by Conkle, Gina
Why was she stuck in this lonely tower?
Small, feminine nostrils flared. “You’re staring.”
“And you’ve not let go.” His voice was rough and low.
Livvy held on tight, her face turning to Plumtree. The tower’s height and elevated Halsey lands gave them a fine view. The church bell tolled the medieval hour Compline, a Christmas Day tradition. Snow dropped a curtain of innocence on jumbled homes where festive candles shined in windows, the effect like polished gold. Ten years he’d been gone. Nothing had changed except a narrow canal cutting through the land. Centuries would pass, but Plumtree would remain the same rustic village.
“I know you’re here because of my sneaking into your grandfather’s house last night,” she said quietly.
She turned, her brown gaze spearing him as if she’d decided to embrace honesty and expected the same of him. His chest squeezed. He swallowed hard. She’d been the one traipsing around dressed as a man, brandishing a pistol at midnight.
Why did he feel the heat of expectation?
“Curiosity—perhaps concern?—is getting the best of you. I understand.” Her voice was grave. “But, for the moment, we must attend the chair. It’s very, very, very old. A Roman general or magistrate probably sat on it.”
He nodded solemnly. “An ass of great, historical importance.”
Livvy bit her bottom lip, fighting a smile. “I am quite serious.”
“I see that.”
He gave her a sporting smile. This was cozy having a hushed discussion while leaning over a windowsill with Livvy. If he tipped his head toward her, their noses would brush.
Their conversation was a kiss with words.
Her eyes flared wider, and she carried on with an earnest voice. “You must handle this piece with care. All four ivory legs are intact. Do you understand? They are ivory.” She paused. “This chair is worth a great deal of money.”
Outside, he hadn’t noticed the ivory for the heavy dirt smears, but he did catch how the words ivory and money rolled off her tongue, the syllables full of reverence and need.
“At present, snow is falling on your valuable furniture.”
Livvy glanced at snow collecting on the chair. She nodded and, without a word, eased her grip on the rope and backed away from the window. He leaned further out, the advantage of his height, and held the chair away from the wall. Cautiously, he hauled in the rope hand over hand until he set the piece on the floor and untied it.
“Where do you want your prize?”
“If you’d put it there—” she pointed at the east hearth and shut the windows “—I’d be most grateful.”
Another canvas cloth was spread across the floor. He placed the relic on the canvas, catching Livvy watching him out of the corner of her eye. A bucket was tucked against the wall, full of paring chisels, a gimlet, pitsaw, and auger among other furniture maker’s tools.
Had she stolen tools from the Captain?
Livvy stood at a table, her thumb idly brushing the corner of a mosaic. “The chair is a curule chair, unique because it’s intact. A discovery from a Roman campsite a farmer uncovered in Learmouth.”
“I recall reading about the find. Over a year ago wasn’t it?”
“Yes,” she said, not meeting his gaze. “The Antiquarian Society was thrilled. To think, it all started when the farmer’s plow dug up a Roman sandal.”
The Antiquarian Society, or more correctly, The Antiquarian Society for Historical Study and Preservation, was an odd lot of historians who loved digging in the earth for pieces of the past. When he was seventeen, Jonas had shoveled dirt, loads of it, on an excavation with Livvy’s father in Scotland. The treasure hunt would’ve been worthwhile, but Mr. Halsey and his antiquarian friends searched the remains of an ancient Pictish village, ecstatic over a broken loom and textile remnants. He smiled, recalling how he and the other laborers had thought the antiquarians a bit daft. Gold was worth a man’s excitement; moldy cloth was not.
Hands clamped behind his back, Jonas strolled the circular room. He stepped over a rusted Roman gladius, a soldier’s sword, on burlap. Sections of a breast plate rested beside it like pieces of a puzzle to be done. Nothing fit. Mr. Halsey was order itself, yet this room was chaos with artifacts on the floor, a thing the old man would never countenance.
And there was the uncertainty in Livvy’s voice.
