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Tom was not entirely certain when William Ryder returned from Italy.
At some point during the previous fortnight, certainly. There had been vague mentions from mutual acquaintances (a sighting in town, a remark about Florence, an opinion delivered too loudly at a dinner) all the usual signs that Ryder had resumed occupying England with his full and undeniable presence.
Still, Tom had managed, until now, to avoid the reality of him.
Which was why it came as an unpleasant surprise to step into the communal sitting room of his boarding house and discover William Ryder already installed beside the fire as though he belonged there.
Ryder rose at once upon seeing him.
He looked infuriatingly well.
Italy had left its mark upon him in several objectionable ways. He was marginally more tanned than before, his dark hair slightly longer at the collar, and he carried himself with the polished ease of a man who had spent several months being admired abroad and had found the experience entirely natural.
More concerning still, he appeared impressively more annoying.
“Ah, Hayward,” Ryder said warmly. “Just the man I was thinking of.”
Tom halted only briefly in the doorway.
The room around them remained occupied in the loose, untidy manner common to boarding houses. Someone’s abandoned newspaper rested upon the sofa arm. A pair of boots dried badly near the hearth. From upstairs came the unmistakable sound of Jenkins attempting to sing while shaving.
Ryder, however, looked wholly untouched by any of it. He stood there with the ease of a visiting aristocrat inspecting temporary quarters for sport.
Tom narrowed his eyes slightly.
He was reasonably certain Ryder did not know any of the other residents.
At least, he hoped not.
His gaze flicked instinctively toward the hallway leading to the rear of the house, where the landlady’s daughter had passed only half an hour earlier carrying a tray of tea things and smiling far too readily at every male occupant in sight.
Tom experienced a brief and vivid horror at the possibility that Ryder had already charmed her.
Or the landlady herself.
He would not entirely have put it past the man.
“I have a short matter I wish to discuss with you,” Ryder continued.
Short matter.
Tom felt immediate suspicion.
The last short matter Ryder had wished to discuss had altered the entire course of his life.
Tom remembered it with uncomfortable clarity even now: Ryder arriving with that grave expression he adopted whenever he intended to overturn somebody else’s peace; Ryder speaking of his inheritance, of responsibility, of marriage; Ryder calmly announcing his intention of proposing to Miss Mary Bennet.
Mary.
Tom’s Mary now, though at the time she had not yet been anything of the sort.
The memory still possessed the power to make him wince internally. He had behaved badly afterward. Coldly. Worse than coldly. He had withdrawn into himself like a sulking boy and left Mary bewildered by it.
Then Yorkshire had followed. Too many weeks away. Too much distance. Too much unnecessary misery conducted in silence.
All because William Ryder had once wished to discuss a short matter.
“No,” Tom said immediately.
Ryder blinked.
“No?” he repeated.
“I am occupied.”
“With what?”
“Everything.”
Ryder smiled at that in a manner Tom distrusted on principle.
“Come now, Hayward. You are to be married in three days. Surely a man may spare ten minutes for an old friend before he vanishes into matrimonial obscurity.”
Tom began removing his gloves with deliberate attention.
“You greatly overestimate both the value of your conversation and the obscurity of marriage.”
“I congratulate you,” Ryder said. “That sounded almost spirited.”
Tom ignored him.
He crossed the room toward the corridor leading to the private portion of the house, aware of Ryder following several steps behind with infuriating persistence.
“I assure you,” Ryder continued lightly, “this concerns neither inheritances nor declarations of love. You may relax.”
Tom did not relax.
That in itself seemed answer enough.
Ryder laughed softly under his breath.
“Hayward,” he said, “you cannot avoid me forever.”
“I can certainly begin now.”
He reached the narrow dividing door separating the residents’ rooms from the public sitting area and slipped through before Ryder could follow.
The latch clicked shut with immense satisfaction.
Silence followed.
Tom stood there a moment in the dim corridor, listening carefully.
He hoped that Ryder would understand the hint.
He did not.
Ryder caught him the following morning.
Tom had almost succeeded in avoiding him entirely. He left the boarding house earlier than usual, took a different route, and allowed himself the cautious optimism of a man who believed persistence must eventually yield to dignity.
