Perhaps the older Mr. Doran was in a bad way and I had been forgotten in the rush. I stepped out onto the front stoop and threatened Skip to stay far away from my good clothes, though that was quickly becoming the least of my worries. The sun was low but bright, and I looked toward it as I studied the end of the driveway, willing the car to appear. Three other automobiles passed by, surely headed for Friday night in the pub before market day, but none came for me. It was nearly eight when a black topless car turned and bumped down our uneven lane. I looked down, sucked in my breath and hoped I could push all of my panic away and speak with a steady voice. When the car neared I still couldn’t manage a smile but I did try for a brave, straight face before I looked up.
The driver looked me in the eye, his smooth mouth rimmed with the beginnings of dimples.
“Jonathon?” I stammered.
He turned off the car and stepped out while I stared at his bare lips, surprised how much more of his expression I could see without the moustache.
“I am so sorry to be late. The butler is off tonight, but I wrapped up work early in Harrogate, and thought if I rushed... Obviously that didn’t work.” He held out his hand and I shook it slowly, mumbled something I forgot before I even finished. “It was rude to change plans without ringing you,” he admitted. “I hope you’ll forgive me. I can rush you into the village for a bite, though that is probably disappointing if you were expecting Harrogate.” He studied me, his brow tense and thinking.
At last my stunned smile fought through the shock and landed on my lips. “How could I be disappointed when you’re here?”
“How nice!” he told me, touching my elbow to guide me to the car. “You’re surely famished.”
He was right about that, but I didn’t think my stomach would accept a bite until it stopped bucking in excitement. “My handbag is just inside.”
“You look so well tonight,” he told me as we stepped through the door. “Is that a new dress?”
“I bought it in Woolwich, but I’ve not worn it yet.” I scooped up my bag, moving it from one hand to the other. “There hasn’t been a need.”
Jonathon cleared his throat quietly and studied the fireplace. Unfortunately Dad’s underclothes hung there. I’d expected only a driver and not anyone to come inside.
“Shall we?” I asked with a blush.
“If you have a moment, do you mind if I see the new sheep?” He swept his eyes over me. “Or perhaps not. I don’t want you to traipse across the yard all dressed up. I could just run out there myself and be back in minutes.”
“No. I don’t mind at all.” I traded my shoes for Wellingtons at the back door and offered him Bartlett’s. I watched his long toes flex in silk socks as he removed his loafers and put on the crusted boots. One can’t help but stomp in rubber boots, but I did try to minimise it and look as ladylike as I could as I led him to the field where Skip guarded more than a hundred sheep on his own.
“Is that all that’s left?” Jonathon asked as he searched for the other half of the herd.
“For now. But the worst bills are paid and we’ll have so many lambs from the new ewes next spring. If the cross-breeding works the wool will be almost twice as dense and softer too. Just give us a few years. One must be patient in these things.”
Skip inched toward us, both wanting to greet us and not leave his flock. Jonathon responded to his whine and rubbed him behind the ears. “The miracle of science, that we can scoot evolution along and design the wool we want,” he said as he ran his hand down Skip’s soft muzzle.
“I don’t know if it’s science or love,” I countered with a grin.
Jonathon whipped his head round. “How do you figure?”
“Only that it’s not science when you prance a ewe in front of a ram. They don’t care a thing for wool density, for certain.”
Jonathon laughed with me. “How can I argue with that?”
The sun put up a fight as it left the sky. It scratched long, red scars where light bled onto the woolen clouds that tried to soak the wound up like rolled bandages. Jonathon straightened and looked past me, not quite meeting my eyes. “I hardly recognise you without your moustache,” I told him, watching the light settle on his face in new patterns. “Whatever made you do it?”
“I was told it was a bad time for moustaches,” he answered, still brushing his eyes past me, never letting them stay. It gave me a chance to study him longer so I didn't mind.
“You can’t blame me. I was only talking nonsense,” I smiled at him, squinted against the blazing light.
“Do you not like it?” he asked, running his fingers over his naked lips. “How fickle.”
“I like it very well. I’m just not used to it.”
That made him laugh and look at me at last. “I think good things take very little getting used to, as a general rule.” There was a blazing silence softened only by a few soft calls of sheep in conversation. “I shouldn’t have you out here in Wellingtons,” Jonathon said in his gentlest voice. “Not when you look so nice and I promised you a date.”
My breath hitched, caught on my open lips. A dinner date surely had a hundred different meanings. Perhaps he thought of it as a mere meeting, but it was a bold word and something brave crouched behind his expression.
“Well, then, we should get on before we collapse from hunger.” I smiled cheerfully, not willing and not able to show what a rhythm my heart stomped. “You gave me such a shock when you pulled up,” I told him as I led him back toward the house.
“That it is was me, that my moustache is hacked clean off, or that I could be so rudely late?” he asked, pausing beside the long troughs outside the barn. His white shirt looked so clean next to all of the mud left behind from our last rain.
