Outshine (House of Oak Book 5)

by Nichole Van

“No, Jasmine. Please . . . let’s not rehash this. I know what you think. You know my opinion. We have agreed to disagree.”

  A beat.

  “Yes.” Voice weary. “But merely consider this—are you willing to spend the rest of your life in this place? In this situation? Waiting for a solution that may never come—”

  “There will be a resolution, Jasmine. History demands it. You need it. Fossi will find it.” He shook his head. Resolute. “I will accept no other outcome.”

  Lady Linwood's sitting room

  Kinningsley, Herefordshire

  September 14, 1828

  Kinningsley devolved into a rush of energy as autumn progressed. Tenants worked to bring in the harvest and servants prepared for the Linwood’s departure to Whitmoor House for the harvest festival.

  Fossi made more progress with her sums and anticipated the quiet that would follow everyone’s departure to Gloucestershire and Whitmoor House.

  She had also had some success in banishing thoughts of mysterious rock-filled boxes and the men that wept over them.

  Well . . . make that marginal success.

  Which made the summons to Jasmine’s sitting room all the more unexpected.

  Lady Linwood, Madame Beauford, three assistants and fourteen bolts of luxurious silk awaited her.

  “Excellent. Thank you for coming, Foster.” Jasmine welcomed her with a wan smile. Lady Linwood had seemed even more tired as of late. “Madame Beauford is here to fit you for your gown.”

  Fossi darted her eyes between all the women in the room.

  “My gown, my lady? I do believe Madame Beauford has already done marvelous work with my wardrobe—”

  “Of course,” Jasmine waved a hand, “but you will need a ball gown for Whitmoor House.”

  “A ball gown?” Wait. “Whitmoor House?”

  “Naturally. I insisted you have a new gown for Lord Whitmoor’s harvest festival ball. We depart in less than a week.”

  “All of us?”

  “Most definitely. We cannot leave poor Daniel to face everything all alone, now can we?”

  Oh.

  Well.

  It seemed Fossi would be going to Whitmoor House after all.

  Chapter 15

  Whitmoor House

  Gloucestershire, England

  September 21, 1828

  What are your thoughts? Do you like my home?”

  Fossi turned her head at Daniel’s question.

  “’Tis marvelous.” She tucked a stray wisp of hair back into her bonnet while taking in the view.

  She and Daniel stood side-by-side on a small bluff, surveying the valley with Whitmoor House at its center. A gentle breeze tugged at her bonnet and billowed his greatcoat.

  They had all traveled together in a merry string of coaches—the Linwoods and their children, Daniel and Fossi. Arthur and Marianne Knight would join them too, right before the festival itself.

  As for the journey itself, Fossi had expected to help with the children and be a backdrop to everyone else’s entertainment. But Jasmine and Daniel had refused to allow her to retreat, insisting she join in their laughter and cheer.

  Fossi couldn’t help comparing their interactions with those of her father and siblings. Such geniality was not part of her life in The Old Vicarage. There, strict rules of sober conduct and religious reflection were firmly entrenched.

  Fossi had been raised listening to Reverend Lovejoy rail endlessly about the aristocracy and their high-handedness. And certainly such aristocrats existed. But Fossi was coming to realize that members of the peerage were just like everyone else in the world—varied and unique.

  Though given the comfort of the coaches and ease of travel, aristocrats certainly did everything with more flare and style.

  As their little caravan neared Whitmoor House, the sunny weather convinced them to pile out of the carriages and complete the last mile on foot. They strolled down the tree-lined lane and passed by a crumbling medieval watchtower which the children climbed with laughing delight.

  Daniel had pulled Fossi off the main drive and up a small path to the top of a low hill that provided an overlook to the house itself.

  Whitmoor House rose out of the forest, a somber memorial to times past. The house had its origins in the Middle Ages but had been added to over the years, lending it a bit of a hodge-podge look. A medieval keep stood in its center, flanked by two Tudor halls that branched into Jacobean wings that eventually enclosed a courtyard area behind the house.

