by Pendle, Eve
Without his volition, he’d sped up again and was almost at her door. He loved Lydia and he would ask her to marry him. To hell with his plan for a rich wife to enable his aspiration to start his own school, some things were more important. He would tell her, somehow, that he wanted another of her kisses, and another, until eventually he woke every morning with a kiss from her. The only way to obtain those kisses was marriage.
After knocking, he tapped the toe of his boot on the floor as he waited. He felt his eyes widen with hope and desire as the doorway revealed… Nurse Elizabeth.
“Oh Mr. Lowe. Do come in.” She stepped aside.
“How is Annie? And Ly–Mrs. Taylor?” He summoned a smile, despite the foreboding trickling down his spine.
“They’re both resting upstairs,” Elizabeth said. “I think it’s better not to wake them.”
“Of course,” he said in a jovial tone that he hoped masked his disappointment. Lydia was avoiding him. He held out the paper bag with food he’d brought, and Elizabeth accepted it. “Perhaps you’ll deliver this once they awake?”
Lydia appeared at the top of the stairs.
Nurse Elizabeth bustled upstairs and pressed the bag into Lydia’s hands. “I’ll be with Annie. You take as long as you need.”
They sat down in the front room, her taking the little wooden chair, leaving him to sit on the settee, so frequently scrubbed that the color was beige and the fabric smooth.
“Is everything quite all right, Mr. Lowe?” Lydia’s voice dragged him from his reverie.
“Please, call me Alfred.” The formality of her address was awful when he’d just asked to call her by her Christian name.
She bit her lip. “Yes. Alfred.”
Even said awkwardly, the sound of her saying his name gave him courage.
“I wanted.” His throat was dry, his palms were sweating. He could feel color rising in his face.
A pucker of confusion appeared between Lydia’s brows.
He continued regardless, like a singer starting in the wrong key. He was sat opposite her, but his communication was about as effective as shouting to her in Elmswell from London. “To ask.” He gave way to a cough.
Lydia waited patiently while he coughed. But he could see the worry in lines around her eyes.
“What is it?” Lydia said warily, as if she was expecting him to confess he was ill and maybe to blame her for it.
“I ask that you accept my hand in marriage.” The words came out in a babbling rush.
“Pardon?” She looked as though she thought she’d misheard.
“Marriage. I would like you to be my wife?” He finished on an upward inflection, making the statement an uncertain question.
Her mouth fell open and she sank backward into the chair. She didn’t seem like a woman overcome with joy. “Have you lost your mind?” she muttered disbelievingly.
“No.” He hadn’t realized until now how much he wanted her to say yes until it was evident she thought he was insane.
“Me? A teacher’s wife?” She choked out an incredulous laugh. “I don’t think you’ve thought this through. At all. I’m a widow you visit to assuage your conscience.”
“You know it’s not like that.” He leaned forward.
“Is this about the kiss?” Her blue eyes skewered him.
That wasn’t the answer he had hoped for. The memory of their kiss rushed through him.
“Yes. No. Yes.” It was absolutely about the kiss.
“Then it’s not necessary,” Lydia replied.
“A gentleman fulfils his promises, even the ones only implied.” That was a winning argument.
She gave a short bark of laughter. “The irony,” she muttered under her breath. “I don’t want to be...” Her gaze softened. “You’re a good man.”
“Then marry me.” He willed her to say yes.
“No.” She shook her head slowly to emphasize the point.
That hurt a lot.
“You don’t love me,” she stated.
“I–” He did. But her expression said she’d never believe him. She’d never accept his love or his hand.
“You don’t.” Her tone had become dismissive and rhetorical. “You can’t. We haven’t known each other long enough.”
He could argue. He couldn’t imagine life without her. But her definitive tone felt like coal in his stomach, black and dirty and hot. It threatened to blow out of him, the burning knowledge that she was refusing him. “Does that mean... Would you prefer it if I didn’t call?”
