Page 48 of When She Loved Me
SHE COULDN’T SIT THROUGHdinner with him, she just couldn’t. Taking the coward’s way out, she sent a message via Lorelei that she thought she might be coming down with something and spent the dinner hour luxuriating in a long and welcome bath.
She had been quite busy today, and the physical labor had seen her perspiring at times, certainly in the parlor which faced south and saw the sunshine all day long. Poor Abby and Lorelei, she’d worked them straight through tea time, enticing them with the prospect of finishing the entire room in only one day that they might only labor five full days instead of six.
She’d sent Lorelei off to her own dinner and bath, reminding the girl that she’d seen to her own bath for almost a year here before the earl had come and shaken up their routine.
“But I cannot leave you, undressed, and unready,” Lorelei had protested.
“Unready for what?” Nicole had teased with a smile, letting her head fall back onto the lip of the tub. “The fire is stoked, the room warm,” she said, by way of persuasion. “There is my bath sheet and my nightgown. Oh, look, there’s my brush.” She smiled at the always earnest maid. “I’ll be fine, Lorelei. I can see myself dried and dressed for bed, I believe. Go enjoy your free time.”
Lorelei bobbed a curtsy and Nicole watched her leave. When she was alone again, she closed her eyes, hoping the water didn’t cool too quickly.
She must have dozed, but some sound woke her. As there was no reason for any person, save herself or the earl, to be upon the second floor at this time of day, certainly since she’d dismissed Lorelei, she could only assume that it was Trevor, possibly finding his own rooms.
Good Lord!Hopefullyfinding his own rooms. Nicole stared across the room, watching the door handle, praying it did not begin to turn. Would he come to her again tonight? Was that normal? Did these things have a schedule.
She heard footsteps, and then a door closed, and Nicole relaxed. She was very thankful, at that moment, that she hadn’t ever assumed the lady’s room of the master suite, as that would have put Trevor very close to her, just beyond the connecting door.
Thinking it wise to curtail her luxury in favor of not possibly being caught unawares and awkwardly in the bath, Nicole rose and reached for the bath sheet, wrapping it around her shoulders as she stepped from the tub.
She conceded some thankfulness that she’d dried and slipped into her night rail and dressing gown before any knock might have come to the door. She brushed out the length of herhair, tying the damp locks in a plain ribbon, slid her feet into her slippers, and left her room, buttoning her dressing gown as she walked.
As she did so, she briefly considered and discarded this as an evasive tactic—being not found in her chambers should he wish to make another attempt at creating his heir.
Just now, she only desired a bit to eat, as her labors of this day and her decision to miss supper had her stomach now noisily asking to be fed.
The house was darkened, only a few glass-covered tapers lit here and there to guide any nighttime wandering resident. She knew Franklin and Abby kept very early hours, supposing their advanced years insisted upon this. Tiptoeing down the back stairs, she slinked quietly along the corridor and into the empty and barely lighted kitchen. Grabbing up a taper set into a handled saucer atop the mantle, Nicole lit this and disappeared into the larder at the far corner of the room.
She’d kept company with Abbey this morning, before they’d begun the cleaning, while the old woman had briskly and efficiently put together a lovely Shrewsbury cake, which the thought of, at one point, had indeed almost sent her into the dining room at suppertime. She spied it now, covered in a gauzy linen, in the cupboard next to the pound cake. Carefully pulling the dish out of the tall cupboard, she left the larder and plunked it down on the long table in the middle of the kitchen. She collected a plate from the shelves in the scullery and plucked a simple kitchen fork out of a short basket of utensils on the table. Plopping herself into the tall stool Abbey sometimes made use of to give ease to her back, she cut a small piece of the moist cake and returned the remainder to the larder.
She ate slowly then, glancing around the quiet kitchen, wondering if Lesser House would ever be returned to the once grand house it had been. Franklin had told her that at one time, while Trevor’s great-grandfather had lived, this house was the main residence of Leven, and had employed more than fifty servants. He’d said at that time, there had been no less than ten scullery maids, and that they’d been possessed of at least two dairymaids, who’d kept chambers in a room off the dairy, which was located at the far outside corner of the kitchen, but rarely used now. Presently, the abbey’s dairy—milk and cheese and creams—was delivered twice a week from a large farm just outside of town.
She couldn’t say for sure that she would want Lesser House to be so...crowded. While she certainly had not grown up dreaming of living so far removed from London, she very much enjoyed her life here, and was perfectly at ease knowing she might spend all the rest of her days here.
She smiled, almost wistful, thinking she’d be happier by far, if she had a child to love as well, imagining a cherubic dark-haired lad with perfect blue eyes, sitting in her lap on a night like this, enjoying late night pilfered sweets together.
“Now there’s a grin that just begs a person to wonder what or who inspires such serene joy.”
Nicole startled, turning to find her husband idly lounging in the doorway, from the same corridor that she’d come. Her own surprise aside, she recognized immediately that he appeared rather smart in his sumptuous dark banyan, the fitted robe being secured at his waist with a large metal button, the pattern a very subtle plaid in muted colors of gray and blue and green, and seeming to be lined in silk, if she saw correctly.
Her appreciation for Trevor’s style of dress was forgotten as her own circumstance came to the forefront as he stared, rather meaningfully, at the crumbs on the plate before her.
“Lorelei said you were unwell,” he said, giving her leave to ignore his initial statement, for which she was thankful, knowing she’d never have divulged such wishful thinking to him.
“I’m fine,” she was quick to advise. “Perhaps I overdid it today. An earlier bath has put me to rights once again.”
He inclined his head in receipt of this, his eyes passing over the plate again. “The Shrewsbury cakes?”
Nicole nodded, assuming he might now chastise her for her late-night scrounging, or at the very least, for not having summoned a servant to deliver any request to her.
But he surprised her, as she’d begun to think only Trevor could, by asking, “Is there more?”
Again, she nodded, lifting her hand and pointing a finger vaguely toward the larder.
Trevor came fully into the kitchen, while Nicole wrapped up her own dressing gown more tightly about her. He stopped near her, indicating her empty plate. “May I?”
“Of course,” she said, sliding it closer to him. He picked up the plate and disappeared then, stepping into the other room. Nicole heard the cupboard door open, and then moments later, close and he reappeared, a generous slice of cake in hand. He sat on another tall stool, the one used most often by herself, and extended his hand for her fork, which she passed over to him, being far enough away that they each had to stretch slightly to transfer the utensil.
Though she wasn’t sure why it should seem so, she thought it might be rude to abandon him while he enjoyed the cake. Butremaining, while she hadn’t any reason, seemed awkward as well. She placed her palms on the counter, about to shove away and stand, when he spoke again.
