Chapter 2 #2
Morgan’s nod was all but imperceptible. He glanced at the stove. “I can lay a fire.”
Jane hesitated. She was uncertain if she wanted him to be useful to her, uncertain if she wanted him to stay, but then she noticed he had not taken a single step in the direction of the stove. He was waiting to hear her answer, and that decided Jane. “Yes, please. I’d like that.”
Jane continued eating while Morgan pulled kindling and coal from the scuttle and laid the frame for the fire.
Her eyes strayed sideways as he hunkered in front of the stove.
He patted down his pockets, came up with a matchstick, and struck it against the stove.
The flame burst brightly, illuminating his face for a moment.
Jane caught his profile as he briefly turned away from the light, and she had the wayward thought that he had features that were meant to be cast in bronze. The notion was disquieting.
Morgan shut the grate when the flames caught. He stood and approached the bed again. “I brought you an apple.” He pulled it out from under the sleeve of his long leather coat and polished it against his shirt. “I can slice it for you.”
Jane nodded. “I don’t suppose you have something to drink up your other sleeve?”
“No. But there is a tap in your bathing room, and the water in Bitter Springs is better than the name implies.”
Jane started to put her plate aside, but Morgan put out a hand to stop her.
“I’ll get your water,” he said. “You don’t look like you’re fit to stand.” He opened the door to the adjoining bathing room and went inside. “When did you eat last?” he called out to her.
Jane was afraid he would know a lie, and what would it serve except to add to his mistrust? “Yesterday evening.” She heard water running and then his voice above it.
“I sent money for your ticket and meals.”
“I wasn’t hungry. There’s money left. Do you want it back?”
Morgan reappeared. He came abreast of the bed and held out a glass of water. “No. I don’t want it back.”
“Did I offend you?” asked Jane. “You sounded…I don’t know…aggrieved, I suppose.”
“I have thicker skin than that. It’s not a generous gesture anyway.
Depending on how long you stay, you might still need it.
” He looked around the room. The furnishings were spare, every piece practical.
Besides the bed, there was a side table, a wardrobe, a straight-backed chair at the window and a wing chair angled toward the stove.
A chest for extra linens and blankets rested at the foot of the bed.
His eyes moved from the valise sitting on the seat of the straight-backed chair to the valise sitting on top of the small brassbound trunk. “You haven’t unpacked.”
“I am not sure there is any purpose to it until I know where I’ll be living.”
Morgan released a long breath, nodded.
Jane drank half the water in her glass before she set it on the table beside her.
“Will you sit down?” she asked. While he seemed to be debating the merits of accepting her invitation, Jane removed the empty plate from her lap and dabbed at her lips with the napkin.
When she was done, she neatly folded the napkin and dropped it on the plate. Morgan Longstreet was still standing.
“Are you uncomfortable sitting?” she asked. “Because I am uncomfortable looking up at you. If we are at an impasse over this, I cannot imagine that we will settle well into marriage.”
“Did you think we would?” he asked. “Settle well, that is.”
“I did, yes. Didn’t you? You must have, else why make the proposal?”
“I have my reasons.”
A faint smile changed the shape of Jane’s mouth. It touched her eyes. “Have a care, Mr. Longstreet, else I might believe you are a romantic.”
“I suppose you can insult me. Practical, Miss Middlebourne, not romantic. Practicality is at the root of my proposal. Does that make you want to rethink your answer?”
“No.”
“You sound certain.”
“I am. Given the opportunity and the proper circumstances, someday I’ll tell you why.”
“Tell me now.”
Jane shook her head. “You won’t believe me.”
Morgan waited, but when she remained silent, he shrugged. He removed the valise from the chair and dragged it closer to the bed. He sat down, tipped the chair on its rear legs, and set his feet on the bedrail. Holding up the apple, he asked, “Do you still want it?”
“Yes.”
He removed a knife from the scabbard attached to his belt and scored the apple skin into eight parts before he cut it through.
“Hold out your hand.” Jane did, and he dropped the slender wedges into her palm one at a time until she said she had enough.