He stopped at a scribe’s desk facing the wall. Scribbled pages cluttered the surface. Four books lined the desk’s upper shelf, one name embossed on the spines: Mr. Thomas J. Halsey. Jonas lifted a volume off the shelf.
“Where is your father? Isn’t he coming?” He flipped through pages of Viking art styles.
Footsteps scraped behind him. A feminine hand, the nails trimmed short, skin dry at the knuckles reached for the book. Livvy hugged the tome to her brown and yellow stomacher. Torn lace hung from her elbows. Stains streaked her vinegar-scented skirt.
“You know he’s not coming.”
“I know nothing of the sort.”
Her chin lifted. “You haven’t figured out what’s going on here?”
He drew a patient breath. “Call me dim-witted. Plumtree’s fine folk have done as much.”
“You are nothing of the sort,” she said, her grip relaxing on the book. “You have a quiet strength. Quick to listen and slow to speak, yes. But a dull mind? Never.” Her face tilted as if a new facet revealed itself. “You have always been a man of few words. An excellent quality.”
The room’s glow couldn’t match the glimmer in her eyes. He stood taller, basking in Livvy’s unexpected praise. Candlelight shined on her mussed copper hair. He wanted to stroke the length of it from the crown of her head to the braid’s tip dangling at her tiny waist. The square neck of her bronze-colored gown barely contained plump, white mounds above the book.
“You’re not saying much,” she murmured, closing the gap between them.
Because the sight of her made his mind spin.
His fingers flexed and curled at his side. The country girl of his youth had grown into a provocative woman with an air of innocence. Coppery wisps traced Livvy’s cheek, dangling soft as down on her collarbone. With his gloves still on, he brushed away her loose hair and traced the slanted collarbone to her shoulder and back to the center of her chest. Little goosebumps danced across her breast’s upper curve.
Livvy inhaled fast.
“Do you like what I’m saying now?” he asked.
Chapter Three
His touch demanded a kiss.
She rocked up on her toes and mashed her lips to his. It was the only way to take control; otherwise Jonas would have the upper hand.
But, he did have the upper hand—smashed to her breast because she’d flung herself at him and his gloved hand had gotten stuck in between. Sensations ricocheted through her body. The aroma of spicy soap, the cool leather on her skin, and five fingers spread wide high on her chest. Nerves singed from his hand resting there.
Heat shot to hidden flesh between her legs. She had an older, widowed sister. She knew what was happening.
Unfortunately, nothing was happening.
Her mouth locked on his, but neither kissed. What was she supposed to do?
This was nothing like last night’s soul-shattering kiss. The element of surprise was hers, and she’d botched it. Horribly.
Dropping back on her heels, she peeked at Jonas. The outer corners of lapis lazuli eyes crinkled above her, taking in the angles of her face before dipping to his gloved hand.
“My hand.” Jonas removed it from her breast as one might remove their hold on a fragile dish.
Hugging the Halsey tome, she inched away, unable to look him in the eye. “That was a disaster.”
What did she expect? Artful, expert kissing? She spent more time with dusty relics than men. Flirting and kissing were two skills she’d not mastered. Lust was easily understood. What to do with it was another kettle of fish.
“Livvy—”
“Please d
on’t.” She swiveled around and returned the book to its shelf. “I don’t know what came over me.”
“Probably the same thing that overcame me last night.”
His rich baritone message soothed her pride, but with every sense jangled, she couldn’t face Jonas. Not yet. She gathered papers on her desk and ordered them into two neat stacks and re-ordered them again, willing her cheeks to cool off. They were, no doubt, an unattractive shade of beets.
Snow blew past the tower’s lone window. She rubbed her stomacher, the yellow embroidery ripped from catching the jagged ends of broken mosaics.
“I should be a gentleman and leave,” he said to her back.
“But you’re not going to, are you?”
“No.”
She swung around and rested both hands on the desk behind her. “You have a talent for leaving when I want you to stay, and staying when I’d prefer you go.”
