Chapter Twenty-Three
ERIK TOSSED IN HIS BED for the hundredth time. Every time he closed his eyes, the image of the baron on bended knee before Muriel was there. The memory nearly strangled him. When she did not accept him at once, his heart had soared. What was holding her back? He didn’t dare hope he was the reason for her hesitation. From what Vivienne had told him and from what Miss Whelan had revealed that day in the abbey, Muriel had been madly in love with the man. Could she really have changed her mind so quickly after meeting him? He turned over. You did. You were completely against the idea of a wife and a family, and yet she turned everything on its head, rearranging your carefully laid plans in a matter of weeks.
The drawn bed curtains were suffocating him. He threw off the covers and padded in his bare feet to the windows, looking over the lake to the sky, where hints of a new day were beginning. What was the point of sleeping with such a proposal haunting him and dawn so near? He needed to be out of doors—to stretch his limbs and clear his mind. Perhaps a baked good and a walk would do the trick until breakfast. His stomach rumbled, and, tossing a simple linen shirt over his head and tucking it into his pantaloons, he tugged on his boots, threw his greatcoat over his arm, and lit a candle. He strode down the hall toward the kitchen, letting memory guide him more than the weak flicker of the flame.
At the high-pitched warbling coming from behind the door, he paused with his hand on the wood planks, slowly pushing it ajar to silently view the scene he knew would be there—his dear Muriel. “We must stop meeting like this, my lady baker.”
She started and nearly dropped her wooden bowl and stirring spoon to the floor. Prepared for her reaction, Erik darted across the stones and caught them from her, setting them on the counter. Judging from the mounds of baked goods, she had been in here all night.
“Did you never retire, Ariel?”
She smiled softly at the sobriquet and pressed her hands to her back, arching. Her full apron revealed the puffed sleeves of her costly evening gown. “I had a lot of thinking to do. Cook wouldn’t allow me to use the kitchen until after the last guest was in bed, and by then I had a full list of items I wished to bake. I only intended on baking my first choice, a meat pie, but one thought led to another and then …” She waved to the basket of colorful macarons, trio of perfectly iced cakes, a dozen loaves of bread, breakfast rolls, and muffins. “My thoughts ran away with me.”
“I’m guessing this baking storm is in regard to Baron Deverell’s proposal?”
She wiped her fingers on her apron, giving a sharp nod.
Sensing she wasn’t ready to discuss it, he motioned to the mound of food. “Must be a difficult decision, because I doubt we will eat a third of all these baked goods.”
“I discovered that after I finished this last batch of muffins.” She dipped her head, her cheeks reddening. “I’ll pay for the ingredients. I only needed to think, and to think, I need to work—to feel useful once more.”
“Think nothing of it.” He reached for a golden macaron and popped it in his mouth, the lemon flavor bursting through at once. His mouth twisted at the tartness.
“Is it that bad?” She reached for one and took a tentative bite.
“I was only expecting vanilla, not lemon. It’s delicious.” He took a second golden macaron to demonstrate his enjoyment of the treat. “I have a better idea than this food going to waste. The drawbridge should be open now, and I was about to take my morning constitutional. What if you join me in taking a few basketfuls down to the church? I know the vicar’s wife brings baskets to the war widows in the area. I am certain she will be ecstatic to have your fine foods to deliver, even if it is not on her usual delivery day.”
She clasped her hands to her chest. “What a lovely idea, Erik.”
“Perhaps we can depart after you change?”
She gasped, glancing down at her dress as if aware of it for the first time. “Yes, of course.” She opened a door to what appeared to be a dry pantry and withdrew some baskets. “I found these while I was rummaging. Would you mind filling them while I slip into my walking gown?”
“Of course.” He set aside his coat. The packing was more meticulous a process than he had thought, and after several attempts to pack the two largest cakes without damaging them, he decided at last to leave the large cakes for the house party to enjoy over luncheon instead of risking their demise by transferring them into a basket.
Muriel panted as she reached the kitchen door, dressed in a white muslin confection with a pink-rose-embroidered emerald spencer that brought out her lovely coloring, with a matching pink poke bonnet. “All finished?”
“I managed to get as much as I can in four baskets.” Erik slipped on his coat. “I hope you are carrying the one with the cake. I fear if it is left in my care, I might harm those delightful sugar rosettes you created.”
“Of course. I’ve been carrying cakes since I was a girl.” She hefted two baskets off the table without so much as a grunt at the weight. She was quite the strong little thing.
Erik reached for the remaining baskets and followed her out the side door that released them into the first courtyard, where a scullery maid was approaching with her coal buckets in either grip. She skirted away from them, concealing her surprise before shifting her gaze away, only nodding at Muriel’s “good morning.”
Crossing over the drawbridge, he delighted in Muriel’s expression as she lifted a wonder-filled gaze to the rosy light streaking through dawn’s clouds.