Lydia looked at the floor for what felt like eons but was probably a few seconds. Silence wasn’t yes, but it definitely wasn’t no.
“I don’t want you to be discomfited,” he added. He’d stay away for her sake, even if it broke him.
“It’s not that.” She raised her chin and regarded him, her expression conflicted. “I like you visiting.”
His heart lurched so hard it might have protruded from his chest. She liked him visiting. That was something and he grabbed it and held on tightly.
“Annie enjoys seeing you,” she continued. “While she’s ill, everyone will understand, but after that...” Lydia took a shuddering intake of breath. “People will talk. They’ll draw conclusions.”
He understood what she meant but his mind had already bounced to a way around her objection. “What if I were to court you?”
“I don’t think that’s a good idea.” She turned her head away, looking at the empty fireplace.
His heart dropped to the floor and spilled like a split bag of flour. He couldn’t reply. He told himself to say something, anything, to assure her he wouldn’t trouble her again. He ought to apologize for pressing her to see him. But then, hadn’t she said she liked his visits?
“I’m sorry.” He forced himself to stand.
At the sound, she looked back and rose with him. She must have seen his face, as she softened, her shoulder dropping.
“Not because...” She leaned and gestured between them. “But because you’ll realize I’m not marriageable. I’d be humiliated when you realize what a bad idea this is, what a bad wife I would make.” Her eyes begged him to understand. “I don’t want the village gossips speculating why you rejected me.”
Suddenly he saw beyond her exquisite curls of blond hair, quiet demeanor, and pretense at not being poor. It was taking every bit of her energy to keep up a pretense to all the neighbors. The least he could do was respect that, though it didn’t mean he’d give up.
“We’ll keep it a secret.” He didn’t step toward her, or take her hand, though his heart might burst with the need to connect with her.
She eyed him with guarded attention.
“I’ll court you, we can get to know one another.” There would be more gifts, more time, more opportunities to win her around. “If you don’t want to marry me–”
“When you don’t want to marry me,” she corrected.
“We’ll see about that,” he dismissed her unfounded fear. “No-one will know and nothing will be said.”
She rubbed her fingers across her lips, apparently unconscious of how sensual she appeared as she thought. “Your word that it will be secret?”
“My word.” His heart was thudding like he’d run a mile.
“This’ll end in tears,” she said under her breath.
“It’ll end in marriage.”
“Hmm.” She made a skeptical sound in her throat.
“May I kiss your hand?” He wanted to kiss her mouth, to feel her hands in his hair and her breasts pressed to his chest. But she was a delicate flower. She required nurturing.
She raised her eyebrows and held out her hand to him. As he bowed over her hand he watched her eyes, all the way until his lips touched her skin. Her knuckles were warm and scented of woman. He heard her breath catch, and he released his smile. This wasn’t over.
* * *
The kiss on her hand ought to be nothing. Compared to their kiss yesterday it was a little thing. But it wasn’t. His lips
on her skin were more sensuous than a man deserved to be. His kiss burned with promise. The intensity in his eyes as he kissed her hand could have melted diamond. He might be a country schoolteacher, but he had so much latent seductive power it was a blessing he didn’t realize it. He made her breath short and her mind blank.
There was a single weapon against the bone-deep desire to marry him. The truth.
“This won’t end in marriage, you know.” In the end, this wouldn’t work because he’d find out about who she was, and he’d reject her. Not right now, when he was full of animal urges, but eventually.
“Why ever not?” He was smiling with barely concealed triumph. He was still holding her hand, both of them standing in the middle of her sitting room.
“Because marriage means banns being called. A public declaration. Two weeks, or three, during which if you change your mind I would be disgraced.” She couldn’t let that happen. For ten years she’d protected herself and her reputation and kept her distance from handsome men.
“I won’t change my mind.” He squeezed her hand. “Banns are as much a commitment as the ceremony. I’m the local schoolteacher. I wouldn’t call off the wedding. I’d be a pariah for jilting you.
