by Dawn Brower
Her calm acceptance infuriated him. “I’m going to flog Galen within an inch of his life. This is wrong.”
“Please, please listen. Be rational.” She closed the distance between them. Lifted her right hand and cupped his face with it. “You know Lord Camprich is right. We were caught doing the very thing we knew we shouldn’t. I wouldn’t trade my time here for anything. You…you made me feel special. Made me feel as though someone will be able to love me someday. I might be more than just an authority figure to someone else’s children.”
Fletcher’s heart cracked. “Me, Jayne. It could be me. That could be our dream.”
She laughed, a brittle sound that matched the sadness in her eyes. “Where? Here? I’ll move into the cottage and be your mistress?”
“He would never stand for that. We’d marry. Doesn’t that make the most sense?” Confused by her refusal to see the answer, he stepped back. “Marry me.”
“No. Not today. Not tomorrow. Not the week after next.” Her face closed and her eyes hardened. “That is not the solution for either of us.”
“But why not?”
“You’re still in love with your Rosalyn. Still in love with that beautiful little girl the two of you created. There’s no room for me in there.”
Anger burned through him. “That’s not true.”
“You are my friend and you always shall be. I admire your dedication to Roslyn. I wish I could have met her. Thank you for taking care of me last evening. I had better go before Lord Camprich sends someone after me.” She left.
Fletcher clenched his eyes shut and his hands into balls when the door closed behind her.
He’d lost his second chance for happiness because one nosy lord couldn’t keep out of another man’s business. And because Jayne couldn’t see he was finally ready to let go of his past.
To suit Jayne’s mood, the clouds had let loose in an all-day shower. She’d gotten wet riding to town in the dog cart with Samuel driving. He had little to say to her, clearly pleased that his friend had gotten to keep his job at the stables and that Lord Camprich was tossing her out.
She didn’t have much to say to him either, so she rode in silence and said nothing when he removed her trunks from the cart. All she could do was wait for a train that would carry her back to London. She might find work there as a governess if the new employers weren’t too inquisitive about her previous position. If not, she could apply at any number of shops. Although her plain features weren’t much help in selling fine fashions. Or perhaps she could find work as a secretary. Her handwriting was impeccable. There were plenty of jobs she could do in London. All she had to do was get there.
Far away from Fletcher. She closed her eyes. She’d never see his charming smile again. Never watch his confident swagger as he groomed Oro. Never feel his soft lips against hers. She had to leave him. Staying with him in a place where she wasn’t wanted would never work. Lord Camprich had made it quite clear she wasn’t welcome. Everyone on the estate would think something inappropriate had gone on between them, even if she’d accepted his offer of marriage. It had been a noble gesture on his part. She couldn’t tie him down that way.
She already missed Bethany, who hadn’t even been allowed to say goodbye to her. Tears threatened, but she held them back. There was enough moisture in the air without her adding to it.
Packing hadn’t done any favors to help her shoulder. One of the lower servants had assisted her, but the dratted thing still felt as though it might fall off at the joint any moment. The coolness of the air didn’t help. She wanted to nestle into her warm bed at Camprich Manor with a novel and forget her woes.
“I don’t even have a bed to call my own anymore.”
What use was dwelling on it? When she arrived in London, she’d find a rooming house. Something nice. Not one of those dreadful houses in the working class district. She’d never ventured down there, and with luck, would never have to. Her days of living in an orphan home in a sad district were over. Surely she could find some decent work.
Though the roof over the platform kept her from getting soaked, water splashed down on her shoes and hem. She would be a soggy mess by the time the train arrived. The journey back to London would be miserable—though her spirits were already so low, they couldn’t sink much further.
She hugged her shawl closer. The train wouldn’t arrive until late afternoon. She had several hours to wait. A cup of tea might help lift her mood. All she had to do was tromp through the mud to the tea house down the road. Leaving her luggage unguarded, sadly. Though it didn’t seem that too many people were out and about in this weather.
