I don’t move. “Come on where?”
He sighs, and in a tone that reeks of the unspoken against my better judgment, he says, “I’m going to let you buy me dinner.”
7
The alehouse is not, strictly speaking, the most respectable establishment I’ve ever dined in. The floor is alternately sticky and splintered—there’s an honest-to-God hole through it near the hearth, deep enough to see the foundation. I watch a man lean over it at an angle that gives me secondhand vertigo to light his pipe in the embers of the fire. A crowd is gathered near the bar over a game of tabletop skittles, their vocabulary stunningly vulgar and audible even over the fiercely dissonant jig being played in repetition by a pair in the corner, the fiddle player squeezing out the high notes like kidney stones. Painted women linger along the rails of the stairs behind the bar. One of them winks at me, and I trip over my own feet, nearly smashing face-first into my brother.
The barroom is so packed and hot and rotten smelling and possibly also rotting that I have a sense Henry picked this place intentionally to make me as uncomfortable as possible. And as much as I don’t want to let him put me off, I am. Very much. It’s hard not to think of who sat here before me as my breeches stick to the seat of the chair I pull up to the scarred pub table.
“This is nice,” I say, as a drunk woman passing accidentally pours half a glass of gin onto our table. Henry snorts.
Several excruciating minutes pass between us in silence. Henry sits with his back to the wall, hands folded on the table. I am trying to focus on him and not how badly I want to ask him to swap seats with me. I don’t want to explain that sometimes I grow panicked someone is sneaking up behind me when I can’t see the door of the room I’m sitting in, and the itch is starting on the back of my neck. While Henry is already so tense and obviously unhappy about solely my existence that I’m sure one unorthodox request wouldn’t cause him any more discomfort, I’d rather just be his brother for now. Unwanted brother, yes, but not his strange, obsessive, anxious, sweaty, awkward, unwanted brother.
It must be at least ten full minutes of silence before I get up the courage and the breath to finally say to him, “Would you like a drink?”
He doesn’t look up from his clasped hands. “No thank you.”
“I’ll cover the bill.”
“I said no thank you.”
I tuck my chin to my chest and look down too. Silence again. If I can’t breathe and he is determined to remain silent, we may simply run out the clock on this coerced interaction. I glance up at him. He has his face turned away from me, staring at the table, like he’s making a show of not giving me his full attention. His knuckles have gone white from the strength of his grip. He can’t possibly be nervous too, can he?
He didn’t ask for this either. But at least he knew it might someday happen. At least he knew I existed.
He presses a nail into the skin of his left ring finger, and I realize he isn’t wearing a wedding band. Suddenly I’m flooded with the urge to ask him everything. I want to know everything I’ve missed. If he’s going to be an ass, I at least want to know why he’s an ass. I want to know how he takes his tea and which room he slept in back home. I want to know the books he’s read more than once, if he believes in God, if he’s ever been in love, if he went to Eton, what subject was his best. I want to know about the days in his life he didn’t think he’d live through, and the ones where the stars felt dull and pale in comparison to his own happiness. I want to know if he remembers our mother. I want to know if the inside of his head looks anything like mine. I want to know why he thinks my mother carried a cracked half of an antique spyglass, and why he went looking for answers about it too.
But before I can voice any of this, he says, “It’s not actually your money, though, is it?”
I falter. “Excuse me?”
“Whatever you’ll be using to fund this meal—it’s your father’s money, correct?”
“Well. If you want to be—”
“It’s a yes-or-no question.”
“Yes, I suppose.”
“That changes things.” As one of the men from behind the bar passes us, a stack of dirty plates balanced in the crook of his elbow and two empty mugs hooked around one thumb, Henry waves him to a stop.
“Oh, I think you’re supposed to go to the bar—” I start, but Henry has already called, “Hullo, Jack.”
The man stops, a splash of ale from one of the mugs he’s carrying sloshing out and coloring his apron. “Monty,” he says, his tone most generously described as trepidatious. “You’ve got a new friend.” Jack nods toward me.
“No, no,” Monty says quickly. “No, he’s . . . no he’s not.” His neck goes red, and I swear the barman smirks the tiniest bit at having flustered my brother. My brother. Will it ever not feel strange? “Tell me, Jack—do you sell whole cakes?”
I almost fall off my chair. Jack glances between us, his tower of plates wobbling. “Do you mean tea cakes?” he asks. “Or Chelsea buns?”
“No, like a butter cake. Something large, and with icing. The sort you bake in a tin.” Henry indicates the desired size with his hands—the girth is close to that of an obese housecat. “Or maybe instead a great big pie?”
“You want . . . a slice of pie?” Jack asks, looking to me for a translation though I’m as clueless as he is.
“No, I’d like an entire pie,” Henry replies cheerfully. “Something with fruit, if you have it. Or gold leaf, if that’ll run up the bill. Let me get a whole pie, every cake you have—the big ones—a pot of coffee.” He looks at me. “Do you want a pie as well?”
I’m so stunned that all I manage in reply is “I’m not that hungry.”
Henry screws up his face like he’s considering a difficult choice, then says to Jack, “Best do two anyway; I’ll want something savory. So that’s a pot of coffee, all the butter cakes you have—mind you that’s all the cakes, not a lot of cakes, all of them. Then shall we say a veal pie and perhaps a lemon mince? Or hot apple? Or both?” He looks to me, like he’d care for my opinion if I had one. “Both. And maybe some cold meats, a variety of cheeses—none of that chewy nonsense, though, just the really expensive soft ones—a fruit selection, a whole shoulder of beef, pheasants—do you serve pheasant?—God,” he looks at me across the table like he’s just had a brilliant idea. “Why didn’t we go to a chophouse? Those are much more expensive.”
I give Jack an apologetic smile. “We’ll just have coffee. And a pie,” I add quickly, when Henry looks disappointed. “We’ll take a pie.”
We must sound like lunatics, though Jack seems familiar with my brother’s particular vintage, at the least.
He seems less confused than exasperated. As Jack departs, Henry settles back in his chair, suddenly more at ease now that there’s pie in his future. “Should have asked for a jug of cream for the coffee. And for the pie, come to think of it. I bloody love a good pie. Can’t remember the last time I had one.”
I resist the urge to ask if, that last time, he had ordered and then eaten the whole pie. But if his affection can be bought so easily, I don’t intend to be tightfisted. I sit up straight, tugging on my waistcoat. The back of my neck itches, and I resist the urge to glance over my shoulder at the door. “So. Henry—”