Chapter 4
Chapter Four
Madeline sat at the long, oak table in the dining room, trying very hard not to look at Adam, because every time she did, the urge to stare was something close to an obsession.
She couldn’t explain it. She did not want to stare.
She had vowed to make all these desires to go away, but instead of feeling nothing, she felt everything.
To be in his presence here tonight made her feel almost short of breath.
He sat at the head of the table, his clean, white neckcloth presented in a neat ruffle, his large hands strong and sure.
Why couldn’t she stop noticing how handsome he was?
She found herself wishing ridiculously that he had turned out to be a crotchety old man with bad teeth and no hair.
Forcing her eyes to stay focused on her plate, she cleared her throat, and the sound made everyone jump. All of the family was present, all except for Mary, and Madeline wondered uncomfortably if this silence was normal.
“Why is everyone so quiet?” Penelope asked.
Madeline dabbed at her lips with a damask napkin, curious as to how Adam would reply to the question.
His voice was deep and calm. “I suppose we are all very hungry, Penelope.”
“But we’re always hungry at dinner.”
Adam cleared his throat. “Perhaps it’s because we have a guest,” he tried to explain, “and we are all doing our best to be on our best behavior.”
Penelope lifted her sweet gaze toward Madeline and smiled, then returned quietly to her eating.
A hush fell over the room again. Silverware clinked against china plates, the clock ticked audibly, and Madeline knew that they were all aware of the mix-up.
They had now had time to discuss it privately amongst themselves…
to whisper and pass judgments about her.
Did they believe Madeline had been involved in the manipulation?
Did they think she was deceitful or self-serving?
Or did they suspect the embarrassing truth and sympathize with her, as Mary had?
She dabbed at her mouth again with the napkin and decided it was long past time to make some polite conversation.
“Jacob, Mary told me that you were working in the fields today. What are you planting this time of year?”
The young man across the table, dressed in a pale blue waistcoat, set down his fork before he spoke. “I finished planting potatoes in the high field, Miss Oxley. Then I rode over to Mr. Carter’s place to help him plant his.”
Madeline noticed the lack of resemblance between Adam and his stepson, Jacob. Jacob possessed fair features—golden hair and blue eyes—while Adam and the other children had striking, dark coloring.
Madeline was curious, all of a sudden, about Jacob’s mother and Adam’s late wife. Had she been flaxen haired and beautiful like Diana?
Then Madeline thought about her own appearance—her mousy brown hair, dull with frizzy curls, and her freckled complexion.
It was the first time in her life she wished that she had been blessed with the kind of beauty Diana possessed.
The kind of beauty that turned gentlemen’s heads and rendered them speechless when they first laid eyes upon her.
“Do you have a large crop?” she asked Jacob, forcing herself to disregard such foolish, frivolous thoughts, for she had never put much stock in appearances. She’d always credited herself with having more depth of character than that.
Besides, there was no point dreaming about what could never be.
“Large enough to last through the winter.”
She smiled at Jacob, but out of the corner of her eye she noticed Adam wipe his mouth with a napkin, then toss it down as if he were finished. “We raise only enough potatoes to meet our needs.” She suspected he was being polite for the children’s sake, not hers. “We don’t market them.”
“What do you market?” Madeline asked, deciding she would not let him intimidate her with his silences or deep booming voice any longer.
She would look him in the eye, and if she wanted to know something about Nova Scotian farming or the dykes or even if she wanted to hear him admit that he’d been rude to her that day, she was going to say what she pleased.
“Corn?”
“No,” he replied. “It’s the same with corn as it is with potatoes—we raise only enough to meet the needs of our household.
The marshes here are better suited toward pasture and meadow.
” He picked up his glass and looked away, as if he were finished not only with his dinner, but with her questions as well.
She couldn’t help but press him further. “Animal husbandry, then? And hay?”
“Yes, Miss Oxley. Hay.”
Adam turned his attention back to his dinner, and Madeline could see that he had no interest in talking to her about farming, nor any interest in even looking at her.
