Across the Spectrum

by Nagle, Pati

  Lucas snorted rudely, as she had once done, and Harriet shot him a retaliatory look. He rubbed his hands through his already disheveled hair, like a man who had reached his last tether.

  Verity flung her skinny arms around Harriet’s neck and buried her runny nose in the pretty sprigged muslin. Too rattled to care, Harriet rocked her and patted her on the back as if Verity were a babe. Her arms ached with the weight, but Lucas had not yet learned to comfort his daughter. Someone must teach him.

  Calming down enough to learn his lesson, he lifted Verity from Harriet’s arms. “You scared me out of ten years’ growth, child. Whatever were you doing up there?”

  Verity sniffed and rubbed her nose on his waistcoat and finally wrapped her arms around her father’s neck long enough to stop sobbing. Harriet thought perhaps she ought to sneak out now that the pair were learning to get on, but she was interested in hearing Verity’s reply.

  “I wanted to be big!” she wailed. “Davy said he stretched his arms big by swinging on ropes, so I wanted to swing!”

  ∞

  “Oh, dear.” Miss Briggs snickered and turned away, as if to depart.

  Holding Verity in one arm, Lucas caught his savior’s elbow with his free hand. His heart still hadn’t stopped attempting to escape his chest at sight of his daughter hanging upside down in danger of breaking her neck.

  If Miss Briggs had not come along, he would have had to learn to fly. He’d never seen a more level-headed, courageous lady, and even if she was a tart-tongued hoyden, he needed her. Verity needed her.

  “Don’t go.” He tried not to plead, but he could see disaster written on his future unless he kept this woman with him. “We haven’t thanked you. I don’t suppose it’s proper to invite you in for tea.” He hated being uncertain but he was too overwrought at the moment to care. He just didn’t want her to go until his heart stopped pounding in his ears.

  “I think it might be a good idea for Verity to go inside and wash her hands and lie down for a little while. Keeping up with her cousins is very tiring.”

  Davy was one of Verity’s older cousins. Lucas caught the lady’s implication. He’d left his baby girl to compete with three older male cousins. His fault. Everything was his fault. It was up to him to undo what he had wrought.

  “We will be just a minute,” he told her, looking for some way to persuade her to stay. “There is some pie left. We can eat it under the tree, where everyone can see we are very respectable.” He started for the house, trying not to notice as Miss Briggs brushed her skirt and petticoat back where they belonged.

  She had long, lovely legs.

  And shapely arms that cuddled a child the way he wouldn’t mind being held.

  He wondered if Miss Briggs might ever rest her head against his shoulder as Verity did. That wasn’t a proper or respectable thought.

  “I don’ wanna take a nap.” Verity hiccupped on her protest.

  “Just lie down and rest your eyes a little,” Miss Briggs said soothingly, matching Lucas’s stride with ease. “And if you’re good and rest long enough, I’ll have a surprise waiting for you in the kitchen.”

  “A surprise?” Verity lifted her damp cheeks. “For me?”

  “Yes, just for you. Are you big enough to run upstairs and wash and take off your dress or do you need help?”

  “I’m big enough!” Verity pushed off Lucas’s shoulders and wriggled to get down. When he let her go, she raced ahead of them.

  “I’ve never seen her hurry so to take a nap,” he said wryly. “I hope you really do have a surprise for her.”

  “You’ll hate it, but I do. She needs to feel she’s important, so I brought her a kitten. Learning to take care of a pet will teach her that others rely on her, and that she’s very important, indeed. But you’ll have to put up with the mess.”

  “You’re laughing at me,” he said accusingly, steering her toward the tea table his mother had set up beneath the beech tree.

  “Perhaps, only a little, because I’m still quaking in my shoes. She could have been killed!” Miss Briggs wailed, almost collapsing into the chair he held for her.

  “Exactly my thought twenty times a day. Wait here, and I’ll bring out the cups and things, after I see Verity into bed. Did you leave the kitten in front?” At her nod, he made a mental note to fetch it. He doubted Verity’s ability to take care of a kitten, but his heart warmed that Miss Briggs had thought of her.