He ate the last three slices, tossed the core on top of the plate, and used the napkin to clean his knife before he replaced it.
“Can I show you something?” he asked when his hands were empty.
“If you like.” She finished her second apple slice, dropped the other three beside the discarded core, and brushed off her hands.
This time Morgan did not search a pocket. What he wanted came from the inside leg of his left boot. He had to set the chair on all fours to get it, but when he was done, he tipped it again.
Jane could tell by the stock paper that it was a photograph.
Not the one she had sent, she realized, because there was no writing on the back.
He stared at it for what seemed a long time, so long that she thought he had decided against sharing it.
That was not the case. He pinched one corner of the photograph between his second and third fingers and held it out to her.
Jane received it upside down. She turned it over, angled it toward the lamplight for a better view, and then she blinked. And blinked again. Her eyes swiveled from the picture to Morgan Longstreet.
“Where did you get this?”
“From you. You sent it to me.”
“No.” She shook her head vehemently and regretted it at once.
The sharp movement magnified the ache behind her eyes and for a moment her vision blurred.
She pressed the fingertips of one hand against her temple, closed her eyes, and took a shallow breath.
Quietly she said, “No, I did not. I never sent this.”
Jane heard, rather than saw, Morgan’s chair being set back in place.
It hit the floor hard enough to send a tremor under the bed.
His boots dropped next, thumping in quick succession, and then the photograph was plucked from her nerveless fingers.
Jane opened her eyes, shielding them against the glow of the lamplight with her hand.
Morgan was already on his feet and bending over her.
She was startled into rearing back. Her head knocked against the headboard.
At any other time, the bump would have been insignificant.
Now it triggered pain that made her cradle her head in both hands and squeeze her eyes shut.
She sucked in another breath and held it.
She felt one of Morgan’s hands come to rest at the back of her head, supporting her without adding pressure.
The other hand worked carefully between her splayed fingers to remove pins from her hair.
They made a faintly tinkling sound as he dropped them on the plate.
When they were all removed, he carefully loosened the tightly wound coil just above her nape and let her hair spill down her back.
Jane was not so numbed by pain that she was unaware of the intimacy of the gesture.
A thread of tension pulled her shoulders taut as his fingers combed through the strands of her braid.
Morgan paused, his hand resting lightly against her back. “Would you rather I get Dr. Wanamaker?”
Jane did not hesitate. “No.”
“All right. Then let me help you.”
Wasn’t that what she was doing? She supposed he felt her apprehension. “There are headache powders in one of the valises. Small packets. I just need one.”
“I’ll get it. Lean back. Careful.” He supported her so she did not bump her head again and then left her side.
Jane eased the fingertip pressure on her scalp but did not remove her hands. She kept her eyes closed. She heard the clasp on one of her bags being released. “I think the packets might be in the valise that was on the chair.”
“Don’t talk. I’ll find them.”
Jane wished she had asked him to bring the valise to her.
It was not lost on her that perhaps the more intimate gesture was not allowing Morgan Longstreet to sift through her hair, but permitting him to sift through her belongings.
She imagined the packets had slipped to the bottom of the valise by now; she had not needed them once during the journey.
That meant he would have to look through everything.
“If you would just give me the—”
Morgan cut her off. “Found them.”
Jane’s stomach stopped clenching. She heard him approach the bed and remove the half glass of water from the table.
He walked away again before she could tell him that what remained in the glass was sufficient.
She let him go, heard the tap running, and then his second approach.
He did not have a heavy tread, but his rolling stride was distinctive in its rhythm.
She eased her eyes open when she heard him preparing the powder but continued to look straight ahead.
She carefully lowered her hands from her head and held out one for the glass.
When he placed it against her palm, her fingers closed over it and brushed his.
Jane brought the glass to her lips, but before she drank, she asked, “Do you dance?”
He was standing too far to one side for her to see how he reacted to her question, or if he reacted at all. “Do I?” he asked. “Or can I?”
Jane thought she heard amusement edge his words but that, she was coming to appreciate, was more difficult to identify than his walk. “Answer either,” she said. “Answer both.”
“Drink first.”