by Lark Watson
But, surely they must have a plan otherwise, they’d all be trapped for the white months.
“Ms. Byrne.” Micha’s voice was smooth and low. It had a power I imagined a sorcerer would have wield in the mystical worlds I sometimes read.
Adelia’s attention was totally lost at this point. There was only one person more interesting than Mr. Thorneton to her and that was Micha.
She would make up stories about him—everything from he was a spy to a superhero to an evil villain to a prince in hiding.
I doubted he was any of those things, but there was no escaping that Mr. Thorneton’s right hand man would be anything less than capable.
And here, he was. Again.
I wondered if this was with or without Mr. Thorneton’s knowledge this time. I began to fear that I could be the power struggle between the boss and his man if I fell into that trap. If Micha was looking for something to battle over, perhaps his decision had landed on me.
I could only hope not.
“Yes?” I asked, hoping this was not round two from yesterday.
“Thorne would like to see you in his office.” Micha sounded less than pleased about this, as if he disapproved of not only the request, but my presence as a whole. I could all but hear the unspoken, I’m watching you slip through his mind.
It was not my fault his charge had almost died. It was, if anything, my doing that he had not. But, the judgment and suspicion was still present. It seemed that—at least for the time being—I would be the cat Micha hoped to catch with the cream.
Adelia jumped from her seat, checking her outfit as only a forty-two divorcee on the prowl would.
“Sorry, short stuff. Thorne needs the nanny only.” He gave Adelia one of the few smiles I’d ever seen out of him. “Boring work stuff.”
It was obvious even to Mr. Heartless that Adelia lived for her guardian’s attention. That he would take that moment, that second to make his dismissal of her less of a hit, softened my heart toward him.
But not that much.
He opened the door of the kitchen and waved me to go in front of him.
It was oddly disconcerting. Where I’d have found it dismissive of him to make me follow along behind him, having him behind me where I couldn’t track him, couldn’t watch him watch me and everything around us, made me more nervous than I would have admitted.
It was like being stalked—but only after having given permission to the hunter.
At the heavy, office doors, Micha stepped around me and gave a solid knock-knock before pushing them open.
“Here she is, Thorne.”
We stood, the two of us framed by the large doorway, watching Mr. Thorneton finish a call. As he hung up, he gave us his full attention, his gaze jumping from Micha to me and back again, eyes narrowed as if trying to read what had occurred between the kitchen and the office. As if daring Micha to cross him again so soon.
“Were you both planning to stand in the foyer all day?” Mr. Thorneton gave Micha a look that made it clear that his thoughts on me and my presence had been a topic of discussion before.
“Thorne, you know what—” Micha stopped abruptly at the look Mr. Thorneton gave him.
“I think the nanny and I can handle a simple conversation without you guarding my person. I doubt she plans to kill me after saving my life this week—as well as when I wrecked my bike—so you might as well go make yourself useful somewhere else.”
The dismissal was clear and hard and something I’m sure Micha didn’t appreciate receiving in front of me. Part of me understood. The man obviously dedicated his life to keeping his boss safe. Having that dedication tossed back at him was more than an insult—it was probably painful.
But, no words from me would make it better. If anything, they would add to the animosity radiating off him. It pounded against me in waves of heat I imagine warriors felt when crashing into one another. It brought my own guard up even higher even with Mr. Thorneton standing guard before us.
I waited until Micha gave a sharp nod of his head and swung around, his gaze sharp and not meeting mine, before he stormed down the hall.
Mr. Thorneton watched him go, following the storm of anger over my head until a door slammed in the distance.
“You’ll have to ignore Micha.”
“I thought the expression was you’ll have to excuse him.”
Mr. Thorneton laughed. “I don’t believe in excusing bad behavior. You either ignore it or deal with it. There’s no excuse for it here. He’s being over protective because he can’t touch the actual source to destroy it.”
A shiver rippled hard down my spine as I realized that wasn’t just a way of saying fix a problem.
And that he’d said touch not find.
The idea that the culprit was known, that the enemy was familiar, was somehow even more frightening than a strange and unknown entity.
Of course, it made more sense.
Who would break into a secured home and drug the master of it in order to burn him in his sleep.
But, my sympathies went with Micha knowing that his hands were—for whatever reason—tightly bound.
I glanced around, wondering if I’d known the type of men I’d be working for if I’d still come.
Then, my gaze slipped back to Mr. Thorneton, standing behind his desk studying me and I knew the answer was yes. I would have come even if I’d been told it was my life at risk.
He seemed agitated, hemmed in. It was like watching a wild animal pace a small cage. I wasn’t surprised when he finally spoke.
“Let’s take a walk.”
I was hoping that wasn’t a euphemism for, let’s get rid of the nanny. I had no interest in finding myself on a bus back to the city today. I was, if anything, even more intrigued with Tower House and its occupants after the events of this week.
Leaving now would feel like walking out of the theater ten minutes before the end of a mystery.
We passed through the library and out the French doors to the courtyard where the construction workers had set up their work stations, before slipping onto the path toward the lake.
