She lurched up with a start, her eyes wide. When she saw that it was he, she hastily pulled down her nightgown and frowned.
“I’m here to bring you luck,” Jack said, feeling like an idiot. He was no talisman of good fortune, certainly not to the travelers of that train to Bath. “Your first-footer, you know, a dark-haired gentleman. Come downstairs and see.”
Nicola continued to stare at him with suspicion, and a touch of derision too. She must dislike him after last night, and who could blame her? But she pulled on her wrapper and followed him downstairs.
The kitchen fire was now ablaze, Jack’s New Year’s presents on the table obvious in the light. Nicola’s eyebrow lifted.
“The coal’s on the fire, as you can see. It’s all the usual things, minus the mistletoe,” Jack explained. “You can even keep my coin—I don’t expect I need to buy a cinnamon bun or anything,” he said with some regret. “But perhaps I’d better take back my handkerchief. Wouldn’t want Mrs. Grace on our case.”
Nicola nodded. She opened the salt cellar and shifted the grains into it. Instead of returning the handkerchief to him, she folded it into a tiny square and tucked it up her sleeve.
“Well, I’ll go then. Sorry about the party, or lack thereof.” Jack had decided his notebook was staying put in his coat. He turned to walk out the kitchen door.
Nicola got there before he did. She pushed him back into a chair, then grabbed a toasting fork from the hearth. Good Lord, did she plan on skewering him for his transgressions?
No. It seemed she wanted to toast the bread. A jar of apple butter was fetched from the pantry, and she poured the water from the flask into two small glasses.
So they were to have a party after all. Jack wouldn’t even miss champagne if he could get her to look up at him with her wide blue eyes.
Chapter 29
This was the trouble with Jack—every time Nicola decided to wall off her heart from him, he did something to knock every brick down.
Clearly with much thoughtfulness, he’d brought the superstitious first footing legacy to life. He was indeed a tall, dark, and handsome man, equipped with his various New Year’s presents. He’d tossed some coal on the fire for warmth and comfort. Brought water, salt, and bread for a healthy, long life, silver for future fortune. If he had brought mistletoe, she would kiss him under it, if he’d let her.
Maybe not. He’d been clear last night that she’d been much too forward. And when her head cleared from its sensual haze this morning, she was mortified at what she’d done. Turning up at a man’s house in the state she’d been born in. What would her parents think if they ever found out? Nicola could picture her mother’s horrified face and had shuddered in shame before she’d taken a step out of bed. She’d squandered every ounce of propriety she had—it was a wonder Jack was not thoroughly disgusted with her.
He had come tonight, however. Perhaps he still liked her a little. But he’d certainly proved he wasn’t in as much of a rush to consummate their relationship as she was. In ten days—no, nine now, he’d be gone and she’d lose her chance with him.
He’d spoken of the future. When he was “better.” Nicola knew there was no future. If he discovered why she couldn’t speak…
No, definitely no future. She had only the present, and he’d come to make amends for his dismissiveness last night. She would restrain herself and her opinion, toasting bread, and toasting the new year with water. Nicola would be the perfect representation of a successful solicitor’s daughter, even if she was still in a nightgown, a lacy nightcap on her head. She would accept what she was given and try not to complain.
She spread the apple butter on the browned bread and watched Jack wolf it down. Probably once he got back to civilization, he’d never leave his kitchen, making himself a nuisance to his cook. What was his country estate like? Was Ashburn very grand? Jack did not seem like a very grand sort of person, but then, he hadn’t built the place.
From what little he’d said, he spent most of the time in London. There had been a Mayfair address in those letters she’d helped send, affirming the fact that Jack was well-to-do. Rich. Beyond her, really. Class lines were still very visible in Britain’s fabric, and she had no ducal godfather or viscount uncle to elevate her to his rank.
She didn’t think he was a duke or a marquess or an earl—he simply wasn’t stuffy enough. He wasn’t stuffy at all. But his signet ring bore a crest. She squinted at it across the kitchen table.
