Chapter 9
W
“Sometimes I wonder how one person could have made such a change in me. But then, I remember the way she treated me. She asked my opinions, enjoyed my gifts no matter how paltry, and always braved ahead, unafraid of consequences. I think, perhaps, one person like that could make anyone’s world shine. ”
Over the course of the next few days, either David came to our cottage to visit with Mama and me, or he sent the carriage so we could visit him. I wasn’t certain engaged couples typically spent so much time together, but ours wasn’t a typical engagement.
Mama was beside herself with excitement about the attention David gave me.
Indeed, her excitement was the only thing that gave me pause.
David had asked me to simply enjoy being engaged to him, and I did.
But even though he’d asked me not to think about when or how it was going to end, I couldn’t help it when I saw Mama smiling softly whenever he put his hand on my back to lead me somewhere or when she would catch us laughing about an old memory.
Neither of us would relish returning to the life we’d been living up until David’s proposal.
We’d been engaged a week when David finally deemed the weather clear enough to spend an afternoon working on the Walkers’ roof.
We went alone. Julia wanted to study, and it promised to be too long of a day for Mama to enjoy it.
And so I found myself with my arm linked in his, walking the same paths we had eight years ago.
The paths were the same, but gone were the days when a silent David would often trail behind me.
Instead, he talked and laughed and held a brush and a long wooden paddle with grooves that he’d called a leggett over his left shoulder.
I liked seeing him like this—his clothing rough and well worn, his tools of trade effortlessly a part of him.
I could almost forget his father was a member of the House of Lords and instead remember that David and I were friends and perhaps even equals.
When we got to the Walkers’, however, I stopped. He turned and looked at me, puzzled.
“Do you not think it will be odd? Me accompanying you as you work on the roof?” I asked.
David raised an eyebrow. “I thought that was the entire purpose of this visit.”
“But if we go in together . . .” I trailed off.
“Then we seem exactly what we are—two old friends who’ve come to visit.”
Two old friends. The words settled somewhere deep inside me. A smile formed on my lips, and I cursed my eyes for wanting to tear up at the most inopportune times. “You don’t think they will think something is amiss?”
“Because I managed to convince the most beautiful woman in the county to come with me? They might. But I don’t mind them being impressed with me.”
I bumped his shoulder with mine. “No, not because of that.”
“Are you nervous to see the Walkers?” he asked, dropping my arm and stepping away from me so he could look carefully at my face.
I didn’t answer him, but he must have seen my answer in my face.
He tsk-tsked his tongue and held his hand out for me to take.
“You know they will be delighted to see you.”
How many times had I tried to coax him into a home just as he was doing to me now? Many, many times. Now it was my turn to decide whether we would go into this home together. I raised my hand to his and grasped it tightly.
Somehow, David and I had become a team, so I followed him into the small home, and when Mrs. Walker opened the door, her delight at seeing me again made all my worries melt away.
After twenty minutes of catching up, David and Mr. Walker brought the ladder and David’s tools up against the outside of the small house. I averted my eyes while David removed his jacket and waistcoat.
Mr. Walker held to the bottom of the ladder, and David made quick work of climbing to the very top, to the roof line.
Once there, he grounded his feet firmly on the ladder and swung the leggett with a powerful blow.
Dried moss flew up around him, but he didn’t seem to notice.
His linen shirt billowed around him in the soft breeze.
David pounded his way down the roof in a steady, well-practiced rhythm.
When the ladder needed to be moved, he balanced on the edge of the house, distributing his weight between his hands and feet so as not to put too much pressure on the thatch. Mr. Walker slid the ladder a few feet to the right, and David climbed back up to the top and started the process over again.
Every so often, he would glance down at me, and when he caught my smile, he gave a short nod and got back to work.
Together Mr. Walker and David moved quickly. After about half an hour, they had finished one side of the house, and Mrs. Walker turned to me. “I would invite you inside for a drink, but I’m afraid those two are making too much of a ruckus.”
