Page 29 of When She Loved Me
Trevor held the door for her, his hand just hovering near the small of her back as she passed through it. She might have kept right on walking to the gig parked out front, but Trevor had grabbed up her wrist from behind.
“And here I’d thought my eyes deceived me,” he said, his tone laced with reprimand, “when I spied my little wife driving her own buggy into town.”
Nicole whirled on him. “Let me guess—I am not allowed to drive myself?” She tugged at her wrist, but it was held tight. Why did his eyes have to be so magnificently blue?
“No, Nicki, you most certainly are not,” he said with a humorless grin, “You are the Countess Leven, and she does not drive herself—how in the hell did you even learn to handle that thing?”
Nicole favored him with a rather impatient glare, lifting her free hand to remove the hair that the growing wind had blown into her face. “It’s not like driving a team of four, my lord,” she informed him without actually answering that Ian had spent several weeks with her, teaching her first how to care for the horse, how to attach the rig and harnesses, and then how to drive the contraption.
“No more.”
Only because she hadn’t any intention of arguing further with him in the street in the middle of town did she acquiesce, giving him a brief nod, which brought about the release of her hand. And because it presently—albeit childishly—pleased her to confound him, she said, “As you wish, my lord,” before she turned and walked away, leaving the buggy and nag there in front of the modiste as she headed back to Lesser House.
TREVOR WATCHED HISwife walk on down Main Street in Hornfield, appreciating the way the wind now pushed the light muslin against her, caressing her hips as she strolled, but decided that he was sorely aggrieved by her rather infuriating habit of simply walking away from him when she didn’t like what he was saying. Possibly, she didn’t exactly intend it as a reflection of his having walked away from her on their wedding day. Yet, whether intentional or not, the parallel remained. He’d only just arrived yesterday and so he would allow her a bit of time to adjust to hispresence and to avail herself to this juvenile behavior—but only for so long. Not that he hadn’t considered how he might react if it had been she who’d discarded him a year ago and then returned, expecting to make their marriage real.
With that in mind, he resolved that he ought to make some statement to her, in regard to his coming now and his desire for a true and full marriage—but this would necessitate her actually standing still before him for much longer than she had as of yet.
He saw to a few more items of business in town and then, about thirty minutes later, retrieved his own horse and tied it to the back of the buggy, leaving the line with a bit of slack, and hopped up onto the gig and drove toward the abbey.
He did not encounter his wayward wife on the return drive, which had him thinking she must have run the distance between Hornfield and the abbey, though that seemed unlikely. He turned an eye to the darkening sky, where gray clouds swirled menacingly, acknowledging it might serve her well if she were caught in an early summer rain.
But when he entered the house and inquired of his wife, he was informed by Franklin that she had not yet arrived.
“Where might she have gone, from the village?” Trevor asked, his frown—seeming to become a permanent fixture—instant and admittedly, a bit worried.
“I wouldn’t worry so much, my lord,” Franklin said, appearing today no less crooked than yesterday, “she’s good with the buggy and should get home before the rains come.”
It was quite evident from the butler’s irascible tone that he knew damn well that Trevor had just pulled up in the gig. “Send a footman out to stable the horses,” he instructed, choosing to ignore Franklin’s barb.
The rains did come, and hard. Within half an hour of Trevor’s return, the skies rolled with shifting and frightening clouds, which opened up to send torrents of rain upon the earth. Winds, which not so long ago had seemed only a nuisance, now sent the rains down in a near horizontal path at times.
Trevor pulled open the front door and watched the drive and beyond for Nicole but detected no sign of her. Rain fell down in blowing and rippled waves upon the gravel and was blown into the abbey through the open door. Trevor cursed volubly and slammed the door after a few minutes. He would have to fetch her, he knew, not dreading having to go out into the storm, only enraged that she put him and herself in this position.
He donned a coat and hat and dashed out through the storm to the stables, cursing her stubbornness with every sodden step he took.
