by Erica Ridley
But how had this woman known Jonathan delighted in Gothic drama? Did her cat smell it on him and give her a secret sign?
“It’s not for me,” he said again. “It’s for Miss Parker, the—”
The young lady spun on her heels without explanation, selected what appeared to be three random books from shelves on three different walls, and placed the leather-bound stack in Jonathan’s hands.
“—jeweler.” He tried to figure out what was happening. “Since she won’t rest, I thought I’d take the respite to her, in the form of a book. Like these. In my hands.”
The young woman was not interested in his explanation. Before he’d finished speaking, she had already turned and disappeared into an adjoining room.
“Very well, then,” Jonathan muttered. “We’ll start with these three and see how it goes.”
He read the titles of the books in his hands. One appeared to be religious parables of some sort, another was a compendium of songs and dance music by Ignatius Sancho, and the third a geologist’s Field Guide to Igneous, Sedimentary, and Metamorphic Rock.
Not precisely the topics a fiction-lover like Jonathan might have chosen, but if the not-a-librarian had scented his love of Gothic horror without any hints, perhaps her divination skills would be just as accurate for Miss Parker.
He tucked the volumes into his leather satchel, left a small pile of coins in the newly created blank spaces on each of the three shelves, then made his way down the marble stairs to the castle’s great dining hall.
Jonathan wasn’t just going to deliver books. He was also going to deliver Miss Parker her luncheon.
Much like the circulating library, Marlowe Castle’s busy kitchens offered free hot meals to local visitors and tourists alike, whether or not they were renting one of the many guest-chambers upstairs.
Although the hour was too late for breakfast and too early for dinner, many of the tables were full of smiling, chatting patrons, some enjoying all manner of sumptuous refreshments, and others clearly hoping to encounter neighbors, without contending with the spitting snow and blustering wind.
Jonathan very much approved.
He introduced himself to anyone whose eyes met his as he passed, and was delighted by the number of locals who invited him to share a meal or a bit of conversation.
“Next time,” he said, surprised to discover he hoped it was true. He forced himself to continue on until he found a member of the staff who might pack a meal for two.
Despite the impressive menu, the moment the words “Miss Parker” had left Jonathan’s lips, the staff had known immediately what should go in the parcel. Apparently, when she wasn’t impossibly busy, Miss Parker took many of her meals here in the castle. In fact, according to one of the maids cleaning tables, it was unusual indeed for Miss Parker not to be present when her family was here for Yuletide.
Family. Jonathan didn’t know if he loved or hated that word.
So as not to analyze it overmuch, he changed the topic at once, and applied himself to attempting to pay for his meals. When the staff could not be bent on this score, Jonathan settled for tipping each of them extra vails for their trouble.
“Are you off to Miss Parker’s now?” asked a ruddy-cheeked maid with white curls.
“Aye,” answered Jonathan, then changed his mind. “I may pick up a few biscuits from the bakery on the way.”
“Ah,” said the maid. “See how Stephen’s foot is getting along.”
“Is Stephen the baker?” Jonathan asked.
The maid laughed. “Hardly. Stephen’s his eight-year-old son. Sledded his foot into a tree yesterday, trying to race his brothers. Lads that age have bottomless stomachs. I’d wager he’s eating the best buns as fast as Mr. Bauer takes them out of the oven.” She flicked her fingers. “Off with you then, before the food goes cold.”
Unsettled by the brief conversation with the maid, Jonathan closed the distance between the castle and the bakery slower than his usual jaunty pace. Although he’d mastered the art of introducing himself to others, he had failed to give much importance to their replies.
Jonathan had introduced himself to the baker, but hadn’t considered the person Mr. Bauer was outside of the bakery. Jonathan might have heard everyone in Scotland’s thoughts on the war, the weather, and the Prince Regent, but he didn’t know them.
He kept all conversations superficial. Eighty percent commentary on the weather, ten percent complaints about traffic, five percent directions to the next town, and the rest signing his name in guest books when he checked into the next inn or posting house on his route. It was easy to be charming when one didn’t expose one’s true self.
He’d always thought he liked it that way. Cleaner. Easier. Now he wasn’t so certain.
Perhaps a small change of plans was due.
He pushed open the door to the bakery.
“Ho there, Mr. MacLean,” the baker called out. “More shortbread, is it?”
No, not “the baker.” Mr. Bauer. Who had been paying more attention to Jonathan than Jonathan had to him.
His neck heated.
“Shortbread for me,” he agreed, “and whatever Miss Parker would like best. How is Stephen’s foot?”
The baker’s face lit up. “Only thing wounded on that boy is his pride. Can’t admit to losing a race to his younger brother, can he? But I play along, and let him eat all the hot buns he likes.” Mr. Bauer chuckled and handed Jonathan a paper parcel. “Go on, then. Miss Parker must be waiting for you.”
Jonathan left a pile of coins on a corner of the counter and headed toward Miss Parker’s shop.
