Chapter 7
“I’ll just go drop this off for Alex while you give your basket to Tristan,” Violet could feel her voice practically singing the words to Iris as she stood several meters outside the tent where Alex was working.
With this gold project the men were working on, they were always in demand, and she wanted to do something nice this afternoon.
So when Iris returned to Greene House with the idea of bringing them lunch, she couldn’t resist.
Reading, Mirabelle waited for them on a small bench overlooking a forgotten fire pit. This wouldn’t take long, and soon they would all three visit Mr. Duke’s to fix Mirabelle’s necklace.
“Give me…a few minutes. I just want to explain to Tristan what’s in the basket.” As if they hadn’t packed them together, Iris swung her basket up for Violet to see. There was little doubt in Violet’s mind what kind of explaining would be happening, but who was she to nitpick.
Focused on her own goodwill, she popped her head in Alex’s tent only to find his jaw unnaturally clenched while his hands hung altogether too still at his sides.
“And another thing, the men aren’t respecting their allotted spaces. They keep creeping into my territory. Like Leonard needs to steal something else from me. He’s already got my woman, the blood—”
“Why hello there,” Violet sang. She couldn’t help it now. Obviously the tomato pasted man needed a soothing presence.
“What are you doing here?” Alex bit out, somehow moving his jaw enough to speak.
“I came to bring you nourishment.” Gliding further into the tent, she plopped the basket down on his desk atop papers and books where it leaned just precariously enough for Alex to snatch it up and clear out a smoother space for it.
“And you, good sir, look like you might appreciate something.” She turned a winning smile to the disgruntled worker.
The man had his hat in his hands and was shifting his weight from foot to foot, unsure of what to say. Clearly still in a fury over his working conditions, but with one look at her, smitten.
“Here you go,” she said, handing the stranger some fresh fruit.
“I can’t take this—”
“Nonsense. You deserve it. Now what’s this I hear about someone tampering with your equipment?”
“They aren’t tampering with it, Miss. I’d never leave my belongings unattended like that. They’re far too important.”
“I could see you were an intelligent man. Certainly clever enough to know how to manage the men around him. You can almost predict their behavior, which means you absolutely must be clever enough to plan your responses to them.” Her hands made a soft padding sound, akin to a clap. “Yes. Quite clever indeed.”
“Thank you, Miss.” The tomato color depleted and now fixed with a grin, the man fiddled with the brim of his hat. “Not everyone recognizes that in me.”
“I didn’t say anything any reasonable woman wouldn’t see in you all on her own.”
She hadn’t forgotten about Alex of course, his presence was far too evocative. She had always felt his presence, like a safety net about her. Like just now, he wiggled his fingers slightly, and she could feel them against her skin.
“Right. Off with you—”
“Would you care to join me for a drink, Miss—”
“She would not.” Alex spoke for the first time, and though it was low in volume and pitch, it rumbled like thunder.
The man gave her a look at which she shrugged her shoulders and moved to Alex’s side. Hoping the small touch she placed on his forearm would be indication enough of her affection, she watched as the man stuffed his hat back on his head and made his exit out the front flaps of the white canvas tent.
“What are you doing here?” He whirled on her with his all too familiar grumble.
Fanning her face with her hand, she ignored his question and said instead, “It’s sweltering in here.”
“Violet.” He called her and immediately let silence follow until she looked at him. “Why are you here?”
“You keep asking me that as if I don’t know where I’m going or why. I might begin to think you’re projecting those questions on me as a way of dealing with your own internal naggings.”
He gave her an odd look.
“Violet?” he pleaded.
“I brought nourishment. I already explained that though. So you must be asking something else.”
“I’m working.”
“I know.”
“Well,” he harrumphed loudly and gripped the back of his neck, “I’m busy.”
“I can see that, Alex.” With emphasis on his name. “Did I not just intervene in time to turn a grumbling man into a confident one?”
“Overly confident. An absolute mutton head to think he could call on you.”
“Oh, Alex—”
“Is that what you do then? Turn all of us grumps into besotted fools?”
“Why are you angry?”
A low grumble escaped his lips as he marched behind his desk. “I’m busy.” And then as an afterthought, he gruntled, “Thanks for the food.” But he said it without even looking at her.
And it shouldn’t have stung as much as it did. He was a grump. A brooding and gloomy old friend. What did she expect? That one conversation and one life-changing encounter would actually and indelibly change his life? No. That was just hers, she supposed.
Men were such addlepated ninnies. All of them. Perhaps, he was the worst of the lot. Perhaps he was even their ringleader.