Pumpymuckles

by JayneFresina

  "Go on!" he urged, whispering like a little boy encouraging her in some naughty prank. "I shan't let you finish dinner until you do it."

  "I don't care. I'm not that hungry." Spinning around she started for the door, guided by that strip of light that shone up from the large chandelier in the hall.

  In a flash he was after her. Having set the oil lamp down somewhere he had two free arms with which to capture her and they were strong, determined. He held her fast, his arms around her, holding her back to his front, his breath blowing hard against her ear and her cheek.

  "Do this and I won't ask you any more questions about your childhood, or about that mysterious sickness you suffered. Or about the day you came to Cromer. Do this one thing. For me and for you."

  She felt nauseated, her skin clammy, her head throbbing. Terror spiked through her heart and lungs, made breathing an agony, a torment.

  And then, suddenly, she was calm. His arms around her should have made her fearful— made her feel suffocated and trapped. But instead his body warmth comforted her, soothed away the panic.

  Not that she would let him know that. "Kindly release me. I do not care to be manhandled, Mr. Gabriel Hart."

  Slowly he loosened his hold. His hands briefly gripped her waist, as if to make certain she was steady on her feet again. Then he stepped back.

  "I'm sorry," he grumbled behind her. "I didn't know how else to make you stay."

  "Yes. We've already established that you were taught to use your hands rather than your words to discuss matters."

  Glancing again toward the distant strip of light, she considered escaping the room, leaving him there.

  But that would be cowardly.

  Ever slowly turned and walked back to the open window. She took a breath, and then another. His presence buzzed behind her, filling her senses with his own peculiar form of electricity.

  He wanted to hear her scream, did he?

  Very well then. He'd be sorry.

  One more deep breath filled her straining lungs and then she leaned out of the window and screamed.

  The echo tore out into the night's sky and shattered the stars. Surely they heard her on the moon.

  Behind her, the glass chimney of the oil lamp cracked, as did the window panes on either side of where she stood.

  It made her ears feel as if they might bleed.

  She stopped. Her fingers were holding her skirt so tightly that they cramped as she tried to relax them.

  "Crikey," said the man in the dark behind her.

  That showed him, didn't it, she thought with an improper amount of pride.

  Her heartbeat was strong and merry. It was as if a weight had been lifted from her shoulders. She shivered. The scream still vibrated through her body and the pores of her skin sizzled with the a potent, throbbing charge.

  "You'll 'ave to pay for that glass out of your wages, Greene," he muttered.

  "You encouraged me, Mr. Hart. I didn't want to do it. You made me." Then she spun around to find him directly behind her. Close. "It was your idea."

  "I'll consider that when we work out the payment terms."

  The masculine scent of him filled her nostrils and sank down into her throat. Overcome with it, feeling wild, reckless and unfettered, she reached up with both hands, gripped his face and held it still while she lifted her lips to his.

  Although clearly startled, he made no protest beyond a muffled, "umph". His hands went to her waist again and then to her back, drawing her closer. His lips parted hers, his warm tongue slipping inside, as if to search for the remnants of that powerful scream, feeding upon it greedily.

  Oh, she had never felt such desire before. It took insatiable, lascivious possession of her entire body, heart and soul. Had her feet left the ground? She could feel nothing but him. Could taste, smell and hear, nothing but this man.

  The first man she had kissed.

  She stroked his soft hair and drew her fingernails across the rough contours of his face, down the broad neck and across that vast width of shoulder. It seemed to go on and on. She did not need to breathe. Who needed oxygen anyway?

  Then he stopped it, took his lips away.

  "Crikey," he managed again, gasping, apparently, for air.

  "You want to know what happened to me that day here when I was six?" she exclaimed. Energy thrummed through her now from heel to brow. Excitement, raw and dangerous, held her in its grip. "Well, so do I!"