  He could foresee cat hairs in his future, but Verity was more important than tidiness. Somehow, he must learn to rearrange his priorities.

  His daughter had already stripped off her grubby and ruined Sunday dress and was splashing cold water as if she were a duck at play. Lucas scrubbed off some of the grime on her face and hands and watched her climb between the covers, before returning downstairs to the kitchen and setting on a kettle for tea. He supposed he should have done that first. He needed to hire a maid to think of these things, but it seemed awkward unless he had a wife first. He missed his batman.

  He had imagined a sweet little woman ordering his household about, one who smiled cheerfully and arranged for delightful meals to appear on the table and puttered about keeping order, until it was time for her to come up to his bed. He could see now that his imagination was considerably rosier than actuality, rather like his youthful idea of war.

  Life had a habit of not living up to his expectations. He could not even live up to his own. In the military, it had been relatively simple to follow orders, understand his men, and take action. Women, on the other hand, were a mysterious universe he might never comprehend. How did he persuade one he needed her without sounding desperate?

  Remembering the kitten, he stopped at the front to pick up the basket. It smelled of lavender and sported pink ribbons and a little black nose pushing aside a gingham cloth. He hoped it was a male cat or he’d be outnumbered.

  Carrying basket and tea tray, Lucas geared up his considerable courage to approach the intrepid Miss Harriet Briggs. He needed a wife who could rescue children from barns more than he needed a lady to look pretty and make tea. He simply had to find some way of asking her.

  ∞

  Harriet thought about running and hiding before Lucas returned. Just the fact that she was thinking of him as Lucas instead of Major Sumner spoke much of the familiarity of her thoughts.

  She had no mirror and couldn’t straighten out the frizzy mess her hair had become when the pins loosened in her climb. She shoved as much as she could inside her bonnet, then discovered she’d left her gloves in the barn. Her hands were bare, revealing her broken nails and dirt from the leather. She was an unmitigated hoyden, just as her father claimed.

  Fine, then, she had nothing about which to worry. Major Sumner would not be interested in anyone as indecorous as she, so she could simply sip tea and discuss Verity’s welfare.

  She hurried to rescue him from tea tray and kitten as soon as he appeared. She couldn’t help her heart from making an odd leap at the sight of the big strong man biting his lip while attempting to balance tray and swinging kitten basket at the same time. Even though he’d properly donned his Sunday cutaway coat and looked beyond dashing, the self-confident major wasn’t quite as intimidating or perfect in domesticity.

  She had already dusted off the old table and now used the gingham from the kitten basket to cover it before she set the tray down. “Is Verity all settled in?” she asked nervously when he hovered too close, forcing awareness of how large he was. He’d lifted her from the ladder, while holding Verity! Her heart did another little jig.

  “I think she was frightened enough to be glad of a moment alone.”

  “She’s a bright child, with a strong imagination. Once you learn of what she’s capable, you’ll enjoy her company, Major Sumner,” Harriet said stiltedly. She’d been to London and had learned to make polite small talk with gentleman about the weather and the music and the company. She’d never had to pretend restraint in the village. Until now.

  “Please,
call me Lucas. I am no longer in the army, and after this episode, I would like to call you friend, if I might.”

  She nodded and poured the tea, aware of how ugly her hands looked. “I am Harriet, although everyone calls me Harry. I fear my name is as unladylike as I am.”

  “Ladylike is not a quality useful in dealing with Verity, I fear.” He sat uncomfortably in the small wrought iron chair. Even the teacup looked frail and useless in his hand.

  Harriet winced at his unintended insult and sipped her tea. She was good at caring for animals but not so quick at witticism. Still, she tried. “Real ladies would not be so inclined to ruck up their dresses and climb ladders,” she agreed with innocence.

  He nodded. “That is precisely what I mean. Action and quick thinking are what is required around Verity. Polite manners and pretty dresses are irrelevant.”