Jayne opened her umbrella, then stepped out into the rain. Droplets hit the oiled silk with disheartening thumps. She crossed the street, splashing through puddles. It would take some washer woman a great deal of effort to remove the mud. If she should even waste money on sending her laundry out. If she scrubbed it for herself, it would save several coins. Soon, she’d be forced to make her own tea. No more servants to fetch it for her. She’d become accustomed to being waited on. Now life required her to fend for herself.
“I will not cry. I will not cry. That is unacceptable.” Standing outside the tea house, tears began leaking down her cheeks. Even a warm cuppa wasn’t going to solve any of her problems.
“Miss Strange. You seem to have found yourself in some sort of predicament. I can’t say I’ve ever run into a crying lady outside a tea house.”
She spun and lowered her umbrella at Fletcher’s voice.
Water dripped off his cowboy hat onto his oiled dust coat. His brow furrowed as he looked down at her.
“What are you doing here?” She wiped at her face. “You’re supposed to be at Camprich Manor.”
He shrugged. “I quit.”
“What? Why? We agreed you would look after Bethany. She’ll be devastated that we’re both gone. You have to return and ask Lord Camprich for your job back.” She hiccupped. “Of all the foolish things for you to do!”
“He treated you unfairly.” Fletcher swung his leg over Oro’s back. He held onto the reins, but approached her. “I told him so to his face. Told him that if he didn’t give you another chance, he could find someone else to train his horses.”
She withdrew her handkerchief from her handbag. “Oh, Fletcher. That was ridiculous and unnecessary.”
“I don’t want to stay at Camprich Manor without you. Not for all the money in his bank.”
“You foolish man. What were you thinking?”
“That I love you. That I’ve wanted to say so since I gave you that locket. I’m not the sort of man a woman like you ought to marry. You should have been good enough to wear the ring of any of those men who escorted your friend around London. But they didn’t see what I saw. How big your heart is. How much you care about others. You know I loved Rosalyn. Loved that baby I only got to hold for a few hours before I had to bury her. I love you like that too, Jayne. In my eyes, you’re not plain. You’re never boring. You’re beautiful and special. How do I convince you of that?”
Tears streamed down her cheeks again. “That’s—that’s… Beautiful.”
He spread his arms. “So here I am with nothing but my horse and my heart, ready to follow you to London or France or wherever it is you’re taking those heavy trunks full of grey and lavender gowns. Me and Oro, we’ll go anywhere as long as we get to go with you.”
She dabbed her eyes. “I’ve recently gained an interest in visiting Texas.”
“Texas?” He patted Oro’s neck. “Seems like we might know a thing or two about that place. But there’s something we have to do first.”
“What’s that?”
“Get a ring on your finger. You think my family is going to be thrilled to learn I traveled all the way from England with an unmarried woman? It could ruin my reputation. If you’re not too stubborn to accept a proposal this time.”
Jayne laughed. “I regretted it. Regretted leaving you, but I was afraid of causing you to lose your j
ob. Since you’ve quit, what will we do?”
“Open a livery? Maybe raise horses of our own. We’ll figure it out on the trip to the States.” He reached into his pocket. “I have this for you from Bethany. She was upset when I told her you left and that I had to go too, but she understood.”
She took the folded note and opened it.
Dear Miss Jayne,
I will miss you and Mr. Nash. I wish you did not have to go. Mr. Nash told me that he loves you. That is why he cannot stay with us. I learned a lot from him and from you. It was the best time. Please write to me wherever you go. Please marry Mr. Nash because he will not be happy unless you are together. Take care of Oro and give him a kiss from me.
Love,
Miss Bethany Camprich
“She’s such a sensitive, caring child. Did she truly write this?” Jayne folded it and put it into her handbag.
“She made me wait while she did. I wasn’t allowed to leave without taking it. She didn’t get to say goodbye, so she needed some closure.”
