“The cottage could use a great deal of things and a garden is not high on the list. And everyone likes flowers. I’ve just never been in a home long enough to make the effort to plant them. And I hardly know anything about keeping a garden hearty,” Mia explained with a shrug. “I complained about that once to my father when I saw other cheery houses, covered in ivy or surrounded with roses. His solution was that I should paint flowers on the outside of our wagon. He had traded a bolt of Indian cotton in return for the paint. He puts a fresh coat on every year to keep the paintings bright, but I do wish he’d improve on my art a bit.”
From Dominic’s curt nod, Mia assumed he had seen those painted flowers and thought them as garish and crude as she now did because he nearly dragged her away from the flower wagon, his good looks and imperious visage parting the crowd magically in front of them. After a moment, he sniffed the air experimentally before hurrying her along. Eventually his steps slowed, but he looked disappointed.
“Oh, I thought he had the new confectionary chocolate. There’s a rare treat. It’s like a type of toffee or nougat. My sisters adore them even if my mother is sure they’ll gain a stone after one bite. The drink is delicious too. My sisters usually have it at breakfast. Have you ever tried it?”
“Only once,” Mia replied, the warmth of the memory causing a wide smile to blossom across her face. “It was one of the coldest winters I can recall, and it had been hard on my father. He usually finds a lonely widow or a soldier’s wife to warm the winter. In return for a warm place to sleep, he mends her roof or shores up fences, but his charm hadn’t found a willing partner that year.
“We were miserably cold and came across this grand home. It was as if it appeared right out of the fog just as we were at our lowest. We pulled up in hopes that someone would want to purchase something or, at the very least, offer us some tea and a moment’s respite from the hardness of the wagon’s seat. A woman rushed out – tall, wispily thin, perhaps forty years old – and almost sweeps me into her arms the instant she laid eyes on me. She carried me into her kitchen and demanded the maid make me chocolate to drink. The maid did so quite reluctantly, banging pots and grumbling under her breath.”
Mia laughed again, thinking of the maid’s grudging kindness but Dominic’s face seemed to be sterner with every word she spoke.
“Her husband came down to the kitchen and was very unhappy with the whole situation. The wife merely shooed him away and insisted I drink every drop. She bought three new pots that day too though I hardly think she needed one. She must have been very lonely out there with only her husband, the disapproving maid, and some sheep for company. She seemed delighted to have a child to fuss over.”
Mia smiled and breathed deeply again but the aroma of chocolate couldn’t compare to the memory of that nearly life-saving drink on that miserable day.
“It’s strange but whenever I was lonely or longing for a mother, I didn’t imagine the women my father befriended or even my aunt and I had lived in her house for a year. It’s always that woman that I knew for only an hour. I still remember that, even in the winter, her hair smelled like spring flowers, like…”
“Lilacs,” Dominic finished softly.
Baffled at how he would know that she stared at him in wonder as if he were a carnival mind-reader or magician. She couldn’t think of a single person who had ever commented on her signature scent much less one who had committed it to memory.
“Are you two going to buy something or merely keep my attention from paying customers?” a portly shopkeeper asked from behind the chocolate booth, his jowly face vacillating between bored and irritated.
“We’ll take two cups,” Dominic growled as he smacked some coins down on the table.
The shopkeeper curled his lips downward and muttered under his breath about ‘snooty London nobs’ as he poured hot milk into a pan before adding a copious amount of sugar and topping it off with chocolate powder before whipping the lot vigorously, the fleshy parts of his face wobbling with the effort. He poured the resulting drink into two ceramic mugs and handed it over the counter, his sour expression not lightening a bit.
Finishing his drink in three rushed gulps, Dominic plunked the cup back down on the stall counter and waited impatiently for Mia to finish her own portion. When she finally sipped the last dredges down, he motioned to the area with a sweep of his hand as if she should decide where they would venture next.
