Midwinter Music by K.L. Noone

Author:K.L. Noone [Noone, K.L.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2023-12-07T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter 4

Chocolate biscuits did not exist. But small fruit-laden plum cakes did, along with a caraway-seed morning cake, a solid cheddar, sturdy bread, and, possibly in honor of the Midwinter season, a small mountain of spiced molasses-soft gingerbread.

John pounced on the last of those offerings with sheer delight. “Spiced and festive. Does she know you at all? Or perhaps she does, and she’s trying to help.”

Sam had been into the townhouse’s kitchens often—Mrs. Crewe left him plates and notes, to which he dutifully responded—but tended to eat when hungry or aware he should, and then clean up, depart, and not consider sneaky hidden motivations regarding holiday festivity. “She knew I was out tonight, as far as supper…you didn’t want anything more substantial, did you? I could…”

He wasn’t certain what he could do. A tavern? His club—not White’s, though he was a member, but Alleyn’s, where the magistrates of the other Bow Street divisions tended to congregate? Surely not that option, not right this moment. Given the circumstances.

Given all the circumstances. John. Everything about John. Everything about this night. It’d be written across Sam’s face, scrawled in guilty blazing ink: I could’ve arrested him, I could’ve solved this case, and instead I begged him to fuck me and I want to do it again and again…

“Oh, no, this is marvelous, it’ll be perfect.” John had found a tray and begun collecting an improbable amount of pastries. “Do you know how to heat and froth sipping chocolate? Do you have chocolate?”

“I have…brandy, I think. And coffee.”

“You’re lucky I adore you. Can you boil water? Oh, never mind, I can do it.” A whistled note or two, a sung line and a rhyme; suddenly coffee was happening. “Sugar. Milk. Cinnamon? Ginger?”

Sam stared at him, helpless. John had taken easy possession of his kitchen, his gingerbread, his coffee-pot. “Was that…a song about boiling water?”

“Had to make something up, didn’t I? Not my best lyrics, but we’ll keep that between us.” John flung him a smile. Sam put a hand on the table. Steadying.

In a borrowed banyan, John’s ink-and-winter-gold prettiness shone like a painting in a frame. The banyan had been a gift from his cousin Emma—Lady Carness, whose house John had been robbing—and wrapped up sunshine skin in rich emerald brocade. Nothing Sam would’ve bought for himself, nothing he’d ever worn even once, but he thought now it’d only been waiting for John.

He did have a practical plain dressing gown, brown and thick and warm enough for brittle nights; he’d thrown that on, after he’d found emerald indulgence for John. He watched the fall of fabric along composer’s arms, magician’s gestures.

A line, he thought. A note. He couldn’t’ve said what exactly, not being a musician. But the element that made one tune, one waltz, one aria, distinctive. The glowing core of a song, without which it wouldn’t lift or break or capture hearts.

John turned, smiling. His hair needed a comb. His mouth was a book of witchcraft. “Do you ever have breakfast in bed? Supper? Tea?”

“When would I ever—”

“It wasn’t a real question.

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