Enchanting Nicholette

by Dawn Crandall

  “But I see you’re still debating whether to actually attend or not.”

  “I am.” I turned away from the door and backed up to the stone wall. “I am attending…not debating.”

  “I see.” He walked slowly across the room and came to stand beside me. It seemed an odd reaction, as if doing so had been what he’d come there to do, to be with me instead of to see Clyde Summercourt marry Bianca Worthington. We were both terribly late for the wedding, and we should have been more focused on finding a seat than finding each other.

  “Were you going in?” I kept my voice low as well, just in case we could be heard by anyone inside the sanctuary.

  “Only if you are.”

  Now that he stood there before me, I didn’t know what to do.

  When I didn’t answer him, he said, “It’s commendable that you’ve come this far, and I can understand your hesitancy, but you don’t have to.” He took a step forward. “Have you been to a wedding since your own?”

  “No.” I swallowed. “But as I said, I’m trying. I wanted to—to be able to attend. Perhaps I’ll be able to attend the reception with more success,” I said lightheartedly, knowing deep down that it would likely be just as difficult, if not more so. “Were you planning to attend the reception, Mr. Hawthorne?”

  “Unfortunately, no. I made no reservation to attend.” His gaze darted to the high, beautifully designed ceiling. “This is the church you and your family attend, is it not?”

  “For as long as I can remember,” I said.

  “It’s absolutely stunning. I’ve been by before, but never inside.”

  “You should see the sanctuary.”

  “Is that an invitation to sit with you…at the wedding?” he asked.

  “We should go in.”

  He smiled. “Yes. We should.”

  Yet, he didn’t move.

  And neither did I.

  Now that he’d joined me in that lonely vestibule, so close to everyone else at the wedding, and yet so far removed, I decided actually being at the wedding wasn’t so important after all.

  And that being there with him…was.

  11

  The Garth Garden

  “She had not known the weight until she felt the freedom.”

  —Nathaniel Hawthorne, The Scarlet Letter

  Or maybe, we shouldn’t,” I wavered. Crossing the vestibule, I took steps toward a pew-like bench near the door Mr. Hawthorne had come in.

  “Perhaps a walk around the garden would be a better use of our time?” He arched a brow but smiled, seeming somewhat reserved. As if he weren’t sure if asking would be too much.

  I picked up his top hat and held it out for him to take, trying my best to be encouraging but not too forward. I already knew how much he liked me, and he knew very well that I knew.

  Mr. Hawthorne walked up to me, cautiously. I wasn’t certain what I was supposed to say or do after allowing him to kiss me the last time I’d seen him. “It would be much more proper for us to take a walk outside than to remain here,” I offered.

  And what better place than strolling around the Garth Garden, in plain view of anyone walking or driving by, but still so wonderfully alone.

  He took his hat from me and placed it atop his head, ready to go outside. Catching my eye again with an irresistible smile, he added, “After you.”

  He held the door for me and closed it behind us.

  I didn’t wait for him, for I was rather nervous again.

  He followed me for a short distance past the darkened area of the corridor where there were no pillars, but a wall with an intricately designed opening looking down into the garden. When we reached the brightened part of the corridor, with the sun shining across the floor, spreading long morning shadows in the direction of the garden, I dove into what I felt we needed to discuss more than anything—the reason I was a widow and he a widower.

  “I’d planned to be an Everstone almost my entire life, you know.” I stopped around the corner of the first turn, placing my hand on the pillar there, turning to face him. “I never loved Nathan, back when I thought I would marry him, but he was my supposed future. And that was all that had mattered. However, I must not have made a favorable impression on him. He moved across the country for two years to avoid the engagement.”

  “Astounding. I cannot even imagine.”

  “When it was all said and done, it was William who wanted me,” I swallowed, so nervous to be speaking such things aloud. “It had made William so happy to marry me. As I said once before, he’d been pining after me for years, even while he thought I would marry his brother.”

  He only stepped closer, silently. No words, just his eyes watching mine. But then he said, “It must have been torture.”

  “It was arranged by our parents, as everyone knows.” I glanced up at him. “But he did love me.”

  “Of course he did.” He leaned a shoulder against one of the stone pillars across the aisle from me.

  My gaze darted to the high, beautifully designed and diverse rooflines of the two buildings we stood between. “We were engaged for eleven months.”

  “I know.”

  Continuing, regardless of the many questions his odd looks and comments put in my mind, I said, “It was a double wedding with a friend of mine—a family friend. She and her husband live on the coast of Connecticut now.”

  Thinking back on the details of my engagement and wedding so candidly, after trying not to for so long, I remembered it had actually been Daphne Hampton’s second wedding. She’d been widowed years before, previously married to a gentleman from Germany. She’d moved there with him and had lived with him in a castle for a number of years before his death. He’d been quite a bit older, and she’d been just out of mourning when she’d become engaged to her second husband, someone more her age. Someone, I have a feeling, she was more in love with. I glanced up from my knotted fingers.

  “Did you love William?” Mr. Hawthorne asked quietly. It was a daring question, but one I was glad he’d chosen to ask. It was one of the things I was trying to find the courage to tell him.