Jonas pulled a chair out from the work table. He turned it backward and straddled the seat. During her desk organizing, he’d removed his hat, gloves, and heavy outer coat. Blue velvet stretched across wide shoulders, the coat flapping open with a casual air. Black leather breeches molded to his thighs, the cut showing he’d patronized one of London’s finer tailors. Pirating must have been lucrative, indeed. The Jonas of her youth wore ill-fitting homespun and when he grew larger, the Captain’s oft-mended cast-offs.
With Jonas’s good looks and natty attire, most women would see a dashing man. She saw Plumtree’s quiet rebel son, the young man who’d claimed he didn’t care about wearing patched-up clothes.
Her heart softened. She knew better.
“You look rather comfortable,” she said. “Planning to stay awhile?”
“Long enough for you to explain yourself.” His gaze roved over broken pottery. “What are you’re doing in here?”
Jonas was leaving England for good. She could tell him. Confession was good for the soul. Who better to unburden herself with than a childhood friend? A confidence shared with Jonas would be a confidence kept.
But, this was a Christmas Day visit, a time when most souls hunkered down with family.
“I could ask the same of you. Why are you here and not with your grandfather?”
Jaw resting in the flat of his hand, his smile was tolerant. “If my worst sin is a short walk in the country, consider me guilty. You, on the other hand, have your share of secrets. Time to ’fess up.”
Secrets and sins. They could be one and the same where she was concerned. She couldn’t toss out a quip or clamber out a window to escape this. Her reckoning was coming.
To begin it with Jonas could be freeing.
She pulled a thin volume off the desk shelf and passed it to Jonas. “My big secret is this.”
He read aloud the gold-embossed spine. “An Exhaustive Study of Vallum Hadriani by Thomas J. Halsey.”
“I wrote it.” She waited, her brows pinching. Relief didn’t come.
“You wrote the book in your father’s name?”
“After he took ill last year. His notes, my words. I was at his side when he wrote most of them…have been since you left.” Her chin tipped high. “I may not have a university education, but I know as much as any antiquarian. I’ve been on nearly all my father’s summer excavations, helping him catalogue Roman relics.”
Jonas skimmed the volume in hand. His keen study wandered from the page to the table’s historic treasures before drifting back to the desk with its neat stacks of paper.
“You’re writing another one in his name,” his deep voice intoned.
“Yes.”
His face grave, Jonas set the book on the work table and folded his arms on the chair’s back rest. The toe of her shoe traced circles on the floor as if she were a girl caught cheating on her sums. This was supposed to be freeing, this confession to a friend, but the grim line of Jonas’s mouth made her push off the desk and pace the floor.
“Say something, please.” She wiped damp palms down her skirts. “I can’t bear this silence.”
“Livvy, surely you don’t plan to continue this deception. The Antiquarian Society will eventually find out.” He nodded at the desk. “Your father’s publisher will, too, I suspect.”
“I know.” Heels striking the floor, her voice dripped with misery. “I didn’t intend for everything to go this far.”
“One thing I learned while in service to the Earl of Greenwich, academic societies set great store on the integrity of their field of study.”
She walked the wide planks, wringing her hands. “It was only supposed to be that volume behind you.”
“What happened?”
She sighed heavily, looking to the pristine world beyond the window. “Fame from the Learmouth find.” Her pacing took her to the mullioned glass. “The book I wrote in my father’s name did well…better than his others.”
“Cause for celebration.”
“In a way, it was. I’ve always wanted to write fiction. Adventures about Roman generals.” She touched the window with both hands, a woman trapped in a world of her own making. “And then Father’s publisher sent a letter last month requesting a book on the Learmouth excavation.”
“And you said yes.”
“The offer was too good to turn down. Of course, they don’t want me. They want Thomas J. Halsey.”
“And you’re taking up your father’s work until his return.”
The frosted glass chilled her palms. A long-held ache rolled from her belly into her chest, lodging itself behind her breastbone.
