“The lass said to let go of her.” His green eyes glowed like sea fire.
A shiver that had nothing to do with the cold rain raced through Meg. The gelding tossed his head and sidled away from the two men, and Joseph stood, his hair and face shining in the downpour, as though turned into a glass sculpture.
“Verra good.” Colin smiled and released Joseph’s arm. “If you like, Miss Jordan, I’ll escort you the rest of the way to Miss Thompson’s house.”
“Th–thank you.” Meg clenched her teeth to keep them from chattering. “I w–would like that.”
“I wouldn’t go anywhere with him if I were you.” Joseph’s voice was as cold as the rain. “You won’t like the consequences to your father.”
Meg stared at him. “Is that a threat?”
Joseph merely smiled.
Colin curled his fingers around Meg’s elbow. “We must get you out of this weather.”
Without so much as a nod in Joseph’s direction, Colin urged Meg back to the road and toward the Thompson farm. Rain splashed and pounded around them. The road turned to a river of mud. But no thud of hooves resounded behind them. Once Meg glanced back. She spotted no sign of Joseph.
“On horseback he can ride across the fields to his house faster than taking the road,” she observed.
“I expect he has.” Colin’s mouth was set in a grim line. “‘Twould be against his pride to follow us after you set your preference for my escort.”
“That was probably unwise of me, wasn’t it?”
“Aye, probably so.” Light pressure on her elbow took the sting from his agreement.
Meg’s throat closed. “Do you think he can harm you? I mean, can he make Father dismiss you?”
“Can he harm me? Aye. Can he persuade your father to dismiss me?” Colin said nothing more until they reached Sarah’s drive. There he paused beneath the protective canopy of an ancient pine and faced her. “If Joseph Pyle can persuade your father that you should marry him, when ‘tis against your wishes, I’m thinking he can persuade your father to make an unwise business decision like dismissing me.”
“Colin.” Meg pressed her hand to her lips. “You think Joseph has some sort of—control over my father?”
“I’m thinking a father who provides his daughter with a school with fine glass in the windows, a man who lets his daughter bring home stray cats and lets her go fishing with a glassblower is not verra likely to insist she wed a man she does not like.”
“Are you saying”—she clutched at his arm—”that Joseph is somehow forcing Father to go along with his wishes?”
“I cannot say anything so bold as all that.” He covered her hand with his. “But I’m saying I think some things aren’t right, you ken?”
“I know.” Meg blinked back tears. “What should I do?”
“Mr. Pyle has a fancy for you and will treat you well when not having his pride pricked, so I’m saying you should go along with your father’s wishes and accept his proposal.” He turned over his injured left hand. “And when I can work again, I’ll make you a fine gift to display in your new home.”
She felt as though Joseph’s gelding had kicked in her chest, crushing her heart. “You’re telling me to marry another man?”
“Aye, that I am.” Colin’s face was stiff. “I am not worth you having to choose between obeying your father and even being friends with me.”
“You are.” She could only speak in a whisper.
He gave her a smile though his eyes were sad. “And I cannot put my own wishes before my family another time. I do not feel I have the forgiveness once, let alone twice.”
More protests crowded into her throat, but she held them back. She would do everything she could to stop her impending betrothal to Joseph, but she could not compromise Colin’s position at the glassworks and his family’s better future.
“We’d better get into the house before we both catch a chill.” She turned toward the lane. “Come into the kitchen. There’ll be something hot to drink and a warm fire where you can dry yourself.”
They didn’t speak until they reached the walk of flagstones leading to the front door. Colin tried to wish her good-bye there, but she insisted on accompanying him all the way around the house to the kitchen door. The Thompsons’ housekeeper greeted them with exclamations over their bedraggled state and sent her daughter running to fetch Sarah.
“We’ve been worried about you,” the housekeeper said. “Sarah thought you would be here long before now.”