  He raised a thumb and forefinger to her chin. "You don't remember everything? Yet there is something...you hesitate to tell me." The pad of his thumb brushed her dampened lower lip. "I told you what happened to me. Let's have no secrets between us now."

  But what would he think of her, if she told him about the trances, the unexplained vanishing, and those unearthly talents she'd brought back out of her vivid dreams and into her reality? The mind-reading, the heightened sense of hearing, the ability to move above the ground by her mere will (she refused to call it "flying"— how ridiculous!) Ever Greene had too many secrets and if one came out they would all follow, linked like the spots of an unsightly, contagious rash. He wouldn't want to touch her after that. He might think her "off her rocker" and send her to the mad house.

  And she had come there wanting so very badly to be "normal", to be ordinary.

  If only she had not encountered such an extraordinary man.

  Ever regained her senses and stepped back. "May we finish our dinner? I've decided I am hungry, after all, and I happen to know that Mrs. Fullerton made Charlotte Russe for dessert."

  * * * *

  Just like that. Cool as a bloody cucumber, she went back to dinner. And he, having no choice, followed her.

  Chapter Eleven

  The air between them had changed. Like a storm breaking. After that evening and "The Glass Shattering"— which is how she thought of their kiss— their relationship crossed a barrier. Perhaps it was a barrier that she should not have crossed, but it was done. There was no going back to what they had been before.

  Mrs. Palgrave seemed to sense the subtle alteration, although she would never mention it outright. Instead, she circled around the subject, like rain water around a drain.

  "I do hope you are settled in, Miss Greene? Everything to your liking, is it?"

  "Yes. Very much so. Thank you."

  "Mr. Hart seems... fond of you already."

  "Is he fond of me?" She acted nonchalant, stirring her tea quietly in the housekeeper's parlor as they enjoyed one of their weekly "chats".

  "I should say so. Moving you into that lovely room on the third floor."

  That was the first Ever heard of it, but soon she discovered that it was true. Gabriel had given orders to have her things moved to a warmer, much cozier bedroom with a fireplace and a window overlooking the sands. He never mentioned it to her himself, simply got it done.

  When she thanked him for his generosity he shrugged, smiled and said, "Just don't go breaking the glass in those windows too. I'm already up to my neck explaining those other breakages to Palgrave."

  Whether anybody had heard that scream or not, they never mentioned it. Like that child's scream she was certain she heard on her first morning there, it was ignored.

  By everybody except herself and Gabriel.

  She couldn't help thinking he'd granted her a nicer bedchamber because of that kiss. Which made her a fledgling hussy for accepting it, but it would also be ungracious, ill-mannered and pointlessly self-sacrificing to refuse. Or so she told herself.

  The staff were gradually getting accustomed to having her about the place, although, as the housekeeper had said, they could not easily fit her into the order of things. Mr. Bede continued to look down his considerable nose at her and whenever she tried to engage him in conversation the rubbing of those dry fingertips behind his back became so rapid and noisy that she thought they might burst into flame.

  There was no further repeat of the mysterious warnings marked by a ghostly fingertip on misted glass. No icicle-like
child's hand tried to intercept hers and tug upon it for attention. Clearly that had all been in her imagination. Some sort of anxiety about being out on her own in the world must have manifested itself in those visions on her first day there. Self-preservation could be a mysterious sixth-sense. Or, in her case, a seventh. But there was nothing to fear here. The master of the house would let no harm come to her.

  She sent a Christmas card to her parents, including a note to let them know she was getting along well and asking if they could find her seahorse brooch. Hopefully they would send it on to her soon.

  She waited.

  For that and for the next kiss. It was, she knew, inevitable.

  Sometimes she stood at her new bedroom window and looked out on the stormy, white-capped waves. She thought of what he had told her about the day he almost drowned in that sea, and it made her anxious inside, because she knew that— somehow— she was connected to that incident. It had to be. He seemed to know it too, and he was waiting for her to say it. To remember.

  The whistling, the kite, the pier...the mystical lure of the sea.

