Today was another gray day, not only because of the weather. The euphoria Jack had enjoyed from his fancy footwear and Nicola’s kiss had worn off after the tripartite intervention. He was back to questioning himself and his usefulness to society. Reminded of his carelessness and his irresponsibility.
Was he ever going to get over his guilt? He’d made all the amends he could, distributed a considerable fortune, apologized in person to everyone except for the young woman from Bath—
Bath. Oh. God. No. Could it possibly be?
The injured young woman’s parents had been evasive as to her injuries, had just said that she’d moved away. They would see that she received her share of the settlement. Her father had been aggressive negotiating the amount…because he was a solicitor.
Perhaps a coincidence? Surely Jack had suffered enough for his hubris. But maybe not. He’d not suffered as much as those two dead men and their families.
Jack only knew the victim as a Miss M. Mayfield. M wasn’t N, unless there had been a transcription error. And last names were forbidden here in Puddling. Nicola might tell him hers, however, if he was persuasive enough.
If it was Mayfield, then what? He’d ruin any chance he had with her if she found out who he was and what he’d done. Or not done.
He was the man responsible for her accident.
Perhaps he was borrowing trouble, a silly thing to do. There must be plenty of solicitors in Bath. Plenty of solicitors’ daughters. It was extremely unlikely that he and Nicola had both come here for the exact same reason. The mathematical odds were in Jack’s favor, and Jack was an excellent mathematician.
Jack bundled up to go for his solitary walk to think. Or, preferably, not think. He wrapped a plaid scarf around his throat but eschewed a hat. He would do what he always did, walk up Honeywell Lane, turn at New Street, go along on Market to Vicarage Lane, and St. Jude’s. Make the circuit a dozen times to kill an hour. Do it again to kill two, perhaps lingering outside the bakery just to inhale the spice-scented air.
It was less than a week until Christmas, and the humble stone cottages were sporting wreaths on their front doors and greenery in their window boxes, all very festive and depressing him even further. The five shops had seasonal displays in their windows, but Jack had no money to buy presents, and no people to buy presents for. His mother would not be expecting anything—she was in the south of France with Miss Pemington, her paid companion, whom Jack had hired. In Jack’s opinion, the unfortunate Miss Pemington was compensated nowhere near enough to put up with Lady Ryder’s endless demands. He’d grown adept at blocking out his mother, who knew everything and meant too well, and was grateful that her inevitable letters would never reach him thanks to Puddling’s rules.
Jack fastened his gloves and opened the door. A blast of bone crushingly cold air assailed him. He thought of all the people who didn’t have fleece-lined deerskin gloves and warm wool scarves and bespoke overcoats from Davies and Son. Jack supported various charitable institutions, but he was only one man, and there were very many needy ones throughout the empire and beyond. How did people live in poverty and survive?
So many impoverished children, working like slaves at machinery. It was legal to employ a nine-year-old for sixty hours a week. He’d never done so in his factories, but others weren’t as scrupulous. With Christmas coming, he’d have to write to Ezra to increase his donations.
Nicola said she would help him contact the fellow, but dare he try to see her again? He’d been pretty thoroughly warned off.
But not by her.
She’d looked as dazed as he felt when Mrs. Grace had thrown him out of Stonecrop Cottage. He had a feeling Nicola didn’t just go around kissing strange men, and was flattered. He’d bet half his fortune his fellow Guest was chaste, not that it should matter. Jack prided himself on being a modern man. He was no virgin, hadn’t been since his teens.
But society women were treated unfairly, kept in gilded cages and expected to be nothing but decorative and submissive. In his opinion, they had a right to their pleasure too. Their vote, as well. Most females were as stymied as his voiceless new friend in expressing their opinions, his mother excepted, of course. Nothing could shut her up for long, but he’d rather have her state her mind in the open, even when her words weren’t especially welcome.
Goodness, but he was turning political here in Puddling, nearly radical. He headed up the lane, mindful of patches of ice. He kept his head down, deliberately not looking up through Nicola’s gate as he passed.