“Yes,” I answered.
I could tell he liked to be teased; his mouth opened like he meant to say something smart right back, but he held his tongue. When he started to walk toward the house I stalled, wanting to hold him where he was a moment longer. “I keep wishing to tell you,” I spoke to my clenched hands and tried so hard to look relaxed I didn’t dare meet his eyes and show him the truth, “what it means to us, all that you did. It’s such a feeble thanks when there’s nothing we can give in return. But we mean it all the same.”
I waited for words, but heard only the rustle of his clothing as he shifted and ground his foot into the gravel. “Mr. Canavan was very expressive of his feelings when I stopped in. He gave me a great many wishes for the future.”
I could only imagine what Alan had “wished” him.
“I’m so sorry. I never dreamed you’d speak with him. Alan has terrible ideas of why I didn’t keep the engagement.”
“I would very much like to hear them,” Jonathon said gravely.
I shook my head, the air cold on my quickly moistening eyes. “I don’t think you do,” I protested. I felt nothing but my lungs, caged in by the bars of my ribs and unable to expand. I wondered for a brief second if this was how Alan felt when he was hit. It comforted me that it didn’t hurt nearly as badly as the heartache I’d battled for the last several weeks.
Jonathon pinched his mouth closed. “Would you like to hear Mr. Canavan's theory?”
My breath trembled and I needed to sit. Before he could speak I moved toward the wheelbarrow beside the trough and leaned against it.
“Don’t. Your dress,” he reminded me. “You’ll get rust stains. Shall we go inside?”
I refused. I couldn’t do this with Dad’s pants gawping at me. There was a bench outside of Alan’s barn where he liked to sit and watch the sheep as he donned his boots in the morning. I made sure to perch on the end that Alan usually didn’t and curled my fingers around the rough plank. “I’m afraid to know, but what did he say to you?” I could just see from the corner of my vision that Jonathon stared as far into the horizon as I did.
“Well,” he started and paused. “He called me out actually. Said he saw right through me and all I’d been doing.”
“H
ow awful. When all you’ve done is help.”
“That was my sentiment. I’m afraid the exchange got a bit heated. He seemed to think my motivations were selfish. He seemed to think,” Jonathon continued as he crossed his arms and pressed his back against the worn siding of the barn, “that my motivation was you.”
I shouldn’t have looked at him but my head moved by instinct. The last light mingled with the shadows in his dark eyes and I felt he asked me something more than told. “That’s absurd,” I replied weakly.
“Which is what I said, but he didn’t take my word for it. I really thought him a horrible, ungrateful sod. Surely he saw I had no intention to break up any lovers.”
My chest caved inward, my heart pushing as if my blood were glue. “That’s what I told him,” I intoned.
“Then where do you think he came up with the idea?” The question was soft and prodding, laid down as gently as possible.
I pressed my hand to the spot on my neck where I could feel my breath move my throat. I pictured the long-ago day in the kitchen, his fast kiss, followed by the one in the dark park. I don’t know if my cheeks betrayed a blush, but my chest burned beneath my cold hand. “Not from you,” I assured him. “Did he tell you about my last talk with him?” My pulse jumped beneath my fingertips.
“I’d rather hear it from you,” Jonathon answered, his steady eyes giving me no clues to what he already knew.
There was no gooseflesh on my arms but I shivered like it was winter instead of a late summer evening. “He confused what I said. I never said you felt anything for me.” I swallowed, tasting fear and foolishness so thick it barely left room for mumbled words. “I told him I was the one that had feelings.”
Jonathon nodded, did not allow his face to register any shock. “Well,” he said in a tone of a man changing the subject, “I took my wounded dignity back to London and worked like the devil to prove I cared as much for Farmer Braithwaite and Widow Crossey as I did for your family. I think I did some bang up work for them, too,” he told me, his expression holding something back.
“I’m sure you did.” The words were so much harder to force out when my throat was raw with shame. Would he not even acknowledge my confession?
“But I forced myself to care about them. And when it was you, I couldn’t help it.” He said it so matter-of-factly I almost missed the words in the rush of blood pounding in my ears. “So I started to wonder…and felt very guilty for wondering. And I think I wanted to meet tonight, not because I know anything, but only to find out, now that you’re free, if I had your permission to wonder.”
My head jerked up, my thoughts tripped over themselves like a lamb’s first faltering steps while I tried to understand his words. “Are you asking me…”
His eyebrows gathered like dark clouds above his eyes. “I don’t know what I’m asking, exactly. We’ve had very little time. None, really. Now I’m about to go away. I’m a decade older than you. Eve, I know it’s not the grand thing to say, but I just don’t know.”
“Go away?” I choked. “Do you mean your position in London?”
“No,” he whispered and turned to me. I knew it was awful before he said anything. “I’ve volunteered to assess food production in New Zealand and Australia. The Department wants a full evaluation and they need men with some experience on sheep farms.”