  He had, perhaps, recognized their connection before she did. Is that why he didn't want her to go on the pier, why he thought it so dangerous for her?

  * * * *

  When she went up to bed one night, she found a crisp white card on her pillow.

  Miss. E. Greene, was penned neatly on the front and, when she turned it over, an invitation to join him for "an evening out on the town" was written on the back.

  What that entailed and which "town" was not specified.

  Kneeling by her warm fire, hugging a hot water bottle to her chest, she thought about her choice. She had come there to be his governess, but then the trouble started and it wasn't all his fault. She found him too interesting, too amusing, too much to resist. If she encouraged him by accepting this invitation she would only have herself to blame for what happened next.

  She remembered Signora Brunetti's warning.

  He will entice you to stay, make up any lie to keep you. Until he is bored and goes wandering again for other company. By then you will be trapped here and it will be too late to go back.

  Yes, he was dangerously enticing and she saw now how easily a woman might be caught in his web, held prisoner by her own heart, and then left ruined when he moved on to another.

  Mrs. Palgrave, who knew him very well, thought he was "fond" of her, whatever that meant. Ever was sure he'd been "fond" of many women.

  She shouldn't let it go to her head. Perhaps she was simply a challenge to him and once it was over, and he'd won this "game", as he called it, his interest would wander off. It was all a lark to him. He had nothing to lose.

  But there remained so many curious facts binding them together in ways that other women could not have been tied to him— the shared attraction to seahorses, the coincidence of a day in July, eighteen years ago. being the same time they both first visited Cromer, and that undeniable sense they shared of having met before.

  If she let her imagination run unhindered, the possibilities were...incredible.

  Since he made her scream out of the window that evening, she'd felt free, empowered. Even the sky seemed less grey. She didn't want to worry about anything, or be bound by anxieties anymore.

  So she decided to take a chance, plunging in, as he would, head first. She wrote a reply accepting his offer of an evening out. The next day she gave it to him, passing the note across the teacups in the drawing room, as they prepared to begin another lesson.

  He stood to read it, while rain-streaked, cool morning light filtered through the window on his left, painting that side of his face in molten lines of silver. Finally he grinned and looked at her. Without a word, he folded her note and slipped it into the inside pocket of his tweed jacket. It was not mentioned again until later that morning, when he advised her to dress warmly that evening and wear her "fancy" fur-trimmed coat and hat.

  "Where exactly are you taking me, Mr. Hart?" she demanded.

  "Shouldn't you call me Gabriel by now? Since you smacked me with those lusty lips."

  "Very well. Where are you taking me, Gabriel?"

  "You'll see."

  He liked his surprises.

  "You'll need to pack a few..." he waved his hand through the air, "...frocks and whatnots. We'll be gone until Sunday. Until Christmas Eve."

  It was only Thursday. She stared. "You said it was an evening out."

  "But we need to get there first, don't we? It's over twenty miles to Norwich, which means, traveling by horse and carriage, we'll have to break the journey before we get to our destination. And the same coming back again. O' course," he sighed, gazing off into the distance, "if I had a motor car it wouldn't take nearly as long."

  She could almost hear his housekeeper's wail of despair down in the servants' hall.

  "I wish you had explained that before," she said sharply. "What will the staff think if we are gone away together for three entire days."

  "They'll assume you've corrupted me. Especially when I tell them about the time you kissed me. Threw yourself at me. Then they'll know it's all your fault. Women just can't help themselves around me. Even you."

  "Are you sure the size of your enormous ego will fit in a carriage?"

  "There you go, flattering me again. Been studying that sculpture on the sly, haven't you?"

  Uh oh. How did he know that? "Mr. Hart, I have no desire to study that ...macabre...grotesque... anatomical...thing."

  "No. You've got the real thing at your beck and call. Anytime you want to study that, just tip me the wink."

  He had a damnable answer for everything. She scowled.