“That’s not true.” She twisted her mouth in wry amusement. “A woman wronged is the guilty party in the eyes of the world. She’s tainted. A man who deserts a woman is just a scoundrel, forgiven instantly.”
His expression was losing some of its earlier confidence. “I’ll get a special license.”
“A waste of ten pounds because it wouldn’t work.” Irritation ground at her skin. She tugged her hand from his.
Hurt flashed across his face before he masked it.
“For the Archbishop of Canterbury to grant a special license, you need to be known to him. A widow and a schoolteacher in a Sussex village are not important.” Didn’t he understand? This wasn’t a technical problem. This was the fate of women like her. A man would always realize there was a woman purer than a busty blond with a sordid past.
“We can pay to expedite an ordinary license.” His grin had gone, replaced by seriousness. He held out his hand to her, palm up, imploring. “Father Didcot will grant us one. We both live in the parish. He’ll–”
“Without seeing a death certificate?” she interrupted him.
His eyebrows furrowed.
“I don’t have one,” she clarified. “A death certificate.”
“I...” He seemed momentarily flummoxed. “You didn’t live here with Captain Taylor?”
“No. I moved here after I was widowed.” The lie was so familiar it was like an old corset, restrictive and yet part of her. She wasn’t quite ready to discard it. “I needed a new start.” That, at least, was true.
“So it’s impossible,” he said faintly. He withdrew his hand from where he’d been waiting for her to take it. He stuffed both hands in his pockets and looked down.
It wasn’t impossible, just impossible for her. For them. When Matilda had procured the forged marriage certificate, the corrupt solicitor who had proved so useful had demanded the same price again for acquiring a death certificate. Twenty pounds. Neither Lydia nor Matilda had had the money. At the time, it hadn’t mattered. The point was to prove she’d been respectably married.
She’d intended to save up to afford the death certificate, just in case she’d needed it. But repairs to the roof, her daughter’s needs, and the increasing rent reduced those savings to nothing. Besides, she didn’t intend to marry. She’d learned her lesson with men. Twenty pounds could buy a lot of jam. In a drawer, hidden carefully inside a novel, there was the information she needed to buy the certificate, just in case she had a fortune to spare for something she’d never yet needed.
“Yes. It’s impossible,” she replied.
Alfred confirmed her assertion by standing up and putting on his hat. He paused, hand on the door handle. His jaw clenched. “With love and trust, nothing is impossible.”
He was wrong, but that didn’t stop her foolish heart from wobbling.
“I’ll see you tomorrow.”
She nodded but didn’t meet his gaze. When she heard him move she regarded him from beneath lowered lashes, watching him leave and relishing the rightful pain of it. He wouldn’t be back.
Chapter Ten
He was twice as handsome as she remembered when he walked into the room, dark hair askew and brown eyes twinkling. Mr. Lowe, or Alfred as he’d asked her to call him, had come straight upstairs to Annie’s room to see them, taking the steep cottage stairs two at a time.
“You’re here.” Lydia felt befuddled. After everything that had been said yesterday, he’d returned. She didn’t know what to think.
“I said I would be.” Alfred replied cheerfully.
It was as though he’d had an entirely different conversation to her. Last night she’d rolled everything over in her mind as she’d sat, wakeful, in the chair next to Annie’s bed. It was barely credible that he’d proposed marriage. Admittedly she’d practically jumped on him, and he was evidently a man who thought one kiss required a wedding. He didn’t want to marry her, it was a misguided sense of duty, that was her conclusion. She knew if he returned he would be surly, resentful she’d rejected him.
He nodded to her and grinned at Annie. “Where have you got to with Eight Cousins?” Alfred folded his considerable height into Elizabeth’s seat on the other side of Annie’s bed.
Annie’s eyes lit up, but she didn’t move, lying in bed as she had for days. “Chapter seven,” she whispered.
Lydia’s heart tugged. She and Elizabeth had been reading the book to her. Her daughter was improving by tiny degrees, but she was still feeble as tea made with thrice used leaves.
