Chapter 25 #2
Miss Ainsley stepped into the kitchen, wet hair hanging down one side of her head, dress dripping on the stone floor.
Martha scurried across the room, brandishing a large towel to drape across the young woman. Miss Ainsley smiled thankfully, a shiver wracking her shoulders.
Alice ushered her to the kitchen fire, not yet banked for the night. “What happened?” she asked.
Miss Ainsley was shaking her head. “My own stupidity. I love the rain, and thought to sit on the veranda listening to it. Unbeknownst to me, one of your very efficient servants must have locked the door while I was out.” Martha handed her some steaming tea which she accepted gratefully.
“I just circled the house to find a way in, but it is quite the deluge out there, if you did not know.” She picked woefully at her skirt, but then a smile crept across her face.
Alice stifled a laugh.
Miss Ainsley’s eyes creased. “You can laugh at me. Go ahead.”
“I would not dream of it,” Alice said, sitting on a stool across from the woman.
“Well, if the situation were reversed, I cannot say I would be as gracious. What a nincompoop I am. You are both very kind to help me.”
Martha smiled, disappearing into the stillroom.
Alice gestured after her. “She will get you something to ward off a cold, and we’ll have you warm and in bed soon. Shall I call for a bath?” She began to rise.
Miss Ainsley waved a hand in front of her, which waved the towel as well. “No need to wake someone for my own folly. Dry clothes and a warm bed will be more than enough for me.”
Alice nodded, sitting back down. “You know, Martha said that the open door would bring us good fortune.”
“And all you got was me, poor dears.”
Alice stopped another laugh. “Lucky, indeed, Miss Ainsley.”
“Call me Julia. Saving me from drowning ought to give you permission to use my Christian name.”
“Then I must be Alice to you. And should I be drowning in the future, I hope you shall save me in return.”
Julia straightened. “On my honor,” she pledged.
Running steps sounded, and a maid appeared in the doorway into the house. Her eyes lit on Alice.
“Ma’am, I am sorry to disturb you this late, but one a’ the guests has been hurt.”
“Oh no.” Alice stood, turning to Julia. “I must see to this, but—”
“No, go ahead. Martha and I will get on well enough.”
Alice nodded, following the maid from the room. “Who is it?” she asked as they took the stairs at a fast clip.
“Sir Henry, ma’am.”
Alice’s breath seized up. Her feet faltered. Should she go back and tell Julia? But, no, she could not help in her state. “What is wrong with him?”
“I don’t rightly know, ma’am. Only that he were outside when it ’appened.”
“Where is he now?”
“The drawing room, ma’am.”
“Thank you.”
What could have happened to Sir Henry? Had he fallen? Been hurt by an animal? Lost in the storm for a time?
Alice turned the last corner, skipping the first step on the stairs and then hurrying up the rest. Her overactive mind was spinning away with all possible horrors that might have befallen Sir Henry.
A shout sounded, and Alice ran the last few steps to the dining room, wrenching the door back.
The scene before her stopped her in her tracks.
Sir Henry sat on a table, Alice’s butler and two footmen surrounding him.
One had his forearm braced in both of his.
But the most shocking was Sir Henry himself.
Bare from the waist up. Entirely bare. Sinewy muscles wrapped about his torso, drawing her eyes like a moth to a flame.
All four men looked up in that moment. Alice spun to face away, eyes wide and chest tight. “I am so terribly sorry, Sir Henry, I did not—my maid—I was told you’d been hurt and then there was a scream.”
“It is no matter, Mrs. Seymour.” Was he laughing? He sounded as if he were laughing. “Here, man, help me put this on. Yes there it is, and the buttons too? Thank you. Mrs. Seymour, it is safe to turn.”
Slowly, hesitantly, and with her eyes squeezed halfway shut just in case she’d need to close them again, Alice turned back to the room. Sir Henry was still sitting on the table, but his shirt was replaced. No cravat, jacket, or waistcoat completed the outfit, though. Her cheeks burned.
Oh, heavens, she needed air.
One footman cleared some rags from the table, the other offering his hand to Sir Henry to help him off. He took it, gingerly sliding to the ground. When he looked up again, his smile was sheepish.
“I took a fall and knocked my shoulder wrong,” he explained.
She still hesitated in the doorway, visions of his broad chest and strong arms proving difficult to remove. He was not the tallest of men, but he had strength aplenty. Aplenty. All she could do was nod and make some sort of noise that sounded vaguely like “Mmm.”
“I am sorry to have worried you. Your men set me right quick enough. Nothing to concern yourself over.”
Alice blinked the fog from her mind. “You screamed.”
“Yes, about that. Was it really a scream, though? More of a shout, I should think. A bellow maybe. Something low and . . . and manly?”
Startled, she laughed, though she smothered it quickly enough. Much of the tension had fled with the humor though. “Oh no, it was certainly a scream.”
Sir Henry scrunched up his face, shaking his head as he came closer. “In your state of immense distress, I imagine you were not thinking—or remembering—correctly. It is understandable, but do not worry, I hold nothing against you for your lapse in judgment.”
She bit her lips together, entertained. “Whatever it was, Sir Henry, you sounded quite pained. Your shoulder, you said?”
He sobered, grabbing at one of his upper arms and grimacing.
“It was stupid, really. I only wanted to enjoy the rain, but I slipped coming down the steps—dreadfully well-polished those—and fell on my shoulder. Your butler seemed to think I’d pulled it from its rightful place and had some experience with setting it to rights. ”
She’d not missed his look of pain, and her eyes narrowed at his arm. “But it is better?”
“I imagine it will hurt for a few days, but it is well enough. I am sorry to have taken you from . . . ” he trailed off, his eyes lingering on her head.
Self-consciously, she grabbed at her mass of curls and tried to pull them back. She really ought to have stopped and put them up before she’d gone down to the kitchen. It would only have taken a moment, but now here she stood in front of Sir Henry with her hair looking like a veritable lion’s mane.
“I apologize, I was in a hurry.”
He faltered a moment longer, then shook his head, his throat working with a swallow. “Do not apologize. I . . . you . . . ” He looked away. “I am sorry, I seem to have forgotten what I was saying. Might I escort you back to wherever you were when me and my, ah, thundering yell interrupted you?”
For some unknown reason, she was finding it laborious to breathe just then.
His eyes, when they came back to her, seemed to rake across her hair, landing on her lips.
He’d said his yell was thunderous, but her heart surely surpassed it in noise just then.
It was pounding in her ears with a fury.
Could he hear it too? She stepped backward—not exactly with grace but certainly with speed.
“I was with your sister, who also had a run in with the rain.”
Sharp eyes met hers. “Is she well?”
She nodded. “Only a little wet.”
“Good. Good.” His eyes again trailed to her hair. She took another step. Both wishing to be with him, but also somehow seeing that this situation, with both in a state of minor undress and darkness blanketing the house, was a far cry from their well-lit time on the battlement.
“If you are well, then I should be . . . well . . . Good night, Sir Henry.”
“Wait, Mrs. Seymour—”
With minor hesitation, she met his eyes.
His crinkled at the sides. “Thank you for coming to see after me. It means a great deal.”
Her mouth lifted on the edges. How could it not with him looking so boyish and happy before her? “You are welcome.”