Free The Loves of Leopold Singer by L. K. Rigel

him, no matter how many eligible young men her aunt and uncle introduced her to. She insisted on going home .
    Was he safe in London? On his way home? She knew from the doctor that his parents were gravely ill and word had been sent to him.
    And then just outside the bookseller’s shop she saw him on the street. All the heaviness of her world fell away. After two years, he was as familiar to her as her own breath.
    “Hello, Miss Schonreden.” He seemed distracted, but his voice was even more beautiful than her memory of it. “I see you read English?” He indicated the copy of European Magazine she carried, the April 1798 number, long past more than a year old, but something to read in English.
    She searched his expression for a sign of teasing, but he seemed genuinely interested so she said, “and French.”
    “A scholar as well as a beauty! Your parents must be proud.”
    “My mother died yesterday.”
    He whispered, “The typhus?” When she nodded, he said, “Both my parents are also gone.”
    “Oh.” She looked away from him, suddenly unsteady. “I am sorry.”
    “Are the rest of your family well?”
    “Gabby has gone to my aunt in Vienna until the baby comes. Wolfram is improving, I think. But my father...”
    Vati was alive in his bed when she’d left him, but he wouldn’t last. Marta knew she should feel the loss of Mutti, though she did not. She had seen the lifeless body, the mouth open but silent, the random twitch as rigor mortis set in. It was a thing. No spirit, no soul had fled with the last breath. It was horrible. She couldn’t watch that happen to Vati.
    “Miss Schonreden, you are unwell yourself.”
    “No, I am well.”
    “Grief-stricken, then.” It was too much. His kindness hurt more than indifference would have. The low rumble of his voice was so lovely, she could only think of the emptiness she would feel when he was gone again. “Who is with you? Let me get help.”
    “I am alone. I just had to put my mind somewhere else for half an hour. I thought reading something of the world would help. I suppose that is very selfish.”
    “Not so selfish. Very good idea, I think. It’s what I do anyway at times, so it must be a good idea! There, a smile.”
    “You are very kind.”
    You are very kind . She had learned this all-purpose phrase from her aunt. Especially when you believe someone is not being very kind, these few words will give you time to think. You need say nothing more, and it is a far better response than ‘oh,’ my dear niece.
    “Let me take you home,” Leopold said. “My carriage is just here.”
    She was too upset to refuse, and anyway she didn’t want to refuse. She didn’t care about propriety. She wanted to keep him near, to hear his voice, to feel his touch as he helped her to her seat. Suddenly they were moving and the clip-clop of the horses was clear and musical and his knee was mere inches from hers. He must be near twenty-one now. His chest was broader, and his jaw had lost the soft curve of adolescence. She turned away, sure her throat was flushed.
    At her gate, he lifted her from the carriage. He kept his hands on her waist a hairbreadth of a moment longer than necessary. His confidence and his strength seemed to infuse directly into her. Her father was a strong man, and her brother had the makings of a brute; but the elegant muscularity of Leopold Singer was a revelation.
    At once she better understood Gabby’s feelings for Wolfram, and even her mother’s crazy jealousy made a new kind of sense. She had always thought of sex in terms of a man’s lust and a woman’s power to incite that lust, but this was the other side of desire. She hadn’t caused it; she was caught up in it, in a giddy powerlessness that was both pleasure and pain.
    “Miss Schonreden.” Leopold opened the gate, his voice again working like a magician’s charm. “I hope your father and brother improve.”
    She left him, acutely aware that she walked away from life into a