Chapter 22
EVELYN BLACKWELL
Applewood’s kitchens were cold—a testament to the emptiness of the home.
I padded silently after Captain Calder until he found a basin of water sitting on a counter next to the massive ovens.
He didn’t turn to look at me but held his hand out as if I couldn’t clean my own hand with a dampened cloth.
“It isn’t deep,” I said softly.
“Give me your hand, Miss Blackwell,” he said with such a menacing tone I complied immediately.
What trouble that hand had caused me this afternoon. Mr. Howard was a complete scoundrel for acting in such a manner. Charm could only excuse so much, and putting my finger in his mouth was decidedly beyond its reach.
I expected the captain to at least examine the puncture but he didn’t. Without any sort of warning he plunged my whole hand in the basin and held it there.
“Do you think we should be in your home alone?” I asked. I didn’t say what we both must be thinking—Hattie might not approve.
He kept his eyes on our hands underneath the water. “We have done much more inappropriate things, you and I.”
I glanced behind us. No one had followed. “But we don’t speak of it,” I reminded him.
“I’m not speaking of it.” He pulled my hand out of the water and assessed the puncture.
“I’m decidedly not speaking of it,” he said again, this time gentler.
He lowered his mouth to the tip of my finger and for the briefest of moments I thought he was going to kiss it, or worse, repeat Mr. Howard’s ministrations.
But my finger stayed my own. He only blew on it softly.
No doubt Mr. Howard had been trying to be sensual with that mouth of his but the whole experience had been too shocking and unwanted. If he’d truly wanted to affect me in a positive manner he should have done this.
Captain Calder blew again, his warm breath cascading over the tip of my finger down to the knuckle.
I sucked in a quiet gasp and prayed he didn’t notice.
“Hattie seemed to enjoy your tour,” I said softly after a few moments of silence.
He stilled. “She did.”
And then I had nothing more to say. Nothing I could say. I’d told him I wanted to be his friend but it seemed I was much more adept at being his enemy. We both were.
“I’m glad,” I said, forcing a smile into my voice. “She always speaks so highly of you.”
He didn’t release me, but turned his face. We were very close—as close as we’d been that night when he’d pulled me down and eliminated the last remaining inches between us. “What has she told you, specifically?”
I swallowed. His hand warmed mine and his eyes searched my face. “So many things,” I said.
But that wasn’t enough for him. He was silent, waiting for more.
“She likes you,” I said. “Perhaps not as much as she likes that alcove in your breakfast room.” I quirked a smile.
“The one she said would be the perfect place to hang a family portrait,” I explained as if Hattie hadn’t talked extensively about it only a few moments ago.
“But she has most certainly expounded your virtues . . . several times, in fact.”
“And that is all.”
“Do you need more?”
He carefully released my hand and rubbed a damp hand down his face. “I don’t know what I need anymore.”
“I could speak to her,” I offered, even though that was the last thing I wanted to do.
He shook his head and pulled a handkerchief from his waistcoat.
“Please don’t.” He shook out the folded linen.
“At least not on my behalf. We’ve only just become friends, you and I, and I refuse to trouble you with conversations that are my responsibility.
” He wrapped the handkerchief gently around my finger, tying two of the corners in a knot to hold it in place.
He turned my hand forward and back in his, inspecting his handiwork.
My finger throbbed where the thorn had pierced it but the feather-light touch of his hands distracted me from the pain.
“Not my finest work. But it should keep your wound clean and stanch the bleeding.”
I murmured a quiet “thank you.”
“Could I show you one more room inside? It is . . . ” He searched for the word. “Unique to Applewood. I think you will like it.”
“Should I fetch Hattie?”
“No.” He paused. “She seemed happy enough where she was.”
She’d been sitting on a bench overlooking the rose garden with Brookhouse when we’d passed her.
Her smile had dropped when she noticed the way Captain Calder held my wrist and marched me toward the house.
She’d stood and asked if I was alright and both the Captain and I had answered yes, albeit in very different tones—mine reassuring, but the captain’s?
Well, the gruff way he’d practically spat out the word should have made Hattie nervous.
But instead the corner of her mouth lifted and she sat back down next to Brookhouse.
I nodded silently and he led me up the stairs into the family wing of the house.
I followed him along a long corridor lined with rooms before going up another set of stairs.
I expected the stairway to lead to another corridor—a lit one—because there was light coming from the top of it, but instead it opened into a large room lit not by candles, but by the sun.
The center of the room had a glass ceiling and light cascaded through it, creating patches of sunshine on the wooden floor.
There were several items of furniture in many different shapes but they were all covered in muslin sheets.
“What is this place?’
“Over the years it has been a lot of things—a nursery, a play room, a study for me and my siblings. It was the place where my stepmother, who became my mother, taught me my earliest lessons, and in return, I did the same for her children after she was gone. It has always been the heart of this home.”
I could see the signs of it now in the shapes underneath the sheets. One covered a rocking horse and others covered tables too small for adults. “It is beautiful.”
“Not a single pane of glass broke while I was gone.”
“Because it is magic.”
He nodded. “I can’t think of another explanation.”
“Should we wake this room up?” I asked.
His eyebrows furrowed. “What do you mean?”