“No! Chapter seven?” Alfred widened his eyes, leaned forward and put his chin on his hands and looked intently. “And how is Phebe, the housemaid?”
“Well.” The corners of Annie’s mouth pulled up. “She and Rose are firm friends.”
Alfred looked as though he was not only fascinated by a children’s book, but it was all he’d visited for.
“She misses her father though,” Annie continued. “Her father died. Like mine.”
Lydia froze in horror. She hadn’t thought through whether a story about an orphan might cause more upset for Annie than it brought joy. She cursed inwardly. She ought to have read the book fully before allowing it to be read to Annie.
“But she has her Uncle, doesn’t she?” replied Alfred, unruffled. “Is he still being eccentric?”
“Yes. But she really wants her Papa.” Annie paused and her voice weakened. “I’d really like a Papa, too.”
“You must miss him,” Alfred murmured.
“She never knew him,” Lydia interjected. All this wistfulness for a man who didn’t deserve it couldn’t go unchallenged. “He died before she was born.”
“Could you be my Papa?”
For a second Lydia was perplexed. She was her mother, she couldn’t be Annie’s father. Then she saw Annie regarding Alfred, pleading in her eyes. Her heart jumped into her throat.
“That’s your mother’s decision,” Alfred replied.
She slid her gaze to Alfred. Her heart stuck fast in her throat at the compassion in his eyes. And underneath, there was the tacit communication that if she and Annie wanted him, he would be there for them.
Words hovered around her mouth. She could say he wasn’t her father, or protest it wouldn’t be appropriate. Instead she said, “If Mr. Lowe doesn’t mind, you can call him Papa. But not outside. We wouldn’t want to embarrass him.”
“You’ll be my Papa?” Despite her pallor, Annie’s eyes were shining.
Alfred chuckled. “I’d be honored, but only here in the house, as your mother says.”
“Thank–” Annie tailed off into wheezing coughs.
“That’s enough talking for now.” Lydia leaped up and stroked Annie’s shoulder, holding her while she coughed. She couldn’t bear to hear her cough like she might bring up her
whole chest. This was too much excitement for Annie, and too much sentiment for Lydia. She’d hidden herself away from any hope of a man or a family.
After some minutes, the fit subsided. Annie closed her eyes.
“Annie’s getting better.” Mr. Lowe’s voice was soft and thoughtful. “She has more energy than previous days. Improved color.”
“She’s...” How to describe how Annie was. “Not worse.” That was as far as she would venture. She reached over and stroked a curl from Annie’s brow.
“Definitely a bit better.” Elizabeth bustled into the room. “Aren’t you, poppet?”
Lydia wavered. To say Annie was getting better would be to jinx it. “Maybe.”
Annie didn’t respond, seeming to have fallen asleep.
Alfred stood and offered Elizabeth the chair and she sat with a grateful tilt of the head. “How are the chickens?” he asked.
“I’m sure they’re fine.” The poor chickens. Alfred had been the last person to go to check on them when he’d collected eggs and cleaned their house. Lydia bit the inside of her mouth.
“Why don’t we see them?” he suggested. “It’ll get you outside. Feel the sunshine on your face.”
“I don’t think so.” She didn’t need to see sunshine. Not without Annie. She had a reputation, a heart, and a daughter to protect.
“They miss you,” Mr. Lowe added mischievously. “They told me so.”
Oh, now she felt guilty. She wavered. Maybe a few moments outside would be acceptable.
“I agree with Mr. Lowe,” Elizabeth murmured. “You need to keep your strength up.”
“Very well.” Elizabeth would be with Annie. And she was getting better. “Not for long.”
“We’ll be just outside.” Alfred’s eyes sparkled and she thought he saw him mouth thank you to Elizabeth. “Call us if there’s any change.”
Lydia followed Alfred downstairs and the part of her that would be sent to hell noticed that his bottom was perfection. She indulged in watching his narrow hips as she followed him outside. He was too beautiful for her and all her flaws.
