A Kiss For Midwinter (Brothers Sinister 1.5)

It felt as if he’d just poked a raw, weeping wound—and she refused to be hurt. It wouldn’t hurt. It wouldn’t.

She gritted her teeth and swung her empty basket and thought of good things—of ginger cake baking in the kitchen, filling her home with the scent of spice and sugar, of boughs cut and laid on the hearth. She filled her mind with all the best of the holiday season, pushing away those old memories that flickered at the edge of remembrance—that one Christmas where there’d been no good cheer at all.

Just cramps and lies and…and hydrogen cyanide. She flinched from the thought.

“On the first day of Christmas,” she sang, “my true love gave to me…”

He didn’t join in. But as she sang to cut off all further discussion, all need for her to think on what he’d said, she could hear him laughing at her. Not literally, of course. But he knew.

He knew that she was pushing him away, silencing every conversation they might have had. He knew that she was slamming the shutters on her own dark storm of pain. He knew, and she didn’t like it.

It was a long song, and she sang it slowly.

He only interrupted when she’d come near the end.

“Who wants lords a-leaping?” he asked. “If my true love brings me any number of lords shambling about in their cups on Christmas, I’ll have words for her. Someone’s going to break a bottle and cut his hand, leaping about like that, and then guess who’s going to be roused from his warm home on the holidays to stitch him up? ‘Oh, Doctor Grantham, you’d best come quickly!’” He made a rude noise.

Lydia simply looked at him. But she was grateful for that hint of levity, that retreat from the intensity that had come before. When she continued on with the song, her true love brought her lords a-leaping on the eleventh and twelfth days of Christmas, too.

When they arrived at her house, a boy stood from the step. He looked about six years of age—far too young to be out in the cold—but he seemed to vibrate with an urgency that emphasized the tear tracks on his face.

“Peter Westing,” Doctor Grantham said. “What are you doing here?”

“It’s about my brother.”

“Good God. Has something happened to Henry?”

“The boiler collapsed,” the young boy said, “and there was a slide of rubbish at the house.”

Lydia could not visualize what it meant for a boiler to collapse—how on earth could metal collapse?—or for there to be a slide of rubbish inside a house. Grantham however, apparently could, because he grimaced at those words.

“He can’t walk, Doctor, and he might get sacked.” The little boy burst into tears on the last phrase, as if being sacked was a more dire consequence than the loss of mobility.

Doctor Grantham stood in place, staring straight in front of him. He shut his eyes. “Ah, God. Is he bleeding?”

“No.”

“Can he move his toes? His arms?”

“Uh—yes, I think. But his leg is crooked, and he’s in terrible pain.”

“Thank God that is all that happened, then.” He turned to Lydia. “Assuming Henry consents, Miss Charingford, I’ll take you to see him tomorrow. You’re going to see a twelve-year-old child who has broken his leg because his employer cannot clean his house.” There was a note of bitterness in his voice. “And when he has been incapacitated, apparently his employer feels no compunction in letting him ago. After all, he had the temerity to trigger slides of rubbish. I dare you to find something good in that.”

He set his bag on the stoop, undid the clasp, and peered inside. “Peter, I’ll have to stop at home to get a few things if I’m going to be setting a fracture, but we’ll be there as soon as we can.”

“Yes, sir.”

But instead of setting off immediately, he paused. “Miss Charingford.” The words seemed unwillingly wrested from his chest.

“Yes?”

“You are only the eleventh prettiest woman in all of Leicester until you open your mouth.”

Her mouth dropped open. To insult her, atop all the other horrible, awful, impolite, unacceptable things that he’d said? “Thank you so much for those kind words, Grantham,” she snapped out. “I’m glad to know that my mannerisms so sink me.”

But this time, he didn’t smile at her; his eyes didn’t sparkle with that familiar mischief. “Once you speak,” he said, “you have no equal.”

He turned away while her eyes were still widening in surprise. She found herself frozen in place.

Her body seemed unfamiliar to her, filled with aches and pains on the one hand, and on the other… A spark. One that sizzled through her. Lydia swallowed and shook her head, but she couldn’t drive that feeling away.

He hefted his bag, flexed his free hand—he wasn’t wearing gloves, which made absolutely no sense, as it was bitterly cold—and walked off, young Peter Westing trotting at his side. He walked quickly, and when he got to the corner, he didn’t look back.

He didn’t need to. She was still standing in place watching him go.

Chapter Six

IT WAS ALMOST SEVEN IN THE EVENING by the time Jonas found himself at his father’s house. His arms ached—setting bones was tiring work, and Henry’s break had been particularly tricky. But that was nothing in comparison with the weariness he felt in his soul.

No servant answered the door, of course; Henry had been the only one his father had allowed. These upcoming nights were the longest ones of the year. The sun set early. At this point, the house was pitch black. Jonas couldn’t even see the gap in the rubbish as the door squeaked open. He found his way through the wreckage by feel. Toward the back of the room, he actually had to scramble over the piled-up detritus.

All this would have to be put in some semblance of order. But…not tonight. Not without daylight.

Jonas shook his head and found a candle on the hob and managed to light it. That scant wash of light—shifting over a wasteland of discarded metal—only made him shake his head in dismay. Nothing to do but wash his hands and prepare his father’s dinner.

He still hadn’t figured out what to say—what to do—by the time he ascended the stairs. He’d had a dozen conversations with his father in his mind already, and none had ended particularly well. But even those didn’t prepare him for what he saw coming up the staircase. His father was seated on his bed, his arms crossed, and he glared in Jonas’s direction.