  It did not escape Fossi’s notice that iron bands wrapped around the granite medieval ramparts.

  An unexpected bit of irony that.

  “I’ve always thought Whitmoor House defined the words ‘ancestral pile’—a complete mishmash of styles and additions that somehow work together to create a complete building.” Daniel tapped a walking stick against the ground, a sort of shy affection in his tone. As if her opinion of his home mattered.

  Because we are friends, she reminded herself. That is why he cares. Nothing more.

  “It has been in your family for generations, then?” she asked.

  He paused and then gave a one-shouldered shrug. “Not exactly. I purchased the property about a decade ago. It was named Whitmoor House at the time and, over the years, Whitmoor became associated with me.”

  “Hence the verb?”

  He gave a rueful chuckle. “Among other things. I merely completed the circle by taking Whitmoor as the name for my baronetcy when raised to the peerage.”

  Unspoken was his intention that Whitmoor House would be the ancestral pile for his descendants.

  Daniel looked freer here and yet not.

  Fossi hadn’t missed the tension in his shoulders as they drew nearer to Whitmoor House. He obviously loved his home, but she could only imagine how bittersweet it must be. All the memories—both good and bad—it held.

  Had Lady Alice loved Whitmoor House too? When returning home, would they alight from the carriage and continue on foot as she and Daniel were right now?

  He waved his waking stick toward the large house in its picturesque setting. “Will you be able to focus on your work here, do you suppose?”

  His question had a slight teasing tone that melted a solid seventy-five percent of the emotional barrier Fossi had constructed to protect her heart from such things.

  Drat the man.

  He was determined to undermine her We’re Only Friends position.

  Unfortunately, it didn’t stop her from replying, “Presumably, as long as I avoid going off on a tangent.”

  It was, of course, a mathematical joke.

  It took him a moment and then his face lit, like sunrays over the ocean, sparkling and delighted.

  Blasting his way through the battered remains of her self-preservation.

  “Well done!” he laughed. “Brava.”

  “I have been practicing.” Fossi willed herself not to blush. With only marginal success.

  It was both a blessing and a curse to feel so comfortable around him, as if she were at home.

  “Well, I have long considered you to be the square root of two.” Daniel doffed his hat and swept her a bow.

  She tilted her head, trying to sort through the puzzle.

  He leaned in. Close enough that she could see the flecks of gold in his irises. “Because I often feel quite irrational when I think about you.”

  He winked.

  Fossi laughed far too loud.

  As an example of mathematical flirting, it was brilliant—the square root of two being an irrational number.

  But before she could examine Daniel’s face to determine if he were merely teasing her or . . . she wasn’t sure what . . . the chatter of the Linwood’s children drifted from behind them, Charles and James arguing over treasures they had found in the old watchtower.

  Still smiling, Daniel gestured for them to descend the path ahead of the children.

  He went first and then turned.

  Stretching a hand back to her to steady
her down the steep hill.

  Fossi stared at his gloved hand. It seemed a . . . portent.

  Swallowing, she carefully set her own gloved palm against his.

  Strong fingers wrapped around hers, firm and solid, sending an arc of electricity up her arm.

  Gracious.

  How was she supposed to protect her heart when he behaved like this?

  Breathe, Fossi. He is only helping because it is the gentlemanly thing for a friend to do.

  “Careful there,” he said, looking ahead as they stepped down worn stairs.

  Fossi studied the back of his neck as they went, that small strip of skin she could see between the brim of his top hat and the top of his collar.

  Dark brown hair threaded with the occasional wiry gray strand. Skin pink from the sun. So vulnerable and humanizing.

  Tiny glimpses of the fascinating, kind, generous man she knew lived inside him.

  He released her fingers as soon as they exited the narrow path. Fossi’s own hand instantly felt cold and lonely.