“I’m sorry.” Meg drew Colin to stand beside her at the fire. “One of my kittens—oh.” She stuck her hand into her pocket, where the kitten lay curled up and soaked. “Poor thing. I forgot about him. Colin, will you be so kind as to take it to the stable on your way home?”
“Of course.” He smiled at Meg, their eyes meeting and holding, as their hands touched in the exchange. “Perhaps this experience will teach him to stop wandering quite so much.”
“I think so.” She kept her fingers touching his hand. “Feel his little heart. It’s beating like a parade drum.”
“Aye, I ken how he feels.” Colin smiled and drew his hand away. “Now run along with your friend and get yourself dry. This fine lady is making cups of tea, and Miss Thompson is waiting for you.”
Meg nodded and turned her back on him, her own heart sinking to her toes.
Sarah stood in the doorway, silent, staring. As soon as Meg faced her, she spun on her heel and marched out of the kitchen. Meg followed. Neither of them spoke until they reached Sarah’s bedchamber on the second floor.
“Margaret Jordan, whatever are you thinking?” Sarah sounded out of breath.
Meg removed her sodden cloak and shoes before answering. “I’m thinking that I don’t want to marry Joseph even though I know it’s for the best that I do.”
“That’s what I was afraid you’d say when I witnessed that touching scene down there.” Sarah pressed her hands to her cheeks. “You’re in love with him, aren’t you? The glassblower, I mean.”
Without needing even a moment to think of her response, Meg nodded. “Yes, I’m in love with him. But if I don’t marry Joseph, it could ruin Colin’s life and possibly my father’s, too.”
eleven
Colin spent the evening writing letters to his family. He needed to see each name, conjure every face in his head to remind him of his purpose for being in America, in sending Meg on her way. All for the sake of his family. He could risk nothing that would prevent him from bringing his family to America, where a home to live, a place for them to get an education, the opportunity to have better lives spread out before them.
“This land is vast,” he wrote. “People speak of New Jersey being too crowded, but if this is crowded, I cannot imagine the emptiness of the lands beyond the mountains.”
Nor the abundance of the fish in the lochs he’d heard of to the west and north, lochs big enough to be seas. He wrote of all of it to his family then set the missive aside for when Mr. Jordan returned. His employer had already promised he would help transfer money to Colin’s family, using his agent in England.
Writing to his family, knowing the money would ease their lot a bit lessened Colin’s distress. He had a fine home, warmth, and plenty to eat. He was even making friends, thanks to the Dalbows’ warmth and hospitality. Yet his heart ached with every thought of Meg that crept into his head, and in the dark quiet of night, he wished he’d stayed in Edinburgh, though the opportunities to help his family had been too few to count in the crowded, expensive city.
“Haven’t I suffered enough, Lord?” he cried out in his empty house. “What else will I have to do to prove I’ve reformed my ways and am now devoted to my family?”
With his hand injured, he was losing wages. A body couldn’t be a master glassblower with the use of only one hand. He needed both to balance the pipe and manipulate the glass. He could manage some drawings, so he stood at a table beneath the windows and began to think of objects he could make for Meg as a wedd
ing present from the glassworks’ employees. He considered a vase, but that was too easy, too common, and her friend’s fiancé had commissioned a pair of them for his new bride. The same went for candlesticks. She would get plenty of those for wedding gifts. This had to be special, perhaps useless … or perhaps simply frivolous.
He chewed on his pencil and gazed out the window, thinking of things he could make, thinking of things Meg could use. Thinking of Meg—her smooth hands, her bright smile, her scent of apple blossoms even in the winter.
Scent—of course. She must wear some sort of scent. He could make her a scent bottle, something delicate yet sturdy, bright and effervescent like Meg herself.
“How’s your hand?” Thad joined Colin at the window.
“It’s all right.” Colin frowned at the blisters. They were healing well. “But I have too much work to be woolgathering here by the windows.”
“You can’t work with that hand though.” Thad leaned toward the windows. “I see the finches have brought some friends. They like the warmth, and Martha sprinkles a bit of grain for them.”