  Thinking polite manners might prevent her from dumping the tea over his head for implying she wasn’t a lady because she could think, Harriet bit back an impolite retort. “I daresay ladies are irrelevant on all counts,” she agreed maliciously. “They are merely decorative, are they not? Rather like stained glass windows. Perhaps they should be left in church.”

  He looked startled. Instead of replying, he apparently made a hasty reassessment of their exchange. “I did not mean to imply—”

  “Oh, no need to apologize.” She waved away whatever he meant to say. “I’m aware of my shortcomings. Instead of sitting prettily in my parlor, I climb in haylofts and trees. I shout at dogs. I crawl about in henhouses. I will never be considered decorative, by any means!”

  “As you say, decorative is for churches. I’d much rather see a woman who isn’t afraid to help a child or an animal.” He said it uneasily, as if afraid he was walking into a trap.

  “One who argues,” she suggested, listing her many flaws. “And speaks up for herself. You do not prefer polite, pretty ladies who demurely nod their heads and make men swoon with a smile.”

  “Exactly,” he said, apparently pleased that she understood his requirements. “I hope I am not being too forward. When I went to your father, it was because I remembered you with fondness and hoped to press my suit. But Verity . . . Verity does not make it easy for me to court in a traditional manner. You are a woman of exceptional understanding. I would like to call on you, if I might be so bold.”

  “You wish to call on a woman who is not a lady, one who argues and rudely rucks up her skirts and isn’t remotely attractive enough to be decorative?” she asked in feigned astonishment, raising her eyebrows. “I think not, sir. You may call on me when Verity needs rescuing again, perhaps. Until then, I give you good day.”

  Ribbons bedraggled from being crushed by an unthinking military man, Harriet rose from her chair, and head held high, sailed from the yard with bits of straw stuck to her crumpled muslin.

  ∞

  Dropping his best visiting coat over a chair, Lucas rubbed his aching head. After an hour of listening to Miss Elizabeth Baker and a few of her dearest friends prattle in high-pitched voices about London fashion and the best teacakes, he was ready to stick his head in a bucket to clean out his ears. He was evidently not meant for feminine company.

  He stared morosely out the kitchen door at the fields separating his cottage from the Briggs estate. He wished he understood the feminine mind. He’d thought he and Miss Briggs had reached a level where they could talk honestly. He’d hoped . . .

  But she’d thought he was insulting her, when he thought he’d been showering her with fevered compliments and his genuine delight at finding a sympathetic ear. He had porridge for brains.

  He’d sent round a note of apology. He’d asked the vicar to put in a word for him. He’d spoken to the squire himself. But nothing had worked. They muttered platitudes about Miss Harriet coming around in her own time. But she was never at home when he called.

  He sighed as he watched his daughter climb the back fence to gather wildflowers from the field. Verity apparently had a passion for flowers. He didn’t know one from another. A woman could help Verity grow a garden. He didn’t even know where to acquire seeds.

  Perhaps he could ask Miss Briggs where one went about finding flower seeds. He could help Verity collect a bouquet, tie a ribbon about it, and deliver it as a peace offering. Or gratitude for the kitten wrecking the furniture. Verity adored the creature.

  He could practice a few compliments, although he felt a fool telling her she had eyes the color of the sky and skin soft as silk. She did, but he didn’t know how to say that.

  After spending an hour in the company of the village ladies, Lucas knew of a certainty that Miss Briggs was the only local woman who met his needs, all his needs. He could hire a maid to clean cat hair. He could not hire an intelligent, desirable wife, one who could keep up with Verity and not drive him mad with inanities.

  He saw no reason to give up on the woman he wanted, if all that parted them was his thickheaded pride and her damnably sensitive feelings. He would not have made major had he given up and simply obeyed orders instead of thinking for himself. Which was what Miss Briggs had been telling him—although he had difficulty applying such leadership to women. He’d learn.

  The day was warm and there was no sense in making his laundry more difficult by dirtying a coat while hunting flowers. With no one about to see him, he abandoned his coat and followed Verity into the field.