  Naturally, Daniel resumed his place beside her, seemingly unaffected as they approached the front of the house with its imposing medieval central tower.

  Friends. Nothing more than friends.

  A pair of enormous, wooden doors stretched upward from the center of the tower, flung wide-open to accommodate the arriving guests. Footmen unloaded trunks from the baggage coach, supervised by a rotund, balding man who could only be the butler. When the servants would have paused to bow to Daniel, he waved them off.

  Say what you would about aristocrats in general, Lord Whitmoor didn’t take his station too seriously.

  “Come.” Daniel placed a firm hand under her elbow.

  Instead of drawing her past the footmen and into the house, Daniel skirted the main entrance and led her to a recessed area to the right of the central tower. A small, age-darkened door emerged from the shadows—an entrance so short Daniel would have to stoop to pass through it.

  She raised her eyebrows—a question mark.

  “I figured we could beat Charles and James here,” was all he said.

  Daniel smiled as mischievously as any child and tugged the glove off his right hand. Fossi stared at the tendons flexing across his bare hand as he reached between the door and stone wall, a solitary long finger fitting into a groove carved into the limestone.

  “Take off a glove so you can feel this.” He jerked a chin toward his hand.

  Fossi obliged with almost embarrassing alacrity, pulling her own glove off.

  “Here.” He placed his opposite hand underneath her elbow, drawing her forward, her shoulder nearly touching his chest.

  Fossi swallowed. Flirting from across a room was one thing, but holding his hand to descend a path and now this . . .

  She had never been this close to him. Touch of any sort was rare in her life. In fact, she couldn’t remember a time she had been so near any man who was not her father or brother.

  He seemed much larger up close. If he wrapped her in his arms, she would see nothing else but him, buried against the heat of his chest.

  Which . . . gracious. What a thought.

  She was already struggling to focus when he did the worst—or was it the best?—thing possible . . .

  He took her bare right hand in his. On the path, their hands had been gloved, but now . . .

  His palm felt calloused and rough against hers. Warm. Dry.

  Heat flared up her arm, a desert sirocco blowing across her brain. Surely her face reflected the heat, a furnace of color.

  Oh!

  Later, Fossi would wonder how she had managed to keep her gasp silent.

  His palm was so . . . warm. And so large. And strong. And so very . . . alive.

  Daniel gently pulled her hand to the same groove next to the door, fingertips pressing into her palm.

  “Feel that?” he asked.

  Heavens yes!

  Not what he meant, surely.

  Fossi managed to wiggle a finger in the groove. There was a chain or loop of some sort buried in it.

  “You pull. Like this.” He drew her arm downward, her finger taking the chain with it.

  She should have been concentrating on the door or the mechanism or something other than the whoosh of her pulse in her ears and the radiating power of his body beside her.

  It was all just so . . . unexpected.

  She longed to lean back into him, to feel his opposite arm come around her, bringing his chest to her back, his voice in her ear.

  They both watched him draw her hand down, as if that point of connection between them weren’t pulsing with frantic, kinetic energy.

  Fossi heard the snick of a locking crossbar lifting behind the door.

  Daniel pushed the door open.

  Which given that he still held her right hand in his and stood behind her . . . meant that his left hand snaked around her left shoulder.

  All he would have to do is bring his hands together, and he would be embracing her from behind.

  His coat brushed her shoulder blades. Peppermint and bay rum enveloped her.

  Careful what you wish for, Foster Lovejoy.

  Surely he had to have heard her gasp this time.

  “I’ve always found this door to be unique.” His voice at her ear. “Such a clever way to provide entrance without needing a key.”

  Her breath caught, a painful little snag. Such a small detail, but . . . he had wanted her to know this tiny piece of him.

  “Clever.” She repeated, voice embarrassingly too breathless. “It is action . . . reaction.”

  She mimed pulling the chain and the bar lifting to clarify, mostly for herself, what she meant.

  “Yes.” Was his tone extra husky?