“I’m going to miss her a great deal. I’ll write to her. If her parents are gone as often as everyone says, they’ll never know. I’m sure Mrs. Lusk will see that she gets the letters.”
“We’ll both write. She’ll be excited to learn we settled on going to Texas. When she’s of age, we’ll invite her to visit.”
“I’d like that.” She smiled at Fletcher. “I’m glad that we were able to bring some joy to her life. I hope I can do the same for you. Now that there are no constraints, I can say, I love you, Fletcher. I can say it as often as I like whenever I like.”
“I will never get tired of hearing it.” He looked up at the sky. “It stopped raining.”
“Does it matter? We’re already soaking wet.”
“Nevertheless, the day is looking up. How many hours till that train arrives?”
“A few more. Why?”
His familiar grin flashed beneath his cowboy hat. “I reckon I’ve got a ring to buy. Care to join me? Oro will stand guard over your luggage. He’ll bite anyone who tries to take it.”
She laughed. “Our own personal guard horse. How convenient. And, yes, I’d love to join you while you purchase a ring I never intend to remove. This is just like a penny dreadful where the hero rides off into the sunset after capturing the heroine’s heart.”
“Happily-ever-after?”
“That’s for fairy tales. This was a rollicking adventure and my cowboy is far more exciting than any prince.”
“I’m just a plain man in love with a kind, smart woman.” He leaned close and cupped her face. “I don’t need grand adventures or fairy tale romance. Only your love, for always.”
“You shall have it. In plain sight, for everyone to see. For always.”
About the Author
A love of reading inspired award-winning and international best-selling author Allison Merritt to pursue her dream of becoming a writer who explores historical, paranormal, contemporary, and fantasy romances, often combining the sub-genres. She lives in a small town in the Ozark Mountains with her husband and dogs. It's not unusual to find her lurking in graveyards, wandering historical sites, or listening to ghost stories.
Allison graduated from College of the Ozarks in Point Lookout, Missouri with a B.A. in mass communications that's gathering dust after it was determined that she's better at writing fluff than hard news.
Other books by Allison Merritt
The Treasure Hunter’s Lady (The Guardian Chronicles)
The Sky Pirate’s Wife (The Guardian Chronicles)
The Turncoat’s Temptress (The Guardian Chronicles)
The Convict and the Cattleman
The Wrong Brother’s Bride
Wildwood Spring
Reclaiming Her Heart
Hell and A Hard Place (The Heckmasters)
Hell and Back (The Heckmasters)
Hell and Gone (The Heckmasters)
Her Heart’s Surrender
Her Heart’s Desire
Lawless
The Lady’s Chocolatier
Sandra Sookoo
Chapter 1
London, England
Late April, 1888
Dash it all!
Mr. Jasper Winslow briefly closed his eyes, but upon opening them once more, the view didn’t change, and it wasn’t a trick of his vision due to the pouring rain. He pulled up the collar of his overcoat to protect the back of his neck. It didn’t prevent water from dripping off the brim of his bowler hat and onto the tip of his nose. What was she doing here, in London’s Victoria Station, waiting on the very platform upon which he stood? The longer he stared, the hotter irritation swelled within his being.
Good Gad, he hadn’t given thought to Miss Evangeline Bradenwilde for five years.
And for good reason. She’d given him the mitten, which is to say declined to marry him. A man didn’t often reflect on the woman who’d fled from him just when he’d been about to propose, and in the garden of his father’s country estate, no less—with all of his family waiting inside for the expected announcement. Handed him some rubbish about wanting her freedom, regardless of the fact he’d given her everything a woman could want during their two-year courtship. As the second son of the Viscount Hedgebourne, he was afforded certain privileges. She would have wanted for nothing. Apparently, she took exception to all of it. After that, he’d spent the bulk of his time keeping busy and learning how to craft French chocolates so he wouldn’t have to think about her.
