Seeing him was too painful. Not seeing him was more painful still. She had caught a glimpse of him outside once, playing about in the snow with young Simon, flinging snowballs at each other like brothers. She’d pressed herself to the window, standing high and crouching low, her gaze following him like a hunting cat.
Last evening, she’d followed him with Emmeline on his arm as they walked through the gallery with Miss Higgins trailing a permissive distance behind. Norah couldn’t hear his words but he’d used his storytelling voice so she assumed he was giving away all sorts of interesting tidbits regarding the Havensbeck ancestors as he showed Emmeline the portraits.
Emmeline, on the other hand, while not averse to spending time with Vicar Barton, seemed more interested in creating a sensation at the ball tonight in her newest and finest gown. Surely no one from the backside of nowhere that was Haven knew the first thing about Lementeur, other than Lady Bernadette and Lord Matthias, but Emmeline was going to be appearing as “Lady Mariana’s Heiress” before his lordship and she felt the need to make an impression.
Being carried into Havensbeck Manor unconscious and bleeding was going to be difficult to top, but Emmeline seemed determined to try.
“We must go to the milliner’s,” Emmeline stated firmly. “I don’t like my hair ribbons. There’s something not quite right about them.”
Since Em’s hair ornaments were from Lementeur, as were her gowns, Norah seriously doubted any such lack. Emmeline was prone to fits of meticulousness when it came to beauty and grooming, so Norah knew it would do no good to argue.
She arose with a groan. Best to get it over with. However, that didn’t mean she couldn’t do a bit of bargaining. “There’s something you must do for me first.”
EMMELINE HALTED AT the stairs down to the kitchens. “I mustn’t stay long. The steam will make my hair simply hideous.”
Norah patted Emmeline’s hand. “Dearest, you couldn’t be hideous if you wore a mud-covered flour sack with a crown of dead fish in your hair.” Her sisterly touch turned into a implacable grip. She hauled Emmeline onward. “Now, come on!”
All Emmeline had to do was to declare ardent gratitude to the cook for the chocolates, which she did with fervent sincerity, and the many other beautiful trays which had been sent up. Then she only needed to stand there and look beseeching and heartbroken while Norah informed the man of the dire plight facing the Tanner family, who only lacked a pudding to ease their terrible grief.
She needn’t have rehearsed it so diligently, although it was always good to get Emmeline’s lines just right. The cook practically shoved the pudding at them while never taking his enraptured gaze from Emmeline. Norah gently suggested that one of the footmen should deliver it, for Lady Emmeline could hardly be expected to throw it over her shoulder and tramp through knee-high snow to the Tanner farm.
“Oh, yes! So much like Lady Marianna! Anything, my lady, anything for you!”
It was always easier to get one’s way when one was beautiful. They left the love-struck felloe mooning over Emmeline.
“Another conquest. He’s going to feed you up like an Easter lamb.” Norah cheerfully poked Emmeline in the belly. “Baa-aah!”
Emmeline slapped her hand away, then grinned. “That was fun. I can’t believe you know all these things about the local people already.”
Norah only forced a smile and shook her head. She couldn’t very well tell Emmeline that she’d fallen in love with Haven even as she’d fallen in love with Haven’s vicar.
HAVENSBECK MANOR WAS in a tizzy. There was no other word for it. What had been a sort of organized chaos for the last several days was now a whirling maelstrom of running maids, galloping footmen, Lady Bernadette flying from one crisis to another, and Lord Matthias striding to and fro, trying to handle some of the arrangements for the ball but mostly bellowing for his wife.
Fortunately, the elder guests decided to take a late breakfast in their rooms and settle in for a restful afternoon before the evening’s more strenuous activities.
That left Emmeline and Norah to their own devices. Even Miss Higgins was called away by her ladyship. Emmeline, having been promised a trip into the village by Norah and ever more distressed about the perfection of her ribbons, quite frankly wanted out of the tizzy house.
