Her hand stopped. She dragged it out of his grasp, thrusting herself up and hauling the wayward sheet up to cover herself. “No.” She shoved herself out of bed and began to grope frantically for her clothes.
He stared at her, so stunned at the sudden change he didn’t think to help her or enjoy the view of her beautiful body, now hastily covered in stays, chemise and the sturdy cotton gown she wore to work in Chamonix.
“Why did you have to say that?” she said, before banging the door shut behind her.
By the time John had gathered his wits sufficiently to dress and chase after her, she was gone.
Chapter 18
He stared into the gloom. She was already out of sight. He could chase after her. There was time to catch her before she reached the Coopers. He stayed where he was. He had seen the grief on her face.
Her scent still hung in the air, the smell of her was still on his skin and, despite making love twice to her, he was still half aroused. What would it take to bring her to her senses?
What if you can’t?
He shoved the thought aside, refusing to consider it. If only he understood what it was that made her cling so tightly to her role as guardian of her brother.
She had interrupted him in his nightly round. He slowly dressed again and went out to the animals.
“I’ve done everything I can think of to show her how I feel about her. What else is there?” he asked the dogs as he flung them each a piece of meat and bone. They barked, wagged their tails, then settled down to a noisy gnawing with the odd growl as a pack mate approached too close.
“I know how you feel.” He flexed his fingers. The thorough drubbing he had given Albert Fox had been highly satisfactory. A part of him wanted to do the same to any man who so much as smiled at Nessa.
The hens clucked angrily at him, running up and swarming around his feet as he walked into their house, pouring the grain into their feeder then counting them all before he shut them in for the night. A big red hen that was the boss swiped angrily at a lesser hen and shoved forward to take her place square centre of the feeder. “You tell ‘em, Big Mama,” he chuckled. “You wouldn’t like to try bringing my Nessa into line too, would you?” She lifted her head, glaring at him with the hen equivalent of “don’t be stupid”, then set to again, greedily pecking at the grain.
He had to laugh. Like recognised like, he guessed. He had always thought of Big Mama as the Ada Cooper of his flock—but he had a feeling Nessa was as much a kindred spirit to the boss hen as was Ada. Certainly he had long accepted that if—no, when—she became his wife, she would rule his home and his heart.
He walked into Ned’s stall. He filled the manger with more chaff and picked up a wisp of straw and began to rub the big horse down. It was as much a comfort to him as to the horse. He leaned his head against the horse’s flank, all humour suddenly fled.
“What am I going to do, big fellow? How can I win her?”
The horse snorted into his feed and swung his head round to look back at him. John obediently began again, long sweeping strokes over the horse’s back and down his hind quarters. It was an easy rhythm, one so familiar, and usually it brought him peace. Tonight, it reminded him of what he had lost.
“How can she think that boy not ready to be a man? You saw him, Ned. Did he look like someone who still needed his sister? That boy is near running that camp.”
There had been an argument while he was at Campbell’s. A minor boundary flare-up between two miners with adjacent claims. It was Philip who had settled it, ordering the other miners to pull the brawling men apart then checking each one’s license. He had set down the boundary pegs, told each man where he could and could not dig, and made them agree. Granted, the boy was better educated than most there and was handy enough with gun and fist when they had run off Albert Fox—but it was more than that.
“You remember that spoiled, self-centred brat who turned up here that first day, Ned?” The big horse shook his head, snorting into the chaff. It was probably just a bit of dust up his nose, but John took it as agreement. “Well, he’s gone. The boy’s turning out all right. Having to survive on his own has been the making of him; and he fully understands what he put his sister through by coming here. He wants to look after her now … if Nessa would let him.”
He thumped the big stallion’s flank. “But she won’t let anyone do that. Does she think she’s owed nothing in life? If those precious parents of hers were around still, I’d tell them a thing or two. What did they think they were doing, dragging a young girl to those places? Did that father of hers never notice the work she did, the danger she was in?”
The horse kicked back at him, and he realised he was tugging on its mane.
“Sorry, boy. That girl is driving me crazy. I need so badly to keep her safe, and she won’t let me. I can’t trust the woman to do anything she’s told.”
He finished rubbing down the horse, checked the stable and secured the latch for the night. He began to walk slowly back to the house. His last words kept repeating in his head.
“Do what she’s told.” Over and over, drumming into his head with each footfall.
By the time he got to the house, he was feeling the lowest kind of worm. Told. Ordered. Had he ever asked? Or had he been as guilty as her family, as her parents and her brother? Always, it was what they needed. What he needed. Had he ever asked Nessa what she needed, what she wanted?
He slammed the door after him. That will change, was his last thought as he fell into his bed, sinking into dreams with the warm, womanly smell of her surrounding him still.
He did not expect his good intentions to be put to the test first thing the very next day. John looked at the packer standing in front of his house the next afternoon, unsure what to think.
“Preacher’s at the Lower Dunstan,” the man was saying, “but I don’t know how long. Seems everyone wants a preacher these days. You better get your lady’s leg shackled right smartly, before some other fella grabs her.”