  “I liked William. I always had. And I had wanted to marry him.”

  As Mr. Hawthorne slowly came up to join me at the corner pillar, I took a step back, pulling my fingers from the smooth stone. “But no, I wasn’t in love with him.”

  I swiveled around and took a few steps to some small stones that led into the Garth Garden, which were likely for the gardener’s use only. I leaned against one of the pillars next to the steps down, and Mr. Hawthorne joined me, faced me, and leaned against the other one.

  “But I didn’t want him to die. I would have been happy with him. I would have fallen in love with him eventually. I know I would have.”

  Mr. Hawthorne didn’t seem to know how to respond to this, and I didn’t blame him.

  “And now, the merest mention of a wedding makes me ill.” I stopped, in an effort to regain my courage. “There was so much blood, so much sadness and despair, and on a day that….”

  “Hence your desire not to attend the wedding.”

  “Exactly.”

  When I didn’t go into more detail, he asked, “Did you enjoy your time in Europe?”

  “I did. It was exactly what I needed, to escape everything I knew, everything familiar.” I tore my gaze from him, because honestly, I could let myself stare at him all day if I were permitted.

  “I did something similar when Alice died.”

  “You left the country for a while?”

  “Well, I left Boston for a few weeks.”

  “Where did you go?”

  “To Nahant Island, just north of here. Stayed at the Bailey Hill Hotel. I had a lot to think about, and Boston had become too lonely.”

  “Was not being at the Bailey lonely as well?”

  “I took my family with me.”

  “Your mother and sister?”

  “And my father, who has since passed away.”

  I looked him in the eyes, waiting f
or him to expound. But he didn’t. He just stood there, staring back at me. As if that had been more than enough information.

  “I just needed not to be home. I had a house on Beacon Street at the time, and I’d recently graduated from Harvard and taken the job at your father’s bank. Then I’d been married and widowed. All of which happened—the job, the wedding, Alice’s passing—within six months. Then soon after that, my father also fell ill and died.”

  Goodness, and I’d thought my last few years had been trying. How had he remained so strong through so much pain? Was his heart still in the process of healing, as mine seemed to be? Would they ever be wholly healed from such dramatic events?

  “Since we’ve been speaking of William, may I ask what Alice was like?”

  “Bedridden, for the most part.” Mr. Hawthorne raked his fingers through his hair, messing up what his valet had probably spent an hour taming. “Like your own marriage to William Everstone, my father had made plans with an old family friend of his…like his father did before him.” Mr. Hawthorne huffed, shaking his head.

  “What’s the matter?”

  “Just the irony,” he said dryly.

  I didn’t know what he meant, but I also felt that it wasn’t something he wanted to talk about.

  “Alice was only seventeen when we were married. A very young seventeen. You see, she’d been terribly ill, which was why we’d married when we did.” In much the same manner as I had, when I’d been speaking about William, Mr. Hawthorne stared up at the intricate stone details of the Parrish House as he spoke. “I’d just graduated from Harvard, and she was just old enough. And as I told you once before, we were only married for three months before she passed.”

  “How tragic for her parents. And you.”

  “Honestly, now that it’s all in the past, I feel as though they knew, and they were endeavoring to distance themselves from the inevitable, and giving her everything she wanted all at once.”

  “So Alice knew you before you were married, then? As I knew William his whole life?”

  “Not quite that well, but we’d met before. She looked forward to the wedding day in a way that only a schoolgirl could. And I wasn’t opposed to the marriage…to doing what I was told.”

  Glancing at him again, I caught Mr. Hawthorne watching me as he spoke, a serious look on his face, but as if he were indecisive about something.

  “She was so idealistic, so innocent. She was much like your friend, Miss Boutilier.”

  “I’m sure for those last three months of her life, you were a charming husband for the poor girl.”

  “I tried, but it wasn’t much like a marriage, if I may speak frankly.”

  I looked away, down at my hands. They were gripped together nervously in front of me.

  “She resisted any kind of companionship when it came down to trying to get to know one another. She would shell up, cower, giggle, as if she had no idea how to speak to a man, let alone get to know a husband.”

  Lifting my eyes to his, I took in the ruddy glow his honesty had cost him. Did he think I would judge him? Decide I wouldn’t like him enough to continue, whatever it was we were doing? Suddenly, the idea of holding his injured, hurting heart in my possession, and that he wanted me to, overwhelmed me.

  “She had her room, just as it had been at her parents’ house, full of her little girl things, her small canopy daybed. And she didn’t want…she didn’t want a real marriage. In all honesty, there was much more missing from the arrangement than all that. I always thought that a marriage could be based on what little friendship Alice and I had, but now…I want so much more. Like the pull between us.”

  This directness of his was one of the things I liked best about him, and hearing this much about his marriage was actually refreshing. For despite the fact that I was a widow and he was a widower, neither one of us had ever truly been married.

  Glancing into the small garden, instead of at him, I realized that the wedding would likely be finished soon. I fiddled with the abundance of green ruffles attached to the skirt of my gown and turned to look toward the stone corridor we’d tarried through. “I suppose we should make our way back to—”

  “Has this conversation been difficult for you to hear?” Mr. Hawthorne pushed off the pillar and met me where I stood, probably closer than he should have dared within view of the street.

