“An excellent idea,” Beckett’s father said, sending him a curious look. “A stroll and a chat are precisely what we could all use, especially since the weather is surprisingly fine.”
“Yes, it is rather nice for November,” Noah said, already leaping out of his chair.
He dashed around the table and all but dragged Aurora to her feet. Aurora laughed uproariously and joined Noah. The two of them dashed from the dining room like children who had been promised they could fly kites.
Indeed, by the time Beckett and his father made it to the front hall to fetch their coats and hats, Noah and Aurora were talking about just that, finding kites to fly in Central Park.
“I believe there is a small shop that sells simple, paper kites just inside of the park,” Aurora told Noah as the two of them climbed into their coats and fixed their hats on their heads.
“Capital,” Noah said, beaming. “Are they plain or are they decorated?”
“Oh, I’m certain they’re decorated,” Aurora said. “I once saw a kite there with a rather fierce-looking hawk painted on it.”
“What a perfect decoration for a kite,” Noah replied.
Beckett was exhausted just watching the two of them as he and his father donned their coats and hats as well and followed the chattering pair outside and along Sixty-Third Street toward the park.
“Your Noah is in exceptionally high spirits today,” Beckett’s father said once they crossed into the park and Noah and Aurora tore off toward where Aurora thought the kite-seller was.
Beckett sent his father a smile, but it quickly faded. “Yes, he is.”
His father caught the reticence in Beckett’s look right away. “Is something wrong with the man?”
The question felt surprisingly blunt. It also felt like precisely the right question.
“I don’t know, Father,” Beckett said, staring down at the ground in front of him as they did their best to keep pace with Noah and Aurora. He glanced up at his father, face pinched, and said, “I believe there is something devilishly wrong with him.”
His father hummed and put on a serious look as he stared at Noah’s and Aurora’s backs. “I can’t say I hadn’t noticed,” he said. “He’s been a bit…off from the moment you introduced us.”
“He’s not a bad person,” Beckett argued. “In fact, I think he is a very good man who has undergone a great deal of difficulty in his life with very few people to help him.”
His father hummed again. This time, a smile spread across his face. “He’s different than your other beaux.”
Beckett’s eyes went wide, and his brow flew up. “Noah is not a beau, he’s just a friend,” he insisted, lowering his voice and checking around to see if anyone had heard him.
“Really?” his father asked, blinking in surprise. “The two of you seem very comfortable with each other.”
“Noah is in love with someone else,” Beckett said, speaking as quietly as he could. “Marcus Albright? That reporter I told you about?”
“I remember,” his father said, brow knit in a thoughtful frown. “I thought Mr. Albright was enamored of Miss Blaise Rose.”
Even though his father had never been to The Slippery Slope, he was almost as aware of all the gossip of the place and the romances that took place there as Beckett was. Beckett counted it as a terrible shame that men in his father’s youth did not express themselves as freely. And now that he was an important industrialist, it was even more crucial that his father maintain a stellar reputation. But then, Beckett figured he should be glad that his father had bowed to the pressure to marry and have a family, otherwise he and Aurora wouldn’t be there.
“That is the problem,” he said, frowning over the muddle Noah found himself in. “Albright isn’t interested in Noah. He told Noah off last night when Noah made a public declaration. I believe that has set Noah off into some sort of…of fit?” He shrugged. It didn’t quite seem like a proper fit to Beckett, but it was something.
His father nodded and sighed heavily. “When the heart is damaged, the mind can be damaged too. I’ve seen it manifest as melancholy, but on some rare occasions, I have observed friends of mine turning manic to deal with the pain.”
“I wish it were as simple as that,” Beckett sighed. Ahead of them, Noah and Aurora had found a kite vendor who seemed to be in the park to take advantage of the breezy afternoon. “When he first arrived, Marcus spoke of his past lover as though the man were mad and had nearly driven him mad with his antics. I had a hard time believing that could be Noah at first, but now….” He couldn’t bear to speak the conclusions he’d started to come to.
His father drew his own conclusions. “Have you spoken about his history at all?” he asked carefully. “Do you know whether yourfriendhas had any medical treatment for his mania?”
Beckett eyed his father sideways at the particular way he’d called Noah his friend. “I do not have feelings for him, Father,” he insisted. “You know my interests lie elsewhere.”
But did they now? Graham had made it achingly clear, over and over, that nothing would come of Beckett’s longing for him. The last few weeks had seemed to seal the tomb on those hopes. Beckett suspected that he would have dropped the fascination entirely if Noah hadn’t been so set on getting him what he wanted.
His chest tightened at the thought of Noah and the efforts his friend had gone to on his behalf. It was as if Noah were the ambassador of love, as if he ate, slept, and breathed the emotion, but failed to have it returned to him. Beckett couldn’t help but think that Marcus had been a bit heavy-handed with Noah, breaking things off the way he had. Yes, Noah was a man of enthusiasm and action, but it couldn’t possibly have been as bad as to push Marcus to leave an entire country to stay away from him.
“Noah and I are going to have a competition,” Aurora said as she and Noah marched up the path toward Beckett and their father. Each of them carried a brightly colored paper kite with a long tail.