“They’re not verra attractive birds.” Colin eyed the cluster of tiny finches gathered in the yard.
They were a dull brown, but lively and talkative among one another.
“The males turn a bright yellow in the spring,” Thad explained. “Martha is convinced they have the same spouses year after year, too. I don’t care much for birds unless they’re in the cooking pot, but Martha likes them.”
Colin studied the finches picking at the ground with their pointed, pink beaks. They were small, not more than four inches long, but their vivacity whirled around them.
“They’ll be a fine sight when they’re in their courting feathers.” Colin grasped his pencil and began to draw.
Thad stood and watched. “That’s how you advanced so fast in Edinburgh. You can design, too.”
“Aye, I had a good teacher.” Colin hesitated, then he changed the bird’s position so that it was launching into flight, its beak pointing skyward. “Do you think ‘twill do for a perfume bottle? The beak can be the stopper.”
“A perfume bottle, eh?” Thad studied the design. “We’ve made medicine bottles aplenty here. They’re easy but nothing as fancy as this. Do you think ladies would buy it?”
“‘Tis not for sale. ‘Tis intended as a gift.”
“I see.” Thad glanced toward the desk, where a box of the purple goblets rested, and Colin understood that Thad saw a great deal.
Neither Colin nor Meg had tried to hide their growing feelings for each other. Inspecting the blisters on his left hand, Colin wondered—not for the first time—if someone had noticed, disapproved, and thought of a way to be rid of Colin without doing him in—just preventing him from working, perhaps long enough to get him dismissed.
“You did not succeed,” Colin muttered.
“What was that?” Thad asked.
“I was talking to myself. Is there aught I can do?”
“Carry those glasses to the Jordans’ house.” Thad started back to his bench. “Miss Jordan has taken it into her head to learn to knit. She’s over there having Martha teach her right now.”
The message was clear—Meg wouldn’t be at home, so going to the Jordans’ was safe.
She wasn’t home; she was walking around the end of the glassworks as Colin left with the glasses. He couldn’t avoid her without being rude, and his heart cried out to God, protesting the encounter at the same time it thrilled at the sight of her.
“Peter and Sarah are coming to fetch me,” she told him. “It’s not raining or snowing, so I thought I’d walk to the end of the drive. I won’t get another chance to walk for another two days at the least, and I do love to—” She broke off and giggled. “I’m talking too much, aren’t I?”
“Aye, that you are.” Colin grinned at her. “But I like the sound of your voice.”
“No no, you’re the one with the fine voice. It’s”—she tilted her head and smiled up at him—”musical.”
“You flatter me.” He looked away from her so he could regain his composure. “Shall I escort you to the gate, Miss Jordan?”
She took a step closer to him. “I was Meg yesterday.”
“You should not have been.” He adjusted his grip on the box. “Perhaps I should be delivering this half of your wedding present to your house, as Thad told me to.”
“There will be no wedding.” Meg spoke through her teeth. “Tomorrow, when my father returns home, I will tell him absolutely I will not marry Joseph Pyle.”
“You do as you think is right, but you will still have to be Miss Jordan to me.”
“I don’t want—”
The ringing of the gate bell interrupted her.
“Good day.” Colin inclined his head and headed toward the side gate that led to the fields of the Jordan farm, a rough shortcut to the house. Behind him, he heard Meg make a noise, something like a sob. He refused to look back. He’d be doomed if he did. A man only had so much strength for resisting even a few minutes with the lady he loved.
While hunting up work to keep himself occupied, from sweeping up the cullet off the floor, to nailing crates together for Meg to use as benches in her school, Colin prayed for no more encounters with Meg. That another errand took him into her presence again the following morning proved to him how little God paid attention to him. He was still doing wrong in the Lord’s eyes.
If only the Thompsons had waited another day to ask for someone from the glassworks to measure the globes in their sconces to make some replacements, Meg would have been back home. Instead she perched on the edge of a sofa, snippets of white yarn sticking to her dress like snowflakes, while she counted stitches on a knitting needle in the room into which Mrs. Thompson led him.
