The sky brightened to deep cobalt. Otherworldly silhouettes of ancient trees gained definition in the light. Veteran beeches and oaks hunched with long, arthritic arms outstretched. Others stood in stalwart silence, their compound trunks massively pot-bellied. His hand flitted over the page to capture the labyrinthine trees.
Bibendum was less impressed. He waddled to a sprawling specimen, stood up against it for a satisfying scratch up and down his back, and then relieved himself on its roots.
Delighted, Seelye flipped to a fresh page and sketched the bear’s satisfaction during the back scratch. And another of Bibendum looking startled by his crack of laughter.
As his hand flew, his thoughts ordered themselves. He came to a decision about Jane. To announce it, he conceived a gesture so thoughtful, so magnanimous, he congratulated himself that it would make her regret her churlishness the previous day.
After returning, he fed and crated Bibendum then fetched his decent clothes to change on deck. He donned his linen shirt and stockinette unmentionables, waistcoat, frock coat, abused boots, and his second-to-last decent stock. He wished to look as good as he felt when granting her wish.
Savernake scarcely constituted a hamlet. He counted four buildings. The farthest was a farm at the edge of the forest where the Plimptons overnighted. He climbed a stile and crossed the field.
Seelye found skipper and crew breakfasting in the farmhouse kitchen. The farmer’s wife goggled at him. He ignored her after a perfunctory ‘Good morning, ma’am.’
He did not join them, as the woman suggested. Instead, he bartered for four fresh eggs and started back to the Invictus feeling all the more admirable for his sacrifice of a neckcloth to obtain them. Over the stile and down the towpath, he cradled the eggs in his shirt and stepped carefully to board the narrow boat.
Great with anticipation, he entered what was now Jane’s sitting room. She sat by the coal stove, head bent over a book. At his footsteps, she looked up.
“I’ve brought breakfast,” he said, modestly downplaying his triumph. “Let’s have them poached, shall we?”
“I’d love one,” Jane said. “Thank you.”
She closed her book to shift her chair away from the stove and give him room to work.
All he could do was stare.
* * *
He stood before her, an indignant, unshaven Greek god with a clutch of eggs slung in his untucked shirt.
She promised to help, but any sensible person would know that eggs were outside her purview. Perhaps she ought to explain.
“I have no notion how one prepares those,” she apologized for putting a damper on his poached egg scheme. “I’ve only ever pulled a bell cord to receive it on a tray. With toast. Though I prefer a cup of chocolate in bed and eggs later when I breakfast.”
“With toast,” he repeated. “You, unbend. Ha.”
She realized too late she’d failed to recognize his olive branch and sprang up, looking left and right, to salvage the situation.
“Didn’t Mr. Percy leave some bacon among the provisions?” she asked and reached for the cloth bag by the stove. “There’s a pan there,” she pointed with her nose to a small cast iron skillet hung from a dish display on the wall behind it. “We could cook on the stove, couldn’t we? There’s more coal somewhere.”
He frowned at her but allowed, “If we fry the bacon first, the eggs will set in the hot fat. I’ve seen army cooks do with less but I am no cook, Jane.”
“Nor am I,” she said, finding her courage, “But if you’ll prepare the bacon, I’ll attempt the eggs.”
She waited for a retort. None came. Despite the stubble shadowing his lower face, he wore the smile of a boy at mischief. She remembered this expression from years ago. She loved that smile. It meant there might be teasing but all was well.
“Take these from me before I drop one,” he said.
She plucked the first egg from his shirt and put it carefully into her skirt pocket. She intentionally brushed his taut body each time she retrieved an egg because touching him left her feeling deliciously wobbly.
His was not the anatomy of a wastrel lordling. A muscular midsection and broad shoulders complemented the steely arms she’d already felt around her.
But she mustn’t dwell on that.
Minutes passed. He tossed chunks of coal into the stove and poked at the fire, feeling its heat. He busied himself slicing the bacon slab. His shoulders flared wide from a slim waist. Somehow, she never fully appreciated his build in the well-cut coats he wore in Town.
