The Only Gold (26 page)

“The hour doesn’t matter. This call is one I reserve for Sundays.” Reid tossed aside the button hook and, standing, picked up his waistcoat. “You go down first. I’ll meet you outside.”

The morning air was cold, the snow glistening as it melted in the sun. Carriages lined the road in front of St. Paul’s, a sight to which Jonah tried to pay little heed. Though he attended church as dutifully as he had at home, he did it without any real desire to bare his soul. He had proven himself not immune to the invitation of sin—and he knew his heart was beyond moral correction when Reid stepped out and, finding him, grinned with open affection.

Jonah could not admonish him or even object as Reid breezed past and, catching his wrist, pulled him into the street after the lone cab among a sea of carriages. The cab took them deep into the Fourth Ward, a marginally less frightening prospect in the light of day. When they pulled up to the steps of a church, Jonah did not know what to think, until he saw the sparkle in Reid’s eye.

“Home,” Reid announced, and led the way into a churchyard overgrown with shrubs, vines, and pale grasses shriveled by the cold. Despite their burden of snow, elderly oaks steadfastly stood sentinel over the souls at rest. Past the haphazard arrangement of near-hidden markers Reid pushed, to a stone bench at the back of the yard. Before it lay a grave marked with a simply fashioned cross, and on the cross a name and date.

Reid swept the snow off the bench. “I visit on Sundays, for his sake. Francis never liked Sundays.”

Jonah sat on the damp seat beside him. “A priest—not liking Sundays?”

Reid smiled. “He thought they were lonely days. People tend to mind their manners around a priest. Hard for a man to find meaningful friendship when conversation is scoured clean of impropriety.”

“I see your point.” Jonah looked down at the marker. “He gave you his name.”

“I wouldn’t have had one, otherwise. My mother crossed alone—as far as anyone knows—and collapsed just off the ship. No one knew her name. If she had papers with her, they’d been stolen or lost. All she had in the world was a carpetbag of clothes….” His voice went softer. “And me.”

Jonah spoke as softly. “She didn’t survive your birth?”

“No. The midwife rescued me before I could die with her, and turned me over to the church.” Quiet for a long minute, Reid suddenly laughed. “I was a squaller. Francis said they had no need of the bells. They could hear me from one end of the ward to the other.”

Jonah smiled. “He raised you on his own? What of your Aunt Honoria? Or did you invent her?”

“No, she’s just Sister Honoria,” Reid said with a grin. “But Francis raised me mostly on his own. Once he took an idea into his head, you couldn’t turn him from it. He always knew what he was about and no amount of disapproval ever shook him, that I saw.”

“A trait passed from father to son.”

Reid looked at him. “You think so? I guess I give that appearance.”

“It vexed me thoroughly when you first came to Grandborough.”

“And now?”

“You still vex me. Just….” Jonah cleared his throat. “Not every minute of the day.” He rose. “I must go home for dinner. Will you come?”

“Give me a few minutes.”

“I’ll take a walk, so you may have some time alone.”

Reid caught his sleeve. “I almost lost you once in this neighborhood. I think you’d better go inside for safekeeping.”

“They won’t forbid it?”

Reid laughed. “Don’t tell them you’re with me.”

Jonah didn’t, but when Reid came into the nave and was pounced upon and embraced by a group of elderly nuns, Jonah knew he was beloved by the household, despite suggestions to the contrary. As they left the church and walked to the streetcar line, several people called to Reid, and Reid, to Jonah’s dismay, greeted even the roughest characters with a cheerful handshake. Jonah knew they might well be the very fellows who had assisted in finding his pocket watch, and they did, on introduction, take on a less alarming aspect when they clasped his hand and grinned. Still, he was glad to climb aboard a car and hasten to more familiar streets. He wondered what Reid’s friends thought of his rise from a poor start to better circumstances. 

“Was your first job at a bank in this neighborhood?”

Judging by the twist of Reid’s mouth, the question was not unexpected. “My first few jobs were in this neighborhood, none of them in banking—though I did help Francis with the bookkeeping once he’d grounded me in arithmetic.” Reid leaned back to peer out as the streetcar clattered past the snow-draped City Hall Park. “You, on the other hand….” Eyes bright with humor fixed on Jonah. “You were born a banker.”

“I was born a farmer,” Jonah said. “When I was twelve, I barely pulled through scarlet fever, and my mother thought I was too frail to farm. I kept at it another five years—and grew stronger—but I suppose I wasn’t suited for it. I boarded in town and went to work at the bank.”

“Your family knows you’re here in Manhattan?”

“Oh yes. I’ve written once or twice and received polite letters in return. Nothing that would encourage a visit.” Jonah shook his head. “It’s more than they can understand. And much more than I can explain. No, Manhattan is home. And the Muncys are family.”

“And me?” Reid leaned in, voice lowered. “Friend? Family? Best beau?” At Jonah’s warning glance, he grinned. “Less than kin but more than kind?”

Jonah snorted. “Usurper, perhaps. Gadfly. Agitator.”

“I hope that’s not all carved in stone.”

Despite the note of humor, regret struck Jonah. “I’m unfair. You may have a turn, if it will make you feel better.”

“Did it make you feel better?”

Jonah met his frank gaze. “I can’t argue with the board’s choice. You have the talent, after all. The forthright character. You’ve taught me more in two months than Mr. Crowe ever did.”

