Their voices moved away down the corridor and faded.
Harper stood at his desk, and found himself in a new kind of hell.
The dress. Of course he remembered it, as he had been the one to buy it.
But tonight she was going to wear it for Elias Talbot.
Something burned inside of him, even though he should be happy that she has finally found a match.
But instead, all he could feel was poorly concealed jealousy.
It was late evening when his son came in the room.
“Come in,” Harper said.
Joseph opened the door and looked at his father.
“Shouldn't you be at your lessons?”
“I am done with them,” Joseph shrugged and took a good look at his father. “You look terrible,” he said.
Ah.
The two Hosmer women had taught his son to be a lot more candid than what he was used to. Joseph looked at the desk, at the untouched papers and the pen lying beside them.
“Did you sleep?”
“Some,” Harper said, which was technically true.
“Are you looking forward to tonight?” Joseph asked.
Harper looked at his son.
“It is not a question of looking forward to it, it needs to happen. So I am hoping to get done with it as soon as I can. But you should be in bed before the guests arrive. I don’t want you downstairs.”
“Why?” Joseph looked back at him.
“Because it is an adult occasion and you are ten years old.”
Joseph received this with the composure he received most things, and said, “All right,” and did not push it, which meant he was either accepting it or saving it. Harper suspected the latter.
“Is there something you needed?” Harper asked.
Joseph stood up. He went to the door and then stopped, and turned back, and Harper watched him conduct another internal deliberation, longer this time.
“I will be back in a moment,” Joseph said, and went out.
Harper looked at the papers.
He heard Joseph’s footsteps go down the corridor and up the stairs and come back down again three minutes later, and the door opened and Joseph came in holding Soot, who was draped across his arms.
“Joseph,” Harper warned.
“She was on the landing,” Joseph said, which was not an explanation for why he had brought her to the study. He sat back down in the chair with the cat in his arms and looked at his father. “She wants you to hold her.”
“Oh, not this again. She does not want anything in particular, for god’s sake. It is only a cat.”
“Shedoes,” Joseph corrected, “She always goes to you when something is wrong.”
