“That’s dreadful.”
“It wasn’t, actually. People were grateful for their parcels. They tipped rather generously. And then later, when my deliveries were finished and I returned to our apartments above the shop, my mother would give me a hot cup of tea and a biscuit. It was my reward for a job well done.”
Sophie refrained from saying that a biscuit seemed a poor reward for a child forced to traipse through the sleet and snow on Christmas Eve. A child who was frozen through. Who couldn’t even feel his hands. “Are you very close to your parents?”
“As much as they’ll permit.”
Her brow furrowed. “I don’t understand. Don’t they wish to be close with you?”
“My parents taught me the habits of hard work and economy. They also taught me self-denial, which I felt most keenly when they made me put by half my earnings each week. It was a hard lesson, but a good one. Because of them, I was able to save enough to make my first investment. It was a merchant ship sailing to the West Indies. Murray and I each put all our savings into its cargo. Had the ship been lost at sea, we’d have been ruined. Instead, it arrived safely back in port, making us very rich indeed.” He looked at her briefly. “You might say that everything I have I owe to my parents. But they’re not warm people, for all that. They’re not given to an excess of emotion.”
She cast him a sidelong glance. His expression was as solemn as ever, but his black hair was rumpled, a section near the front standing half on end. It was oddly endearing. On every other occasion she’d been with him, his hair had been combed into meticulous order. There had never been a strand out of place. She decided she preferred it this way. He looked far less intimidating. As if he’d just risen from his bed in the morning.
The thought brought another flush of heat to her face. She swiftly looked away from him, pretending to be absorbed in admiring the snow-covered landscape. “Do you consider yourself to be a warm person?”
“Compared to my parents?”
“Compared to anyone.”
Ned didn’t answer right away. When he did, he spoke with a greater than usual degree of care. “I’m not a man given to great expressions of emotion. It’s not how I was raised. It’s not how I’ve lived my life. But I do feel things deeply. I may not always show it, but I do.”
She stopped beneath one of the trees that stood at the edge of the path. Its wide branches provided meager shelter against a sudden flurry of snow. “I was afraid you were made of stone. Until the day I came to your office, I thought you might be.”
“I wasn’t very warm to you then.”
“No, but it was then I realized…” She backed up against the tree trunk as he came to stand in front of her. He was so tall and darkly handsome; his blue eyes fixed on her with a single-mindedness that made her pulse tremble.
How many ladies before her had been the beneficiaries of that intent blue stare? How many had held Edward Sharpe riveted?
A wave of shyness assailed her. She was no experienced London flirt. She couldn’t act the coquette to save her life.
“What did you realize?” he asked.
“That I’d hurt you somehow. Until that day, I hadn’t thought you capable of being hurt. I didn’t think you cared about me one way or another.”
“A foolish assumption.”
“Based on the evidence of my eyes and ears.”
He set a gloved hand on a branch beside her, dislodging another fall of snow. “It worked both ways, you know.”
“What did?”
“The lack of communication between us.”
“I communicated,” she said. “It was you who was always silent and brooding.”
“You did talk to me, I’ll give you that.” His eyes flickered with rare humor. “You had a great deal to say about the weather.”
A smile threatened. She barely succeeded in suppressing it. “It’s a perfectly acceptable subject.”
“And a very boring one.” Ned loomed over her, his arm caging her against the tree. “The snow is very white and very beautiful,” he said in a primly accented monotone. “The sky is very blue and the sun is very bright.”
She bit her lip to keep from laughing. “That’s not how I sound!”
“No. When you’re voicing atmospheric platitudes, you sound a great deal prettier. I believe I could listen to you talk about the weather all day.”
“Good,” she said tartly. “Because I intend to rhapsodize about the snow all through Christmas.”