“What? Have I crumbs in my beard?”
She smiled and shook her head.
“Do you have your notebook with you?”
Another shake. It was upstairs on her bedside table. The sign language card was tucked into it, but she’d been too annoyed to make much progress with it. Why should she learn it, when Jack was going away?
“Good. For I want to talk to you with no interruptions.”
Taking a sip of the warmish water, she waved him on.
“Look. About last night—no, don’t glare at me. Let me finish. I admit I was stunned when you came to visit. I wasn’t prepared for company. Any company, particularly not the woman I’ve grown so fond of. If I had expected a beautiful woman, I never would have been wearing those blo—um, those blasted pajamas.”
Fond. Better than the word like, but not much. Beautiful was all right, but inaccurate.
“I—I treasure our friendship.” Nicola rolled her eyes, but he continued. “I want everything to be right between us. I’ve never really been a stickler, but in this case, I fear I must be.”
He raked a hand through his dark hair. “I’m a hypocrite, I know. There was Christmas, and every other time I took advantage of you. Oh, you’d tell me I’m being silly. You were delightfully complicit. Kissing you wherever and whenever has been the singular joy of my stay here. I shall never forget your generosity or your good heart. You almost make me believe—” He broke off, staring into the fire.
Good. He should believe. They both must look forward to better days, or what was the point of living? Nicola would learn to talk again somehow, and Jack would put the unhappy past behind him. She could nearly taste the assuring words on her tongue.
“Anyway, as flattered, no, honored as I am by your faith in me, I could never forgive myself if I dishonored you.”
Honor. Bah. Nicola did not share his definition of dishonor, either. Her virginity was becoming increasingly inconvenient by the hour. She crunched into her bread without appetite, wondering when Jack would decide he’d apologized enough, open the kitchen door, and walk home.
Nicola was restless. And a little depressed. Jack was backing away from her, putting sufficient space between them, though he still sat at her kitchen table. The only thing that might calm her tonight was music, and she didn’t dare to wake her neighbors.
She flexed her fingers, hearing random discordant notes in her head. Something cheerful to lift her spirits was required, if she could manage to find the right sheet music. She wished Tippy were here to curl at her feet. Nicola needed a focus to distract herself from her dismal attempt at seduction, and her piano would have to do.
The morning couldn’t come soon enough. She’d never fall back asleep now.
“You do understand?”
Nicola shrugged. What did it matter how she felt? Jack was obdurate.
“I don’t want you to think I don’t care.” He reached into his suit jacket and drew out a slender folded notebook. “I wasn’t going to give you this, but I don’t dare to keep it. Too much temptation, I’m afraid. Do with it what you will.” He placed it between them and rose from the table. “I’ll say good night. And Happy New Year.”
True to custom, he left by the back door. There was no kiss. No embrace, or even a friendly pat. Nicola shut her eyes briefly so the tears wouldn’t spill. How useless to cry, when she was so very lucky in most ways.
Nicola opened the noteb
ook to see a long column of figures and odd sketches in the margins. No temptation for her there. She cleaned up the kitchen, removing all traces of Jack’s appearance. She’d have to hide and return the flask somehow. Mrs. Grace knew to the very last teaspoon what belonged in Stonecrop Cottage, and had discovered the missing plates and teacup under the sofa in one of her cleaning frenzies. Nicola had fibbed and written she’d forgotten all about putting them there for a reason she couldn’t remember, and had weathered the housekeeper’s gimlet eye.
She climbed upstairs, weary but enervated at the same time. Wrapping the water flask with a petticoat, she tucked it into a drawer, fairly confident that Mrs. Grace wouldn’t snoop through her underthings. Then she tossed her hair out of the confines of the cap and set to brushing it all over again.
Her stroke was at regular intervals, rather like a metronome that counted beats. Her arm grew tired, yet she kept up the effort. Her hair would be shiny today.
For no one to see.
