Why wouldn’t Owen go back? It was a question that had bothered me for several days now. I could tell that he loved the home very much, and I could see that he longed to visit again. But part of me understood. His cousin, a large part of why he enjoyed visiting, would not be there. Perhaps he was afraid to go back and face that void. I tried to imagine myself visiting my old home without seeing my parents inside. It would not be even nearly the same.
I closed the book and walked to the nearest shelf to scour it for something of entertainment to read. Nothing on that shelf caught my interest, so I moved to the shelf beside the window. I picked up a book that looked promising and read a few lines. The writing was tedious and unimaginative, so I placed it back on the shelf. As I was turning away, something caught my attention out the window.
I promptly stepped forward for a closer look. A man dressed in a foppish yellow waistcoat and very tall top hat was speaking to a young woman by the rose garden. She was facing away from me, so I couldn’t see her face, but she wore the apron of a serving girl.
I could see signs of struggle as she tried to pull away, but the man held her tight around the arm and it looked like he was speaking very harshly, for his face was only inches from hers and his grip tightened more by the second. I pulled away from the window, heart pounding. She needed help! I was about to hurry outside to the young woman’s aid, when she kicked him hard in the leg and jerked her arm away. I watched with alarm as she ran toward the house. Her round brown eyes and shining dark hair flashed into view. It was Lizzie!
My gaze darted frantically to the man but he made no attempt to pursue her. He rubbed his leg where she had kicked him, adjusted his cravat, and sauntered lazily toward the woods.
I raced out the door of the library and intercepted Lizzie on her way to the kitchen. “Lizzie!” I said in a loud whisper. “Are you all right?”
She looked at me as I approached, her eyes brimming with tears and her breathing ragged. She slid her hands down the waist of her dress and huffed with a too-innocent look. “Why would I not be all right, miss?”
“I saw you outside with that man. Did he hurt you?”
Her eyes shifted around the room at everything but me. “What man?”
I exhaled sharply. “Lizzie. I saw you from the window in the library. Who was he?”
She pressed her lips together and slumped her shoulders in defeat. “I don’t know who he was.”
“He didn’t give you a name?”
“Heavens, no. He caught me by the arm as I was walking through the garden.” She looked around the room frantically. “I really shouldn’t be talking to you, miss. If he knew another person saw him—”
“What did he want?” I interrupted.
Her gaze darted to me and then away as quickly as it came. “Nothing.” She tried to hurry past me but I caught her by the wrist.
“Lizzie—”
She whirled on me fiercely. A single tear glistened on her cheek. “Please. I don’t wish to speak about it.” Then she pulled her hand away and darted down the hall and out of sight.
I was frozen in shock where I stood for a few moments. Strange men didn’t just wander onto someone else’s property at sunrise and harass their servants for no reason. Lizzie seemed very affected by whatever had happened, and I needed to find out what that man wanted. She could be in danger!
I headed back to the library and glanced out the window again. The man was gone along with any traces of his visit. He had apparently come on foot and brought nothing with him. I sighed with frustration and sat down with the book I had found before I had looked out the window. I tried to read it, but my mind wandered too readily and I couldn’t concentrate. I needed to know who that man was, and I needed to know what he said to Lizzie. Perhaps tonight I could ask her again, once she has time to relax. I was eager to tell Owen too, for I was sure that he could find a way to help. Or at least convince Lizzie to tell him what the man said to her.
With these thoughts to sedate me, I spent the rest of the early morning in my room. Grandmother had given me a short lesson on embroidery two days before, and I felt that I should use this free time to practice. I was never very good at embroidery when I was a young girl, and I very well despised it, but Grandmother expected me to finish the piece I had started before I left. I was most likely the very least accomplished young lady on the planet; Mr. Coburn and Aunt Ruth had certainly made that known on many occasions.
I gasped. The needle had stuck me right in the thumb. I cursed Grandmother silently for insisting that I do this. The mess I had created of the embroidery was enough to prove that it would never be a skill of mine. I threw the hoop onto my bed and, glancing at the clock, realized that it was about time for breakfast.
I left my room and found my brothers in their bedchamber bouncing on their beds. They told me that they couldn’t help themselves and that they wouldn’t do it again. I seriously doubted it, but they gave me such darling smiles that I couldn’t possibly be angry with them.
We made our way to the dining room and I reminded myself that I needed to tell Owen about the man I had seen, but Mrs. Kellaway told me that he was with a patient and wouldn’t return until the afternoon. So when I stood by the water gardens with Peter and Charles that afternoon, I had the firm intention to tell Owen about the strange man as soon as I had the chance.
We waited for several minutes, and I was beginning to grow impatient. I had started fidgeting with the fabric of my gown and tapping my foot. Owen hadn’t met us yet, and Mrs. Kellaway had said he would be back by now. I passed the time by looking around at the beautiful fountains and stones and the large, impressive miniature waterfall at the center. I was about to venture to the stables to visit the horses, when I saw Owen step out the back door of the house.
A minute later, he walked up beside us. “Good afternoon,” he said in a friendly voice. I noticed that he had a freshly shaved jaw. Why was I noticing his jaw? He turned to me with his wide, familiar grin. “I have decided upon the first lesson.”