John scowled. He went back to work, lifting a stone and setting it in place in the broken part of the garden wall he was repairing. Wood was scarce in these parts, and John had learnt to use stone for most of the fences around the homestead.
The man did not take the hint, or even change the subject. “I hear tell there’s a place over at The Dunstan,” he continued, warming to his subject, “where the madam only hires ugly girls, to stop them being married off so quick-like. Last one she hired was so damn ugly it were a whole three weeks afore a bloke proposed to her. Guess if a woman can cook and clean, it don’t really matter what she looks like. Long as she feels good in the dark, eh!” He chortled happily at the thought.
“Miss Ward is nothing like those women.”
His fury at the coarse words must have shown in his face. The packer bit down hard, mumbled an apology and hurried away.
What to do now? A day ago, John would have marched over to the Coopers and told Nessa they were being married as soon as Ada could ready a wedding breakfast. Now, he was forced to rethink.
That evening, he resumed his practice of visiting with the Coopers, but he waited till after the evening meal was over and the women would have finished the cleaning up. He also changed from his work clothes, wearing a clean linen shirt and new twill trousers. Any more would have looked ridiculous. Or maybe he already did, he thought, seeing Bob’s raised eyebrow and hastily stifled grin.
“Would Nessa care for a stroll? I need to tell her something,” he said, dredging up every bit of the courtesies his mother had drummed into him.
Bob just nodded, and soon after, Nessa appeared in the doorway, wiping her hands on her apron. They stilled when she saw him. Then she hastily untied the apron, tugged it off and thrust it behind her, handing it to one of the little girls who had followed her out.
“Why is he all togged up for Sunday?” piped the little darling.
He could feel himself going beet red. Thank God for the weathered tan of his face to hide i
t.
“Never you mind,” snapped Nessa sharply to the girl. She bent down to whisper in her ear, turning the now giggling child back inside to her mother. “You wanted to see me, Mr Reid?”
John was feeling ten times a fool, but he ploughed manfully on. “Would you care to take the air with me?” Too pompous. “It’s a beautiful evening.” Too facile. He shut up.
“That would be lovely,” he was relieved to hear. He would swear she was blushing as much as he, and suddenly everything was all right. This was Nessa. They had made love yesterday. If you want to do it again, my lad, behave yourself.
Want to? Yes—now, tomorrow, till the end of his days. But he also wanted to hear her laugh, wanted to wake up next to her in the morning, wanted so much more.
He put out his hand and helped her down the steps. Then drew her close and turned her across the slope and up the hill to where he knew there was a large slab of rock sitting in the middle of a clump of tall tussock. On the far side, they would be out of sight of the house, yet close enough that she could feel safe.
She leaned in to him as she stepped over a rough patch of ground. The smell of her enwreathed him and it was all he could do to hang on to his good intentions.
He waited till she had seated herself on the rock then leaned on the far side of it—not so close as to make her feel crowded but close enough to keep at the bay the clawing need in him. He cleared his throat, unsure how to start.
“You wanted to tell me something,” she prompted.
Her face was closed and he could not tell what she was thinking. He took a deep breath and took the bravest step of his life.
“I wanted to apologise to you.”
That, she clearly had not expected. Sweet confusion replaced the closed blankness.
“Ever since we met, I’ve been ordering you about. I want to apologise for that and tell you that, from now on, I will be asking not telling.”
“There was a half-smile on her face. “No more ordering me to marry you?”
Was that fear, or disappointment he heard colouring her voice?
“No more ordering you to marry me.”
“No more searching for a preacher?”
“I’ve found one, but it changes nothing.
“Oh.” She drew her legs up and under her skirt, looking like a young and nervous school girl.
“I would very much like to ask you to marry me—but I won’t. Not yet. Not till you tell me I can.”
She hugged her arms tight about her knees. “And if I can never tell you that?”
He took another deep breath. “Then I will have to learn to live with it … with one condition.”
She had relaxed, but her eyes turned wary. “And that would be?”
“If you find yourself with child, you must promise to let me know. I will not force anything on you, but I could not abandon a child of mine—or his mother.”
He watched her, holding his breath. He had such good intentions, but in this he knew himself too well. Then, with relief, he saw the hunted look vanish.
“No, you could not. Not you,” she whispered, almost to herself. “Then she looked up defiantly. “I’m not, you know. Not pregnant.”
“You cannot know that. Not after last night.”
She thought about it then shrugged. “We’ll see,” was all she said.
“So we have an understanding?”
She nodded. “Yes.” She let go of her legs, preparing to stand again. “Though I wish I knew what you are up to.”
He prayed she would not find out, not till it was too late. He had it all so carefully planned, but even yet he had no idea whether he could win what his heart so badly desired. Just how stubborn was his lady? For now, he ignored her words and offered his arm. “There’s still an hour or so of light … if you would care for a wander.”