He’d bothered to learn her name, hadn’t he? But he didn’t know much more than that. He would have made a muck out of choosing the right library book for her, if Cat Lady hadn’t been there to save him. And he wouldn’t have known Miss Parker’s first name was Angelica, if he hadn’t overheard one of her actual friends use her Christian name. She didn’t want him to know. Jonathan was a stranger.
He could do more. He could be more.
Connecting on a level slightly deeper than the superficial didn’t terrify him at all.
Jonathan liked Miss Parker more than he wished to admit. Liking someone too much led to pain when he inevitably lost them. He must take care only to like, and never to love.
Miss Parker was dangerous. He liked her because he didn’t have to try to like her. She was witty and bonny and clever. Liking her was easy and uncomplicated.
At least, it had been uncomplicated. Strangers’ opinions couldn’t hurt him. This new plan of truly coming to know someone else—of letting them stop being a stranger—risked someone else truly coming to know him.
Although it would only be for a week or two, the prospect made him feel disturbingly vulnerable. What if he tried to make real friends with her, and couldn’t? What if it worked beyond his wildest dreams, only for him to have to walk away?
Which one was worse?
Chapter 6
Angelica felt Mr. MacLean’s proximity long before the bell tinkled above her shop door.
She’d looked up from her swage at the exact moment he’d stepped into view, whistling his way down from the castle before vanishing into the bakery across the street. She also happened to glance up once again the moment he’d stepped out of the bakery.
Or maybe her gaze had been on the front window all along instead of concentrating on her work.
As he entered, Mr. MacLean flashed a smile she could feel all the way to her toes. He lifted a pair of delicious-smelling parcels. “I brought you a present!”
Her stomach growled in response.
Angelica ignored her stomach. And the tingling in her toes. She might take whatever was in those parcels off his hands, but Mr. MacLean she ought to send packing.
“I said we could have dinners together.” She cast her gaze pointedly at the clock behind her. “It’s not dinnertime.”
“And yet, one must eat.” He placed the parcels in the middle of the counter, betwe
en her work area and the display of jewelry.
“One must do one’s work,” she corrected, but it was no use. Her belly’s insistent grumbles loudly drowned out her own.
In her haste to return to her work, she’d once again failed to break her fast this morning. The Yuletide ball was in two days.
“One small respite,” she informed Mr. MacLean, who grinned at her. “One very quick, very fast, minuscule—ow.” A flash of heat slashed through the muscles of her wrist, convulsing the muscles of her hand. The tools she’d been attempting to carefully put away clattered into the drawer.
In seconds, Mr. MacLean was there in front of her.
“Let me see,” he demanded.
She rotated her wrist carefully, wincing at the pain. “It’s nothing.”
“It’s something,” he said firmly. His eyes were not on her wrist, but rather on her face. His rakish smile was gone.
She shook her head. “It happens all the time.”
He raised a brow. “All the time?”
Well... all the time when she worked too much for too long without pause. Sometimes she held tiny tools in a cramped position for hours on end. Her muscles forgot what it was like to finally let go.
Mr. MacLean held out his hand, palm up. “May I?”
She wasn’t certain it was wise.
She was a Black woman with no husband. A professional jeweler in her place of business.
Mr. MacLean was not her friend. He wasn’t even a customer. He was a foppish white man who’d entered her shop on a lark because he was bored, and had nothing better to do with his time.
But he’d asked permission. And the secret truth was... Angelica was desperate to know how it would feel if he touched her.
Not “if.” When he touched her.
She gave a little nod and held her crooked wrist out, just above his palm. She would not place her hand in his. He would have to do it himself.
His hands were warm and impossibly gentle. Strong and firm, as confident as the man himself. Smooth, as though he’d never worked a day in his life.
The pad of his thumb feathered softly against the inside of her wrist.
Her fingers flexed involuntarily, but not in pain. At the shock of her hand cradled in his, at the pleasure of being caressed so tenderly.
Everything about her hand felt suddenly unfamiliar. The way her muscles melted at the slow, calming strokes of his thumb. Over long, patient minutes, he coaxed all the tension from her wrist, then the base of her palm, then the center, tracing each line again and again before moving to the pads below her fingers and thumb, then the fingers themselves, one by one, gently, deliciously.
If it weren’t for the sturdy wooden counter between them, Angelica herself would have melted right into his exquisitely tailored chest.
Pity he was leaving after Christmas. She would pay him to stand here for the rest of their lives, her hand in his, massaging away all the pain until all she felt was this soporific lightness, as though the world weren’t quite real, and all that existed was the warm stroke of his thumb against her sensitive flesh.
She could kiss him for this. The thought made her lift her languorous gaze from her utterly relaxed fingers to the sharp angles of his jaw, his firm, narrow lips. Angelica did not lift her gaze higher. She didn’t want to see him watching her drink him in.
Mr. MacLean was handsome as sin, blast the man. He knew it, of course. It was in every stitch of his clothing, the swagger in his stride, the way his impish grin lit him from the inside whenever her eyes met his.
Even though her tendons had long given up their tremors, his talented fingers continued their sensual onslaught, as though he had been put on this earth to bring her pleasure.
No touch had ever been so relaxing and so intimate at the same time.
It terrified her.