Norah couldn’t have agreed more. She dashed off a note to Lady Bernadette regarding their destination and pressed it into the hand of the first maid who scuttled past Emmeline’s door.
They’d made it all the way to the foyer and were tying on their bonnets when Jasper came rushing up, breathless and flushed.
“Milady says ‘You must wait for your escort because the doctor told me that Lady Emmeline isn’t to be allowed out at all and even though she isn’t a prisoner, she must not exert herself with a long walk in the cold weather’.”
Norah was quite certain Jasper was repeating Lady Bernadette’s speech word for word. She could almost hear the other woman’s breathless efficiency.
Jasper went on in his own words. “And she’s quite right, too, Lady Emmeline. What if the exertion causes you to take another headache? You wouldn’t want to miss the ball!”
That was enough to convince Emmeline and Norah was rather chagrined that she’d not taken Emmeline’s injury into account. She didn’t mind taking a cart and having an escort, as long as it wasn’t—
Vicar John Barton galloped youthfully down the stairs into the foyer. “Good day, Lady Emmeline, Miss Grey! Lady Bernadette asked me to take you into Haven for the afternoon.”
No one noticed Norah’s sudden reluctance but Emmeline, who only gave her a quick elbow in the side as she smiled up at Vicar Barton.
“Why thank you, sir! We should very much enjoy your company today. And you may be our guide, for I do not know where to find Haven’s milliner.”
“It is across from the confectionary shop,” Norah and John said simultaneously. Norah saw him smile at her, his expression amused and conspiratorial. She nodded distantly and looked down to adjust the wrist button of her kidskin gloves.
Emmeline’s eyes brightened further. “Well, I don’t particularly care for sweets, but Norah does!”
The vicar smiled warmly at Emmeline. “Then we must stop there as well.”
“I just wish it was someone else,” Norah whispered to Emmeline as they turned away to head out of doors.
Emmeline shrugged as she spread her fingers wide into the perfectly-fitted confines of her ermine-trimmed gloves. “What difference does it make who drives us?” Clearly Em was more concerned with their release from the manor than with their escort. Emmeline had been confined for more than a week and now wanted out. Their driver could have been anyone, clearly.
The fact that Emmeline wasn’t particularly excited by the prospect of riding on the cart seat next to her suitor meant something, Norah was certain of it. She simply couldn’t think past the jangling of her nerves to figure out what it was.
Just as they were ready to depart, Lady Bernadette dashed into the foyer, running full tilt with her skirts in both hands, like a country girl late to milk the cows. That, along with her flyaway hair and pink cheeks, made Norah remember that Lady Bernadette had likely milked an actual cow or two in her life. Astonishing.
Norah felt a bit envious of her ladyship’s varied assembly of skills.
“Oh, thank goodness. You haven’t left yet. John, when you return I shall need to you go over your performance schedule again. I’m sorry. I know you’ve told me and I wrote it down, I know I did! Norah, you’re to stop everything and bring Emmeline directly home if she has even the slightest headache!” Then Lady Bernadette turned to smile warmly at Emmeline. “Cook told me what you did this morning, Lady Emmeline. I just wanted to thank you for being so thoughtful to the Tanner family. I cannot bear to think that I forgot about Mrs. Tanner—but I think I did. I’m pleased and proud that you took care of the matter of the pudding for me!”
John nearly interrupted to
correct Lady Bernadette. It had been Norah Grey, had it not? Then he saw Miss Grey nodding and smiling and looking proudly at her cousin.
He’d been so wrong. Miss Grey was not the slightest bit envious of Lady Emmeline. In fact, her support of her much-more-fortunate cousin seemed absolutely stalwart.
John realized then that she was not at all jealous or small-minded. He couldn’t believe he had ever thought so. She clearly loved her cousin and was Lady Emmeline’s fiercest advocate.
That was a good thing, was it not?