When he turned to her, the breadth of his chest, the hollow at the base of his neck, and the tawny chest hair exposed in the opening of his shirt all made her flush. Her cheeks warmed instantly. A tropical heat permeated deeper to underlying flesh and bone. With growing dismay, she felt her hard-won iciness melting away.
Jane stood wavering on the spot, stirred by what a woman feels when she desires a man. Flesh called to flesh. It was her softness seeking his solid brawn. The visceral attraction bore no resemblance to childhood worship. There was nothing innocent about it.
“I put the kettle on for tea,” he told her.
“Are you any good at opening eggs?” she asked, her mouth dry.
“No better than you. Just give it a go.”
“Forgive me if they’re inedible.”
“They’ll be fine.”
She took a small bowl down from the dish display. From her pocket, she gingerly withdrew the first egg. She tapped it on the bowl’s edge without effect, then struck with more resolve. It collapsed in her hand. Broken yolk, shell, and white dribbled through her fingers.
Seelye looked up from the sputtering pan to laugh, “Scrambled, it is.”
“I’m going to ruin them.”
“No, you won’t.”
He stepped behind her. When she brought out the second egg, he reached around to cup her sticky hand in his. Together, they rapped it against the bowl’s rim lightly till it cracked. He pressed her fingers to widen the crack and tipped her hand so the egg slid neatly from its shell. Only strict self-governance kept her from leaning back against his chest.
“Nothing to it,” he murmured in her ear.
“Thank you, sir,” Jane said primly.
He returned to the bacon, but the damage was done. She cracked and pried the last two eggs open with faltering fingers. She set the table and folded linen napkins at each place numbly. Every sense focused on him.
“Bacon’s done,” he said over his shoulder and flipped it piece by piece onto a plate. “The eggs?” He took the pan from the heat and gestured for the bowl. He stirred the eggs vigorously with a fork then poured them into the fat. They snapped merrily. He scraped the spreading eggs into curds.
“How good you are with your hands!” she said.
He blushed and went back to work.
Her compliment flustered him, she realized, and his modesty made him more attractive.
“Ready,” he said and wrapped his hand with a cloth to move the hot pan to the table.
“I’m famished.” Her hunger helped distract her from less wholesome thoughts plaguing her.
He swept her a courtly bow and said, “My lady?”
She curtseyed lower than any event but the king’s levée required, which made them both chuckle. He seated her at the table before a plate he heaped with steaming eggs and bacon.
“Bon appétit,” he said and sat.
She tucked into the eggs and hummed her appreciation until—a lady did not cry out in pain with a mouth full, even when an eggshell sliced into her gums. What would he say when he tried them? She waited anxiously.
“Mmm, crisp bacon,” he said, exaggerating his delight in what he raised on his fork.
It looked charred but she kept that opinion to herself.
With a flourish, he bit down and chewed. And chewed. With an ever more stoical expression, he ruminated his meat cud and managed to swallow it.
“Well, what are you waiting for, Jane? Tell me wha
t you think.”
She stared down at the burnt offering on her plate while he tucked into her eggs.
He looked up, swallowed, and asked, “Must I cut it into smaller pieces for you like a child?”
“Absolutely not.” She folded and forked a slice in answer to his dare but dear Lord.
Seelye’s amusement dimpled his furry cheeks.
The martyred bacon was inedible; however, a lady must not excuse herself abruptly from the table to spit it into the canal, especially if she cared for the cook’s feelings. And Jane discovered she did care. Her mouth was crammed full as a squirrel’s, so she chewed gingerly, hoping to avoid its taste.
“Hmm,” she hummed and peeped at him.
“There’s nothing like extra crispy bacon, don’t you think?” he declared.
She managed a slow nod, a choked gulp and, “Nothing at all.”
“Have another?” he asked, his cheeks deeply dimpled.
“Well.” She hesitated. “I think not. One slice was most sustaining.”
He roared at that, his voice ascending the musical scale.