“Thank you,” she managed. “We should... I should...”
He didn’t let go.
She didn’t pull away.
Thank the Lord there was two feet of solid oak counter between them.
“The food,” she whispered. “It’ll go cold.”
He set down her hand as though it was the most precious thing he had ever held, and then turned toward the parcels.
While he wasn’t looking, she pressed her sensitized palm to her thundering chest. Angelica wondered if she would ever be able to pick up a jeweler’s tool again without thinking of Mr. MacLean and this moment.
She may have sent him on a foolish mission to prove he was a fish out of water, yet it was he who made her feel as though she were coming up for air for the first time.
“Do you want me to leave you to your food?” he asked, his voice gravelly but his blue eyes steady. “I enjoy your company very much, but do not mean to intrude where I’m not wanted.”
“Sit.” Rather than point to the low, plush chairs meant for customers along the other wall, she slid a wooden stool under the counter so that he could share it with her. Her heart pounded. It was the first time she’d invited someone to share her space. She tried not to think about what that might mean. Instead, she turned her back to retrieve plates and cutlery from a shelf. “What did you bring?”
His grin was back, as sudden as lightning and just as devastating.
“I have no idea,” he said cheerfully, and began to unpack the parcels. “At the mention of your name, everyone seems to know exactly what I should take.”
Angelica tensed, expecting a sharp twinge of fear or embarrassment at the knowledge a raffish Scotsman had been out and about, linking his name with hers.
No such twinges occurred. He must have massaged them away.
Mr. MacLean retrieved a bottle of champagne from his satchel. “Shall we?”
She narrowed her eyes. “Champagne is for celebrations.”
“You can use your hand again,” he pointed out. “Huzzah!”
“I’m at work.” She slid a single glass across the counter for him to use.
He shrugged. “Then I’ll drink all of it. I’m on holiday. Veuve Clicquot seems just the thing.”
Blast him. She slid a second glass across the counter. He filled them both.
He waited until she lifted hers before touching the rims of their wine glasses together. “To my favorite jeweler. Slàinte!”
“To hyperbolic strangers,” she countered. “A toast to you.”
He grinned, undaunted, and sipped his champagne.
The bubbles tickled her nose as she swallowed the tart sweetness. It was unfair of him to be so charming. The silver lining was that he would be gone within a fortnight, and she knew it. They could share meals. They could even be friends. But that was all it would be.
Her heart was firmly under lock and key.
“Well then, Miss Parker.” He paused with his fork halfway to his mouth. “May I call you Angelica?”
“No, Mr. MacLean, you may not.”
“I’m Jonathan,” he reminded her. “Here’s my question. How much champagne do you think it would take for us to ‘accidentally’ kiss?”
Her breath caught.
“There’s not enough wine in England,” she replied tartly, begging forgiveness to the heavens for her fib.
She was tempted at this very moment.
His smile indicated she needn’t have bothered lying.
“Tell me about your day while you eat,” she commanded, rushing to stave off this line of thought. “While you’re talking, I’m going to eat as fast as I can so that I can return to the work I’m supposed to be completing.”
Far from being offended, Mr. MacLean launched into a dramatic, no doubt highly embellished retelling of every encounter he’d had from the moment he woke up until he walked through her door.
Angelica could barely consume any food, for fear of snorting it out of her nose with laughter at his impressions of her fellow villagers and his own exaggerated reactions. He made the simple act of walking down the street seem like an odyssey.
She was surprised how much a part of her
wished she had nothing else to do this week other than go pleasure-seeking all through Cressmouth, on Mr. MacLean’s fashionable arm.
Meals were more diverting with him on the other side of the counter. She liked his nonsense.
“That’s it for me.” She pushed her plate aside and walked back to the piece she’d been working on. “You may continue talking. The buzz of noise is oddly comforting.”
“Why, that’s something else we have in common,” he said with delight. “We both adore the sound of my voice! I have endless stories to tell. I wouldn’t need to repeat any, whether you listen or not.”
Angelica fought to keep amusement from curving her lips as she unfolded the black velvet from her work.
“Aye, I needed a purpose,” he said in wonder, as though she’d handed him the answers to the universe, “and you’ve just given it to me. We can spend all your working hours together! Me, having a right blether, and you... well, working.”
She pointedly neither replied nor glanced at him. Mostly to hide her smile.
“Oh!” he said, followed by the sound of rustling. “I could read to you from one of your books.”
All right, that did it.
Angelica turned toward him. “What books?”
“I brought you these from the castle circulating library.” He placed three leather volumes on the counter next to her work.
She picked up the first one. “A Geologist’s Guide to Igneous, Sedimentary, and Metamorphic Rock.”
“Dull, isn’t it?” He made a face. “I could read it to you at night so that you fall asleep faster.”
The thought stole her breath and painted a picture far more appealing than she dared to let on.
“The guide is about jewels, you beast.” She pointed at her chest. “Jeweler?”
His nose wrinkled. “Perhaps if it were more of a masked-villains-steal-the-Crown-Jewels-and-escape-in-a-floating-barrel sort of plot...”