  Time stretched, sticky molasses taffy . . . delicious and heady but difficult to extract oneself from.

  Fossi’s eyes threatened to roll into the back of her head. She swallowed. Once. Twice.

  Move. You need to move!

  It was just . . .

  She could feel his breath on her neck, brushing in and out softly beside her ear. She had never been so grateful for bonnets and their sun-shading brims. That he couldn’t see her shocked expression and flared eyes and violently red cheeks.

  No. All he would see was her jaw.

  Which . . . was he staring at it? At her?

  Her skin prickled with awareness.

  He leaned forward, his chest actually touching her shoulder blades in earnest. His breath skimmed up the side of her neck and wrapped around her ear. Warm. Soft. More peppermint and bay rum.

  Gooseflesh pebbled in its wake.

  Action. Reaction.

  Was he breathing her, as she was him? Did he know that their lungs had instantly synchronized?

  In. Out.

  Two souls inhaling as one.

  He leaned farther, surrounding her with his arms and body.

  She felt him suck in a deep breath of air.

  “Shall we?” His words caused her to jump.

  He moved beside her and swept his arm out, indicating she should proceed into the house.

  Oh.

  Oh, yes.

  Of course.

  He had just been patiently waiting for her to move forward while she had been thinking . . . other things.

  Friends. That’s right. We are simply friends.

  Fossi’s blush moved from violent to molten lava. Never had she been so grateful to duck her head and pass through a doorway, disappearing into the gloom beyond.

  Daniel closed the door and reset the crossbar, plunging them into darkness.

  “The boys will be disappointed if they can’t work the mechanism too,” he chuckled, voice loud in the hush.

  Was it too loud? Did he sound strained?

  Unthinking, Fossi shifted her feet in the dark, stumbling against an unseen step. Instinctively, she reached out to him to steady herself.

  He caught her hand. Despite everything, her traitorous body reacted, burning at the touch.


  “Careful. There’s a step there.” He chuckled again. “Come this way. The medieval great hall is through here.”

  He drew her up the dim narrow stone stairs and through another door into the large central hall flooded with daylight.

  Fossi blinked. It was a brisk dowsing of cold water, that light.

  In the sunlit room, his expression was all polite solicitation, nothing more.

  In it, she could clearly see that their moment back at the door had been nothing more than Daniel being a kind friend and helping her feel welcome in his home.

  For the seven hundred and fourth time, she gave herself a stern mental rattle.

  You would build a castle out of cobwebs, Foster Lovejoy.

  Daniel laughed as the Linwood boys bounded up the stairs behind them and darted into the soaring great hall with its minstrel gallery and enormous fireplace, fluttering banners and aged beam ceiling.

  Everything was a whirlwind of greeting and unpacking after that.

  Many hours later, Fossi slowly peeled down the sleeves of her carriage dress and pulled a dressing gown over her shift.

  She had been assigned a lovely, Tudor-era bedroom with dark paneling and an intimidating poster bed that called to mind a fortress. Wine-colored velvet hung around the bed and framed the mullioned window with its lovely aspect of the rolling Gloucestershire hills.

  She sat at her dressing table and stared into the mirror.

  It was always a shock, seeing her face. Inside, she felt so young, so vibrant.

  But the mirror didn’t reflect that. There she saw a woman with wrinkles starting around her eyes. A plain face that was too round and eyes that lacked anything distinguishing.

  What has gotten into you? she asked the pale-faced woman who stared back at her. You must cease this madness.

  How her father and siblings would contemn her for entertaining romantic thoughts of Lord Whitmoor. They would call her thirty ways a fool and with just reason. No man looked at Foster Lovejoy with interest, particularly not one of the most sought-after gentleman in Britain.

  Daniel was a friend. Nothing more.

  “Stop being obtuse,” she muttered to herself.

  It was, of course, another mathematical pun.

  But she turned to her bed with a heart too heavy to find even fleeting pleasure at her own cleverness.