“What a glorious morning,” she murmured as birds greeted them from the trees lining the winding road that led into town. “How I’ve missed this.”
“What do you miss?”
“Strolling into the village in the early light. Back home, I ambled down every morning to bake for a few hours before my assistant took charge for the day.” She shook her head. “I only hope that I do not return home to find the bakery devoid of customers … she tends to put her own mark on my time-tested recipes.”
“Quite enterprising of you,” Erik said, instead of addressing the fact that if she indeed wed as she planned, she would most likely have to sell her beloved bakery in Kent.
She shrugged. “I enjoy it, and it does pay for itself as well as my assistant’s wage and my pin money.”
“You don’t have access to your stepfather’s funds?”
“He supplies me most generously with a dress allowance and has promised a vast dowry. Otherwise, I would still be as poor as the day he met my mother. Oh!” She halted and clasped his arm, lips parted in astonishment at the appearance of a doe and her fawn at the edge of the forest. She lowered her baskets, watching until the pair disappeared into the shadows, then bent and gripped the handles once more. “I know it is a silly dream to hold onto my childhood bakery. It reminds me of a simpler time, when my father was alive. I am quite grateful for my lot in life, but it is trying for me to surrender my passion for baking. Even all these years later, you can see the transition into polite society has been rather difficult. I can only hope that one day my husband will see my baking as a boon and not something to shame him.”
Any man would consider himself most fortunate to have you as a bride, baking skills or no.Erik cleared his throat. “Would the baron appreciate your baking?”
She released a shaky laugh. “You are speaking, of course, of his proposal? I suppose everyone will be speaking of it today.”
“It was quite the apogee of the evening for the country gentry. Everyone was speaking of it—even going as far as to inquire of me if the wedding would be hosted at the castle as he used it as the milieu of his renewed courtship and proposal.”
“It’s people talking that got me into this mess in the first place.” She shook her head, grunting. “That and my own stubborn romantic heart.”
“You have not made up your mind to accept him, then? Even though you, forgive me for bringing this up, proposed to him only weeks ago?”
“I have not.” She lifted her wide eyes to him. “Why do you think I was baking all night? But, to answer your first question, I would no doubt be forbidden to ever set foot in a kitchen again with him as my husband. He is kind, but as he is only the first baron in his family, he is determined to be quite proper for all his days, and that is where I know I would prove to be a thorn in his side. He is handsome enough to win the hand of a noblewoman. Obviously, I am not titled, and it could prove challenging for him one day to accept my oddities should my funds ever deplete.”
“I understand how you feel. I know that one day, when my work ends, I’ll have a difficult time adjusting …” He rolled his shoulder, subconsciously checking his wound along with his wrist. Both were healed, but still not as strong as he’d like them to be. “But hopefully that day is far into the future, despite the suggestions I have received to retire and accept my new duties as Earl of Draycott.”
“And what is it exactly that you do?” She lifted a single brow. “At the ball, you hinted at something more than just being an officer serving the Crown.”
He cleared his throat, suddenly unsure of what to do. “Is being a captain not exciting enough?”
“Yes, but that is what you say to people to explain everything away.” She motioned to his arm. “I know there is something more to the story of how you were injured.”
“Oh?” He grinned. He was quite good at covering his tracks after years of practice. Did she really have something on him?
“You have this sense of urgency and confidence when it comes to your work. You are not merely a sea captain.” She rested her hand on his arm, her baskets in the crook of her elbow. “I have a feeling you do much more. But I will not press you into sharing your secret before you are ready if you have changed your mind since the ball last night.”
“And what is it that you think I do?”
She blinked. “Why, you are a spy, of course.”
“Am I?”
“What else explains your tendency to draw away from me? Or the fact that you are the best man to keep me safe after the threat? And, speaking of the threat, why would I suddenly receive a threat now when I have been an heiress for years?” She shook her head. “No, I am quite certain it is due to our friendship.”
Dare he confide in her? If he were to ask her to become his wife, he needed to tell her, to let her know all that she was agreeing to in marrying him … that he was not simply an earl. “And is friendship all you seek with me?”
Her cheeks flamed and she dipped her head. “It is all you have offered me, and, as Deverell has offered me his hand, I must see you only as a friend if I am to accept him.”
He halted in his tracks, his heart racing faster than the first time he boarded a vessel. He set down his baskets and then hers, drawing her hands into his. “Before I can offer you more, I need to tell you something about my work.”
Her breath caught. “More than friendship?”
He slowly nodded, the action obliterating the wall between his heart and hers. “I have not spoken of this outside of my colleagues. It is paramount it stays between us.”
Her eyes widened. “Of course. You know my darkest secrets and have kept them well. I would do the same for you, even if it proved my undoing.”
He searched her eyes and found not only honesty but complete adoration mirrored there. First the confession and then, God willing, the proposal.