“I don’t know how I ended up with thirty-four stitches, when I started out with thirty. Martha warned me about dropping stitches but—” She stopped talking to her friend Sarah, and pink tinged her cheeks.
“I beg your pardon, ladies.” He bowed his head and tried to turn his back on Meg so he could concentrate on the business at hand—the measurement of a sconce globe made of glass that was far too dark to be of much use.
“Did you knit two stitches from the same loop?” Sarah asked a little too loudly.
“Did I what?” Meg sounded vague.
Colin smiled and took out his caliper to measure the base and height of the globe.
“Are you going to replace the glass, Mrs. Thompson?” Meg asked.
“I was thinking of it,” Mrs. Thompson said. “The glass in these is so gray the candlelight doesn’t show through very well.”
“Will you use flint glass to make them, um, Mr. Grassick?” Meg’s voice emerged breathless.
Colin glanced over his shoulder at her and smiled. The sight of her with her hair in loose curls tumbling down her back, confined only by a blue velvet ribbon, the white wool yarn in her hands stole his breath, robbed him of anything sensible beyond the ability to nod.
“Maybe Sarah and I can come watch you work one day.” Meg smiled. “I’ve seen them make the windows, but something like these globes is much more interesting.”
“If Mr. Jordan says ‘tis all right, I’d be honored.” He made himself turn to Mrs. Thompson. “Is there anything else, ma’am?”
“No.” She drew out the single word, and her hazel eyes flitted between him and Meg. “Send us the estimate on the cost of four globes for this room as soon as you can.”
“Aye, er, yes, ma’am.” As he exited the room, he allowed himself one more look at Meg, met and held her gaze for a moment longer than necessary. A moment longer than was good for his heart.
Outside, a blast of cold, damp air slapped him in the face along with the sight of Joseph Pyle riding up on his fine chestnut horse. Pyle, who had a right to call on Meg.
Colin returned to the glassworks, where he assisted one of the other workers to break some rather well-done bowls out of the new molds. They lacked the artistry
of blown glass pieces, but they were also far cheaper.
In the early afternoon Colin returned to his cottage for his dinner and found Meg placing a basket on his back stoop.
“I do not think you should be here, Miss Jordan.” He made his posture and manner as formal as he knew how.
She tossed her head back. “Martha Dalbow is right next door, and I was just leaving this here. Mrs. Weber made dinner for Father, but he didn’t come home, so I brought it over to you.”
“And I’m an ungrateful beast for not thanking you. But, my dear—I mean, Miss Jordan—”
“I prefer ‘my dear.’” She took a step closer to him, one hand outstretched. “Colin—”
Footfalls sounded on the gravel path between the cottages, and Meg’s face paled. Colin knew what—or who—he would see even before Meg spoke.
“Father, you’re home at last. And, Mr. Pyle, good afternoon.”
“Run along home, Margaret,” Jordan said. “Joseph will escort you. Grassick, shall we go inside your house and talk?”
“Aye, sir.” Without so much as a glance in Meg’s direction, Colin picked up the basket she had carried with her own soft hands to his doorstep, and he opened the door.
The cottage was cold. Colin made haste to build up the fire from the banked coals and set a kettle of water on for tea. Purring, the cat rubbed around his ankles.
Jordan arrived in a few moments and closed the door. He didn’t sit; he stood with his back to the panels, his arms folded across his chest. “How’s the hand?”
Colin started at the question, expecting something quite different. “It’s healing nicely, sir. I should be back to work shortly. In the meantime I’m making myself as useful as possible.”
“Good. We have a number of new orders from my journey to Philadelphia.” Jordan cleared his throat. “The others are learning finer work from you, but they aren’t up to your standards and won’t be for a long time. You know all this, and I reiterate it to emphasize how much I need you.”
Colin said nothing. He sensed Jordan intended to say more—more Colin wouldn’t like.
The Glassblower Page 10