She was no more eager to lose this moment of peace then he, it seemed. He tucked her small hand in his and led her farther up the slope.
They had not talked like this since that first day after they had met, speaking of nothing and happy to hear the other’s voice and their thoughts on the small and ordinary. He showed her the different kinds of tussocks that grew here, from the tall vanguards on the hill to the shorter tufts on the flat below where the sheep grazed. Together they examined the strappy Spaniard plant with its razor sharp leaves and the stunning spike of the flower head still present on the odd plant.
He told her of his family. Of his father in his comfortable manor farm and the brother who would inherit after him. Of his mother and her sweet voice, breaking in to periodic song as she bustled through the house, organising his sisters, his father, his brother and any other who came within her sphere. He even found himself telling her of the restlessness that had brought him here, needing to find a place in the world he could make his own.
In return, he drew forth snippets from her. Excerpts from a life he was hungry to know about. They were not enough, but it was a start.
In the following weeks, his visits became a regular part of their days. Not every night. That might bring back the wary look to her face. But enough that she came to accept him as a part of her life
He learned of her mother—a mixture of the practical in her household management and a dreamer in her love for her wandering husband. Wherever her father chose to go, wherever his passion for knowledge led him, his wife and children had unthinkingly followed.
“The four of us, that’s all we had of constancy in the world,” said Nessa once in a rare moment of honesty. At last, some hint, some reason for her refusal to abandon her brother. Having lost her mother and father, she dared not lose her brother—nor would she let her brother be left alone in the world.
So how could he make her believe that would not happen. All John could do was show her, by speaking of his own family and sharing his letters. They might be a half a world away, but he never doubted his family thought of him constantly and hungered for news of him, that he belonged still in the hearts of everyone in that placid English manor house.
It took him near a month, but finally she began to show him her letters from her brother. A month of painful denial. Only once had he kissed her in all those long evenings.
Sometimes he thought he caught an echo on her face of the hunger that was a permanent ache for him, but she stepped back. She was avoiding his touch now. Whether that was a good sign or bad, he was too afraid to consider. But she was talking to him, and this day she handed him a sheet of closely written script.
Her brother had a fine hand, even when it was written on the back of brown wrapping paper with pencil and smudged in places. Writing paper and ink were scarce at Campbell’s, he guessed. The trip was too dangerous now, and the packers were only taking up necessities on their rare trips.
“The work goes well,” the boy wrote. “This time next year, we will be living in a house in Oxford, with cream buns for tea.” John chuckled. So the lad wasn’t as grown up as all that yet. “We have to dig off a foot of snow before starting work some days,” Philip wrote farther on. “It is so cold at night, I am sleeping in every article of clothing I possess. Your scarf is much appreciated, and another pair of gloves would be most welcome. I am pleased you are finding new skills to keep you occupied. Please pass on my thanks to Mrs Cooper for the gift of wool and for teaching you the craft of creating such excellent garments.”
John scowled. “You earned every inch of that wool. Ada tells me she doesn’t know how she managed before she had you to help her.”
She blushed. “It’s the least I can do. She has been very kind—a good friend to us.”
And me? He couldn’t quell the petulant thought. His patience was wearing dangerously thin, and some days she seemed farther from him than ever. Next, he knew, she would be thanking him for being a good friend too. It was all he needed.
Philip’s letters came sporadically. In between the words of a young man finally gaining his long-hoped-for treasure were hints of the harsh conditions prevailing at Campbell�
�s. He had told Ward to leave there two months ago. He knew many of the miners had already left Campbell’s and Potter’s. The boy’s letter told plainly why Philip had chosen to ignore all sensible advice and stay on. Young fool, he thought viciously, watching Nessa’s face as she read. He was too attuned to her smallest movement to miss the slight hitch in her voice or the whitening of her knuckles as she read the precious sheet of paper. So much for his hope that she would not pick up the truth behind the boy’s words.
He rode over to Chamonix one day to pick her up after her work at Jacques’. He brought her home as often as he could these days, for the pleasure of feeling her body nestled in front of his.
He tied the horse up outside Jacques’ and strode into the main saloon to hearty cries from the crowd of men there.
The place was packed.
“Shouldn’t you lot be out packing supplies to the fields?”
“Ain’t you heard, guv’nor. There’s floods everywhere. We bain’t going nowhere.”
What were they talking about? He looked around and saw Jacques reading the latest news sheet.
“What’s happened?”
“A storm has hit Fox’s at the Arrow. Many hotels, they are destroyed utterly. All over—she is mad. The river, the great Molyneux, she has made us pay.”
John snatched the page from him, scanning the dark words printed on it. They told of desperate tragedy; heavy rain and flooding up in the mountain rivers causing a terrible toll of lost lives. They lived in a dangerous country, and he had heard similar stories before; but nothing like this. “Keep that paper away from Miss Ward,” said John curtly.
“You can’t keep bad news away from her forever, mon ami.”
“Maybe, but I can try.”
“The brother, he is still at Campbell’s?”
Mary Brock Jones Page 23