Hearing an unfamiliar refrain of music over the wind, he paused to listen. She played her little piano beautifully, with passion. Loudly, too, since the cottage’s windows must be shut against the winter air. It was as if all her pent-up words were notes, tumbling after each other. He closed his eyes and imagined her at the piano, her graceful fingers at the keys, her head bowed and lost in the exquisite sounds she produced.
Had her vocal chords been injured in the accident she wrote about? It had been just two words in her notebook: an accident. Not carriage accident or, God forbid, train accident. Not a fall from a parapet or off a horse. Jack knew nothing about medical conditions, had been healthy all his life. He could ask Dr. Oakley, but didn’t expect an answer under the current circumstances. He’d been forbidden to see her, hadn’t he?
But when had he ever abided by the rules?
He thought about turning around. Knocking on her door. Kissing her when Mrs. Grace wasn’t looking. Jack had a feeling now Nicola would always be guarded, and it would be up to him to find an inventive way to get her alone again.
A problem to solve. Jack made his circuit, keeping a brisk pace. He nodded to the few rosy-cheeked Puddling people he saw on the street. They still glanced at him with suspicion, since he hadn’t been truthful on his application to reside here. They didn’t know enough about him. The doctor and vicar knew he felt responsible for two deaths, but not the exact details.
Jack wanted to keep it that way.
His mother thought him a complete idiot for carrying this indelible burden, for selling off his businesses, making reparations. She advised Jack to console himself that it was God’s will that the bridge collapsed and the locomotive wrecked, but surely God was not that cruel.
Ah. He was becoming philosophical as well as political. His train of thought might be shared later with old Mr. Fitzmartin, who was a calming sort of fellow. He’d know the ecclesiastical answers, wouldn’t he? Someone had to have some answers.
The air on this corner was perfumed with bread, and Jack took a quick gulp, reminding himself he was pretty close to starving. He was hungrier here than he’d ever been in his life, and didn’t think much of the Puddling dietary restrictions at all. Lucky Nicola was not bound to it, judging from the quantity and quality of her larder.
Jack was uncertain how the Puddling governors decided on the best treatment for their Guests. Crystal ball? Turn of a card? Magnifying glass? He might not have signed himself in if he’d been aware of the full particulars.
No, that wasn’t true. He’d met Nicola—surely that was reason enough to be grateful and stay.
He wandered down another street, having lost count of how many laps he’d made in the Puddling pool. He was so focused on not losing his footing on the icy cobblestones that he nearly barreled straight into a woman wearing a becoming fur-lined scarlet coat. He’d had that woman and her coat in his arms not that long ago. Her eyes sparkled as she put a cane out to prevent him from knocking her over.
He knew he was smiling like a lunatic, and tried to adjust his mouth to something more modest and less toothy.
“Good morning! Are you on your daily constitutional?”
She nodded her assent and looped her arm around his.
“You’d be better off walking alone, you know. I’m in enough trouble with our jailers as it is. They believe me to be a vile seducer of young women. And n
o, I’m not,” he said quickly after seeing her own smile waver. “I mean to start with, you kissed me as I recall. I couldn’t do anything else but respond in kind—I’m not made of ice. But as a gentleman, I didn’t tell on you during my inquisition. Not one word. I’ve taken all the blame, and the punishment.”
Her mouth opened in a concerned “o.”
“Yes, it’s as dire as you can imagine. They are trying to kill me. Two bowls of cabbage soup yesterday, as if one bowl wasn’t insulting enough. An egg this morning the size of my thumbnail. The silent treatment—no offense meant—from Mrs. Feather. I had three of the governors on my doorstep at the crack of dawn reminding me I’m here at their discretion and I might be drummed out of the village at any moment if I continue to disobey. See those curtains twitch at the cottage across the street? Our movements are being reported even as we speak. Perhaps you should let go of my arm.”
Jack was absurdly gratified that she clung tighter. “Very well. But don’t say I didn’t warn you.”
