Chapter 4
Jack had always been a talker. A chatterbox, if one was being completely accurate. He had so many ideas, a second would tumble out before the first was finished, and it had required a lot of patience from his friends to wade through his words. But he found his mind was completely blank now.
Mrs. Grace—Miss Nicola, since he wasn’t supposed to know her last name—was sipping her tea, her face a delightful shade of rose. One of his former companies manufactured oil paint—paint was flammable, so no more factory—and he’d never seen pigment that delicate in color. She reminded him of the portrait George Frederic Watts had done of the actress Ellen Terry, all gold and pink and ivory. What was its name?
Choosing. The actress had been in a garden, deciding between the worldly red camellias and the humble violets. Jack bet that Miss Nicola would pick the violets if she had a chance.
It wasn’t because she was childlike, for she must be almost as old as he was, but there was a freshness, an innocence about her. Perhaps if she recovered her speech, that illusion might be broken. She could sound like a fishwife, or worse, his opinionated mother.
The fire rippled along merrily, but he got up to stab at it. He needed something to do besides swallowing tea and biting tiny sandwiches in silence, even though the food on offer was a thousand times better than the swill he’d been served since he arrived. He’d have to speak to Mrs. Feather and complain he was being mistreated, for all the good it would do.
Jack wasn’t uncomfortable with the quiet; it was soothing. But he was a man of action, wasn’t he? He did enough damage with the poker, causing sparks to land on the hearth rug. He stamped them out with his large feet, then sat back down.
Come on. How hard could it be to have a civilized conversation with an attractive young woman? It had been ages. Ah.
“Have you been here long?”
She raised two fingers.
“Weeks?”
She flashed both hands at him several times.
“Two whole months? I thought this was a twenty-eight-day program.” He didn’t intend to stay any longer himself. If he couldn’t get out of his funk—well, it didn’t bear thinking of.
Nicola shrugged. So she had not been cured in the allotted time.
“You came to restore ability to speak?”
She nodded.
“What happened?”
She picked up the notebook he’d given her. An accident.
“I’m so sorry. Where is, uh, Mr. Grace?” He pictured some ugly brute with his hands around her slender neck and his fists clenched.
I have no idea.
Jack was shocked. The cur. The bounder. Dumping his wife in this backwater just because she couldn’t talk! If Miss Nicola was in his care…
“You mean your husband has abandoned you here in Puddling?” He couldn’t contain the anger in his voice.
Her lips turned up as she wrote. She should not be used to such iniquity and smile over it.
Mrs. Grace is my housekeeper. I am not married.
Ah, that explained why the woman thought he was a lunatic at the door. He’d somehow got the wrong end of the stick. Jack laughed.
“I apologize. I misunderstood something the doctor said. So there is no Mr. Secret Surname lurking about?”
Her cheeks flamed as she shook her head.
“No fiancé either?”
A very firm shake. Jack was encouraged.
“This proves men are idiots.” Nicola was not in the first blush of youth, but neither was she old maid material. How had she escaped marriage for so long?
Jack had had a few brushes with the institution himself over the years, mostly because he wasn’t paying proper attention. He’d been so preoccupied with businesses he’d almost wound up a bridegroom once or twice. He hadn’t truly listened to a couple of conversations when every cell of his body should have been on high alert. Women could be dangerous creatures, if charming.
And there was the heart of all his problems. His mother was right—he had to slow down. Take a step back. That’s why he was in Puddling, wasn’t it?
What was he doing sitting in Stonecrop Cottage? Nothing good could come of it. He was supposed to be atoning for his failures, not flirting with a pretty young woman.
But when he was with her—well, for the very few minutes, for that’s all it had been—he forgot his own problems and worried about hers. How agonizing it must be not to be able to communicate. Jack thought of all the orders he dispatched on a daily basis and wondered what it would be like if he took a vow of silence. His retainers would probably welcome that. His browbeaten secretary Ezra Clarke might even do a jig.
“Where do you live when you’re not imprisoned in Puddling?”
Bath.
“You’re a city girl! A small city, to be sure. I live in London myself. And I have a country house in—well, wait a moment. I’m not sure we’re supposed to be trading personal information. I haven’t been here a week and don’t know the ropes yet.” The talks he’d had with Oakley and Reverend Fitzmartin so far had dealt less with Puddling Rules than his depression. He hadn’t told them the exact particulars, but they were aware of some of his difficulties.
It’s all right. I won’t tell anybody. There was a wicked gleam in her eye.
“So you won’t get me in trouble?”
Are you the sort of man who gets in trouble easily?
“I am afraid so. I could tell you stories, but I don’t want to alarm you.”
Oh, go ahead. I am tougher than I look.
She didn’t look tough at all, just a pink and gold and ivory girl. My God, he was becoming poetic. Jack reminded himself he was a rational man, at home with compasses and protractors and slide rules. Thrilled to balance columns of crabbed figures in ledgers. Happy in laboratories with noxious fumes, a safe distance from china tea cups and lemon-flavored biscuits and blue-eyed females. He cleared his throat.
“I’ll save my misadventures for another day. I’m still trying to make a good impression. You don’t mind if I come to visit again, do you?”
Nicola cast those blue eyes down and shook her head.
“That’s a ‘yes, I don’t mind’ shake, isn’t it?”
She looked up at him, and his brain got fuzzier. He’d seen a lot of blue eyes in his time. Why were hers having such a peculiar effect on him?
You may come tomorrow and take me for a walk.
“Are you sure you’re well enough?”
If I stumble, I expect you to hold me up.
“I believe I can do that.” Jack pictured her in her fur-trimmed hooded coat, clutching his arm. They would walk slowly, and her red coat would brush against his trousers. The wool would be having fun while he thought dampening-and-not-at-all-ardent thoughts. Counted to one thousand and six. Recited the alphabet backwards.
Remembered what he was trying so hard to forget.
“What time will you be ready?”
I like to walk in the morning. Shall we say ten o’clock?
“All right.” His breakfast was served promptly at eight. He was expected to be downstairs and dressed too. No robe and bedroom slippers allowed. It was all part of the routine whose soundness Jack was not entirely sold on. Where was the logic in it? What difference would it make if he ate at eight thirty? One would think Mrs. Feather would enjoy an extra half-hour’s sleep.
Of course, he was not sleeping at all.
He’d even spoken to Oakley about laudanum. The doctor had flatly refused. A crutch, he’d said, one that Jack would soon regret using.
Jack was already full of too many regrets.
She motioned towards his cup and picked up the teapot. Did he want another cup of tea? Not really, but if he agreed, he could extend his visit. And if he was smart, he’d eat up all the treats that were on the tray. Who knew when he’d get another good meal?
And if he had another cup of tea, he could look into Nicola’s blue eyes a little bit longer.