I raised my eyebrows in curiosity. “What is it?”
He answered by speaking to my brothers. He turned to face them, bending over to be closer to their height. “I am going to teach you boys the first and most important lesson that you can learn. If you wish to be a gentleman, it is absolutely essential. I am going to teach you the proper way to treat a lady.”
I scoffed unintentionally.
Owen turned to me with a look of surprise. “What? Have I not redeemed myself?”
I shrugged, willing myself to have a teasing glint in my eye. “Partially, I suppose.”
He stepped closer to me, and I couldn’t help but notice the stark contrast between his eyes and their brows and lashes illuminated by the sun as they were. While his blue eyes looked even more deep and vast than usual, his lashes and brows remained every bit as dark. They seemed to be the perfect frame for the picture of the sea that his eyes made me imagine. He tipped his head down to look more directly at me. His voice sounded low and determined when he said, “Then allow me to finish the job.”
I tried to look unaffected by his closeness and the tone of his voice. He stepped away from me and I caught my breath. Then he told my brothers to take a seat. They sat down on the grass and Owen stood in front of them. “What do you suppose a gentleman ought to do if a lady needs his help with something?” His voice sounded so professional that I had to bite back laughter. This was so ridiculous!
“He should help her?” Peter guessed.
Owen nodded. “Good.”
“What if she doesn’t want him to help her?” I cut in.
Owen looked at me with a half smile. “Then she will be sure to let him know.”
A small grin crept onto my lips.
“A true gentleman will drop whatever he is doing to assist her,” he continued. “No matter how important the task may seem.” He walked over to me. “Annette, will you climb up there for a moment?” He pointed to the top of a large stack of stones that spanne
d the miniature waterfall. The top stone must have been fifteen feet high and was covered in slick moss.
I looked at him in disbelief. “What?”
“I arranged a staircase out of the flat stones beside it. You can use that to climb up.” He smiled crookedly. “Unless you don’t think you are able.” His voice carried that challenging note that made my pride flare.
I narrowed my eyes. “Are you truly telling me to climb something again?”
“Indeed,” he said. “But this time there is a factor that will drastically alter the outcome.”
“Oh? What is that?”
A grin touched his lips. “This time I’m strong enough to catch you.”
He probably expected a blush, and I may have blushed, but I took an appraising glance at his arms and said, “I doubt that.” But truly, I didn’t doubt it at all.
I didn’t wait for his response, but I could hear his low, amused laugh as I hurried over to the stack of stones and spied the flat stones beside it. Calling them a “staircase” was a bit of a stretch, but by the looks of them I thought I could get to the top unscathed. Taking a deep breath, I began climbing.
I gripped the highest stone within my reach and looked down at the stone near my feet. It was the largest of the group, serving as a platform for all the rest. Once I had my feet in place, I moved my hands up and stepped higher at the same time, testing my weight on one of the balancing, less stable stones. I didn’t sense an immediate change in stability, so I continued upward the same way. It was a slow, tentative process, but I was approaching the top without mishap. A little smile curled my lips as I stepped up onto another stone, smaller than the last.
Pausing to look down, I saw that Owen was standing right below me, watching me closely. I shot him a smirk. “Owen, I’m not going to fall, you know.” I turned around and started climbing faster.
His voice carried up to me through the soft rushing of the water. “I never imagined it.”
As I grew higher above the ground, nervousness began fluttering in my stomach. A sharp thought struck me as I was approaching the top: why was I doing this? And a more disturbing thought: why did Owen want me to do this? I cursed myself for my lack of wisdom. I hadn’t even stopped to consider his reasoning until now! But it was too late. I needed to prove that I could scale to the top myself.
The “staircase” ended several feet below the top, so from where I stood, balancing on the smallest stone, I placed my hands on the highest, broadest stone and hoisted myself up. Moss coated the outer edges, and it was slimy and disgusting under my fingers. I pushed myself into sitting position and crossed my legs casually.
I looked down at Owen triumphantly, expecting to see a look of defeat on his face for doubting me. Instead, he looked up with a congratulatory smile—and something else. Something else was twinkling in his eyes …
My mouth fell open and I gasped. It was the same mischievous twinkle that I had seen in Peter’s eyes so many times. But I had noticed it too late. Owen had already begun disassembling his stone staircase.
I leaned forward in outrage. “What are you doing?”
Peter and Charles were giggling as if they had known about Owen’s evil plan. I shot them a berating scowl.
Owen glanced up innocently. “I like to teach by example. So I am going to demonstrate how a gentleman should rescue and assist a lady in distress.”
I shook my head. “No. No. No. You most certainly are not. I am getting down by myself.” I realized how childish I sounded, but I didn’t care. If Owen thought he could trick me into going along with his little “demonstration,” then he was horribly mistaken. I cursed myself for not expecting this. I knew Owen well enough now that I should have foreseen a trick.