They continued down the lane, holding onto each other. Every now and again, Nicola would tug on his coat sleeve so they could pause to admire a boxwood wreath or thatched roof or a painted garden gate. As a Londoner, he was slowly growing to appreciate Puddling’s bucolic charms. He hardly ever spent any time at Ashburn nowadays, his country place in Oxfordshire, the next county over. Somehow Jack felt it still belonged to his father, although the man had been dead for over six years. Lady Ryder had yet to move into the dower house, her reign of well-meaning terror unabated, which made Jack’s visits infrequent.
He had few pleasant memories of growing up at Ashburn. He’d been sent away to school at a tender age, his tutors proving inadequate for the task of teaching him anything he didn’t already know. Holidays found him at other boys’ houses while his parents engaged in their marital warfare.
As an adult, Jack had been too busy overseeing his various business enterprises to loll about as lord of the manor. He had an excellent steward in place, the farms were producing, the tenants taken care of. He often traveled to Manchester and Sheffield and Birmingham and points abroad. He could close his eyes and draw a map of the train routes.
Now he was sequestered in this trainless village with too much time to think.
But why dwell on unpleasantness when he had a pretty young woman on his arm? It was restful to walk with her, and after a while, his own nervous chatter stopped. Jack shortened his stride to accommodate her slower steps. Her walking was much improved, the cane mostly for insurance as they ascended and descended the hilly lanes.
If they were discovered flouting the rules, he’d probably be thrown out of Puddling as the guilty party. Oh, well. The first thing he’d order when he got back home was beefsteak with a gallon of béarnaise sauce on the side.
“Will you still risk censure getting a message out for me?” he asked on their third march up St Jude’s Lane. Nicola nodded, then pointed to the churchyard path.
The iron gate creaked open and they were amongst the snow-dusted regimented yews, long lines of them, each clipped into a pyramid. There were a number of tempting table-like tombstones, and Jack wondered if Puddling’s children enjoyed climbing up on them as he would have when he was a boy.
Nicola disentangled her arm from his and sat on a bench, patting the vacant spot next to her. His arse almost froze when he complied.
“Do you think we have some privacy here among the dead? Old Fitzmartin might jump out of the church at any moment.”
She reached into a pocket and drew out the small notebook he’d given her.
I saw you walk by.
And had come out to find him. Jack’s heart stuttered.
“I heard you playing. It was magnificent.”
Her pink cheeks pinked further. Thank you.
“Are you a professional musician?”
Heavens no. I do play the church organ at home, though. And once here. Mrs. Fitzmartin has offered me the job on a more permanent basis, but I’ve declined.
She had very neat handwriting. Jack was grateful he didn’t have to write back. Half the time he couldn’t decipher his own. “Why?”
Too many eyes.
“One can’t help looking at you. You are, um, beautiful.”
He realized it was true, a quiet sort of beauty. Jack ordinarily had no trouble complimenting women, but he felt somewhat shy with Nicola. She gazed at him with such blue directness, he didn’t want to disappoint her. He felt a responsibility to carry the banner for all males of the species.
Don’t be silly. I’m writing to my parents the day after tomorrow. Will your letter be ready?
He’d almost forgotten his shoe scheme. And there was something else he’d thought of, a surprise. “I’ll make sure of it. I don’t dare to deliver it to your cottage, though. Mrs. Grace will burn it along with me.” He had visions of being doused with lamp oil and turning into a Guy Fawkes effigy. “It’s one thing that we’ve bumped into each other on the street. I don’t think the powers that be want me to visit you ever again.”
Bring it here. Wrap it in something waterproof. Put it under this bench with a rock or whatever’s handy by eleven tomorrow morning. I’ll take my walk after and “find” it, then mail it the next day. Are you really in bad trouble because of me?
“I’m afraid so. I’d do it again, though,” Jack said honestly. “Kiss you, that is. Or you can kiss me. It makes no difference. The end result is delightful.”
She didn’t meet his eyes. I don’t know what came over me. It’s most unlike me to be so brazen.
