told no one of his meeting with Miss Phillips the day before. “You should know as well as I, since you see her at the house as often as I do.”
Jonah shrugged. “She’s a fair young lady, who seems to admire you quite a bit.”
Damien made his way around a large woman who stood shouting to a hansom cab driver from the curb. “If she seems to admire me, it is only because I am a clergyman.”
“Is that all you think it is?”
Damien gave him a sharp look at the sly tone. The street noises grew louder as they approached the stalls and sheds occupying Covent Garden. Damien followed Jonah to a vendor’s table filled with a colorful display of fruits and vegetables. Jonah poked at a pile of green cabbages. “What do you want for these sorry-looking things?”
The woman behind the table glared at him, her hefty arms akimbo. “Those be as crispy as anything you could grow yourself. A shillin’ for the pound.”
He grabbed up one from the top of the pyramid. “Here, weigh that one for me, be a good lass.”
When he’d paid for the cabbage, they walked on.
“Oranges from Valencia!” the rough voice of a hawker called out.
“I’ll take a half-dozen o’ those.”
“Here, let me carry them,” Damien offered as they started on again.
“That’s all right, I’ve got ’em.”
Damien clamped his lips down and said no more.
“So, you’re not interested in Miss Phillips as a young lady of marriageable age?”
Damien refused to be drawn. “I repeat, Miss Phillips only sees me as a clergyman.”
Jonah stopped before a fish vendor’s cart, and Damien stood silent while Jonah haggled over a piece of cod. As they waited for it to be cleaned and cut, he turned back to Damien, a twinkle in his dark green eyes. “Is that so?”
“She has seemed…troubled to me of late. If she can receive any counsel from the scriptures, then it is my duty to aid her in that way and no more. I am not even her proper pastor—that is Reverend Doyle’s purview. I must respect his office.”
Jonah mulled on that a moment, then dug in his pocket for some coins. “I beg your pardon, then. I didn’t quite see it in that light. I just see you as a good-looking young gent. Don’t you ever fancy yourself in need of a wife o’ your own?”
Damien was momentarily saved from replying when the vendor handed Jonah his change and packet of fish. But as they resumed walking, Jonah quirked an eyebrow at him. “Well?”
Damien jabbed his walking stick into the cobbled stones. “I realized long ago my calling was to serve God, and it is a full-time occupation as you have come to observe in the time you’ve been residing with us.” He tried not to sound as testy as he was now feeling.
Jonah remained silent, seeming to examine the other stalls they passed. Damien felt compelled to add, “The Apostle Paul put it very well. When a person is married, he becomes concerned with the needs of his spouse to the detriment of the business of the Lord.”
Jonah grunted. “How is it then that most vicars and curates I see are married? Their wives seem to be their helpmates in the parish. Didn’t the good book also say something about it not being good for a man to be alone?”
Damien pretended to study the display of flowers at one stall. For the first time, he regretted having taught Jonah any scripture.
Jonah fished out a coin and indicated a posy of primroses. “These blooms have nothing over the bloom in your cheeks,” he told the vendor.
The pretty girl’s cheeks dimpled. “Thankee, sir.”
“Can you wrap them in a bit o’ paper for me?” As the girl complied, Jonah murmured, “That’s a good lass.” He took them from her and handed her the money.
“And who’s the lucky lady these are for?”
He inspected the colorful bouquet, turning it around in his large hand. “They’re for a very special lady, the one who’s promised to marry me.”
“Ooh!”
When the girl tried to hand him the change, he said, “Keep it and buy yourself your own posy.”
The girl flashed him a wide smile. “Thankee kindly, sir!”
Damien swallowed, watching the careful way Jonah placed the small bouquet atop his other purchases in his satchel. The incongruous sight of his blunt fingers handling the fragile blooms sent a curious pang through Damien. How would it feel to buy a woman flowers? He’d never know the pleasure.
Jonah’s keen eyes met his at that moment. “Don’t you ever fancy having a lady of your own to come home to?”
“I am content with my single state.” At Jonah’s raised eyebrow, he added, “You’ve seen my life. I’m at the beck and call of those in need anytime of the day or night.”
Jonah shrugged. “That’s why the Lord gives a man a helpmate.”
They inched their way forward through the crowded aisle between the stalls.
“I must say I’m always amazed at the ease you have in talking to women,” Damien couldn’t help commenting when Jonah paused in front of a stall selling herbs and spices. The pungent aromas of cumin and cinnamon filled the air. Dried pods and seeds were heaped in large burlap sacks on the ground at their feet.
Jonah straightened from where he’d bent to examine a sack of nutmegs. “What’s that you say?”
Damien wished he had kept his mouth shut.
Too late, the words seemed to register with Jonah and his lips cracked open in a grin. “Talking to lasses is the easiest thing in the world.”
Damien shook his head, unable to keep from smiling back. “I doubt you’d find many men to agree with you.”
Jonah draped a brawny arm across his shoulders. “All you do is look at ’em a certain way and tell ’em they’re the loveliest thing you’ve ever laid eyes on. Works about three-quarters o’ the time.”
Damien chuckled. “And the other quarter of the time?”
“Why, you just spend some blunt on ’em, and they’re yours.” He waved his arm. “Look around you at all the young women. I’d lay odds that any number o’ them would give their spinster eyeteeth to catch a fine parson like you.”
The crowded market was filled with far more women than men. Women of all ages, plump and slim, well-dressed and shabby. Damien shook his head, wondering how he’d gotten into this ridiculous conversation with his future brother-in-law.
Jonah frowned a moment, removing his arm from Damien’s shoulders and adjusting the satchel he carried. “Of course, you realize, with your sister, it was different. There was nothing I could ’a done or said to win her, if the Lord hadn’t o’ had mercy