Reid did not seem swayed. “The board’s decision to hire outside still bothers you.”

Jonah glanced away, then reluctantly nodded.

“You’re not the only one.” When Jonah looked at him, Reid suddenly smiled. “Isn’t this our stop?”

The
parlor was lively with a household awaiting dinner. Captured by the ladies, Reid sat squeezed in between Liliane and Winnie on the settee closest the fire, too far away for Jonah to jab, should he say anything indiscreet. Liliane seemed safely preoccupied by an upcoming dress ball, but the peculiar smiles she, Winnie, and even Edith kept sending Jonah’s way left him desperately trying to remember any indiscretions of his own. At last, Liliane left off the excited ball chatter and exclaimed aloud. “I know! I know just why you are smiling,
mon chaton
—and you,” she said, shaking a finger at Reid. “Both of you pleased with the world, and I know just why.”

“Do tell!” Winnie said, and blushed pink when Reid smiled at her.

“Shall I?” Eyes shining, Liliane set down her teacup and folded her hands in her lap. She looked so ready to spill over with some great secret, Bertram burst out laughing.

“You’d better give her permission to share your news, Jonah, before she faints on poor Mr. Hylliard.”

“Share my news?” At a loss, Jonah looked to Reid—who turned a most gentlemanly demeanor upon a beaming Liliane.

“Jonah and I are at your mercy, Mrs. Hawes. Tell away.”

Liliane laughed. “
Merci
. We drove past the bank—”

“It’s about the bank?” Reid said.

“No, no. The sign on the bank,” Liliane said.

“The sign….” Reid grinned at Jonah. “They’ve started work on the sign.”

“Of course.” Jonah thought
he
might faint, right onto the tea table. “The sign. Yes, Thursday we’re officially national.”

“I hope the weather doesn’t prove a problem,” Edith said, with a glance toward the rain-spattered windows.

“Another cold snap.” Winnie sighed. “I thought last week’s warming was a sign of spring.”

“With any luck, we’ll have no more snow this year,” Cyrus said. “The flowers will bloom soon enough.”

“Flowers never bloom soon enough,” Liliane said cheerfully. “So when is the deposit?”

“Bank business,” Jonah said, smiling.

Liliane looked reproachful. “It is what you always say. And after coming home with such faces! As if you might float away on your happy secrets—and then you keep them all to yourselves. Grandborough National Bank. It is wonderful, yes?”

“Wonderful.” Reid held Jonah’s gaze irresistibly. “The word doesn’t do it justice. In the past two months, the bank’s become dear to me—more than I could have imagined. I’ve developed such a fondness for it, I want to see it go on to only greater success.”

Jonah found the presence of mind to master his expression, but drawn into the hazel light warm upon him, he wanted everyone to know. “Wonderful. Yes, it’s wonderful.”

If the emotion in his voice betrayed him, no one seemed to make anything of it. Cyrus snorted, gaze shifting momentarily heavenward. “Bankers,” he said.

After dinner, Jonah succumbed to the silent plea sent from across the table, and under the pretense of visiting Reid’s club for a game of cards, accompanied him back to the Astor House. There, the hour he’d intended to stay became two, threatening three before he finally rose. He was pulling on his coat when Reid, who had watched him dress, got up, apparently unmindful of the cold, and kissed him. “Wonderful?” he murmured.

Jonah opened his coat and enveloped Reid in its folds. “You’re right. It’s a poor shadow of a word.”

“You’re not just saying that because we share the same lies?” Reid kissed him again, tempting him. Jonah drew back, trying to summon even a glimmer of reproof.

“We share the truth too. Now let me go. And for heaven’s sake, put on some clothes before you come down with pneumonia.”

“You’re the one walking home in the cold.” Reid stepped back and began to button Jonah’s coat.

Jonah heard the guilty note and smiled. “I’ll be fine.”

Reid seemed suddenly amused. “You’re excited about Thursday.”

“Aren’t you?”

“I’m looking forward to it. But I don’t think there’s a soul at Grandborough more pleased about it than you. Not even old Grandborough, himself.”

“It’s important.” Jonah let another truth come. “For a while, it was the only thing.”

Reid gazed at him as if not sure what to make of the confession. He seemed gratified, but there was a teasing twist to his mouth. “Stay another hour?”

“I think we have desecrated Sunday beyond the standards of the most determined sinner. What would Father Francis say?” Realizing what the question invited, Jonah held up a hand before Reid could answer. “Never mind. I’m going before the rain begins again.”

The
prospect of Thursday was only one delight in a week full of them. If Jonah turned it into an inexhaustible topic, Reid seemed to find equal pleasure in distracting him from it every evening. Not even the cold cab rides back to a lonely bed disturbed Jonah’s state of mind. Progress made each day on the new sign exalted his spirits, and caught up in shared anticipation, he did not have the heart to quell the idle but excited chatter of the clerks and tellers.

Blown home by a brisk wind Wednesday evening, he crawled into bed and lay awake, his thoughts dashing in all directions. He wished Reid were pressed close, full of exasperating observations that invariably gave way to ready kisses and ever-exploring hands. Reid’s sleepy laugh would be a welcome sound in the quiet. Jonah might even settle for an admonishment not to worry. Reid had already picked apart his worries over the course of the past three days, but anticipation seemed always two parts pleasure, two parts anxiety. Tomorrow would go well enough, but the deposit on the tenth was not without risks. If anything happened….