The sight of her in this dress had quite literally stopped him where he stood. Stoker had nearly collided with his back and mocked him, which Joseph supposed he deserved. He’d been blindsided. Again.
But perhaps this had been his chief failing from the beginning. He’d never stopped to anticipate. Not in Belgravia, when he’d been on the attack, not at St. Katharine Docks, or in the park.
He wondered if it would always be this way. Would she always take him by surprise? And if so, was it so terrible?
Yes,he thought, watching her gasp at the antics of a diminutive juggler,it is.He was unsettled by surprises. Surprises meant he was unprepared. Surprises put him at a disadvantage.
You love the surprise of her,he thought, the notion as nonsensical as it was true.
“How talented he is,” Tessa said of the small man, clapping breathlessly.
She turned to Joseph and put two gloved hands on his forearm. “Can you believe it? Five teacups and a pot of water? And all the while on one foot!”
Joseph stared at her hands on his arm, blinking down at the snug blue leather. It was unnecessary to look, of course. Her touch reverberated through him like the lash of a whip. The juggler’s foot was the furthest from his mind. He saw only her hands, he lived and breathed her hands.
“Sorry,” she said, snatching herself away.
It’s nothing,he wanted to say.Come back.But she was already spinning, her attention caught by a five-person choir singing a ballad in a gazebo across the path. She took two steps toward their syrupy voices, and then rushed to the periphery of the assembling crowd. Joseph followed as if tied to her with a string.
“It’s lovely,” she whispered when he caught up. He glanced down. Her blue eyes were filled with wonder, her lips slightly apart.
Joseph squinted into the gazebo. Musicians at Vauxhall were a mix of spotlight-hungry hobbyists and seasoned professionals. The assemblage in the gazebo was clearly the former, but Tessa clapped enthusiastically as they garbled their final note.
“Shall we seek out supper?” he said, hoping to veer her away before the choir came to some consensus on their next song.
“You don’t really enjoy Vauxhall, do you?” she said. “You wish you hadn’t come.”
Joseph frowned at the impossible thought of him not coming. “I don’tnotenjoy Vauxhall. I’m just a bit jaded, I suppose.”
“Oh,”she said. She gave an exaggerated, knowing nod. “You’ve sailed the world and seen sights far more fantastical, have you?”
“It’s not so much that my travels have outpaced Vauxhall,” he said, “more so the perception of what I enjoy.”
She laughed. “What do you mean? Either you enjoy something or you do not.”
I enjoy you,he thought, but he said, “When your earliest years are spent in service—literally cleaning mud from boots, emptying chamber pots—and you rise above it, those early trappings become a little warped in your view.”
They came to a fork in the path, two smaller walkways branching around a great trellis, heavy with roses. Tessa admired the flowers, stepping forward to smell each blossom.
“Stoker and I came to Vauxhall often as boys,” Joseph said. “Sometimes we had money to buy tickets, sometimes we navigated the river on a skiff and slipped over the wall. Now that I’ve the means to avail myself of any meal or entertainment in London, it’s difficult for me to return.”
“But is this the way you view every simple thing you enjoyed as a boy? Do you eschew sunrises, for example? Or puppies? These were available to you, then and now.”
“No. Not sunrises or puppies. I’m happy Vauxhall rages on for the masses, and it is my pleasure to escort you, but I’m dubious of attractions that charge less than four shillings at the gate. That was my old life, you see, before I made myself over into...” He struggled to find the correct word.
“A rich man?” she provided.
“I was going to sayman of means, but it’s clear you take my meaning. Vauxhall was the purveyance of Joseph the servant. Joseph the—”
“Rich man,” she cut in, laughing.
“Man of means,” he emphasized, “prefers the opera.”
She made a little noise of understanding, neither judgment or affirmation, and they crunched down the path, weaving around couples and families and a man with a large snake coiled around his outstretched arms.
“I’ve a question,” she announced. But she said nothing for another four or five steps. “At Berymede,” she finally went on, “you spoke often about an ambition to run for Parliament. Is this still your plan?”
Joseph looked at her.This, now?he wondered. He said, “Yes, in fact. It is. But I admit it knowing full well that Parliament is an unlikely ambition. I may pass my entire life in pursuit of it. But it’s not impossible, is it?”