Nevertheless, here she now was, thrown into his path by fate or chance. What to do about it?
Nothing. I will do nothing, for she doesn’t deserve my regard.
Words from his mother rang in his head, uttered some few months after Evangeline had run. Stop moping about that woman. She is not worthy of you or this family, no matter her pedigree. Obviously, she is not right in her mental faculties.
Jasper shook his head. The failed relationship belonged in the past, and that’s where he would keep it. Still, he renewed the grip on the handle of his valise with one hand while he unfurled his plain black umbrella and contemplated this ripple in his previously smooth life. Since she was some way down the platform from his current location, he took refuge behind a stone support column as the train he’d stepped from pulled away in a puff of steam and squeal of steel against steel. At least this way he could spy without being seen.
While lingering passengers, some with open umbrellas, some with hooded capes, made their way down the platform, he observed the woman he’d deeply cared about years ago. Her back was to him as she sat, prim and proper, spine ramrod straight, upon a battered, brown leather traveling trunk, a black umbrella doing a poor job of protecting her from the foul weather. At her feet rested a modest carpetbag that, the longer she sat in the rain, the wetter it became. Every so often she would heave a sigh, dig a gloved hand beneath her smart green velvet jacket and withdraw a timepiece attached to a gold chain. Then she would check the time, sigh again and return the bauble under her clothing.
What the devil was she doing out here, in the dark and rain, without a companion or escort and no one to meet her?
I don’t wish to know. He ducked around the pillar, preparing to go on his way and once more forget about her. His conscience got the better of him, and despite his silent vow, he turned back around and contemplated her once more. His breath fogged white in the declining temperatures. Spring rain aside, it felt more like late winter. Bloody fickle English weather.
Jasper again adjusted his grip on his valise handle. Her upswept strawberry-blonde hair, beneath the brim of a wide straw hat decorated with green ribbons and flowers, caught the light from a nearby lamp and gleamed a rich gold. His chest tightened in remembrance of the sweet honeysuckle scent her hair had possessed back then, at how silken those strands were on the few times he’d plucked the pins from the masses when he’d forgotten himself and all decorum, at how her eyelids would flutter closed when he lowered his lips to hers in a kiss, and always a c
haste kiss at that, for there were rules of proper courtship, after all.
Get hold of yourself, man. She means nothing to you now.
His eyes narrowed as he stared. Though he was no longer bitter about her defection, neither could he forget the pain she’d caused. Still, he was raised a gentleman, and that meant he couldn’t leave her in the rain, alone.
Yet did he really want to open that previously locked door to his past? Especially when, if he gave her an inch, all of those feelings he’d thought tucked away might come tumbling back to mock him?
Wracked with indecision, he made his way over to the departing station master, who wore his cap low on his forehead, his shoulders hunched against the precipitation. “Excuse me, my good man,” he called to him. “Can you tell me how long that young woman has been sitting here in the rain?” He gestured with a thumb toward Evangeline’s position.
The man looked around Jasper’s shoulder. “About an hour. Too bad, that. We ain’t exactly having the Queen’s weather, huh?” A shiver wracked the man’s thin frame. The rain, coupled with the cold, left a body frozen down to the bone.
“No, we aren’t.” Popular gossip said that each time the queen appeared in public, she always had fair and sunny weather. No doubt she was in her private chambers this night.
A tight smile stretched the man’s face. “She asked about a train to Brighton.” He shrugged. Water beaded on the navy wool of his uniform. “No more trains to anywhere tonight what with the storm building. Expected to batter most of England for a few days, they say. Deuced bad luck, that.”
Indubitably. “She has no one to meet her?”
“Evidently not. Wanted to go on to Brighton, but everyone had to disembark here due to the rain and the rotten state of the tracks.” His mutton chop mustache drooped. “Refused my offer to let her sit inside the station. Now I’ve locked up and she’s wet.” He shook his head. “I’ll never understand the womenfolk.”