He should have known better.
“Hayward!”
Tom closed his eyes briefly.
Ryder crossed the street toward him with alarming efficiency, coat flaring slightly behind him, entirely unconcerned by the traffic he interrupted in the process. A cabman shouted something hostile after him. Ryder ignored it with long practice.
Tom resumed walking at once.
Ryder fell into step beside him.
“This is becoming absurd,” he said cheerfully. “I have spent the better part of two days pursuing you across London.”
“That sounds very much like a personal choice.”
“It is an important choice.”
Tom increased his pace.
Ryder matched it easily.
“Hayward,” he said, lowering his voice slightly now, “we need to talk.”
“No.”
“It concerns Miss Bennet.”
Tom stopped.
The effect was immediate and physical. It felt, for one dreadful instant, as though his heart had simply dropped through him entirely.
Mary.
Every possible disaster arrived at once. Illness. Injury. Some accident at the Gardiners’. A change of mind. Fear. Tears. A letter misplaced. A carriage overturned.
His thoughts moved so quickly they scarcely formed coherently.
Ryder observed him with sudden concern.
“Oh, for God’s sake,” he said quickly, “nothing is wrong.”
Tom said nothing.
He schooled his expression with visible effort, forcing every trace of alarm back beneath composure. Years of self-command returned on instinct. By the time he spoke, his voice sounded almost even.
“What is it?”
Ryder studied him a moment longer, as though recognising belatedly the degree of panic he had inspired.
“In two days,” Ryder said, “you are getting married to Miss Bennet.”
“Yes.”
Tom began walking again.
Ryder followed.
“And that includes,” Ryder continued carefully, “a great many things. Most importantly the wedding night.”
Tom stopped so abruptly that a passing clerk nearly collided with him.
“No,” he said at once.
Then he turned and walked sharply round the next corner.
Behind him came the sound of Ryder hurrying after in evident irritation.
“You cannot simply say no.”
“No.”
“There are a great many important…”
“No.”
Tom took another turn without warning, doubling back through a narrower lane lined with delivery entrances and damp cobbles still dark from the morning rain.
Ryder remained beside him with infuriating determination.
“You are behaving like a man fleeing military conscription.”
“I live in hope that one of these corners will lose you.”
“It will not.”
Tom lengthened his stride.
“So if you would only listen…”
“No.”
“You cannot just continue saying no every time I attempt to explain something.”
“I find it an extremely effective method.”
Ryder exhaled sharply.
“This refusal of yours to listen to reason,” he said, “is what got you into this predicament in the first place.”
Tom stopped dead.
The world narrowed instantly.
For one terrible moment he saw only mountain and stone and too pale skin.
Mary in his arms upon the mountain.
Mary unconscious against his chest.
Mary so frighteningly still while panic tore through him with such violence he had scarcely remained capable of thought.
Something hot and dangerous flashed through him before he could restrain it.
Ryder, entirely oblivious, continued speaking.
“If you had simply come out with me when we were students instead of all this moral resistance and tragic self-denial, you would know what you were doing already and I would not be forced into this conversation on Miss Bennet’s account.”
The red haze dissipated.
Slightly.
Tom stared at him.
Ah.
So this was about his supposed lack of practical knowledge.
That remained a profoundly inappropriate topic for William Ryder to involve himself in. Still, it proved marginally less infuriating than the alternative Tom had imagined over the previous ten seconds.
Ryder pressed onward, encouraged by the fact that Tom had ceased actively fleeing.
“So if you would simply listen,” he said, “Miss Bennet need not be disappointed on her wedding night.”
Tom felt his jaw tighten.
No.
He had been wrong.
Still incredibly infuriating.
He turned another corner and at last reached the entrance to his office building.
Relief arrived with almost spiritual intensity.
“Goodbye, William,” he said.
“Hayward…”
Tom stepped through the door.
Then, with an entirely childish amount of satisfaction, he shut it directly in Ryder’s face.
The expression Ryder wore in that final instant looked deeply affronted.
Tom considered it one of the better moments of his week.
His father had spoken to him about it once.
Only once.