It was only when John saw Lady Emmeline blush demurely and bask in Lady Bernadette’s praise that he felt an inkling of unease. Surely it would be the more generous thing to share the credit with Miss Grey, who had discovered the matter in the first place? Yet he liked Emmeline. He liked all the Greys. Emmeline’s father was so hearty and warm. Kindly Lady Blythe’s humor was sharp as a needle. Norah’s sweet and eccentric mother was an innocent soul. Norah—Miss Grey was very good with her, firmly but gently keeping her mother’s wandering conversation and sometimes even her actual physical path somewhat straight. The Greys seemed such an affectionate family.
John had always wanted one of those.
Then Lady Emmeline turned a dazzling smile upon him and John forgot his misgivings at the dizzying sensation of being the focus of her exquisite attention.
What was it Miss Grey had said to him?
“I’m astonished at your incredible intelligence and devastated by your manly, manly muscles. Please, tell me every mundane detail about yourself because you are endlessly fascinating to me—and I’ll pretend not to notice that you never, ever ask me a single thing about what I like or long for, or heaven knows, what I actually really think about anything.”
That was precisely how Lady Emmeline gazed at him now, as if he was the most wonderful being she’d ever encountered. Even though he now understood that it was mostly an effective bit of theater, he could still feel it working on him. He’d never thought of himself of being a gullible male before, defenseless against the wiles of a pretty woman. He’d seen it happen, but it always seemed to happen to some other fellow.
Poor Lady Emmeline. How exhausting it must be to be her.
John felt quite protective suddenly. He smiled gently back at her and held out his arm. “Tell me, Lady Emmeline, do you prefer summertime or winter?”
She blinked in surprise at his question, which did much to interrupt the blinding glamor of her smile, thank Heaven. To his surprise, she spent a serious moment considering the question.
“I prefer summer, I believe. Yes, definitely summer. I suppose it is because summers are full of parties and balls, and I dearly love to dance.” She smiled much more naturally as she tucked her arm into his and strolled out the door with him. “Yet, here we are in the middle of winter and we shall all dance tonight, even Great-Aunt Blythe!”
John laughed. “A very well considered answer, my lady.”
He was aware that Miss Grey had followed them to where John’s heavy-wheeled cart and stolid, thick-legged mule awaited them, held by a horse groom who jiggled a little in the cold air. John approved. His mule was a creature who would never shy at a little whirlwind.
When he handed Miss Grey up to the seat after seating Lady Emmeline, she nodded and thanked him with downcast eyes. He noticed that she removed her hand from his as quickly as possible.
John wasn’t certain what was wrong with Miss Grey. She didn’t seem precisely ill, and when Lady Emmeline spoke to her, she answered her cousin readily enough. Yet every time John spoke to her, she looked somewhere over his left shoulder and answered as briefly as possible, in a tone just short of indifferent.
Whatever caused her mood, John did not intrude. They’d had a nice evening a few days ago, sharing a plate of dainty food and talking so comfortably. Yet he’d scarcely spoken to her since.
Whenever his mind traveled back to that evening—as it did rather a lot—one particular thing kept snagging his memory.
He’s spontaneously asked her to call him John. He didn’t really know why, except that he’d felt they were friends at that moment. She’d cast him a strangely unreadable look.
“Oh no. That is not a possibility, Vicar Barton.”
He’d wanted to ask her what she meant ever since. What was not a possibility? Saying his given name? Being the friend of a country vicar? It was true that she came from a very good family, despite her father’s unfortunate circumstance (about which John didn’t care one whit). Yet his origins were nearly as good and besides, she hadn’t seemed the sort to care even if they weren’t. She took meals to Higgins-the-driver and shared her treats with Higgins-the-maid, so he knew quite well that she was no snob.
What made their friendship so impossible?
As he drove, Lady Emmeline chattered on amiably beside him, commenting on the passing scenery. John tumbled the question over and over in his mind, wearing away at the sharp corners. He felt the answer lay somewhere in his past encounters with Miss Grey, but he simply couldn’t dig the key out of his memory.