“Hmmm, well, if you’re hungry, they have very fine sausages. Lincolnshire is famous for them and Grantham is so proud of its pigs that they have a festival where they drive them right through the center of town,” Mia suggested, taking the opportunity to spout off the little knowledge she had of Grantham. The chocolate had settled heavily in her stomach and she wasn’t hungry at all but it seemed most men, and certainly Dominic, were always ravenous no matter how recently they had eaten.
“London has every type of delicacy you can imagine. I doubt I’d be very impressed,” he replied while casting a critical eye over a pair of fine riding gloves.
Mia bristled at the words though his tone was completely bland, and she thought his nose needed more than tweaked for his superiority.
“I’m sure you’ve tasted a great deal of sausages in London… all over England, perhaps. I shall tell everyone that you claim you are a sausage expert and that anyone who wants their sausage tasted should come to you first. There was a rumor hinting at such but the whole village will be interested to hear the rumor’s been confirmed.”
She kept her voice conversational, but she couldn’t stop her lips from twisting or her eyebrows rising mockingly. Dominic understood her innuendo after a moment. He looked non-plussed for a second, his dark brown eyebrows lowering over ebony eyes and Mia thought for a moment she had gone too far.
“All right, perhaps you are no sausage connoisseur but there’s other food there that might tempt you though not all men are enamored with it,” she said hurriedly. Mia managed to take a step further away from him as she added, “It’s more of a winter delicacy but Grantham is also known for its gingerbread…men.”
The moment the words were out of her mouth, she ducked around a tent pole, effectively evading him for all of five seconds, mostly because she was laughing too hard at her own joke. He caught her arm easily, dragging her close to him, his own dark eyes laughing as he pretended to scowl.
It was completely inappropriate for her to pray that he kiss her right there in the middle of the fairgrounds. First, God would never deign to answer such a paltry prayer and second, Dominic was her employer, and she had already promised herself that she wouldn’t waste another second wanting things she couldn’t or shouldn’t have.
But a little voice kept desperately chanting Kiss me, kiss me, please just let him kiss me.
For a moment, she truly thought he would, right there with hundreds of people jostling them together as the crowd made its way around them. She certainly had made it easy for him, letting her eyes drift shut and tilting her lips up obligingly.
After standing foolishly stock still for at least five seconds without any lips on hers, her eyes snapped back open.
He gave his head a small shake, his warm hands dropped back to his sides and the cool, dignified mask smoothed his face blank again. “Perhaps we should pick out some pasties for lunch and we’ll see what other goods they are hawking. If I’m gone for any amount of time, my sisters expect a trinket or two. We’ll see if there’s anything that may appease them.”
Hiding her disappointment, she nodded and followed him towards a booth with a delicious aroma that nearly overpowered the smell of the chocolate vendor’s wares. They selected two pork pies which they washed down with the season’s first batch of apple cider. But the pie might as well be ash in her mouth; the awkwardness of the past few days had returned with full force; her mind dwelling again on that one kiss that seemed never to be repeated.
“What shall we buy today?” Dominic asked, politely nonchalant, after they had retur
ned their empty mugs to the pie man. His dark eyes glanced over the displayed wares as they slowly strode down one of the narrow aisles and Mia was again struck how odd their pairing must be. Certainly most employers would never dream of accompanying a maid to the fair and buying her food…unless he was some lecher and trying to buy her favors.
And Mia had to admit that when it came to Dominic, her favors could be bought very cheaply. As of now it was only four pounds sterling and a foxglove bouquet. If he crooked his finger, she’d likely be in his lap right now.
Wouldn’t Lettice be delighted at her fall from respectability?
While Mia pretended to examine sensible straw bonnets, her eyes secretly coveted the rows of fine silk stockings with flowers embroidered from ankle to knee but she certainly couldn’t examine them more closely in front of a man. Extravagant paper maché dolls sat primly at another stall, their lace trimmed silk gowns finer than any dress Mia had ever owned, their solemn painted faces reflecting her own discouraging thoughts.
