“Should it?” he returned, with yet another shrug, his voice and his expression obnoxiously unreadable. Perhaps she should rethink the lighting.
“What would you like, Mr. Weiss? Or more, why are you here?” she asked, gritting her teeth.
His lips broke into a full, earnest smile that was bothso handsome and so genuine that something odd inside her ached.
“You know my name,” he said.
“Don’t flatter yourself.” She worked to ignore the dratted note of happiness in his voice. “I know many things. It’s part of my job. Information is power, after all.” As if his name was hard to learn. She had ears. “If you truly wanted to thank me or apologize—which you reallydon’tneed to, as it’s highly unlikely we’ll cross paths again—you could’ve sent a note,” she pointed out.
The man didn’t even hesitate to say, “I most certainly owed you both the apology and thanks. And I didn’t want to write; I wanted to see you.”
False. That had to be false. No one, save Tamar and her parents, ever wanted to see her without getting anything in return. And what could she possibly give this man that he couldn’t get better somewhere else?
“Well, now you’ve seen me, and you’ve said your piece, I suggest you leave. Real customers, ones who pay, will be coming soon.” She wrinkled her nose. “Don’t you have a job you should be doing?”
Even if he didn’t, he ought to have some reason to leave and stop forcing her to think uncomfortable thoughts—like how this was the longest conversation she’d had in years with anyone outside her family that didn’t involve the other person making demands of her. Or more, the most interest anyone had shown in her outside her use to them.
“I had a meeting earlier, in Aldgate, so this visit was actually convenient.” He glanced around again, this time threading his fingers together behind his back, rocking on the toes of his somehow, despite the snowy weather, still shiny black boots.
“I’m surprised that you would come anywhere near here,” she grumbled as she searched her mind for some verbal jab to make him flee. “Though seeing you at Duke’s Place was a surprise as well. I thought your family had moved beyond such things.”
“I value the community. It was very important to my late mother and I…” He paused, and his brow furrowed.
“What?” she asked, despite the fact that whatever he was thinking should not matter in the slightest nor intrigue her in any way.
“Nothing.” He gazed back at her and shook his head. “It’s just that you aren’t the type who is impressed with platitudes.”
Hannah gaped. What did he mean by that? Or more, why did it matter? “I’m not the type who is impressed period, especially not by the likes of you,” she said with more bite than intended.
“Fair enough.” His chest rose, the fabric of his shirt pulling taut against muscles she was determined not to notice, before he wagged a finger at her. “But you do value honesty and I’ll give that to you.”
She rubbed the back of her neck, ducking her head, inexplicably unable to meet his gaze any longer. “It’s all right. You really don’t need to.”
“I know, which is what makes me so kind.” His soft smile became a grin, a near wolfish one, which, at her age, shouldn’t make her heart speed, but…
Hannah forced herself to give him a haughty sniff. “I’m not sure ‘kind’ would be the word I’d use.”
“Then nice at least. Or maybe charming?” His dark eyes twinkled through the dim room, and she couldn’t quite think of a smart response. He cleared his throat.“But anyway, I was at services to make business and personal connections. Something very critical for me and my family right now.”
“Oh.” She nodded as her heartbeat returned to normal with that dose of reality. Not that his answer hadn’t been expected. That was the entire point of why his presence here, with her, was so ludicrous.
“Do you want to know why it’s so critical?” he asked, as if her answer mattered to him in the slightest.
“Have I given you any indication that I do?” She straightened a strand of hair that had come loose from its hasty pinning.
“You haven’t given any indication that you don’t. And answering a question with another question signals interest, I should think,” he pointed out, wagging a finger at her once more. Somehow, the act, which should be odious, was charming on him. In an obnoxious way. “Yes?”
“I’m waiting for you to tell me.” She folded her arms, stroking the soft, old seams of the remade linen—too light for the weather but her wool needed mending. “Obviously, you’re going to; thus you might as well get on with it so you can leave me to my business, one which is clearly very different than yours.” She ground her teeth, her stare daring him to contradict her.
Instead, he merely shrugged. Then he took a step forward.
“Fair,” he said. “You see, my father was a good man but not good with finances. So when he died, my brother and I discovered the business was… not well. It has taken years, but we—well, mostly my brother as I was rather young—have built it back to a stable, in fact profitable, state. But my brother made many sacrifices along the way. So now that I’m grown—”
“Debatable.” The retort popped out despite, well, everything.
“Would you like me to prove it?” His grin was back, along with the ill-advised thrumming that was getting a great deal harder to resist. This would-be dandy was the last person she should be toying with, but she could see his pupils dilating, smell that tantalizing mix of lime and wood…
Oy, perhaps she should acquiesce more the next time Ned came around, despite the risk, or seek out Will, or Charlie, or any of the goyishe criminals with whom she knew exactly where she stood, where the limits were clear and well defined.