“Oh! This is where I fell, isn’t it?”
Startled, John pulled his mule to a stop. Egad, he’d rumbled Lady Emmeline right up the site of her terrible accident without a bit of warning! What was wrong with him? “How thoughtless of me! My deepest apologies, Lady Emmeline! I ought to have told you we would have to pass this way.”
Lady Emmeline gazed at the stone wall for a long moment. “I want to look down.”
“Em,” Miss Grey murmured. “Please don’t.”
“Go on, Nottie,” Lady Emmeline insisted. “Hop down and let me off. I want to see.”
Miss Grey obeyed before John could make it round the cart to assist her. He handed Lady Emmeline down. She looked very fragile with her fur cloak wound around her, almost like a little girl wearing something of her mother’s. She took a deep breath and picked her way through the snow to the wall. It was waist high on John, so she had to go on her tiptoes to see over its thickness to the river below. “I don’t see the cracks the falling horse made.”
“They’ve frozen over again, dear heart,” Miss Grey murmured.
John examined Miss Grey for any sign of her previous disquiet, but other than a slight trembling of the hand she laid on her cousin’s shoulder, she showed no fear. Good for you, Norah.
“Well, that is indeed very far to fall.” Lady Emmeline turned to flash a cheerful smile at John. “I’m very glad you were there to catch me, Vicar John Barton!” Then, dusting the snow from her gloves with the air of finishing a task, she made her way back to the cart and waited for John to help her up.
John could only stare at Lady Emmeline’s entirely unconcerned response to the scene of her almost-death.
Beside him, Miss Grey sighed. “She doesn’t remember,” she murmured. “After all, she was unconscious during almost the entire thing.”
John turned to see those deep-forest eyes looking his way at last. Among the new shadows he saw there, he also found the fellowship forged when they had worked together to save lives.
So she had not forgotten.
Knowing it made him feel better, even though after that single shared moment she retreated back into the isolated place where she clearly did not want him to follow.
The three of them rode the rest of the way into Haven in thoughtful silence.
Chapter 14
H
AVING ARRIVED AT the central square of Haven and turned the stolid mule over to the blacksmith for a warm wait in one of the smithy stalls, Norah was nearly wild with the need to escape the presence of the handsome couple. Emmeline was positively basking in the attention of her hero and John gazed down at Emmeline with warmth and tranquil appreciation.
He wasn’t even being sickening, the way most men were when Emmeline was twining them around her finger. He was simply very good to her and Em clearly liked and admired him.
So why did Norah feel like screaming at them both?
“Ahem. May I help you, Miss Grey?”
Norah opened her eyes to see a pretty young woman in a spotless apron behind the counter. There was something familiar about her pert nose...
“You must be a Higgins.”
The woman—or possibly girl, for when she smiled she looked no more than seventeen—nodded excitedly. “Yes, miss! I am! Did my auntie tell you about me?”
Auntie? Miss Higgins?
Norah shook her head, blinking at the sheer breadth of the Higgins dynasty. So many children. A stab of envy jabbed her directly between her ribs.
Getting ahold of herself, she straightened from her ridiculous pose against the door. “It’s very nice to meet you, Miss Higgins—”
“Oh no miss!” The girl giggled. “I’m Mrs. Felton. Did you see the sign above the door? Felton’s Sweets. My Ronnie’s da owns the shop.”
A husband, at her age? Norah suddenly felt every year of her spinsterdom like a wide stretch of desert before her.
Why do I mind? I don’t even like the notion of marriage!
Dotty Auntie Nottie was still her destiny and she’d best get used to it. She stared at the rows of jars filled with bit of sugary color. They reminded her of the trays of jellies, and sitting in the firelight with Vicar Barton, sharing their shadowed histories.
While You Were Dreaming Page 12