Chapter Nineteen

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Letters. 

Peaches scowled at the great heap of paper before her. Hedge seemed to take a certain pleasure in flooding her time with an endless stream of correspondence. The little desk in the room which was meant to serve as her bedroom – but which was, for the most part, where she went when she needed a break from Teddy’s damn fool ways – was buried in the things.

God only knew why Hedge felt it necessary to keep her informed of all this crap. 

She raked a hand through the short bristles of her hair and started to mutter a stream of curses that she could keep going for quite some time, if she had a mind to. Christ, but she had a mind to. 

What she did not have was a damned idea what Hedge expected her to do with any of this. Still, she used a paper-knife to pick the sealing wax of yet another missive and opened… who knew what? More bloody paperwork, most like. 

This was the third package of nonsense she’d got from Hedge today - three, by one post. The next one, though, was in a different hand, so she guessed it was for Teddy. She shoved that on to the pile for him. 

“Peach?”

Oh, fuck. She wasn’t in the mood for talking or fucking just now, let alone anything to do with her job.

“Peach?” Teddy called again.  “Peaches. Are you in there?” 

No.

There was a soft knock at the door.

She considered not answering it. 

Instead, she said, “Yeah. Yeah I’m in here.” And she closed her eyes, because all this staring was giving her a fucking headache.

“Oh, Lor,” said Teddy, and there were his big hands massaging her shoulders, rubbing her neck. “No wonder you’re lurking. It looks like someone struck a printer’s shop with a cannon ball. Hedge likes to keep you jumping, doesn’t he?”

“Yeah, he does.” She did not open her eyes, just let his fingers unknot the muscles, take the ache away.

“Anything important?”

She grunted.

“Or at least vaguely interesting?”

She gestured to the heap, “Sort it yourself, if you like.” 

Teddy laughed, but kept rubbing her shoulders. 

Then he stopped. 

She cracked an eye. Teddy was staring at the unfolded papers like there was something wrong. She nudged him with a shoulder, shrugging back in to his grip.

But Teddy was already letting go, already crossing the room. 

“Peaches, what are you doing with this?”

He’d got one of her letters, hanging open from his hand.

“Was in with the rest, weren’t it? From Hedge.”

He was reading it, and he did not look at her, did not smile. “This is addressed to me.” There was a touch of something in his voice that she had not heard since the morning of the duel. “Why would you open this?”

“Does it matter?”

He kept reading, eyes flicking back and forth along the lines. When he was done, he folded the paper smartly and put it inside his jacket. 

“Have there been many like this?”

And all at once, Peaches knew what that letter was about. The cold of it spread over her, like frost spreading on glass. 

“Have there?”

“I don’t know.”

“Peaches,” he said, and it was not Teddy speaking, but Lord Forthenby. 

“It’s not like I read it, Teddy.”

“Then why open it?”

She shrugged.

“Damn it all, Peaches. What are you playing at?”

Caught, she shrugged again.

“I mean… how dare you?”

“Oh, fuck you, my Lord.”

He started, as though she had struck him. 

Except, no, no, he didn’t look like that, because he liked her to hit him. Instead, he stood there, open-mouthed and disgusted. 

Peaches said nothing. 

The air between them hung heavy, waiting for one of them to speak, to say something unforgivable. She could think of at least a dozen things, and doubtless Teddy had his own, and most of them were already half-said in his accent, in that tone, in the words he had used. 

Instead, Peaches said, “I didn’t know, alright?” and she made herself look at him when she said it. It tasted like sickness in her throat. 

“You didn’t know?” He laughed – not his own laugh, a fucking swell’s laugh. He pulled the damn letter out of his pocket and brandished it at her, pointing. “My name is right there.”

“You think I can read that?”

Well, that shut him up. 

He clutched at the letter like it was a fucking love note she had withheld, and the look he gave her was worse than anything he could have said. 

“Don’t take me for a damned fool. I know you can read. I’ve watched you read.”

“Print,” she said, through her teeth. “I can read print.”

“What?”

“When it’s handwriting, I just can’t, alright?”

“Then how –”

“Because I know what Hedge’s writing looks like. He sends me enough of it. And if it ain’t in Hedge’s writing, I assume it’s for you, or the Countess.”

He laughed, short, dismissive. “Stop shamming, Peaches.”

She said nothing. 

“Look, I know you hate Dickie, but this letter is mine. And I know you can read what Hedge sends. I mean… the accounts! You hand me things and say, ‘here are the accounts’.”

“Yeah, because they’re set out like accounts.”

“No.” He still clutched the letter, still stared at her in disbelief. “Come on, Peaches. Tell the truth, now. It’s only round hand, you–”

“I never learnt round hand.”

“What do you mean, ‘never learnt round hand’?”

“The fuck do you think I mean? You think we all get shipped off to some swell’s school to suck prick and speak Latin?”

“It’s hardly Latin, though, is it?”

“Might as well be. Just how long do you think I got schooling for?”

“But –”

“People like me learn print, alright? And I can sign my name if I have to, and that’s better than most, so you can wipe that fucking smirk off your face.” She turned away from him. “I ain’t ashamed of nothing.”

“Peaches, I–”

“Stow it.”

She wanted it to hurt him. Wanted him to turn on her, to disbelieve her, to throw it back in her face, demand explanations or reasons. Instead she watched him as he took all the buts and the whys, all the questions, and anger, and apologies, and pin them down somewhere inside himself. 

He drew a deep breath, and smiled with a gentle sunniness that was awful to see. “No wonder you’re struggling with all this. Must be awful. Does Hedge know?”

“Course not.”

“Well, why don’t I write him and–”

“Don’t you dare,” she heard herself say, in a voice she had never needed to use on Teddy before. 

He heard it. The smile was gone, and the softness. There was that little squaring of his body, like when he was in a tavern that got dangerous of a sudden. 

She’d done that to him.

Peaches took a long breath, and said more carefully, “I mean it, Teddy. Don’t tell Hedge. I couldn’t bear it.”

The smile again, damn him. “No. Sorry. Of course not. Well, not to worry. Might as well bring it all to me in future – I don’t mind doing a bit of paperwork.”

“What, so you don’t risk me reading more of your letters?”

He stared at her as though he did not know her. 

Then, with no playfulness, no kindness, and no anger at all, he said, “Well, what do you want me to do?” 

She felt about a half inch tall.

His face rearranged itself in to a smile. She could see the effort it took him. It came back, all that syrupy tenderness. “No, no, I didn’t mean that. Look, how about I teach you? To read, I mean?”

“Yeah, you’d like that wouldn’t you?” she said. Or maybe, her anger said. “That’d show everyone just how well you’d reformed old Peaches Waghorn.”

Teddy said nothing to that. 

She wanted him to shout. 

She wanted to scream herself, to rage, wanted them to have a good solid throw down the way they used to – wanted for him to get up in his hauteur, to bluster, swear, for her to throw things and slap him, and then for them to fall in to bed together afterwards, all anger spent. 

She wanted to apologise. 

His lips pursed.

She would not apologise.

So, after a few more dreadful seconds, Teddy nodded his head, and tucked it all back behind that calm, Society face he could use. “I can see that you’re busy, Peach,” he said, like one gentleman to another. “I apologise for disturbing you.” 

And with that, he bowed, and left.