  Verity looked up in surprise when Lucas leaned over to pick a daffodil. She laughed in delight when he handed it to her. Together, they wandered deep into the field and a wooded area, collecting a ragged assortment of blooms that might make a lady smile. Maybe.

  “Do you think we should put a ribbon around these and take them to Miss Harriet?” he asked when Verity seemed to be tiring of the game.

  She nodded eagerly. Lucas was about to lift her on his shoulders and carry her back to the house, when he heard an impatient shout. He might be a thickheaded oaf, but he recognized Miss Harriet’s voice.

  It was coming from the pasture where the Briggs’ tenant farmer had just loosed his bull.

  He shoved the bouquet into Verity’s hands. “Take these back to the house and put them in water. I’ll bring Miss Briggs to visit shortly.”

  He didn’t have time to wait and see that she obeyed. He took off at a lope around the fence, racing in the direction of the Briggs’ estate. He had a feeling Miss Harriet was much like Verity, often climbing into situations from which she could not easily be extracted.

  The one he found her in caused him to stumble in horror.

  The redoubtable Miss Briggs had climbed over a stile on the far side of the field, in apparent pursuit of a puppy. While she was scolding the terrified hound, a ton of beef on the hoof pawed the ground and swung its massive head back and forth behind a bush, where she could not see it. Even the puppy could sense the danger and cowered on its belly amid the grass.

  Lucas would strangle the woman if he did not have failure of the heart first.

  He had no weapon other than himself. Trotting alongside the fence, he sought to distract the bull from the woman in unfashionably shortened riding skirts. He waved his arms to catch the animal’s attention, and when that was not sufficient, he climbed the fence and sat atop the rail, roaring curses.

  Astonished, Miss Harriet looked up at his odd behavior, then turned to follow his gaze. Her eyes widened as she glanced behind her to the bull pawing the ground.

  Lucas nearly fell off the rail when she grabbed the pup, and the bull snorted and lowered his head at her motion.

  “Don’t move!” he shouted at her. “He’s just looking for an excuse to attack.”

  “I can’t very well stand here for the rest of my life,” she retorted, holding the wriggling pup.

  “It will be a very short life if you move.” Too furious and terrified to be polite, Lucas leaped off the fence and began running around the bull’s rump, away from Miss Briggs.

  The bull swung its head in his direction, bellowed, and charged
.

  Running for his life, and Harriet’s, Lucas raced across the corner of the enclosed field, reaching the hedge on the other side with the bull’s hot breath breathing down his neck. Grabbing a hawthorn branch that gave beneath his weight, he vaulted across the wizened limbs—into a mud puddle on the other side of the hedgerow.

  “Major Sumner, Lucas!”

  He heard Harriet’s panicked shouts as he tried to catch his breath after having knocked it out. Mud puddles were softer than the ground, but not by much.

  Dainty ankles exposed, she climbed the stile, her expression gratifyingly concerned. He wanted to shake her until her teeth rattled for being so careless, but the frightened tears streaking her cheeks dampened his temper. And in the end, she had listened to his orders and stayed still.

  Thankfully, she’d used her excellent head to go against his less than clear orders and escape the field the minute it was safe to do so. Dazed, he wondered if he could appoint her to be general of his household. But that wasn’t what he wanted either.

  Setting the pup on the ground, she raced to help Lucas up. “I am so sorry, Lucas. You are so brave! I had no idea . . . ”

  She was a mess in grubby wool and tousled curls. She was an angel of concern with tears flowing down her cheeks as she offered her bare, broken-nailed fingers to help him up.

  He grabbed her hand. Admired her slender form in tawny yellow. Wanted to drive his fingers through her wild curls.

  And tugged the hand she offered, yanking her into the mud wallow with him.

  “You could have been killed!” he shouted. “Do you never look where you are going? Does it never occur to you that you might be more important than a damned animal?”

  She spluttered, shoved her hands against his chest, and glared down at him. “What do you care? I’m just another nuisance who won’t fall in line and behave as I ought!”