And yet, it was more than the need to know Tower House’s secrets that keep me riveted here.
I couldn’t help but keep glancing at the man beside me. He was a magnet and I was the small chips of metal that couldn’t help but fly to him when he came in range.
The draw to him was like nothing I’d ever experienced.
It was natural and chaotic at the same time. I wondered if I had a switch with the ability to turn it off, if I would choose to.
And yet, I felt twice as alive when he was near. Even knowing that to him I was nothing more than the nanny, changed that not a bit.
He was the sun and I was the plant reaching for the light.
We walked side by side, the cool air seeping through my sweater and chilling the heat of my skin. I glanced sideways and up at Mr. Thorneton, his hard stare focused off into the distance.
As the pounding and noise of the construction faded behind us, I focused on the wind and rustling leaves, the fading green of the grass holding out until the first snow, the lake in the distance lapping at the edge of the land, and pulling myself along. I let myself marinate in his presence. Letting the strength and power of him add to it all.
Halfway down the lawn, the lake coming closer and closer into view, the little house sitting off in my peripheral, Mr. Thorneton halted. He stood, still and ridged, hands fisted and braced upon his hips as if ready to take on an attack. All he needed was a sword strapped to his waist—and a kilt wouldn’t hurt—and he could tower over any century or romance cover.
“Jane.” His brows lowered, as if even saying my name brought an unnecessary but deliberate challenge to mind.
I waited, wanting to know what the purpose of our walk was, the need to step away from the house. Praying this wasn’t the farewell I feared.
“Jane,” he said again as he turned to me. “I want to discuss the events of this past week.”
He began walking again, rightly expecting that I would fall in step beside him, my short gait quickening for his casual, wider one.
At the top of gravel path he stopped again, his gaze hard and steady on the little house.
“I want you to know, you’re safe here. Your safety—it’s something I take seriously.” He sounded…concerned. As if this conversation were one he’d never anticipated having but was somehow vital. And yet, it seemed as if just the idea of it confused him on some level.
Of course, it wasn’t one I’d thought to have. Even after the fire. I’d expected he would leave, bringing whatever consternation had been brewing with him. That we, the people here at Tower House, were not the focus or the purpose of any events that occurred, and so we’d be easily left behind.
I’d expected to be surrounded by the silence that was filled only by Adelia’s chatter again.
He had yet to fully look at me. It was as if he were reluctant even now in granting me his attention.
I couldn’t help but wonder what I’d done to offend.
“I thought…” He cleared his throat before continuing on. “I thought you might be overly concerned about your safety after everything that happened.”
“No, sir.”
“No, sir you weren’t overly concerned or no, sir you weren’t concerned at all?”
He finally turned, letting his body lead him around to face me. It seemed an effort. It was as if we fought opposing battles—me to not sway into him, him to not storm away.
“No, sir. I wasn’t concerned.” I tilted my head to look up at him, not sure why this needed to be discussed, but with the desperate need to give him ease.
“And, why is that Jane?” He looked genuinely puzzled. “Why is it, little nanny that you stand here, two days after your job—your home—nearly burnt to the ground and you, having saved its master, saved it all. Why is it you aren’t worried that your safety would be at issue?”
I couldn’t help but wonder if he lived in a world where people defined themselves as each event’s greatest victim—leaving him the only obligated hero.
“Sir, the attack was on you. I was not the focus or even collaterally harmed.”
He reached down and took my bandaged hand in his, “Were you not, Jane?”
“Ah, well. It was my own doing, was it not?” I smiled at him, as the puzzled groove between his brow grew deeper. “If I’d stayed in my room, far on the other side of the house—a different wing, even—minded my own business, these burns would not be.”
“And so, because you did not mind your own business, but came to save me, you are rightfully harmed?”
“No. Harm is seldom rightful, but the blame is so often misplaced—often purposefully so, no?”
I didn’t wish to tell him that I’d suffered worse for lesser reasons. I had, in that moment, a realization that as one under his care, the knowledge was not something that would be ignored.
We stood, staring at each other, each of us thinking our own thoughts about the situation, when a light rain misted in over us.
“Jane, where is your jacket?” He looked more annoyed than he had at any other thing that morning. “You’ll catch cold with just that sweater this time of year.”
“Some man told me to come to his office then wanted to go for a walk. As I don’t carry a coat around inside, this is what I had.” I rubbed my arms, realizing for the first time that it was chilly. Before I’d been heated by his proximity, warmed by his attention.
The rain continued to soften the air and he pulled me under the grand oak that reached its arms out far enough and high enough on each side for us to shelter under it.
“Little nanny, you must take better care of yourself.” He shrugged out of the fleece he’d worn and wrapped it about my shoulders, all but pulling my hands through like a small child. It smelled of him and sawdust and the smoke of the fire and I struggled not to pull it to my face to drowned in all of those things. “You cannot trust that I’ll take care with you. I’m not that man. You’re safety, I’ll guard that. But you must also guard it.”