She threw the brush down on her dressing table, where it landed on the unfurled notebook. Had Jack written a secret message to her? If he expected her to tally up numbers or decipher a secret code at this hour, he was mistaken.
She flipped through the pages, having no comprehension of what was in front of her. From the squiggles and unfamiliar symbols, she judged Jack was some kind of mathematical wizard, certainly skilled far beyond her household accounts training. Nicola had no clue as to what the drawings represented, either. She stifled a yawn as she skimmed through the book; perhaps it would bore her to sleep.
And then—
Nicola sat up straight, her mouth agape. Goodness! Or Badness! That might be more appropriate.
Nicola barely recognized herself. This was not the woman she saw in the mirror every day when she bothered to look. She was somehow more seen through Jack’s eyes.
The drawings were simple yet beautifully rendered. In a few deft lines, Jack had captured her every slight curve just from the few seconds she’d stood nude before him. He’d also imagined her in places other than his kitchen. There were a dozen pen and ink sketches that would have robbed Nicola of speech if she had any.
He drew her as a lover might, and she felt her face flush with heat. Jack admired her. If only she could convince him to act on that in the coming days.
Chapter 30
January 3, 1883
Primrose Cottage was finished at last, paint fresh, cabinets plumb, windows clean and shiny for the next Guest, and Jack felt like celebrating. There was only one person he wanted to see, the person he’d left his front and side door unlatched for in the hopes she’d make a repeat nocturnal visit.
She had not.
Was Nicola too shocked by his quick portraits of her? Had she balled them up and burnt them in the fire? It didn’t matter—he’d made more. Now that his lust was unleashed, his hand could barely stop sketching in his spare moments. It had taxed his ingenuity to hide the images from Mrs. Feather, but he was fairly certain she wouldn’t be inspecting the inside of his old boot.
Jack fished the rolled papers out and spread them across the kitchen table. Supper—if you could dignify it with the name—had been hours ago. Mrs. Feather had left him to his own devices, and he’d dutifully reheated the unappetizing mess. He was almost beyond caring about his stomach. The only thing that mattered was Nicola.
And he hadn’t seen her since New Year’s morning. She hadn’t walked by Primrose Cottage on her daily swing about Puddling. He knew that because he’d looked out the window so often that Tom had cuffed him on the shoulder and told him to get back to work. He’d taken his own walks after dark, slowing down at Nicola’s gate, peering up the walkway to catch her shadow behind a curtain, to listen for her piano. He’d been denied any visual or aural contact.
He should respect her wishes. Not try to go see her. But he was leaving in six days. Jack couldn’t bear the thought of only seeing her in india ink on the papers he hid back in his spare boot.
There was nothing for it. He couldn’t keep away. He dressed for warmth with a hat and scarf, as the night temperatures had dropped. The days and nights had been too cold for snow; the frozen stream showed no signs of breaking up. Jack should see about borrowing some skates from one of the Puddling residents. He might acquire some for Nicola too, if he could persuade her to come out with him before he left. Jack would like to see roses in her cheeks, her fair hair a bit flyaway, her coat furling out behind her. They might race all the way to Sheepscombe—
No. There was her ankle to contend with. She walked now with no trace of a limp, but it was best to be safe. They could skate arm-in-arm at a leisurely pace, his hand over hers. He could picture it in his mind like a Currier and Ives print or a Christmas postcard.
Jack always felt better with a plan, and now he had one. Letting himself out of his cottage, he took a deep breath of piercing cold air. Bracing, he tried to convince himself, as the shivers raced up his spine. The half moon gave just enough light for him to see.
It was nearly the witching hour, and all good Puddlingites were tucked safe in their beds. Two hundred twenty-six steps away, Nicola was in hers. If her door was locked against him, he’d palmed the key from the urn and carried it in his pocket. He was a thief.
And he wanted to steal Nicola’s heart. Make her remember him in a positive way, not as the moody bastard he often was. Sometimes he felt as if he was on the brink of smashing through his melancholy, especially when he was with Nicola. When he was thinking about her. When he was drawing her.
