Chapter 12
Twelve
Arabella was deep in thought at the small desk in her bedchamber, the desk she used for correspondence.
But today she wrote no letters. Instead, she pondered the future.
How her school and Boyd’s church might work together to make Dunburn a model village, a place where ordinary people might thrive.
Ordinary girls, especially. Perhaps together they could do more than she could do alone, no matter her money.
And that was what she wanted, wasn't it?
To do some good for others instead of pursuing her own comfort, her own ends.
And Mr. Cormack had chosen her despite her looks rather than because of them.
Surely, that was a mark in his favor. There had been no rapturous ye are the most beautiful girl in the world.
Similarly, there had been no lightning strike in her belly, lying to her heart, telling her he was her one true love.
He knew nothing of the extent of her money, her dowry. He was not a fortune-hunter.
And he was willing to have her despite her past.
She might have children with Boyd. Redheaded children. But could she bear that? When she had hoped for so long to have red-haired children with another man. But she must not think on that. Or on him.
She heard a knock on the door. Her bedchamber was at the back of the cottage, so she could not look out the small window and see who was there.
And Maggie was out for the afternoon, visiting her mam and da.
Arabella went to the main room, where the peat fire was burning in the hearth, and opened the door.
Boyd Cormack and another person. At first, she saw just Boyd and an auburn head of hair behind him. Then Boyd moved slightly to the side.
There was no room for air in her lungs. Her heart had suddenly grown too large and was taking up all the space in her chest.
Her eyes were stuck on his.
It could not be.
It was.
The man who had just come into her mind seconds ago and whom she had pushed away as a painful impossibility. He had manifested on her doorstep.
“Dr. Andrews,” she breathed.
“Aye,” Boyd said. “I met my cousin outside the public house, and he told me he had a letter for ye.”
“Miss Lovelock.” Alasdair bowed but did not let his eyes waver from hers.
What a fool she had been.
Even if Alasdair did not want her, could not want her after her ruination, she would never marry another.
Never.
She was seventeen again, and he was standing in front of her, unchanged.
Arabella could not move or speak or think. Boyd had to clear his throat. Loudly. Twice. She came to herself then and looked at Boyd. “Please come in.”
She pulled the door more fully open and stood by it, and Boyd entered. Alasdair followed, and, as he passed within inches of her, she reached up and put her hand on his chest.
Her palm flat and pressing on his woolen greatcoat. He was here. He was real.
She inhaled. He smelled of cold air and soap and leather.
He halted, stopping just inside the door, her hand resting on his chest.
She had no control now and moved her hand to the lapel of the coat and grabbed it. She would not let him leave. He would not vanish. She would not let go of his coat. She would keep him here.
She looked up into his worried green eyes, and a lock of hair fell down in front of his left eye. The same dark-red lock she had found so bewitching almost four years ago. She longed to move it out of the way, but she did not dare take her hand from his coat.
Boyd’s voice went on, apparently not noticing the two of them had halted at the door. “It has been some twenty years, and then I saw him in the street, and he was asking about ye. Quite providential, I thought. For him to ask after my betrothed—”
She spoke. Quickly. Sharply. There was no time to spare anyone’s feelings.
“I am not his betrothed.” She was looking at Alasdair’s right eye, the unobscured one. It was important he understand immediately and without constraint. “Mr. Cormack has asked me, Dr. Andrews. I have not answered.”
There was silence except for the whistle of the wind and the peat burning in the hearth.
She was looking at Alasdair, and he was looking back at her.
His right eye did not look worried anymore.
The cold air blew in the open door, but she felt nothing but the current of heat between them.
She kept his lapel in her grasp. Still, she imagined he could not leave if she kept her hand on his coat.
“I expect,” Boyd’s bitter voice filtered into her consciousness, “I ken what yer answer be.”
He walked between the two of them, breaking her grip on Alasdair’s coat, and went out the door, closing it behind him.
“I have a letter for ye,” Alasdair said and pulled it from his coat pocket and handed it to Arabella, even as he used his other hand to push back the hair in front of his left eye. He was surprised his voice was so steady.
She took it from him.
There was a silence, and then they both spoke at once.
“I did not expect—”
“Forgive my intrusion—”
They both broke off.
“Ye are taller,” Alasdair said. “From when I saw ye last.”
