Chapter 7 #2
As he caught the scent of her hair in his nostrils, felt the warm, silky softness of her cheek beneath his lips, his body responded with a subtle buzzing sensation.
He had the most intense urge to hold her a little closer and embrace her more fully.
To run his hands over her back and let his lips linger longer upon her cheek.
Surprised and bewildered, Adam pulled back.
He searched around inside himself for explanations.
He had dismissed the spark he’d felt when he’d helped her onto her horse on the marsh.
He had attributed it to his frustration over Diana.
Could he dismiss this, too? Could he blame this on the intensity of the moment?
Thankfully, Madeline did not seem to sense any change in him, maybe because she’d kept her gaze lowered. She turned from him to face the washbasin again, and Adam sucked in a deep breath as he backed away from her and struggled to retrieve his sobriety.
* * *
Throughout the next week, Adam did manage to deny what he had felt when he’d kissed Madeline on the cheek in Mary’s bedchamber.
Over and over, time and time again, he told himself that it was relief and gratitude and nothing more—although he had come to depend upon Madeline a great deal since she’d delivered the baby.
Not only had she been helping Mary to care for the infant, she had been reading to the children in the evenings, and during the day, she helped Mrs. Dalton in the kitchen with the chores.
In addition, she was giving Penelope impromptu music lessons.
After the children were in bed at night, Madeline often sat with Adam in the parlor, listening to his concerns about the marshlands and encouraging him to continue his campaign to do what must be done to preserve them.
They talked for hours until the candles burned down, and like a newly sown field after a long, cold winter, Adam felt awakened and more confident about the task of safeguarding and expanding the land that belonged to him and would one day belong to his children and grandchildren.
Yes…he and Madeline had become good friends. But it was nothing more than that, he assured himself.
Then one morning, Adam descended the stairs just as the back door opened and Madeline walked into the kitchen with a basket of eggs.
She began to hum as she pulled off her shawl and hung it on a peg by the door.
She wore a dress Adam had not seen before, with red printed flower sprays over a white background, and a muslin neckerchief that barely covered her bosom.
Or perhaps he had seen the dress before, but had simply not noticed it.
Well, he noticed it now. He noticed a lot of things now—like the feminine curve of her neck and shoulders, and the delightful wine-colored blush of her soft, moist lips.
For once he let himself gaze deliberately at her. It was difficult to believe she had been nothing to him but a child when she first stepped off the ship. Suddenly, he found himself captivated by the beauty of her womanhood.
He watched Madeline for a few more seconds from the doorway as she cracked open some eggs and whisked them in a bowl, then he grew increasingly uneasy with the fact that he was spying. Even so, he could have watched her all day if it were possible.
Just then, Mrs. Dalton walked out of the dining room with an empty platter in her hands, and he felt as if he had been caught stealing cookies from the jar.
In reality, this was much worse than that.
He cleared his throat. “Good morning, Mrs. Dalton.” Then he walked with exaggerated aplomb into his kitchen.
Madeline turned, her voice cheerful and melodic as she greeted him. “Good morning, Adam. Breakfast will be ready in a few minutes.”
He picked up a warm biscuit from a pan cooling on the table and bit into it. The moist flavor melted exquisitely on his tongue. “These are spectacular, Madeline. Did you bake them?”
He sensed Mrs. Dalton hovering around like a busy bee behind him, listening. His awareness of her presence, and a feeling of self-consciousness, was a great deal sharper than usual.
Madeline’s eyes lit up at the compliment. “Yes. I added some sweet, dried savory to the dough.”
“Savory, you say…” He took another bite. “Magnificent.”
Near the door, Mrs. Dalton pulled on her shawl. “I am going out to the vegetable garden for a moment.” With that, she left them alone.
Adam remained in the kitchen, watching Madeline pour batter into an iron pot on the fire. She was very quiet. So calm all the time.
Suddenly, he yearned to know more about Madeline and her life before she came into his, and he couldn’t resist his curiosity. He sat down at the trestle table. “Did you cook for your family at home?”
“My father had a housekeeper, but I was always in the kitchen helping her, if I wasn’t in the garden digging in the dirt. Of course, neither of those things my father approved of, but he gave up trying to stop me after a while. To be honest, I doubt he ever expected me to do what Diana did.”