  “Not at all.”

  Trying for confidence, I circled a few inches around the pillar until I reached the outer corner of the Parrish House about a foot away, where the covered corridor continued to follow its eastern-facing wall. I leaned against the stone to better face Mr. Hawthorne and provide more privacy from the street. Still near the pillar I’d just moved from, I rested my hand against it for mere strength.

  Continuing, I said, “I’ve been thinking about how wonderful it feels to speak openly with someone about such things. We’ve both come from very similar situations, and now here we are, both no longer married.” I shook my head, because that didn’t sound quite right. “We’re still here…and we’re supposed to keep living.”

  Mr. Hawthorne let out a long breath and brought his hand to rest against the pillar, beside mine. “I couldn’t have said it better myself.”

  With his back to the street and the eastern still-rising sun, his features were now covered in shadow, but he sounded so serious.

  Inching his fingers closer to mine, he said, “And thank you.”

  “For what?” I asked, and it came out hoarsely. My throat constricted, I could hardly breathe.

  When his hand finally reached mine, he slid his hand beneath mine, delving his fingers steadily between and then over my knuckles with a continuous motion until they were clasped, entwined, palm-to-palm.

  He stepped closer, not so much shadowed now, but half facing the sunlight. He stared down at me, taking a rather intimidating inspection. “For letting your guard down.”

  Was he going to kiss me again?

  Goodness, I hoped so.

  He pressed our joined hands to his chest, and I could feel his heartbeat beneath his jacket. It pounded heavily against my wrist. I studied our entangled fingers and then looked him in the face, unembarrassed by the calm he created in me, and sighed. “So I did.”

  “Because you evidently feel the same wild and undeniable connection I do.” He reached for my elbow and slowly caressed its way up my arm until it rested at my shoulder.

  I didn’t move, only swallowed, and tried my best to control my erratic breath.

  This lack of verbal response seemed to please him, for he smiled and went on. “You’re not going to deny it?”

  I shook my head just enough to establish a negative answer, and then added, “I don’t feel like talking anymore.”

  “That makes two of us.”

  A thrill went through me, and I could barely breathe, let alone answer. And although he’d proven to be very good at reading me, since day one, my reactions to him didn’t seem to be enough. In order to further convince him I meant everything, I brought a hand to rest on his shoulder and scratched my fingernails against the seam of his jacket.

  That seemed to be enough encouragement, for his eyes darkened, his face inched forward, and his hand strayed from my shoulder to my neck, sending shivers down my spine. His body, his face, his hair, his smile: they were all still a bit foreign to me, but all combined into a new, irresistible territory, one I definitely wanted to explore and know better.

  “Nicholette!” At the very French exclamation of my name, I turned with a jerk to see Sylvie coming from the other side of the churchyard, up the steps to the corridor. Disregarding the fact that there were no steps into the garden from that side, she traipsed along the limestone path of the Garth Garden, focused entirely on joining me. “They have sent me to find—oh! You are not alone. Monsieur Hawthorne.”

  Mr. Hawthorne had taken a few steps back when he’d heard Sylvie’s voice, but it was still obvious that we’d been engaged in a pretty intense conversation. And neither o
ne of us seemed to know how to answer her.

  “Mademoiselle,” Mr. Hawthorne finally uttered. “Is the wedding finished already?”

  “Oui.” Sylvie had stopped advancing toward us while still in the garden, and she now stood beside a bed of red poppies. “I am so sorry to have interrupted your…your rendezvous, but you had missed the wedding, and your parents were worried.”

  “It’s quite all right, Sylvie. I will go to them now. I should have joined them a long time ago.”

  “But I do see why you have not.”

  “Yes, I suppose I became a bit distracted finding Mr. Hawthorne here, and I forgot all about the wedding going on inside. I apologize if you had to miss anything yourself.”

  “Oh non, save your worries. The bride and groom have been announced and have excused the guests, and everyone is now on their way to the reception.”

  Goodness, I had been gone for much longer than I’d imagined!

  “It was very good to see you again, Mr. Hawthorne.” I didn’t know what else to say. We’d been on the cusp of...so much, and now there was Sylvie, and the wedding was over, my parents looking for me…and again I didn’t know when I would see him next.

  “The pleasure was all mine, Mrs. Everstone. Thank you for staying out here with me…for having this much-needed conversation. And do believe me when I tell you I cannot wait until we have a chance to finish…everything.”

  Despite the unanswered questions, the emotions still flying between us, and the giant chasm of desire for each other we seemed to have fallen into—despite everything—I still felt the calm between us.

  Sylvie took a few steps toward me and grabbed my hand, pulling me into the Garth Garden beside her. “Well, we’d better join your parents. They want to leave presently. Au revoir, Monsieur Hawthorne.”

  I didn’t know whether to be thankful or frustrated my time with Mr. Hawthorne had just been so quickly interrupted by Sylvie and the end of the wedding. I did know one thing though…I was immensely glad I’d come.

  12

  Everthorne