Chapter 19
December 27, 1882
Nicola yawned. Her book had ceased to hold her attention about an hour ago. All the words had clumped together, and she wondered if she needed spectacles. Her corset was killing her as well, forcing her to sit upright in her chair with no hope of relaxation. It had been tempting to greet Jack—if he did indeed come—in her dressing gown, but that way led to madness. She didn’t trust herself, and wasn’t sure she could trust Jack either. Not that she expected him to repeat the delights of Christmas night, but for all his swearing to be entirely honorable, she doubted she would let him be if she got the chance.
She had a secret seduction weapon: peaches.
The glass dish and its contents glistened in the low lamplight. She’d helped herself to one juicy slice and could see why Jack had consumed them so rapidly in the pantry that day. Mrs. Grace was an excellent cook, who had confided to Nicola that she usually did not get to show off her skills for the average Puddling Guest. Most Guests were forbidden to find any enjoyment of a sensual nature, which seemed very harsh.
The goal was moderation in all things. For Jack, that had resulted in a kind of anxious boredom. Nicola thought the nature of routine lent itself to Jack dwelling too much on the train accident. He needed stimulation, a goal to get lost in. He had too much time on his idle hands.
Well, she supposed his hands were not precisely idle at the moment, at least during daylight. Her walk had taken her by Primrose Cottage earlier. The sound of hammering and hollering had been almost deafening, and the aroma of varnish had been strong. None of the workmen were visible, so busy were they inside like a colony of ants completing the cottage. A new “victim,” as Jack termed him, was due a week or two into the New Year.
Or the new Guest might be a lady, someone she might befriend. The Countess was lovely, but she and Nicola had little in common. The woman was so innately grand that she was a trifle fearful of her.
She was beautiful too. Nicola was not a jealous sort of person, and even wondered if that sort of regal beauty might be a curse. Despite her quick wit and attempts at frivolity, the Countess clearly wasn’t happy.
Nicola stole a glance at the clock. Five minutes after twelve. Jack was late. Had he been caught? Or worse, tripped on the ice? She pictured him flat on his back in the dark, injured or unconscious. There was blood—
The image was so real it made her shiver. Nicola had never been fanciful, believed in dreams or second sight or premonitions, but her own blood ran cold.
If he didn’t arrive in ten or so minutes, she was determined to put on her boots and go out looking for him. Perhaps he’d only fallen asleep in his chair as she would have done were she not encased in steel.
The creak of the front door gave her enormous relief.
“Nicola,” he whispered.
Right here, she wanted to say. Instead, she rose and met him in the front hall. He was dressed in dark tweeds as if he were attending an elegant country shooting party. A black knit scarf concealed half his face. Nicola was grateful she was wearing her second-best dress, because he looked very fine.
He unwrapped the scarf and bowed with dramatic flourish. “Lor—uh, Jack at your service, milady, come to report.”
She tugged him into the parlor by a sleeve. Sit, she mouthed.
Jack did as he was told, stretching his long legs out in front of the fire that Nicola had nursed throughout the evening. She’d drawn the curtains for their privacy.
“I say, this is very cozy after a wretched day in the salt mine. What a time I had—well, I don’t want to bore you, but I shall never make a carpenter.” His eyes lit. “Can those be peaches?”
She grinned and nodded.
“I’ll only eat them if we share.”
The fruit disappeared in no time, Nicola eating rather fewer spoonfuls than her guest. Jack ate with greedy enjoyment, his eyes half-closed, a beatific smile on his face. When he had scraped up all the available juices, he licked his lips and Nicola felt a certain twinge.
His kiss would taste of peaches. Did she dare rise up and sample?
No. No and a thousand times no. Every lesson her mother had ever taught her about dealing with men came rushing over. A lady did not make the first move, though she’d broken that rule more times than she cared to count already. Jack was a charming, tempting, very bad influence, and she had to hold herself aloof.
If she could.
“Thank you. You are a veritable goddess for feeding me. I’m so hungry I’ve stopped being hungry. Does that make sense? Of course, it doesn’t. Now, for my evening adventure. Though I must warn you, it wasn’t very exciting, which is all to the good for our purposes.”
He loosened his necktie. Seeing him here at her hearth, casual and smiling, made her heart flutter. Oh, self-control was hopeless. Trying to focus, she pinched the skin at the base of her thumb. It wasn’t painful enough to make her stop thinking of Jack’s wicked kisses. She might have to resort to stabbing herself with a knitting needle.
“You know I’m a man of science, and measurements are of interest to me. There are two-hundred and twenty-six steps between our cottages, counting crossing the road. You might have to take a few more tomorrow night, as your stride will not match mine.”