Tact was not her forte, but why he found this so funny, she couldn’t guess.
“Jane, my dear, the bacon is execrable,” he said, swiping tears from his eyes, “but you almost ate more for my sake. That’s awfully nice of you.” He leaned closer to confide, “Men do so hate to fail at things they attempt for ladies.”
She leaned in, too. “And most especially to admit it.”
Their eyes locked, his heavy-lidded with amusement. A silence, like a spell, stretched between them, broken only when he sat up straight.
“Your eggs, on the other hand, were perfection,” he said politely and dabbed at his mouth with the napkin.
“Only if you like them crunchy.”
They exchanged another smile, shyer this time, and bent their heads to poke at their food self-consciously. She felt his eyes on her long before she glanced up.
“Tell me, Jane, would you have drained the canal, truly?” he asked, now very earnest. Clearly, the question troubled him.
What to say? Answer honestly and lose the only leverage that kept her on board? Or stand by her ruse to brazen it out? The truth was she would not drain the waterway. The possibility never occurred to her when Fanny told her what to say. She was as aghast as the men she threatened when she understood. And would have never followed through, but did she dare admit it?
He watched her closely.
“You had to believe I would,” she finally said, “or you’d have refused me.”
“Another bluff. That’s what I thought when I calmed down,” he replied. “As I recall, you were never a spoiled brat. Just stubborn and devilish plucky.” He reached over to sweep a loose strand of hair behind her ear. “Why not be a little more like this in Town, as likable as you are right now?”
When Seelye said things like that, she wanted to lean in and kiss him. But that, she dared not do.
She starched up instead. “I am what I choose to be, Lord Seelye, an independent sort of female. Others may like it or not. I believe your friend Clun doesn’t mind Elizabeth’s independence.”
“He fell in love. That compromised his judgement,” Seelye replied just as coolly. “I’d give my life for the man but that’s the truth.”
“Now that you mention it, Elizabeth once told me you saved his life during the war but no one knows how. What happened?”
“Don’t change the subject.”
His brusque reply piqued her curiosity.
“You found him wounded after a battle in Spain—”
“More of a skirmish,” he said, “but if I haven’t told Clun, a huge man who’s threatened to punch it out of me, daresay you cannot browbeat me into telling you. Nothing would tempt me. Besides, that is not what I wish to say to you.”
His expression was unfamiliar, careworn, and wary.
“If you tell me, I will take more of your advice. Would that bargain tempt you?”
“Not enough.” He ran a long-fingered hand slowly down his face and said, “If I tell you my secret, you’ll return to London as soon as we reach Bristol. That is, if you wish to remain here with me once you know it.”
After ‘we’ and ‘Bristol,’ Jane heard nothing. She was too busy gasping, “Does that mean I may come with you? All the way to Bristol? Oh, Seelye, that’s—”
“Wait, there’s more,” he said sternly. “You must stop abusing all the men who might do.”
“I don’t ‘abuse’ most of them. I’m polite if discouraging—”
“Eh, eh, eh! Lastly, when the right sort asks, and your brother gives his blessing, you will marry the man.”
He meant another man, anyone but himself.
In that instant, joy turned to pain. To her consternation, she found he still had the ability to hurt her. This could only mean she hadn’t outgrown her unrequited love. So she let his answer wound her. Indeed, she welcomed the ache because it made accepting the truth—and her disappointment—easier.
“Heavens, Seelye, I’ve underestimated how anxious you are to see me married off,” she said wryly. “But I doubt any wartime tale is worth my independence.”
“It’s something I’d hoped to take to my grave. Once I tell you, you’re sure to despise me, if you don’t already,” he said in all seriousness. “You decide if that’s worth knowing.”
It would be best for her not to care for him, she thought. She must learn his secret and have done with the man once and for all. She may never be able to despise him, but liking him less would come as a relief.
“If what you say is true, I’m interested. In fact, I agree to your terms. Now, tell me.”