Tom remembered the conversation with uncomfortable clarity, perhaps because it had occurred so near the end. Illness had altered everything in those final months. The house had grown quieter. Servants moved softly. Doors closed gently. Even the clocks seemed to tick with restraint.
His father already knew he was dying.
By then everyone knew it, though nobody said so plainly.
The conversation took place late in the evening. Rain pressed softly against the windows. A single lamp burned beside the bed, throwing the room into long shadows. Tom remembered the sharp scent of medicine and starch and the way his father’s breathing occasionally caught before evening out again.
He had been younger then. Serious in all the worst ways. Entirely unequipped for conversations of this nature.
There had been no Miss Baxter yet.
No Mary.
His father had motioned him closer with two fingers.
“Thomas.”
Tom moved to the bedside chair.
For a while his father merely studied him with tired, thoughtful eyes.
Then, very abruptly, he said, “We’re animals, you know.”
Tom blinked.
“I beg your pardon?”
A faint smile touched his father’s mouth.
“Human beings. Men especially. We like to imagine ourselves terribly elevated creatures.” He shifted slightly against the pillows. “Still animals underneath all the tailoring.”
Tom stared at him in complete alarm.
His father continued as though discussing the weather.
“We’re built for it. Built to want it. Built to enjoy it.”
“Father,” Tom said weakly.
“Oh, do stop looking as though I’ve started reciting obscenities at church.” A brief cough interrupted him. “You’ll marry one day.”
At twenty, Tom would rather have swallowed hot coals than continue this discussion.
His father watched him with open amusement now.
“You think marriage consists entirely of companionship and managing accounts?”
“I had not,” Tom said carefully, “given the matter extensive consideration.”
“That,” his father replied, “is painfully obvious.”
Tom looked away toward the fire.
There came a quieter pause then.
When his father spoke again, his voice lost some of its humour.
“Listen to your wife.”
Tom glanced back.
“That’s the only useful advice anybody can give you.” His father settled his head more comfortably against the pillows. “Men spend half their lives boasting to one another about things they scarcely understand themselves.” A faint dismissive gesture. “Ignore all of them.”
Tom felt himself colouring despite the dimness of the room.
“If you want her to be happy,” his father continued, “pay attention to her. Proper attention.”
Tom said nothing.
“She’ll tell you everything you need to know.”
“How?” Tom asked before he could stop himself.
His father smiled slightly at that.
“With her body, usually. Sometimes with words. Sometimes without realising she’s telling you anything at all.” He paused. “You only have to listen.”
The rain continued softly against the windows.
Tom remembered sitting there very still, absorbing the strange seriousness beneath the conversation. His father looked exhausted suddenly, the effort of speaking visible around his eyes.
“Most men,” he said quietly, “think too much about themselves.”
Tom lowered his gaze.
“Don’t rush her. Don’t frighten her. And for God’s sake, don’t treat tenderness as though it makes you less of a man.”
A silence followed.
Then, with the last remnants of his earlier humour, his father added:
“And if she laughs at you, survive it with dignity.”
Despite himself, Tom laughed.
His father looked deeply pleased by this.
“Tom!”
Ryder’s voice drifted upward through the partially open window.
The office around him carried on in steady industry. Pens scratched across ledgers. Pages turned. Somewhere in the outer room, Wilson sneezed with astonishing violence.
And from the street below came William Ryder, apparently still committed to ruining Tom’s peace.
Tom remained seated at his desk.
“Hayward!” Ryder called again. “Are you pretending not to hear me?”
Tom took up his pen with exaggerated calm.
Below, Ryder sighed theatrically.
“You are getting married in two days,” he announced to the general public. “This level of avoidance suggests alarming deficiencies.”
A clerk nearby looked up in confusion.
Tom pinched the bridge of his nose.
Then Ryder’s voice lowered slightly, though nowhere near enough.
“Are you at least aware,” he called upward, “that using your mouth is an option?”
Tom shut his eyes briefly.
A laugh escaped him before he could prevent it; short and dry.
Good God.
He rose from his chair, crossed the office, and leaned down just enough to see Ryder standing below in the street, looking thoroughly self-satisfied.
Neither man spoke.
Then Tom closed the window firmly in his face.