He tipped his head to the side and raised his eyebrows. “Annette—”
I lifted a hand to stop his words. “That’s enough from you, thank you.” I glanced over the edge of the stone. The rocks sloped straight downward with hardly any visible places for stable footing. If I could slide down, I would at least be able to get down quickly. Or, if I climbed down, I could stay against the stones firmly enough to keep myself from falling.
I had already hesitated for too long. I was losing my nerve. So before I could consider any other options, I turned around onto my stomach and slid down to where I hung just above my chin. I searched frantically for a niche in the rocks in which to place my foot. I found one, thankfully, and moved my hands further down the stone.
My foot slipped.
I let out a small screech and slammed my hands against the rocks, grasping for any handhold I could possibly find. My fingers caught in a small crevice between two stones. I struggled to steady my breath. Why had I been so daft? I hadn’t proved anything but my stubbornness by trying to climb down. And now, I was hanging helplessly, letting Owen win again.
“Just let go!” he said from beneath me. “I’ll catch you, I promise.”
I peeked at him from under my arm. His arms were outstretched in front of him and his eyes were begging me to trust him.
My hands were already aching with the effort of maintaining my grip, so I didn’t have much of a choice in the matter. So I squeezed my eyes shut and let go. The brief moment that I was falling reminded me in a moment of panic of the time that I fell from the tree. I had shut my eyes then too.
But the pain didn’t come this time. I didn’t open my eyes hours later to see a doctor busily checking for injuries. Instead, I opened my eyes to see a doctor, a much more familiar one, holding me in his arms, smiling warmly into my eyes.
“I told you that you could trust me.” His voice was quiet and reassuring, and it made me forget why I was so upset with him. The warm summer air around me seemed dull and lifeless compared to the warm way Owen was looking at me—the way his smile made me smile instantly, as if I were his reflection in a mirror.
I realized to my embarrassment that I had been grasping his lapels—quite tightly. I released my grip and, intending to smooth out the wrinkles I had put in his jacket, ran my hand firmly over the lapels. It was a mistake. My hand froze over his chest and my heart picked up speed. My eyes flew up to Owen’s face. Another mistake. The smile in his eyes had been pushed into the background by something else, something that I didn’t know what to call. It was suddenly more intense than warm and much heavier. No one had ever looked at me like that before, and I felt deeply unsettled by it.
I frantically hurried my gaze away from his eyes, hoping to find something less unnerving to look at. But my gaze froze on his charming smile, the way his lips curled up more on one side, making that dimple dent his cheek. This was worse. This was much worse for I noticed with a leap of my heart just how close his smile was … how easily I could kiss it.
I quickly tore my gaze away and looked down, so flustered with myself that I didn’t know what to do. What was wrong with me? This man had just tricked me into being trapped on top of a fifteen-foot-high stack of stones and now I thought about kissing him? Something was seriously wrong with me. Something was seriously wrong with this entire situation.
I looked up at Owen with a glare, hoping that by doing so I could dispel whatever was lurking in his eyes. It did, thankfully, and in fact, it seemed to take him completely by surprise. He set me down quickly and backed a few steps away. I felt relieved and strangely disappointed at the same time. His mischievous smile reappeared as if it had never left.
I hardened my scowl and planted my hands on my hips. “You tricked me!”
He backed away and looked at my brothers with a terrified expression that made them laugh. “I assure you, on most occasions a lady will show gratitude.”
I let out a frustrated sigh. “I would not have even been trapped up there if you hadn’t tricked me into doing it!”
“Oh, I don’t believe I tricked you. I merely gave you a challenge that you were unable to resist.”
He was right, and both of us knew it. But I really didn’t like it when he was right. Anger bubbled inside of me and br
oke free from its confinement. The result was most pathetic. I stomped toward him with the darkest glare I could manage and instinctively raised my fist.
He lifted his eyebrows and the corners of his lips twitched. “Are you going to hit me?”
I looked back and forth between my fist and Owen’s twitching lips. A small laugh escaped from me, and Owen’s shoulders began to shake. We both burst into laughter and I dropped my pathetic fist. Peter and Charles burst into giggles too, and the four of us laughed and laughed until I was sure that whatever Owen had done that made me upset wasn’t at all important.
When my laughter was finally diminishing, I looked up at Owen weakly. “Why are you so good at that?”
He looked confused for a moment. “At what?”
“Making me laugh when I’m upset with you.”
He chuckled and shook his head. “No, I think you laugh at yourself first.”
“I do not!”
“I think you do.” He tipped his head down to look at me more directly. “And something I have come to know about you, Miss Annette, is that you cannot stay angry with anyone. A strength of character that I wish I had.”
“More of a weakness as I see it,” I muttered.
He shook his head again. “No, because if you were able to stay angry with me, we wouldn’t still be friends, now would we?” He raised his eyebrows in question.
I looked up at him from under my lashes, a small smile curving my lips. “We most certainly would not.”
He sighed and put both his hands on my shoulders. I tipped my head back to look into his friendly eyes. No matter how much he liked to tease me, I didn’t want to stay angry with him. I enjoyed his company too much. And I needed a friend.
“I’m sorry for tricking you. It won’t happen again,” he said.
I arched an eyebrow and smiled. “So you are finally admitting that you tricked me?”
Mischief and Manors Page 11