He seemed taken aback by her acquiescence but quickly recovered to say, “First things, first. I must know which qualities you look for in a husband. I’ll give it some thought and pass on names to George. Those he approves, I’ll introduce to you when we return.”
“Fine,” she said and forced herself to consider his question. “I value intelligence, loyalty, and compassion, off the top of my head. But I need more time to consider it fully.”
“That’s a good start but what of honor?”
“It seems to matter more to you than me. An honorable man follows rules and does what’s expected of him. A good man follows his heart to do what he thinks best, no matter what. It shouldn’t surprise you I prefer a good man. Now, I’ve given my word, tell me how you saved Lord Clun.”
He leaned back in his chair to study his hands on the table.
“Clun fell at Maguilla before we retreated. I stayed behind to find him if I could. I saw a scavenger trying to lift a large, black-haired man into his cart. I dealt with him. Found Clun shot but alive. So I brought him back to camp where an army surgeon saw to his wounds. There you have it.”
“You’d have told Clun that. Tell me the rest or there’s no deal.”
His temper flared. “Why must I bargain with you? It’s absurd. You will benefit here, not me. You should welcome my help without exacting a quid pro quo.”
“If you want my cooperation, fulfill the terms of our bargain.”
Before the tension escalated, the Plimptons arrived. Seelye left to go on deck. She followed sometime later carrying two cups of tea left steeping for breakfast.
She watched the men work from her seat by the bear crate—Seelye mostly. Those glimpses of him only saddened her. Whatever his history, he was convinced it would change her opinion of him. And she concluded that would be for the best.
From where the narrow boat moored, one could see into the Bruce Tunnel. Its arched passage had no towpath inside. There were heavy chains suspended from iron rings spaced along both sides of the curved, brick-lined walls. A coal-laden narrow boat heading east was already inside. Its six-man crew strained to pull it through. The clanking of iron echoed in the tunnel.
Mr. Plimpton chose to wait rather than risk scraping the chairman’s boat passing the other in close quarters.
“Look sharp there,�
�� he called out, “be ready to show him how to handle the chain.”
Jacob stepped to the bow. Seelye followed. The horse hauled their boat to the tunnel entrance where Marcus quickly unhitched it. He walked it over the hill to tether it at the tunnel’s far end. Meanwhile, the coal boat’s unharnessed team was brought over the hill.
“C’mon Marcus, no dawdling,” Jacob called out.
“What’s the hurry?” the younger brother retorted, trotting downhill behind the other boat’s team.
When it was their turn, Jacob took hold of the heavy chain. He braced his feet and pulled hand over hand to draw the boat inside. Next, Seelye grabbed and hauled at the chain, then Marcus. The tunnel slowly swallowed the Invictus.
It took them more than half an hour to pull the boat through 500 feet of dank, dark tunnel. At the west side, Marcus leapt ashore. Seelye threw him the tow line then joined Jane by the crate.
“Tea, Lord Seelye?”
He cradled the delicate porcelain cup in his hand and said, “I wish you’d stop using my title.”
“At least you have an interesting given name, family isn’t it?”
“Someone’s surname long ago, I know it’s odd.”
“But memorable. I must live with plain Jane. Better yet, my name rhymes with insane, bacon-brain, great pain, strain, bane, et cetera. Names, looks, none of it matters fundamentally. We are who we are whatever we’re called, Seelye.”
She made the great mistake of meeting his gaze. She felt a sharp pang. Was it longing? Or finally, mercifully, a sense of loss?
“Thank you,” he said and blew on his tea.
“For the lecture?”
“For calling me Seelye. I prefer friends do that.”
“Is that what we are?”
Her question banished his smile and left an unfamiliar expression in its place.
“If wishes were horses,” he replied quietly, “beggars would ride.”
No.
Unfair!
Why make me feel this way by looking at me that way?
“Never mind,” she said and moved to slip away.
“Come now, Jane.” He stopped her. “Truce.”
“All right, Seelye.” She raised her teacup without sipping. “Truce.”
His Lordship's Last Wager Page 25