I took the warning, heard it for what he said, but my heart raced, raced as it never had before. I stole a peek at him as he hovered over me, close enough that even through the fleece he’d just wrapped me in, I could sense his nearness.
I wanted the warning to mean more than it did. I wanted him to be telling me that he felt a pull to me like a matching magnet to my own.
But, that would never be. I was so beneath his notice that it caused my heart to ache in a way I thought impossible.
He lowered his head, bringing it within breath distance of my own, his gaze set stone-like into mine.
“Do you understand me, little one?” His words, barely a hush over the rustling, rain damped leaves surrounding us, swept over me—a thrill I doubt he was hoping to create.
“No, sir.” I could not help it. He created the conundrum and now he must answer it. “You tell me my safety is of your concern. That you’ll care for it and I am safe. And yet you add that I must guard myself. That you are not the man to do it. And so, am I safe or am I guarded? I can only ask you, can I not?”
I thought he would laugh as he usually did when I challenged him. Take the moment and back away, turn my words back on me in the challenge he typically did.
Instead, he stayed as he was, his gaze still heating my own.
“Jane, sweet Jane, are you so naive that the question is real? Should I answer it?” He swept a hand up my arm, the shutter it caused in me not lost on him. “You are…my friend, are you not?”
“Yes, sir. Of course I’m your friend.”
“Oh, Jane. If only there were an of course to it. So few people are truly your friend when you need them.” He dropped his hand, the connection breaking as he held my gaze still. “But you, you are, aren’t you? Your word is as solid as granite and as long lasting, isn’t it?”
“What good is your word if it is only a sometimes thing?”
“Yes, what good?” Mr. Thorneton, leaned back, taking in all of me trapped between him and the solid backing of the bark covered trunk of oak behind me. “I think, Jane, you could be very good for me even as I ruin you. Is that what you came here looking for? For ruin?”
I opened my mouth to say that, no. Of course not. Who goes looking for ruin?
But nothing came out. I just stared back at him, wanting to trace my hand over his thick, drawn brow and ease it.
Before I could say or do anything to overstep, he stepped away, his gaze swinging up and to the house.
“Go, Jane. Go before you regret acting on that look you give me.” He turned his back and trudged down toward the lake, leaving me no option but to obey, even as every part of me yearned to follow him.
Chapter 21
I awoke the next day expecting things to remain the same. We’d passed beyond the time I’d expected Mr. Thorneton to disappear again, so I assumed we’d fall into the routine of the house with the men in residence for a while longer.
The hammering outside my window signaled that the construction continued on and—after my walk with Mr. Thorneton—I expected he and Micha to remain locked away as they kept had been in the past.
I had, shamelessly, slept with his fleece laying beside me where I could breathe it in as a fell asleep, his expensive aftershave starting to creep through the other scents as it aired.
And so, when I tripped down to breakfast, it was with a shock of understanding that I found Adelia pouting into her eggs while Mrs. Fairfax briefed Sophie on the meaning of kitchen items in English and sorted her many lists.
I paused at the door, letting the meaning of their behaviors creep in and, steeling my heart, slid into my chair before they realized I’d arrived.
“Good morning,” I gave everyone a smile and reached for the basket with bagels hidden beneath the folded cloth. “How are you all today?”
“I am triste,” Adelia pushed the eggs around on her plate, not bothering to look at me, the pout solidly in place.
“English please,” I said, even though I too was less than happy.
“Mr. Thorne, he has gone away again. And he has left without saying goodbye to me. Again. I think my heart will break with my sadness.” Adelia all but put her hand to her forehead and swooned.
I felt like laughing, but only because her reaction so clearly mirrored my own of a moment ago. It was a harsh reflection she held up.
“I’m sure we’ll survive awhile without your Mr. Thorne here.” I would tell myself the same thing each day. But, having to put on a strong front for Adelia would mean driving the point home to myself as well.
“He has gone to a party.” She said this as if it were the greatest of insults. “Not to work, but to a grand gala where there will be dancing and music and food and many beautiful dresses.”
And no doubt many beautiful women.
“Well, grownups often go to fancy things like that.” If they were rich and powerful. Perhaps not if they were nannies.
“I used to go to them. Mama used to buy me beautiful dresses and I would come down to her parties and sing for her guests.” Adelia stated this like she was a great actress, making time for a small bit role as a favor to a beloved fan.
“Did she?” I asked, because it seemed the thing to say.
I had, I suppose, not taken the statement seriously. And so, I had to hide my surprise when she went on.
“Yes. And I would stand,” Adelia hoped from her chair and began to sing a song in her native tongue I was quite glad Mrs. Fairfax could not understand while acting out the emotions of a spurned mistress.
We finally had Sophie’s attention. “Adelia!”
Mrs. Fairfax raised her head and glanced between us, obviously trying to decide if this was something she wished to get involved in. I just shook my head. Sophie and I would take care of it away from the breakfast table.
Instead, I brought us back to a topic certain to hold Adelia’s attention—as well as my own.
“So, this gala, you would have many dresses for it if you were going?” I asked Adelia, letting her replace her pout with a long string of explanations.