She continued down the aisle, just beginning to admire delicate glass vases and elegant silver tea pots when Dominic appeared again by her side. He raised an eyebrow at the collection of fine silver spoons carefully stacked on green felt in a sturdy, custom-made carrying case.
“I shall have to tell Lord Taversley that the Grantham fair has the finest selection of goods as anywhere in the world. I believe that is his family’s crest gracing the spoon handles, and he had them stolen just last June. Moaning about it to anyone who would listen. A disgruntled servant did the deed, I believe. Well, a disgruntled and rather stupid servant. Taversley only lives twenty miles from here and someone is sure to recognize the crest.”
“Yes,” Mia agreed with a disgusted shake of her head at the laziness of people in general. “The fool should have melted them down and sold the silver. He’d never been caught at all. I don’t know what’s more unforgivable – the crime or his lack of sense. Now we shall waste our morning with the magistrate righting the wrong.”
Dominic barked out a laugh. “Most women I know would be keen to have the attention of the magistrate and eager to regale all their friends how they saved Taversley’s precious family silver. And I’ll admit your knowledge of how to evade the authorities is concerning.”
He reached into his purse and pulled out a few coins onto the table before motioning to the young shop clerk who stepped spritely over at the sight of a potential customer.
“Here’s a pound for the spoons,” Dominic said with a negligent wave indicating the utensils.
“I hate to refuse you, sir, but these are sterling silver. I couldn’t take less than a pony for them.” The shopkeeper’s smile faded as Dominic face hardened into what Mia now termed his “superior” look.
“Those silver spoons are stolen property. I should have the magistrate to cart you off to gaol where Lord Traversley would be happy to see you aboard the next ship to Australia in hopes that you are eaten by a crocodile. Since I do not believe you are the original thief, I am allowing you to go on your way, the loss of revenue being punishment enough. But any more lip from you and I’ll be quite content to pursue this to the fullest extent of the law.”
Without waiting for the man to reply, Dominic shut the wooden spoon case with a snap and strode away, leaving the shop clerk looking gray and ill as he slipped the pound coin into his pocket.
“That was well done of you. The spoons probably have seen four sets of hands before landing at that shopkeeper’s booth.”
“Undoubtedly. And Traversely is a bit of a pompous fool himself so he likely deserved to have the spoons whisked away. And now Traversely will owe me a favor, and it must be a quite tiresome one since I now have to haul these damnable things the seven miles home.”
Pretending she didn’t notice how he again called the cottage “home,” Mia knew he was only grousing because he didn’t want her to think too highly of his generosity to both the shop clerk and to Traversely. The spoon case was likely to be heavy, but Dominic didn’t make it look difficult as he continued on his way down the aisles. Mia slowed her steps to admire the athleticism of his frame before Dominic glanced over his shoulder with a frown and motioned for her to increase her pace and walk next to him again.
They perused the stalls for an hour; Dominic making various suggestions and Mia rejecting them all.
“Good lord. What is that infernal wheezing?” he demanded suddenly, looking up at the sky as if a bird might be choking to death directly overhead.
Mia laughed at his horrified expression. “It’s the bagpipes. Lincolnshire loves them though few play the instrument any longer.”
“I thought the Scots made a racket, but they can carry a tune far better than that monotonous groaning. It sounds like a mournful frog trapped in a well.”
“Shhh!” Mia couldn’t contain her giggles. “They’re very proud of their pipers. You’ll have us in a brawl with the local musicians.”
“I’ll just give them a knock on the head with Traversely’s spoons.”
Despite his complaints, they found a sturdy bench that faced the musicians and listened to the pipers briefly. Some young girls attempted to dance to the tune, but Mia had to admit that neither dancers nor musicians were very talented.
“What shall we do now? I suppose dancing ourselves is out of the question since I’m lugging Traversely’s precious spoons. I’d likely flatten some poor girl’s nose swinging it about.”
“That’s all right. I don’t know how to dance in any case.”
“You’ve never danced?” Dominic scowled in disbelief.