Of course not. Nicola was considerably shorter than Jack, although she was apt to be so nervous she might run instead of walk.
“You do know which cottage is mine, don’t you?”
Nicola had never visited, but could read as well as anyone. All the cottages in Puddling had name plates. She nodded. Of course, looking for Tulip in the dark might prove difficult, so she’d simply have to do a dry run tomorrow and look for landmarks.
“There are seven houses on my side of the lane between us, ten houses on this side,” he continued, “one of which appears to have a wakeful dog. Three doors down from here—the Countess’s Wellington, if I’m not mistaken. In Lilac Cottage. I spied a black cat on a wall, who must have been quite cold to be left out on a night like this. It ignored me, as cats are wont to do, and we can blame it for the dog’s barking if we must. I don’t think the Countess will much care. She’ll keep our secret if she discovers what we’re up to—I think she’d be delighted to be a co-conspirator.”
Yes. After Christmas lunch, the Countess might think of herself as a matchmaker. Nicola wondered how the woman spent her days when she wasn’t out walking her dog. What was her Service? She couldn’t picture those jewel-encrusted fingers winding yarn.
Jack let out a yawn, which he hastily covered. “Sorry. Where was I? All of the cottages were uniformly dark on both sides of the street. No one was up looking out a curtained window, not a single sweet Puddling soul.”
But now you have to get back home undetected, Nicola wrote in her notebook.
Jack’s face fell. “You don’t want me to leave already, do you? I have something to show you.”
Would you like some tea?
Jack snorted. “What I’d really like is a snifter of brandy. Not that I drink to excess, mind, but the situation here in your cottage is ideal for unwinding and putting the world away. Respite. It’s so cozy, and of course, the company is perfect. I feel like we’ve known each other forever.”
Yes, Nicola knew what he meant, which was ridiculous, really. She didn’t even know his true name, nor he hers. Despite him telling her about his boyhood, there was so much he had left out. She wasn’t acquainted with his friends or his hobbies, or even what his favorite book might be. Apparently he was interested in botany, which was a difficult subject to study in the wintertime.
Their friendship—as he called it—was the oddest thing.
Yet. Yet. Nicola had never met a man she liked so well, who made her feel all things were possible.
She left him to fix the tea, having prepared the tray some hours ago. There were cherry jam tarts and slices of that drunken fruitcake on a plate, covered by a napkin. She’d have to be scrupulous in the cleaning up, so that Mrs. Grace wouldn’t notice her kitchen had been tampered with. If necessary, Nicola would confess to having a midnight snack. A huge midnight snack.
The kettle burbled, and she poured the boiling water into the tea pot. Proud of her housewifery, she picked the tray up from the table—the infamous table—and carried it into the parlor.
And stopped. She hadn’t been gone all that long, but Jack’s bearded chin rested on his chest. His eyes were closed, and he was…snoring!
She set the tray down, rattling the china with deliberation. The noise failed to wake up her midnight visitor.
What should she do? Nicola knew the man suffered from insomnia and bad dreams—all probably related to the train accident. His face was often drawn, his eyes shadowed, and she’d watched him cover his yawns several times.
She herself couldn’t remember much of anything from that day, not even in dreams, which was probably just as well. Just some snatches—a bad odor, the same feeling of hanging upside down from a tree limb as she’d done in her walled back garden as a girl, blood rushing to her head. Smoke and someone screaming endlessly.
Jack hadn’t even been there. Yet he knew more than she did, or imagined the very worst far better than she would let herself.
She bit into a cherry tart, then poured herself a cup of tea. She wasn’t going to watch Jack sleep, was she? That seemed almost rude. She wasn’t a voyeur, had never peered in windows as she took her daily walks. But it seemed a shame to wake him when his rest came at such a premium.
What to do? She stifled her own yawn and finished her half of the food. What had Jack wanted to show her? Nicola wondered if he’d gotten a jump start on their secret hand signals. She’d looked the card over herself today, trying to think of memory tricks to help her recall the positions. The letter B looked like two bugs kissing, or possibly a butterfly or a bow. H was easy—two hands lay flat against each other. The finger shapes for C and X resembled the letters themselves, but oh, the rest. She wasn’t sure she’d learn them all by teatime Saturday or teatime Saturday next year.
She would close her eyes for a little bit until Jack woke up. She had dutifully gone to bed every night at the assigned ten o’clock bedtime, no rebellion on her part, and her body craved routine. Just a catnap. She arranged herself on the sofa, resting her head on its arm and pulling the afghan over her legs, making sure her ankles were adequately covered.
But Jack had seen them and worse. She was in so much trouble.