Page 6 of Meet A Rogue At Midnight
“Thank you, Mr. Littlewood, but I’d rather stroll the countryside.”
“A walk. In all that cold?” Mr. Littlewood’s jowls shook from his distaste. “If you must. As long as our stroll takes us to the Sheep’s Head—”
“Alone, if you please. I wish to walk some of my old childhood haunts.” A hand behind his back, Jonas tipped his head in deference. “I wouldn’t want to bore you, sir, or drag you away from all this warmth and cheer.”
The Captain swiveled around in his leather chair. “Don’t take long. We’ve much to discuss, you and I.”
Jonas fisted his hand at the small of his back. How to let his grandfather down as gently as possible? He wasn’t staying. The old man needed to let that dream go.
“I won’t be long, sir. A walk through the plum orchard and along the canal, perhaps.”
The Captain chewed his pipe, squinting at the back window, wrinkles deepening around his eyes. “Have a good stretch of the legs then.”
Jonas left the parlor to don coat, hat, and gloves. Images of a dancing rope and copper braid played in his head. He exited Braithwaite cottage, the ramshackle barn bearing a sign: Braithwaite Furniture and Sons.
Except there were no sons. Only grandsons…and errant ones at that.
Fixing his collar, he beat a hasty path to his grandfather’s plum orchard. Cold air dried his nostrils, and dormant grass dusted with last night’s snow crunched under his boots. Years he’d trod this way with his brother, leading the village boys from one scrape after another.
The Braithwaites were Plumtree’s upstarts from the beginning. The Captain, a gruff widower, had won his humble plot of land in a London card game against Mr. George Hastings. The deed in hand, Captain Braithwaite had announced that very night to fellow sailors he was giving up the sea, ready to take a turn as a furniture maker. It was the trade of the Captain’s father and his father’s father. But, claiming a piece of Hastings land upset Plumtree’s balance of nature. A medieval king had bestowed the land on the revered Hastings family, and the Captain was a salt-tongued interloper.
Not long afterward, the old man installed his unwed daughter and her rough and tumble twin sons, Jacob and Jonas, in the Braithwaite cottage. Everyone knew the boys were born on the wrong side of the blanket.
It was years before the dust settled onthatscandal.
Jonas pushed through the winter bare orchard, following smaller boot prints in the snow. Had to be Livvy’s. She’d taken this path after sneaking out of his bedchamber last night. Livvy Halsey was a puzzle, wearing breeches and wielding a pistol. He grinned.
She’d stolen something.From him or his grandfather.
What a fine welcome home that was. Only their long childhood friendship had stopped him from sounding an alarm.
Pushing past the trees, he spied her family’s tower ahead. Halsey Manor rose behind the tower, a grand garden wedged like a chessboard between the two structures. He hopped over an icy creek, his coat hem flaring around his legs. The single jump renewed him as if he stepped back in time to the agreeable parts of his youth. Of racing horses in green fields. Swimming in the River Trent. And calling on the Halsey girls to fritter away an afternoon of mischief.
He charged up the meadow’s rise, his lungs bursting with rare good feeling since returning home. Livvy leaned outside the tower window, her copper braid swaying as she huffed in her struggle with the rope. A hulking wooden chair swung merrily at the end.
Cupping his mouth, he called out, “Need some help?”
Livvy’s head snapped up. “Jonas? Is that you?”
He jogged to clear the ground between them, cold air biting his cheeks. Red-nosed and determined, she wrestled with rope and furniture.
He grabbed the chair and looked up. “Have a care, or you’re going to fall.”
A pair of lovely breasts jostled against her bodice. “I’ve done this many times.”
“Of course you have. Doesn’t every Englishwoman hang out windows and haul furniture up by rope?”
She stifled a giggle. “Don’t be impertinent. You can see I’m in the middle of something.”
Tufts of snow landed on his face. He made an effort to speak to her eyes, not her cleavage. “What are you doing in your tower? Spinning chairs into gold?”
“In a manner of speaking, yes, I am.” She grinned at him. “You’re in high spirits.”
“It is Christmas Day.”
“So it is.” She focused on the chair and adjusted her grip on the rope. “Well, don’t let me keep you from your celebrations.”
She was giving him the brush-off?