  "Oh, don't start looking at me like that. You know what it does to me, temptress!"

  "For pity's sake," she muttered, now not sure what to do with her face.

  Rubbing his hands together, he added, "We'll stop at a coaching inn near Aylsham tonight. The rooms there are comfortable and the food hearty. Then tomorrow we'll drive on to Norwich." He paused, rubbed a finger over his lips and smiled. "We'll spend the day there and then attend the Hippodrome in the evening. Bring that red frock again," he added, his voice slightly hoarse. "I like you in it."

  Instinctively, her fingers went to her throat and the old lace collar of her dark blue day gown. Her seahorse would have given her a boost, something extra special. Alas, she would have to manage without it again. There had been no word from her parents, which was odd. Her mother was always very prompt when writing replies.

  But Gabriel said he liked her in the burgundy taffeta. He must mean it, because he didn't have to say it.

  "Look at it this way," he murmured, his dark eyes surveying her with mischievous intent, "I can take the opportunity to practice my gentlemanly manners, can't I? And you'll be there to give me a slap when I do wrong."

  "I don't resort to violence. It's not dignified."

  "Well, I got a scream out of you already," he reminded her solemnly, one fingertip pressed to the end of her nose and then her lips. "Who knows what I'll inspire you to next? I bring out the worst in folk as a general rule." Then, hands in his pockets, he strolled off across the hall, whistling that horrible tune again, until he stopped, remembering how she disliked it.

  She hurried after him. "Where are you going? What about your lesson?"

  "I've got some arrangements to make. Take the day off to prepare yourself for our trip." He stopped and looked back at her. "But don't go on the pier."

  "It's raining out anyway."

  "Good. Then I don't have to worry about you wandering off and leaving me. We'll start off for Aylsham before it gets dark."

  He disappeared into his study.

  Ever stood in the doorway of the drawing room, listening to the softly choking, wheezing coal fire and the steady tick-tock of the grandfather clock in the hall— mere accompaniment to the many other sounds within those walls. On the floor above, one of the maids dusted a lamp, flicking her feathered mop over the dangling crystal tear
drops around its frosted glass shade, so that they shivered and clicked together. In the servants' hall, William the footman was trying to dance, showing off to the scullery maid while nobody else was around. His big, flat, clumsy feet sounded like a stampede of oxen against the flagged stone floor, rather than the graceful stage performer he sought to emulate. A bell rang, jingling hard and urgent on its little wire.

  All these noises had become her familiar world now. It was difficult to remember what the noise and the light had been like in her parents' house. Not that it was gone from her mind, but it was a frozen picture, flat and lusterless compared to where she was now.

  She was unsure about the past. Sometimes it seemed like a dream and that she was only now awakened from it. There were things she still knew with certainty— that her parents worried about her and loved her; that she had always liked her toast thickly cut and lavishly spread with butter and jam; that her favorite color was fuchsia, her favorite composer, Albinoni; that the carpet in her bedroom at home had pink shapes, white stars and sprays of blue forget-me-nots, so that if she hung upside down off her bed and crinkled up her eyes to look at it, she seemed to be floating in an alien universe; and that her pillow, when freshly washed, had always smelled of lavender. But other things were gradually leaving her, being replaced with the smells, sounds and colors of this world that now filled her senses.

  It was as if the history of her life up until then had been written on a page, which was slowly being swallowed by a match flame held to the bottom of it. Line by line the less pleasant things in her past were disappearing and, like someone escaping a house fire, she could salvage only the most important memories, the moments of happiness and love. The things that really mattered.

  She walked to the window and looked out. Yes, it was raining hard, hitting the window in bullets of ice. There was no other color out there but grey; in here there was warmth and comfort. Ever certainly had no desire to leave the house today, not without his company.

  He had told her to prepare for their trip, so she'd better get on with it. But what was there to prepare, other than a few garments to pack? She felt lost and naive, for she had no experience of something like this.