Page 23 of When She Loved Me
“Ian, you’ve seen the roofs and the poor quality of the thatch,” she argued. “It needs to be addressed. Haven’t the abbey’s tenants been forgotten long enough?”
Ian shrugged, still of a good nature. He and Nicole never argued outright, seeming to agree on most everything. “We’ll see what your Mr. Adams has to say about it,” he allowed and pulled the cart up at the house, squinting and frowning at the lone horse waiting in the drive. “Mr. Adams is early?”
Nicole stared at the horse as well but gave it not much thought. “Tis unlikely, Ian, that Mr. Adams would be paying his calls so shortly after the sun had risen.” She hopped down from the cart and received her basket from Ian, who drove the wagon around to the back of the house. Franklin pulled open the door as Nicole neared. He seemed straighter than normal, though still his head and neck and shoulders were bent in the question mark form of his.
“Good morning, Franklin,” she called cheerily, and happily tucked a daffodil into his lapel, having to bend quite low because of his stooped form. The old man smiled at such charming foolishness.
“Aye, g’ morning, miss. We’ve a visitor,” he reported unnecessarily. “I’ve put him in the blue salon, though I’d have chosen the dungeon, had we one of those.” This last was rather mumbled, though Nicole heard it still, and giggled at dear Franklin’s absurdities. It must be Squire Acton, Nicole decided, knowing that Franklin and the squire had a mutual dislike of each other. Nicole stuffed her basket into Franklin’s hands, and doffed hersmall gloves and kerchief, playfully tucking the headpiece atop Franklin’s balding crown.
“Truly, Franklin, you should at leasttryto like the squire,” she advised. “Squire Acton is a very valuable member of the community as are we—equally valued, I should say. This puts a great deal of responsibility onto us....” she went on, failing to notice, because his eyes always faced the ground, that they rolled back in his head as he happily tuned her out.
TREVOR WENTWORTH STOODnear the door to the blue salon inside Hyndman Abbey, remaining in the shadows while he absorbed with shocked pleasure the sight of his wife. My God, he thought, time had truly transformed her. He’d not expected this. He’d thought to come back and find the same girl he’d left almost a year ago, beautiful to be sure, but girlish still, he’d imagined. This was not the case. He watched her strip the work gloves from her hands and remove the silly kerchief from her hair, and he drew in a sharp breath at the changes a year had wrought. She seemed taller, but then he supposed it was only that the complete remains of coltishness were gone, replaced by a womanly grace she assumed well. She was suntanned, her once creamy skin now darkened to a golden brown, her cheeks more delicately carved and less full. Her hair, that rich mahogany, was longer, swaying in natural waves down her back, shiny, attesting to her good health. His eyes traced the figure of her body, his body reacting instantly, annoyingly, to the new womanly curves he perceived. She was nolonger simply beautiful, he decided, she was absolutely breathtaking.
She was certainly out early this morning, he mused, but even more disconcerting was her clear affinity for the old man, her butler. She teased him and toyed with him, which the man indulgently allowed. Just as she might have turned to find the blue parlor and her visitor, which she seemed to mistakenly think was a squire, Trevor watched as a tall man appeared from the back hall. He was obviously familiar with the house and its occupants, removing his hat as he addressed Nicki. Trevor’s frown was instantaneous and ominous, recognizing admiration when he saw it.
“Is Mr. Adams here then?” The man asked.
“Tis not Mr. Adams after all, Ian,” he heard Nicki say. “But that reminds me, we should find any ledgers or documents that pertain to any previous renovations of the crofters’ homes. Perhaps they would be in some of those boxes we’ve yet to get through in the study.” She turned once again, and Trevor assumed she was coming now to the blue salon.
“Your hair, miss,” that man said.
“Oh, gosh,” she said and stepped in front of a long, narrow mirror above a side table just inside the door, taking pains to govern her hair into some semblance of neatness. Amazed, Trevor watched as she quickly braided the unruly mass right in front of the two men. Seething now, his eyes returned to this Ian fellow, discerning his reaction, finding it to be as his own—provoked and desirous. She held the braid in one hand and half-turned, extending her free hand to Franklin, palm up. He nodded quickly at her silent request, searching through three different pockets ofhis faded livery before presenting her with a small band, which she used to tie the mass of her braid.
Trevor was dumbstruck as he watched. And then that Ian said, “If that is not Mr. Adams, then who waits for you, Miss?”
“Oh, yes,” Franklin said, from his stooped position, “I forgot to tell you, Miss—“
“The squire, I fear,” Nicki whispered dramatically. “Ian, you know how Franklin feels about the man. I cannot imagine what he must want so early in the morning.”
“Miss, “Franklin tried again to enlighten her. “Tis not the—“
Ian even took a turn at teasing poor Franklin. “Really, old man, she has a point. What’s not to like about the man? He’s nasty and overbearing and has a terrible habit of looking down his nose at a person, even at our miss here.”
Why, Trevor wondered with gritted teeth, did they refer to her as ‘miss’? She was a married woman, for Christ’s sake! Lady Leven! There was absolutely nothing about this little scene that pleased Trevor. As he listened and watched, he grew angrier and angrier, and decided now a good time to announce his presence, as Franklin seemed so incapable of doing.
He stepped forward just as Nicki began to come to him, throwing over her shoulder one last teasing remark. “If you hear me scream,” she said in a low conspirator’s voice, “come running.” And then she saw him.
Her step faltered. She stopped so swiftly the top half of her body tipped forward a bit.
While she stared at him, her eyes suddenly panicked, Franklin said lamely behind her, “I tried to tell ye, Miss.”
“Who is this?” Ian asked immediately while Nicki moved or spoke not at all.
While Trevor might, at another time, find the young man’s watchfulness and protective bent towards Nicki gratifying, at the moment he did not. With his eyes still trained upon Nicki—as she seemed to struggle to breathe—he ground out viciously to the young man, “This is her husband.” And even as he answered, apparently the very sound of his voice caused his wife’s shoulders to fall forward in something of a defeated or weakened slump.
“She hasn’t a husband,” the man challenged, a similar snarl in his own words. He moved to Nicki’s side, and raised his hand to steady her. “Oh, she does, we all have heard,” this Ian dared further, his stance defending and defiant. “But we’ve yet to see any evidence of this, so we assume the man knows he isn’t welcome here.”
Trevor hated him straight away, and then even more so as his little wife lifted her hand to her side, her small palm finding Ian’s chest in a staying motion, even as she still faced Trevor.
“What do you want, Trevor?” Her tone was cool now, gone the friendly and bantering voice she’d so pleasantly employed with the other two men.
“I want him,” Trevor answered hotly, pointing angrily at Ian, “out of my house, gone for good.”
Nicki released a short and angry bark of laughter. “Your house? The abbey is no more your house than I am your wife,” she informed him derisively. Nicki all but dismissed him then, turning and talking closely with Ian, her hand still familiarly at that man’s chest, while he watched Trevor with ill-concealed disdain over the top of her head. She must have said something thathe disagreed with, for the man looked sharply down at Nicki and pursed his lips angrily. Her head tilted in a pleading fashion and after a short second, he must have given in to her plea, for he slapped his hat back upon his head and strode irately from the house, slamming the door behind him, even as Franklin’s slow hand made to grab at the handle.
Nicki once again faced Trevor now, having recovered from her initial shock, her expression now seemingly carved of ice. With squared shoulders and a haughty formality, she walked right by him. “I will receive you in the blue salon.”
Angry strides of his own carried him there. Intentionally, he closed the door once inside the room.