She would have liked to call it indifference, but as she watched him and the way he looked about the room, the way his dark brows drew together in a frown, she realized with some annoyance that it was more than that.
The man flat-out resented her presence here at his table, for she was the reason Diana was not here, and he was obviously still angry about that, and he was probably still suspicious about whether or not she had played a part in the deception.
He only felt obligated to see to Madeline’s welfare because she was Diana’s sister, and he did not wish to jeopardize his future with her.
Like Madeline herself, Adam was probably thinking that she could one day be the children’s aunt, and for that reason, he knew he must keep things affable.
Adam’s continued silence for the rest of the meal forced Madeline to think more seriously about what she should do.
She couldn’t live in a house where she did not feel welcome.
She had lived like that in her father’s house for long enough.
And worse, she could not stay here and watch Diana arrive and live happily ever after with Adam and his children.
Madeline decided with firm conviction she would look for another situation as soon as she could. She would be long gone by the time Diana arrived to become the next Mrs. Coates.
* * *
Inside the barn the next day, Adam hoisted a heavy sack of seed grain onto his shoulder and carried it to the wagon. He set it down with a loud thwack and mentally kicked himself for being so hard on Madeline during the past twenty-four hours.
What was wrong with him? He used to be better with people, women in particular.
He used to enjoy charming them and making them feel happy and pretty.
And he had always presumed most women were honest and forthright, for his mother, God rest her soul, had been a kind, good woman of the highest moral caliber.
That was before his break with Diana, of course, and before his marriage to Jane.
Unfortunately, Jane had taught him that not all women were what they seemed, and he had to be exceedingly careful.
In the beginning, not long after Diana had married Lord Thurston, Jane had been a rock of sensible wisdom and understanding, helping Adam through that painful time.
Recently widowed, and looking after her son, Jacob, she had shared her bed with Adam, and it was there where they both found comfort during difficult times.
When they discovered that she was with child, Adam married her of course. It was only after the marriage certificate had been signed and they were living as man and wife, that she had revealed her true nature, which had not been easy to live with…
So here he was, presuming the worst about a gullible young woman who had trusted her father and crossed an ocean to become Adam’s wife, when he should be going out of his way to apologize for the situation and ensure her comfort and happiness.
On top of that, she was Diana’s sister, and if things worked out the way he hoped, he and Madeline might one day be brother and sister by marriage. He needed to guarantee that Madeline was safe and well cared for, and he supposed it wouldn’t hurt to cultivate a friendship.
Slapping his hands together to brush away the grain dust, he heard a throat clearing behind him, and turned. There in the doorway stood Madeline, wearing a pretty blue-and-white-striped day dress, with a white lace scarf tucked neatly into her neckline.
Lord, she’d grown into a lovely young woman, he realized suddenly. It was hard to believe he was looking at the same freckle-faced child he remembered from Yorkshire.
Adam blinked a few times, then found himself comparing Madeline to Diana. Madeline wasn’t lovely in the same way as her older sister. Diana was indisputably beautiful. One knew it the first instant one saw her.
Madeline, however, was more of an enigma.
He discovered now—as he noticed the color of her dark brown eyes, so deep and discerning—that she required a longer look, a more careful study.
There was an innocence about her because of her youth, but beneath that soft exterior, almost in full contradiction, there seemed to be a firm, immovable strength that revealed itself gradually.
And a stubbornness he had already experienced firsthand.
He could see it as clearly now as he could see the pink ribbon on her lace cap.
She looked as if she could survive anything.
He wiped his hands on his breeches as he approached her in the doorway. “Is there something you need, Madeline?”
She held her chin high and prepared to speak, as if she were bracing herself for a scolding for interrupting his work. Had he truly been that surly toward her?
With a sharp pang of regret, Adam accepted that he had, and promised himself that he would try to be less gruff.
“I would like to go to the fort,” she announced.
“Why? Did you forget something?” Ach, he sounded gruff again.