I closed my eyes, feeling the world tilt as if the cosmos had just jolted it out of place. “Has no one else noticed there is no war on?”
“Not officially, no. But it is surely coming and I think I’d regret it forever if I let all the young boys go alone.”
“Is it all decided?” I hoped perhaps there was still a way to undo it.
“They want me to sail before international waters get treacherous.” He stopped, realising he hadn’t truly answered me. “I leave in less than three weeks.”
Without looking at him I reached out for his hand and he caught mine as if he’d been waiting. “I think you are so small and so young, but really you’re not, are you?” he asked, his fingers exploring mine.
“Really, I’m not,” I agreed. “I was before you came but not anymore.”
“I’m not sure I could forgive myself if I made you grow out of your childhood. It suited you so well.” He lapsed into silence, stroking my hand. I raised my face until I could see the heavens where the light had died so quickly. Clouds obscured great patches of the sky, but stars blinked between.
“This suits me well, too.”
He nodded. “You surprised me tonight. I had a picture in my mind of you in your ruffled dress and I pulled up and saw you looking like...this.” He laughed and it was the best sound ever to fall into my ears. “But can I admit that as beautiful as you look, I like the boots best?”
I looked down and slipped my feet out of the muddy Wellingtons, tucking them under me. “You’re teasing.”
“I swear I’m not. I loved eating dinner with you in Woolwich and sitting in the park, but I think I love you the very best here. You’ve something I’ve never had.”
I knew he hadn’t meant it literally but the word love thundered in my brain. “That’s impossible.”
“No. I’ve never fought for a spot of ground like you fight for this farm. It is what makes me want to go to war. I want to know what it is to love a patch of earth like that.”
I put my hand up to touch his face, quiet his words, but lost courage. “Stop. If I thought I’d done anything to make you go to war I would hate myself forever. And I don’t love this farm,” I insisted.
He looked at me in utter confusion. “You don’t love Brannon Farm?”
“No. I don’t love anything but…” One tear broke free and fell onto my chin, hanging there like my unspoken word.
Jonathon touched it, the drop transferring to his fingertip, but he kept his hand there under my jaw before he leaned forward and pressed his bare lips to mine. I breathed in the air from his open mouth, willing myself to die that very instant. Surely no moment in a long life could compare. Until his lips closed gently on mine and I memorised the shape of his mouth, the taste of clean liquorice on his breath. I sipped on the warmth of it, swallowing it down and feeling the heat spread to every secret part of me. In retrospect I realise Alan’s kisses always dutifully stayed where he left them, tingling on my lips, but never exploring the rest of me. This one wandered through my blood, expanded into every pore of my skin.
It was he who broke the kiss with a shuddering sigh. “Is this madness?” he asked.
“Yes.” I hid my face in his neck, too afraid of what I would see in his eyes. I no longer wanted to die, but feared it was too late and it would happen at any moment out of sheer joy. After expanding to the point of pain, my heart shivered like a balloon ready to burst into nothingness.
“Please don’t leave now,” I whispered.
He loosed his hands. “You know I have to, don’t you?”
“Yes. But I can’t bear it.” Just like the stars popping into existence in the sky, odd questions fired to the front of my mind, bursting out of blackness. “What will your mother think of me?”
“She’s thinks you’re a lamb.” He laughed. “I suppose that is a tired cliché on a sheep farm.”
I couldn’t decide what I needed more, a kiss or a more answers. Jonathon didn’t give me a chance for either.
“Are you certain, Eve?” he asked in a serious voice. “Because you needn’t be. I’m looking for no promises. You know so little of me. It may be years before life resumes to normal.” His hand let go as if giving me a chance to change my mind.
I held on, refused to be released, and knew exactly what to say. “My hands are tied now.” I looked up at him, his face inches from mine. “Unless, of course Marion was interested.” I gave him a vicious grin and didn’t give the time for shock to register before I placed my hands on his cheeks, my thumb roaming over the smooth space between his nose and his lips. “Nothing seems real but you.”
“I was about to say you’re wicked,”
he told me, touching my hand as it explored his mouth. “Only you’re not at all.”
I don’t know precisely how we managed to do normal things like speak and stand after our declaration. I had a vague feeling of sleepwalking when he took me by the hand and led me across the dark yard. We stepped through the disgruntled chickens and into the kitchen. It was the first time I held his hand so tightly, thinking, This is mine. There was another kiss inside by the open stove, and the very best one was by the front door, my back flattened to the wall as his gentle lips moved across mine, which was certainly improper since we were alone, but I swear he was a gentleman. He insisted I not starve so he drove me to his home, not arriving until ten. He waved off the maid who was already in her dressing gown and insisted we fend for ourselves. We were raiding the larder for eggs when his mother came into the kitchen. Her eyes widened at the sight of me.
To Move the World (Power of the Matchmaker) Page 25