She smiled. “But still too short. I was seventeen then. I am almost one and twenty now.”
“Aye. Nae, I mean. Ye are nae too short. Yer height then, as now, suits ye. Perfectly.”
She turned pink. A lovely shade of pink. And looked down.
“I’m sorry to disturb ye. I should leave ye now,” Alasdair said with a great deal of difficulty. “To let ye read yer letter.”
“No!” Her voice was high, loud, tinged with something akin to panic. She raised her hand as if to grab his lapel again but put her hand down before she touched him and licked her lips.
She said in a lower voice, “No, please, Dr. Andrews. I have not seen you in almost four years. I have seen no one of my acquaintance from England, no member of my family, in over two years. Please do not leave. Sit by the fire. I will bring you some tea. Please sit, Doctor, while I read my letter. Please.”
It was his most heartfelt desire to stay, to sit. To be in her presence. But he had seen no evidence that anyone else was in the cottage.
To be alone with Arabella Lovelock. His knees trembled.
“I dinnae wish to compromise—”
“Hush.” She stepped towards him and put her finger on his lips.
“I live a simple life here. I am not encumbered by a household of servants. Nor by a family. There is nothing amiss in my asking a traveler from a long distance, an old friend of my family, to sit by my fire and drink tea. I implore you—” and here he thought her voice might have quavered for just an instant “—do not leave.”
He wanted to speak, but he did not want her to remove her finger from his lips. Her finger lay there, warm. It was a physical contact of great intimacy. The greatest he had ever experienced.
She swallowed and took her finger away.
“I’m sorry for upsetting ye,” he cleared his throat, “and I would be exceedingly happy to stay and sit by the fire while ye read the letter.”
No, but first she must fetch him tea.
“I assure ye, I dinnae require tea. Please read the letter.”
She sat on a stool by the hearth and patted the rocking chair next to her. “Please.”
He sat and unwound his scarf from around his neck and looked at her.
Her golden hair glinted in the light of the fire as she broke the seal on her letter and began to read.
He saw now that she was more womanly, and it was not just her height.
Her breasts had grown fuller in the last three and a half years.
But he should not be looking at her breasts.
He would look—where, where would he look?
He was loath to look anywhere but at her.
He had not known how starved he was for the sight of her.
But where was safe to look? He looked at her hands holding her letter and only imagined them entwined with his hands, pressing on his chest, stroking his—no.
He looked at her mouth and only imagined his own mouth on it.
Again, no. He looked down at where her boots peeked out from under her wool dress and petticoat and imagined lifting her skirts to see her ankles and then her calves and then higher still—argh. Agony.
She finished reading and looked up at him.
“Dr. Andrews, my sister writes she needs me to be with her.”
“Aye.”
“Is she in danger, Dr. Andrews? Will Harry die?” Her eyes brimmed with tears.
Damn. What had Harry written in her letter to Arabella? He would not lie.
“When I left her, she was nae perilously ill. In fact, she seemed improved.”
Arabella sighed, a noise of relief.
“She was working on the conjecture.”
Arabella laughed.
What a glorious thing. The sound of her laugh, her head thrown back, the view of her white throat. He wanted to kiss that milky skin. He could not help himself. He was drunk on her now.
“Yes,” she said, chortling. “That sounds like Harry. Always the Fermat’s conjecture and the x’s and the y’s and the exponents.”
“Aye, ye ken her well.”
“As do you.” She frowned. “But this letter. She is asking for me. She has . . . yes, she has never asked anything of me. Never. Harry doesn’t ask. She demands, or she takes, or she does without.”
Alasdair hesitated and then plunged. “She asked me to escort ye back to Sommerleigh.”
“Yes, she says the same in my letter. It is as if she doesn’t realize . . .”
That Arabella could hardly cross the length of Britain alone in a carriage with a man to whom she was not married.
Arabella folded the letter. “But I have Maggie. Mrs. Gunn. She can come with us. She will be back to the cottage soon, and I will ask her.”
Alasdair’s feelings were mixed upon hearing news of Mrs. Gunn. The danger of being alone with Arabella for days on end in a closed carriage had teased him wildly since getting Harry’s letter.
But, yes, a chaperone was advisable. If a time came when he might court Miss Arabella Lovelock and ask for her hand, he would want to know propriety had been observed and she had chosen him freely and not because of a compromising situation.