He was nearly back upon the main street of Hornfield when, as quick as it had sprung, the storm did now abate. It dripped only lazily now, as if it had exhausted itself with its earlier ferocity. Trevor swept the drenched hat from his head and swiped it several times across his thighs before plunking it back down upon his head. The streets of Hornfield were bare now, the storm having chased everyone inside.
He spent the next hour visiting all the shops along the main street and even the Bear’s Den Inn, and then a building whose lettering above the door announced it as “Mr. Pitney’s Curiosities”, but to no avail. There were only three more storefronts, these separated from the bulk of the shops by an intersecting road and several residences. Trevor sighed and headed toward them though had little hope of finding her still within Hornfield at this point.
NICOLE SAT IN THE CORNERof Adler’s Book Emporium, perched delicately upon an overstuffed chair of rather dubious character, the arms being so low and near to the seat as to be useless and the legs having wobbled a bit as she’d sat. She’d left Trevor hours ago but hadn’t gotten very far before the situation forming above her head insisted she instead find shelter rather than trying to outwalk the imminent rains. She’d turned back to where she’d deserted him and saw him nowhere upon the main street and so had ducked into Adler’s.
Mr. Adler, a kindly man of rather dainty manners, who was quite familiar with Nicole from her regular purchase of one book a week, had greeted her warmly when she’d stepped inside his bookstore, happy to allow her to idle about while he chatted with a young couple, the man holding several volumes under his arm.
Of course, she’d have preferred to have spent the last few hours in the window seat in the library at Lesser House, with her legs tucked up underneath her and a pot of tea at her side. Presently, she perused Jane Austen’sPride and Prejudice—she’d read it three times already and only now skimmed the good parts—waiting out the storm. True, the rains had stopped, but Nicole waited yet for the ominous clouds to leave as well. She hadn’t any intention of being caught up in more rain if she headed out now.
She had just reached the part where Mr. Darcy proposed to Elizabeth for the first time—nota good part, but forElizabeth’s composed and eloquent refusal of the man—when she felt someone watching her. Nicole lifted her eyes from the book, the words, “you were the last man in the world whom I could ever be prevailed upon to marry”fresh in her mind when she saw Trevor standing before her, looking perhaps as Mr. Darcy had at that moment, ill-tempered and astonished, though Trevor surely more bedraggled. The jacket he sported hung soaked and heavy against the lawn of his shirt, his boots squished as he walked toward her, his hair dripped and clung to his head and face, and his scowl would easily have rendered Mr. Darcy the merrier of the two.
Nicole slowly closed the book and sat straighter, biting her bottom lip as she stared at him. She hoped it wasn’t her fault he’d been so obviously caught in that wild storm.
“Come, wife.”
It seemed as if some heroic effort were made to say only these two words, and still Nicole thought to argue, but then his darkening gaze advised her that it would be folly to provoke him further. “Not the hill I want to die on,” her father had been fond of saying, whenever she had questioned him about his giving in to Sabrina’s wheedling and cajoling for things her parent had initially refused. As it was, she didn’t fancy having to walk back to Lesser House upon surely muddy and slick roads and paths.
With a cool nod, she stood and walked to the shelf from which she’d pulled the Austen book and replaced it carefully. She was saved having to bid a good day to Mr. Adler, and likely suffer an inquiring lifting of his thin brow, as that man was not at the front desk.
Outside, she stopped and looked around for the buggy but saw only Trevor’s magnificent steed. Trevor walked past her,grabbing up her hand as he did, then tugging her along to his horse. Her eyes widened. “I will not—” was cut off as she was lifted off the ground and placed sidesaddle upon the huge beast. She clung to the pommel, upon which her thigh nearly sat atop while Trevor put one foot into the stirrup and gained the rest of the saddle behind her. He passed the reins to his right hand, around the front of her and used his left hand to draw her back against him. With a click of his tongue and tug on the reins, the stallion turned abruptly and clopped along the road and out of town.
While every part of him that touched her was near wet and dripping still, Nicole felt only heat at all the parts that were pressed together. Once they were completely out of sight of the little village and while she hung on for dear life—this saddle was not made for a side-sitting position—Trevor instructed, “Swing your leg around now before you fall off.”
