, unable to look away from the profound urgency in his expression.

Upside down and backward , she most certainly was.

And she only hoped he could read her anyway.