He’d practiced the alphabet, and he made a few tentative signs as he walked up the lane. And then, alerted to a shuffled footstep, he stopped and ducked behind a bush.
Damnation! There was a moving shadow up ahead, unless his eyes and ears deceived him. No accompanying yipping dog, though, so it wasn’t the Countess out for a midnight stroll. His scarf snagged on a branch as he tried to peer around it to see his adversary, and he was trapped.
Jack held his breath. Perhaps the villager would just go about his business and not notice the hulking man behind the very modest bush breaking his curfew. He steadied his breathing and pretended he was invisible.
The person approached across the road—scampered, really. He was moving swiftly, darting behind available bushes himself. A scruffy sort of person, with a too-big coat, baggy trousers, and a workman’s cap.
And a hank of golden hair which had slipped out of it.
Jack stifled the rumble of laughter deep in his chest. He unwound the scarf and left it to sadly decorate the branch, much like his hideous potted Christmas bush. He was fairly sure he’d killed the thing by digging it up and replanting it in the frosty ground, but that didn’t matter now.
Two could dodge behind bushes and trees. He ran a few steps, then hid behind a hedge. His fellow rule-breaker did the same. Had he been noticed? He thought not.
They were on opposite sides of the lane, inching their way toward each other. Soon his lovely nemesis would cross the cobblestones and be in his arms.
He was as still as a Buckingham Palace sentry. She looked both ways before she sprinted to his side, and he stepped out behind his hedge. There was no need to shush her; even if he’d surprised her, she couldn’t scream.
“Don’t be afraid. It’s only I. I hope you were on your way to see me and not some other lucky fellow.”
Nicola looked up at him, her mouth a perfect “o.” Her checked cap was low over her eyes and on crooked—what on earth was she wearing?
“Let’s go to your place. It’s more comfortable,” Jack said, steering her up the lane by an elbow. She didn’t object, and in less than a minute they were in the front hall of Stonecrop Cottage.
She shook herself free and, after closing the curtains, lit a lamp in the kitchen, where the light was less apt to be noticed from the road. Her cheeks were flushed from the cold, and her hair had started to tumble do
wn from the woolen cap.
Jack removed it, enjoying the rippling cascade of her unbound hair. “No one in his right mind would ever think you were a man, Nicola. What is this costume?”
Nicola pulled her notebook out of her jacket pocket.
I found a trunk in the attic today. In it were all sorts of odds and ends, probably left behind by other guests. They smell a bit smoky, though. I was so bored I tried everything on, even the men’s clothes.
“You missed me.”
Insufferable man. I missed having something worthwhile to do. It was too cold to go walking today.
“It’s even colder tonight. But I gather those trousers kept you warm.” It was a pity they were so large on her—her body was swamped by all the clothing. He would have liked to see her pert derriere encased in soft deerskin, made to measure.
I have never worn gentlemen’s clothes before, of course. My mother would faint if she saw me now. But I find the trousers…
She paused, the tip of her pink tongue sticking out as she thought for the right word.
…freeing. I could climb over a fence without worry.
“No fence or wall-climbing tonight, my ragamuffin,” Jack said firmly. “But you do look fetching. In a schoolboy sort of way. Why did you decide to come to see me?”
You didn’t come to me. I wanted to show you how improved I am with the manual alphabet. Puddling was so stultifying the past three days without your company I decided to apply myself.
“I didn’t think you’d want to see me.”
Then why were you trying to come to my cottage?
“To apologize. Again. See how you were faring. Ask you to come ice-skating with me if I can procure some skates for us both.” She put the notebook and pencil down. He watched as her fingers and hands moved. “Wait a minute. I wasn’t ready. Start over.”
I D O N T S. Her hands stilled, and then she shrugged.
“You don’t s-something. Ah! Skate? I can teach you.”
It was easier for them both when she wrote in her book. I have skated. But not in years. I was never very good.
Redeeming Lord Ryder Page 18