“I don’t mind staying outside.” My eyes flicked to David again—he was working his way up the ladder again, his shirt no longer billowing in the wind but clinging to his arms and torso.
Mrs. Walker followed my gaze, and a smile quirked at her lips. “I don’t mind either,” she said in an appreciative manner.
“Mrs. Walker,” I hissed in surprise. She had to be nearing fifty. “Your husband is right there.”
“Yes, he is, and I don’t mind watching him work as well.” Her eyes flicked to her husband holding both sides of the ladder steady while David worked. “There is something satisfying about watching men perform physical labor, isn’t there?”
My face heated. I had no idea how to answer her. I certainly couldn’t agree with her, even if she had seen me looking quite impressed with David.
Mrs. Walker laughed good-naturedly at my discomfort, and I couldn’t help the little smirk that formed on my lips in response. Yes, yes, I had enjoyed watching David work so expertly on her roof, but my smile was the only affirmation she was going to receive from me about it.
David turned just at that moment to check on me again.
His hair was damp from exertion, and several locks had fallen forward, the tips beginning to curl.
Even more heat rushed to my cheeks, but I managed to meet his eyes.
He raised one dark eyebrow in question, and I gave my head a quick shake, hoping he understood it to mean I didn’t need anything from him—I was doing well.
Perhaps too well. I broadened my grin into a full-blown smile and waved him back to work.
David took one last glance between the Mrs. Walker and me and then resumed breaking the moss off the thatch.
I quickly turned the topic of conversation to Mrs. Walker’s four grown children, and fortunately, that was a subject she was more than willing to speak about at length.
We didn’t follow the men when they went to the other side of the house.
Instead, I offered to help clear out the Walkers’ garden patch to ready it for planting.
Mrs. Walker was more than happy to accept my help.
Less than an hour later, the men came out the front door. David had his jacket back on, but he hadn’t bothered with his waistcoat. They must have finished and walked through the house to rejoin us.
I started to stand from where I’d been kneeling when David offered me a hand. I took it, and he pulled me up, then forgot to release me.
“Finished?” I asked, the warmth from my earlier conversation with Mrs. Walker returning to my face.
Mr. Walker shook his head. “We still have to go over the roof and sweep it. David thought you might want to help with that though.”
“With the sweeping?” I furrowed my eyebrows. I’d climbed my fair share of trees in my lifetime, but never a roof. “I think that might be better left to the professionals.”
David gave my hand a squeeze. “I’ll help you. Have you ever been on top of a house before?”
“That isn’t something generally recommended.”
He raised his eyebrows. “I didn’t ask if it was recommended, I asked if you have done it.”
“No,” I said with a puff of air, for some reason feeling disappointed in myself.
He squeezed my hand. “You are going to love it.”
I scoffed, but the way his eyes sparked made me reconsider my laugh.
He was serious—not only about me helping but also about his truly thinking I would like standing on a ladder leading to the top of the Walkers’ home.
I glanced up at the roof. The ladder was on the other side, but I’d climbed at least that high before.
A slight breeze caught David’s damp hair, teasing it, and the thought of standing near the top of the home, with the wind rustling my hair, made me think he was probably right. I would love it.
David must have seen the shift in my thoughts because he pulled me toward the house. “Don’t worry, I’ll keep you steady while you sweep, and Mr. Walker will hold on to the ladder like he did for me.”
I stumbled—what did David mean he was going to hold me steady? On the ladder? He was going to be on the ladder with me? For a man who had spent over an hour doing physical labor, he had a lot of energy. We were practically running through the Walkers’ home, and I couldn’t get out a protest.
He brought me to the base of the ladder and motioned for me to start climbing. Then he bent down, grabbed the brush he’d brought with him, and waited behind me.
“You are going to follow me?” This was like the oak tree all over again.
“Yes. I’ll be right behind you.”
I flushed. That was becoming a problem. “But my skirts . . .”