Her voice trailed off, and Adam was intrigued. “Which was?”
Madeline looked at him and sighed. “I don’t know, Adam.
She spent so much time away from home. She was constantly with our aunt in London, and when she came home she always looked so beautiful.
She was skillful with an embroidery needle, too, and could sing and play piano, so I suspect that, unlike me, she spent a lot of time doing what most well-brought-up young ladies wish to do. ”
He laughed. “Are you saying that you were not brought up well?”
“I am saying that I was not as socially ambitious as most women my age.” She threw him an apologetic look. “I do beg your pardon, Adam, I did not mean to insinuate that Diana was….” She paused.
“What?” he asked. “A social climber? Let us be honest with each other, Madeline, and call a spade a spade. That’s exactly what she was. She jilted me for a baronet, remember?”
Madeline stirred whatever she was cooking in that huge pot. “Of course I remember.” She paused again. “But Diana and I were eleven years apart. We had very different childhoods.”
Why did he have the feeling she was trying to change the subject?
Adam watched Madeline a little longer. The desire to know more about her and the person she was beneath the surface she showed to the world would not leave him, so he simply gave in to it.
“Why were you so different? I know that Diana spent time in London with her mother and aunt. Why didn’t you do the same?”
Madeline moved from the hearth to the worktable. She reached for bread dough that she must have set to rise before she went out for the eggs.
“Mother died when I was born,” she explained, “so I never took any trips to London. Father went, of course, and continued to take Diana with him, but I was just a babe, so he left me at home with the housekeepers. Habits form, I suppose, and as I grew older, he continued to leave me behind.”
“Did that bother you?”
“No, I barely noticed. It was the way things always were, and I never questioned them. To be honest, I grew to look forward to their trips, so that I could have more freedom at home to do what I wanted.”
“Were you lonely?”
“No. At least I didn’t think I was. I found much to interest me on the moors and in the garden, and later, in books.
I know that when you came calling on Diana, I might have seemed lonely, the way I followed you about—” she glanced at him sheepishly “—but I think I was more curious than anything. About what you and she talked about and did together. I had never seen a romance before.” She flipped the heavy dough over and smiled at him.
It was an appealing smile that made the hairs on his arm prickle. “Is it too late to apologize for that?”
“If anyone deserves an apology, Madeline, it is you, for we were young and selfish. You were just a child, and we should have included you.”
That apology, he decided, was long overdue.
He absently twisted his wedding ring around on his finger. Madeline stopped kneading. “I’ve noticed you have not taken that off.”
“My wedding ring?” He turned his large hands over and looked at them. How candidly they revealed his age. “No, I couldn’t bring myself to.”
“You must still miss her a great deal.”
Adam laid his hands flat on the table. “It’s not so much that….”
He had never spoken of Jane to anyone, at least not about their imperfect marriage.
He wondered why he was compelled to do so now, with Madeline—a young woman who had never been married herself and probably assumed that every romance had a happy ending.
“I believe it is guilt that keeps me from taking it off.”
Madeline sat down across from him and gently clasped his hand. “Guilt? Adam, surely you cannot blame yourself for her death.”
“What husband wouldn’t when his wife dies on the birthing bed?”
Madeline squeezed his hand.
“But it’s more than that,” Adam confessed.
“If you must know, I regret the misery in our marriage. Jane was an emotional woman. She cried over a chipped plate, or flew into a rage when the fire would not light on the first try. In the beginning, I was sympathetic and spent a great deal of time trying to appease her. Most of the time, I walked on eggshells, for fear of setting her off. Later, as the years passed, I felt nothing when she wept, for she was not rational. My sympathy dried up, and she knew it. I lost patience. Things only got worse after that.”
Madeline frowned. “I’m so sorry. I had no idea, Adam. What about the children? Did they suffer also?”
He shrugged a shoulder. “Penelope, of course, knows nothing, and the boys, thank God, were too young to recognize what their mother was going through. Mrs. Dalton was very good at distracting them or taking them out of the room when Jane was having one of her ‘spells’ as I used to call them.”