“No. When I go to the fair, I’m usually helping my father or selling puddings for the church’s benefit. Lately I’ve been hawking soap at every opportunity. This is the first I’ve been to a fair merely for amusement.” Her explanation failed to mollify him, and his dark expression frightened away a few young women who had been pretending to enjoy the music while truly admiring Dominic’s form. The redheaded one seemed to be gathering the courage to start a conversation with Dominic before her friends dragged her away. Mia wasn’t sorry to see them go.
When the musicians’ called for a moment’s respite, Dominic and Mia simultaneously glanced around the fairgrounds and looked at each other with a shrug. It seemed they had enjoyed everything the fair offered.
“I suppose we could start walking home,” Mia suggested half-heartedly, and they weaved their way back through the crowds to the main road that lead west, the sights and sounds of the fair soon far behind them.
They walked the first three miles laughingly imitating some of the people they had seen on the dance floor, commiserating about the poor quality of the meat pies, and arguing whether Dominic should have at least sampled the gingerbread and sausages before declaring them inferior to London’s offerings.
“Why am I carrying this again?” Dominic groaned as he hefted the spoon case higher under his arm. “I don’t even like Traversley. I should just toss these spoons into the ditch and be done with it. I knew we should have brought Monaco.”
“So he could be stolen? You can tie up Monaco outside the village, but he wouldn’t be safe on his own outside Grantham. Some thief would take one look at his handsome self and wouldn’t be able to resist.” Mia smiled before adding, “Little do they know the poor thing is nearly useless.”
“What?!” Dominic turned on her as if she had insulted his mother and her family crest. “Monaco is a prize piece of horseflesh. His breeding is impeccable, and his training is beyond reproach.”
“You are always fussing over him and twice this summer he’s come up lame for a day because of a stone in his hoof. He is much more ornamental than practical.”
Dominic glared at her icily, unable to find a rebuttal, but irritated with her assessment all the same.
“Yes, I’ve always heard that a man chooses a horse, a wife, and a dog on how he best wishes to express himself.” Mia willed herself not to giggle before she got to tell the joke, but it seemed Dominic was
too insulted to notice the tremor of laughter in her voice.
“I don’t have a wife or a dog because I don’t need one. I obviously require a horse.”
“Yes, Monaco would certainly cause many a mare to turn a blind eye to his faults. So pretty yet so very demanding. He’s picky about his feed, he considers his stable is too small…” She let her voice trail off delicately but couldn’t help smirking at the stunned look on Dominic’s face now that he realized where she was going with her analogy. She gave a slow, sorrowful shake of her head even as she quickened her steps. “Must be all the inbreeding.”
He looked mildly hurt for a moment and Mia almost wished she hadn’t teased him but then his expression changed to fiercely determined and his strides lengthened. Mia nearly broke into a run but truly, she wanted him to catch her.
She wanted him to drop those infernal spoons and press himself up against her and kiss her until she didn’t remember that he was her superior in every way, that he was only in Lincolnshire for another two weeks, that by All Saints Day he would be only be a memory and she would be alone again.
And he looked like he just might do all of those things when a voice called from behind her.
“Hello! Did you tire of the fair too?”
Mia whirled about at the sound, slightly embarrassed to be acting so childishly right in the middle of a public road but even more irritated to see a group of people hailing them.
The group wasn’t terribly large, only four of them, but three were men, all looking young, fit, and intimidating while they blocked the only road for miles. Mia and Dominic continued towards them though they slowed their pace to nearly a crawl.
“I saw you at the fair.” The woman focused entirely on Dominic, her delicate, porcelain features nearly glowing under a mop of flame red, spiral curls that had escaped from their pins. She brushed her hair away with an exasperated sweep of her hand before pointing over to a clearing beside the road where a small fire glowed. Some blocks of wood were set about in a circle and it was obvious the spot was prepared for a gathering. “We’ve taken a break from our walk home and are having a bit of a picnic before venturing home. When I saw you on the road, I thought we should invite you to join us.”
One Enchanted Summer Page 12