“I can keep your skirts against the ladder. We will be perfectly respectable.”
“Somehow, I doubt my mother would think climbing a ladder to do labor is respectable.”
“What do you think?” His eyes met mine again, and this time, it wasn’t simply the joy of doing this work that made them spark. There was something else—something deeper. He wanted to share this love of his with me. He wanted me to see this side of him, the side he’d discovered and made for himself.
I swallowed. “I don’t actually care what Mama would think. I would like to see the world from the top of a roof you’ve thatched.”
The corners of his mouth lifted, and the world faded away behind that smile. My breath caught, but I don’t think he noticed the effect he had on me, because he simply put both of his hands at my waist, turned me around, and, with a bit of a push, said, “Up you go, then.”
David was true to his word and followed directly behind me, his free hand holding on to the side of the ladder at my waist and sliding up each time I took another step.
Mrs. Walker was going to absolutely love watching us.
“All the way to the top,” David said, his mouth near my shoulder. “And we will brush the debris down.”
I nodded and kept climbing, enjoying the feel of David’s body keeping me pressed safely into the ladder.
When we reached the top, I stopped, unsure of what to do next.
David had the brush, and I didn’t dare turn around to look at him.
My only view was the top of the ladder and an up-close inspection of the roof’s thatch.
“Now what should I do?” I asked.
David took one more step so he was only one rung behind me, his chest warm against my back. “Here,” he said, handing me the brush. “It’s like sweeping. We have to clean up the mess I made earlier.”
It took some getting used to, but eventually, I relaxed enough to lift my chest away from the ladder in order to swing the brush up and then sweep it downward.
“Good,” David said, his words at the back of my exposed neck and a rush of heat flooding down my spine. I brushed faster. This was a terrible idea. My thoughts were misbehaving along the same lines that Mrs. Walker’s had earlier.
We reached the bottom of the roofline, and I stopped. “Thank you for letting me help,” I said. My voice sounded a bit too breathless for my liking, but that could be attributed to the work I’d just done. “It might be best if you finish the rest of the sweeping yourself.”
“You haven’t even had the chance to look out yet. Do one more pass, and then I can finish, if you want me to.”
I sighed because he was right. I did want to look out while on top of the roof. “I should have paid more attention to how you stayed on the roof while Mr. Walker moved the ladder.”
He chuckled. “We won’t be doing that. It would be a bit complicated and not as safe as I’d like with two of us. We’ll simply climb the rest of the way down and then back up again.”
David started down, and I matched his pace. He helped Mr. Walker move the ladder, and then we climbed up again in the same manner.
This time, when we reached the top, David hooked the brush into some of the thatch. He then wrapped one arm around my waist in a manner no other man would have dared and anchored us onto the ladder with his other hand. “I have you—turn around.”
I took a deep breath, which, rather than settle me, served as a reminder of David’s arm holding me fast. I blinked hard once, determined not to let my eyes betray any of my thoughts if David caught a glance at them, and then turned around.
The view was magnificent. I’d climbed at least this high before, but something about not having any branches to grab onto or obstruct the scene made it feel like a completely different experience.
Mr. and Mrs. Walker stood at the base of the ladder, and the path David and I had walked stretched out before us.
The trees were only just starting to bud, and the fields were still brown, but I could imagine what the view would look like once the leaves covered the trees and the fields turned green.
“Oh, David,” I said with a soft exhale.
“I like the world best when I get to see it from the tops of houses,” David replied. “I like it even better when I can share it with you.”
I swallowed hard, reminding myself that our engagement was only a temporary thing. For all I knew, David had brought dozens of women to rooftops.
We breathed in unison for several minutes while the wind whipped around us. I wasn’t ready to return to solid ground.
“I suppose a few more passes with the brush wouldn’t do me any harm,” I said.
“Perfect,” he said, pulling me tighter against him so I could safely turn back around.
In the end, we finished the whole of the roof together.