I stepped over to one of the pieces of furniture and tugged the sheet off of it. It was a desk, painted with fairies and castles in browns and greens. I turned to Captain Calder, certain my mouth must be hanging open.
He puffed out a soft laugh. “Those aren’t the only fairies you’ll find in this room. In fact . . . ” He glanced up at the ceiling—not the glass portion, but the outer ceiling that bordered it. I followed his gaze.
Every corner held a painted fairy, and between them scrolls of gold danced through roses.
I didn’t know what to say. I didn’t even know what I should be feeling. I knew what I was feeling, but it definitely wasn’t appropriate.
I wanted this room.
“Your description of Applewood was accurate. Are you certain you haven’t been here before?”
“I would have remembered this.”
“Still, some things we can’t remember, no matter how hard we try.”
I pulled my eyes from the roses and fairies and dared to look him in the eye. “I haven’t been here before but––” I paused. I couldn’t finish my thought. I couldn’t tell him I wished I could come to know this room better.
He didn’t press me.
We worked together, pulling off sheets and revealing furniture until the room was open and linens piled up in the center of the floor.
Without discussing it, we both plopped down on the floor next to them.
The room was filled with bookcases and toys, desks and chairs, and, most intriguing of all, a mechanical model of the solar system on a clockwork base.
The room darkened for a brief moment. I looked up to see a soft cloud covering one corner of the glass ceiling.
It was moving so quickly that after only a moment it was gone and the room was bathed in bright light again.
The return of light felt like the room had taken its first stretching breath after a long sleep.
Captain Calder fell back into the linens behind us and looked up at the sky.
I put my hands behind me and glanced up as well. Now that the cloud was gone, all I could see was blue.
“Arthur and I used to lay like this and look for different shapes in the clouds.”
“There is only blue today.”
“True, but that makes its own kind of beauty. As does the rain.” He closed his eyes and I could almost see the memory of rain falling on the glass behind his eyelids.
A finger grazed my skin just above my wrist, then curled around my arm and tugged.
It could be considered a friendly, playful touch, and no doubt that was exactly what Captain Calder meant it to be, but I couldn’t help the soft shiver that ran up my arm because of it.
“Come, friend,” he said softly. “Will you join me?”
I pursed my lips together. He was inviting me to do something he’d done a thousand times with his brother. There was no romance in his suggestion—he’d made that abundantly clear when he called me his friend.
I slowly shifted down until my head was next to his. As he said, we’d done far more inappropriate things. Lying down, I could just make out the edge of the cloud that had passed over us earlier.
“What about your sister? Did she also join you?”
“Often, but she preferred the rain.”
“And which did you prefer?”
“I loved all of it,” he said simply
“There is one cloud,” I said with a smile and turned to him. He kept looking up and I had a moment to study the sweep of his nose and the beginnings of stubble on his cheek.
He squinted. “I can’t decipher its shape, though.”
“Not everything has to have a shape,” I said softly. He turned then and ran his eyes up and down my face as if he would memorize it while I did the same to his.
After too long a moment he turned back to the sky.
Our arms were lined up next to each other, my shoulder inches from his.
It would take only the smallest amount of effort to wrap my littlest finger around his, a smaller amount of effort than it was taking to keep them separated.
The idea was so far apart from where we had been only a few days ago that I should be reeling with the strangeness of my thoughts.
But I wasn’t. I’d been comfortable with him in the croft when we first met.
Being comfortable again was natural. It was fighting against Captain Calder that had been arduous.
What would he do if I let my hand do what it wanted? Would he welcome the gesture? Would he see it as an act of friendship, or something more?
The back of his hand brushed mine and I sucked in a breath.
But instead of prolonging the contact or reaching for my hand, he snatched his away and rested it on his chest. Even our breaths were quiet as we watched the shapeless cloud slowly pass out of the ceiling’s frame until we were left with only blue sky once again. After a moment, he cleared his throat.
“Do you think,” he said, his voice low and husky, “there is a chance Harriet prefers Brookhouse over me?”
That was what he’d been thinking about? I’d been waging a constant and losing battle against the desire to touch this man and he’d been sitting here stewing over the fact that Hattie had chosen to spend time in his friend’s company?
Even though he’d already removed the temptation, I pulled my hand right up against my side and balled the fabric of my skirt in my fist.
I was a fool. A complete fool. Thank the heavens I hadn’t done anything daft.
“I thought you said you didn’t want me to ask her.”
“I don’t.” He puffed out a breath of air in . . . what? Frustration? “I want your thoughts on the matter.”
“I don’t know,” I answered honestly. I didn’t really care at the moment, either.
Mama and I had wanted Hattie to make an impression on the men at this house party and she certainly had.
Which was wonderful. Perfect. Everything was going exactly according to plan.
She’d made an impression on at least two of them.
I sat up, no longer interested in the sky. “We should get back.”
He nodded and then rose with the gracefulness of a cat.
I allowed myself the briefest of glances at his arms and shoulders while he brushed himself off.
I’d seen this man shirtless. I’d seen him at his weakest. I’d seen him gently care for a scratch on my finger.
But he wasn’t mine to look at, so I turned away.
I brushed myself off and blinked away the magic of this room. Selfishly, I was glad I was the only one who’d been introduced to it.