“Be as brazen as you wish. It was, um, refreshing.” Refreshing was not the correct word, but Jack didn’t want to frighten her. She’d inflamed all his dormant desire. With Nicola’s flushed cheeks and swollen lips firmly in mind, he’d taken matters into his own hand once Mrs. Feather left for the evening yesterday. He’d felt almost liberated. Normal. Not that his joy lasted the night—the dreams returned on schedule.
Do you want to kiss me again?
He most certainly did. Jack glanced about, noting the drifting snow between the trees and the gravestones and the Norman church. Not the most romantic of spots, but the dead told no tales.
Chapter 7
Nicola lost her grip on the notebook, and it fluttered to the bench. She tucked the pencil in her pocket. Clearly she should not have looked out the window to see the top of Jack’s dark head bob over the gate. Should have locked herself in her cottage when she did catch sight of him. Put a blanket over her head. Tied herself to a piece of furniture. Not chase after him, wondering which way he’d turned on his perambulations, slipping and sliding all the way in her search. Not feel so…thrilled when she found him.
Not write anything about kissing when she meant just to arrange for his outgoing mail.
She’d been awake a good portion of the night thinking about their kiss. It had, to put it plainly, knocked her sideways. She had little to compare it to—Richard had not been a demonstrative fiancé. Why should he be, when their relationship had been practical and more or less businesslike? There had been no stars behind her eyelids, no tremors shooting off like fireworks, no tingling lips, no want.
Nicola had practiced kissing her bare arm as she lay in the dark, feeling ridiculous but determined. Her skin was a poor substitute for Jack’s mouth. His neatly trimmed beard and mustache had had been as soft as mink fur, quite unlike Richard’s coppery bristle. Richard was attractive, but Jack was…um, beautiful. See, she could be inarticulate too.
She didn’t feel the cold at all, just a wild sense of anticipation. Jack was very close, his quick breaths visible in the air between them. The last time they’d kissed, it was she who initiated the lip-to-lip contact. Nicola knew she’d taken him by surprise; now she waited to see what he would do. She imagined he was a man of experience—no one of his looks and charm and age could be expected to be celibate.
&n
bsp; He leaned in, cupping her cheek with a gloved hand. “You don’t regret your offer?”
She shook her head. If she’d had access to the notebook, she would have written get on with it.
“I’ve never kissed a woman in a churchyard before with, uh, graves about. Are we risking thunderbolts?” His eyes danced with merriment.
What a way to go, she thought. They weren’t being disrespectful—babies began with kisses, and death eventually, inevitably followed. It was all very circle-of-life, wasn’t it?
His mouth loomed, and she closed her eyes. He exerted the barest contact, just a whisper of a kiss. She held herself still, letting him set the pace.
But soon she was squirming a little, swept away by Jack’s skillful tongue. Nicola had the strongest urge to lie down on the bench, which would indeed risk thunderbolts, and frostbite to boot. If her parents divined what was happening to her here, they would remove her posthaste.
Or perhaps not. Though they loved her, she was a burden to them now. Maybe they’d like to be rid of her permanently. Have someone else worry about her.
But Jack, like Richard, deserved a more participatory partner. He was so full of life and devilry. No matter how marvelous his kiss was, he was no doubt taking pity on a shameless spinster who, against all caution, had invited him to take liberties.
Do you want to kiss me again? Really, what man in his right mind would refuse? She wasn’t a complete antidote, and men were known for their hotter natures. They sometimes were not discriminating at all.
Nicola realized her random mental meanderings were spoiling the moment. Who knew when she’d get the opportunity to kiss anyone save for her wire-haired fox terrier, Tippy? She hoped he was being well looked after—she missed him. Who would watch him when they all went to Scotland? When she wrote to her parents…
Oh! No more thinking of dogs. No more thinking, period. Nicola threw herself into Jack’s embrace with enthusiasm, allowing herself to nibble his lower lip as she’d nibbled the soft spot above her elbow. He groaned and returned the favor. The brush of his suede-covered fingertips on her cheek brought on her blushes. She was quite warm everywhere despite the temperature. The kiss deepened with tangled tongues, and Nicola felt something loosen within, like a hopeless wet knot that suddenly gave way.
Redeeming Lord Ryder Page 5