“He’ll never work again, Jonas. He’s dying.” Her forlorn voice drifted through the tower. Lonely. Sad. A little lost. Her father was the sun and the moon to her.
Chair legs scraped behind her. Steady footfalls crossed the floor. Looking up, the stalwart face of her friend reflected in the glass behind her. Silent. Comforting. A man easy to be with.
The same man she’d kissed hotly one night and with disastrous results moments ago.
Jonas didn’t ask for her father’s tale. Nor did he hug her as he’d done the day she’d told him her beloved cat, Julius Caesar, had died. She was eleven years old, then. Tears had flowed that day and big-hearted Jonas had wrapped his arms around her until she could cry no more.
Was he trying to keep his distance now?
He might want safe detachment. She did not. The tale was already started. She’d see it finished.
“Summer of last year, we were at the Learmouth excavation. Everything was going well, except Father complained of his arm tingling. He insisted on climbing a tree to get a birds-eye view of the site,” she said, staring at the peaceful world beyond the tower. “When he was in the tree, a spasm wracked his body and he fell.”
“But he survived.”
“He did, but he hasn’t been the same since…in body or mind.”
“The Captain thinks your father works with you here in the tower.”
Warming both hands on her skirt, she faced Jonas. “Because Mother and I need everyone to believe it. At least until this book is published and—” she tipped her head to the hearth “—that chair sells. We know we can’t keep up this ruse for much longer.”
“Your father is infirm?”
“Infirm?” A pitiful laugh rippled through her. “This summer, he walked with a cane. Now he’s bedridden.”
“With no chance for recovery?”
“None.” Her eyes squeezed shut and she hugged herself, needing blessed blankness. “Most days, he doesn’t recognize me…his own daughter.”
“An ailment of the mind,” Jonas said softly. “And you are carrying the weight of providing for your family.”
“I do what I can.” Head resting on the wall, she opened her eyes. “It’s why I broke into your bedchamber. I stole his old watch from you.”
“The watch I won in a card game?”
“Yes.” Her voice thinned. “It’s baffling. He doesn’t recognize me, but Father can recall certain personal objects with perfect clarity. He kept
badgering Mother about his watch, fixating on it. He didn’t know it was gone. The physician said it’s good to surround Father with things he does remember. Helps his mind. So, when I heard you were in Plumtree…”
“You decided to get it back.”
“I didn’t think you’d miss it.”
“If it brings him comfort, keep it.” He chuckled and set his hands on his hips. “You know you could’ve asked me for it. I’d have given it to you.”
“And risk having to explain why?” She shook her head. “I couldn’t take that chance.”
Jonas smarted as if she’d flung ale in his face. Hands still on his hips, he shook his head, taking great interest in the toes of his boots. She took a half-step off the wall and stopped when blue eyes pinned her.
“Livvy, you know you can trust me, same as ever.”
But I can’t count on you to stay.
“Thank you, Jonas.” She gave him a thin-lipped, obligatory smile. “Please understand, I couldn’t be sure…”
“Because I’ve given you no reason to be sure.”
“There is that. You are leaving.”
“Yes. There is that,” he said, his voice sad and final.
Tucking hair behind her ear, she tried for a cheerier smile. “I am grateful for your help bringing up the chair, but I must get back to work.”
Daylight faded outside. She donned her shawl and walked stiff-limbed to the hearth. Crouching low, she touched a taper to an ember. Behind her, she expected Jonas to gather his things and leave the tower. She was graceless when it came to social niceties. Elspeth would know what to do. Her sister always did. But, really, was there a pleasant way to do this? Dismiss a long-lost friend?
Jonas bored holes in her as she lit candles set at intervals on the work tables. Globs of dried wax mucking up the table attested to long nights in the tower. At her desk, she lit an iron candle stand. Her side vision caught Jonas kneeling in front of the curule chair.
“Are you restoring all these artifacts?” he asked.
