Day 3, Continued #2
“No, I was walking and I . . . I don’t suppose you could give me the Knicks–Pacers score?”
Martin looked around as if trying to spy out eavesdroppers, pulled her inside and shut the door behind her.
“You could hear that?”
“The game? Yes, a little, and I saw the light through your window.”
“Blasted paper-thin curtains.” He grimaced and ran his fingers through his hair. “You are going to catch me at everything bad, aren’t you? Let’s hope you’re not her spy. She’ll have my balls for stew.”
“Who, Mrs. Wattlesbrook?”
“Yes, in whose presence I signed a dozen nondisclosure and proper-behavior and first-child and I don’t know what other kinds of promises, in one of which I swore to keep any modern thingies out of sight of the guests.”
“Tell me that Wattlesbrook isn’t her real last name.”
“It is, actually.”
“Oh no,” she said with a laugh in her voice.
“Oh yes.” He sat on the edge of his bed. “I take it, then, you’re not spying for her? Good. Yes, dear Mrs. Wattlesbrook, descended from the noble water buffalo. It’s a decent job, though. Best pay for being a gardener I’ve ever had.” He met her eyes. “I’d hate to lose it, Miss Erstwhile.”
“I’m not going to tattletale,” she said. “And you can’t call me Miss Erstwhile when you have a towel around your neck. To real people I’m Jane.”
“I’m still Martin.”
“So, do you play basketball?” she asked, eyeing again his splendid height.
“Americans always ask me that, and that’s why I started watching the NBA games in the first place.
Now I’m shamelessly addicted. They’re a bit more exciting than football, aren’t they?
About as much running around but a lot more goals.
Don’t tell a soul from Sheffield that I said that. Long live the Manchester United.”
“Yes, absolutely, go United,” she said, crossing herself.
“So, you came about the score.”
“Yes, the score,” she said, having forgotten all about it.
“Last I saw, it was fifteen to ten Knicks, first quarter.”
“First quarter? Well, would you mind if I stayed and watched the rest?”
“If Mrs. Wattlesbrook finds you here . . .”
“They all think I’m in bed. No one will come looking for me. I’m last in precedence, after all.”
They hung his bedspread on the curtain rod for “extra blue-light protection,” and sat on his love seat, watching the game on his laptop with the volume turned so low they had to whisper not to drown out the announcer.
She felt cozy and mischievous, watching the game in the dark apartment, hidden from that Miss Hannigan of a proprietress, sipping a can of root beer from Martin’s minifridge.
“You drink root beer while you watch an NBA game? You are an American wannabe, aren’t you?”
“That is perhaps the most horrid thing you could say to an Englishman.”
“Worse than French wannabe?”
“Well, there is that.” He sipped his soda. “I spent a summer in America and one night drank two six-packs of root beer on a dare.”
“I would assume that would make it even more disgusting to you,” said Jane.
“Right? And yet I began to crave the formerly vile, cough-syrupy taste. But wait just a moment, Miss I’ ve-Just-Come-From-a-Rather-Dull-Game-of-Whist, who’s pointing fingers and calling me a wannabe of anything?”
“Yeah . . .” She smoothed the front of her empire waist and laughed at herself as best she could. “It’s, um, a Halloween costume. You know, trick or treat.”
“And my interest in basketball is merely research into a curious cultural phenomenon, innit?”
“Pure research.”
“Absolutely.”
“But of course. Besides, you ruined me, you know. No wonder Wattlesbrook forbids anything modern to clash with the nineteenth century. Thirty seconds of conversation with you in the garden and I went cross-eyed trying to take myself seriously again in this getup.”
“I have that effect on a lot of women. All it takes me is thirty seconds and—er . . . That didn’t sound right.”
“You’d better stop while you’re behind, there, sport.”
The laptop seemed to grow quieter, and they moved closer to it, from the couch to the carpet, and sitting on the floor with her corset still stiffening her back, she had to lean against him to be comfortable.
And then his arm was around her shoulder, and his smell was delicious.
She felt drunk on fizzy root beer, and soothed by the sweeping action on the tiny screen.
He started to play with her fingers, and she turned her head. Their breaths touched. Then their lips.
And then, they really made out.
It was fun, kissing a guy she barely knew. She’d never done this before, and it made her feel rowdy and pretty and miles removed from her issues. She didn’t think or fret. She just played.
“Good shot,” she said, her eyes closed, pretending to watch the game.
“Watch that defense,” he whispered, kissing her neck. An evening dress allowed for a lot of neck, and somehow he got it all. “Get the rebound, you clumsy oaf.”
And it was fun to stop kissing and look at each other, breathless, feeling the thrill and anticipation of the undone.
“Good game,” she said.
The screen had gone black. She didn’t know how long the game had been over, but her heavy eyes and limbs told her it was very late.
She thought if she stayed longer, she would fall asleep on his chest, and because that idea pleased her, she left immediately.
Her torso stiff inside her corset exoskeleton, he had to help her to her feet.
With one hand, he pulled her onto her toes as though she were the weight of a pillow.
He walked her to the door and swatted her on the butt. “Good game, coach. See you tomorrow.”
“Um, who won?” she asked.
“We did.” He opened the door and peered out at the dark night. “I should walk you back.”
“No. No way. You might get caught, and I won’t let you get in trouble on my account. I’ll be fine.”
He smiled gratefully, put a hand behind her neck, and kissed her one more time, softly on the mouth, like a promise for more.
Jane hurried away before she said or did anything embarrassing and ruined the perfect night.
She didn’t know what hour it was, since a timepiece wasn’t part of her wardrobe allotment, but the moon had slid down the sky.
Her arms bare below her thin sleeves, she shivered and crept across the courtyard, the whisper of the gravel path announcing her presence to any lurkers.
She entered through the grand front door, clicking it closed behind her, and eased her slippers over the marble tiles and up the creaking stairs.
It was strange creeping through that big house at night, and she had the itchy sensation of being watched or followed.
“Who’s there?” she asked once, feeling less Austen heroine and more gothic waif, lost and alone in a forbidding castle. Did someone see her coming from Martin’s? Would she be sent home? Would he be fired?
She locked her chamber door behind her and didn’t dare ring for Matilda.
It was impossible to do up her corset without help, but she successfully, though awkwardly, managed to undress alone.
Stripped to her chemise, she melted into the cool sheets.
She could smell Martin on her hands, and she gleefully cozied into her pillows, enjoying the sensation of having recently been kissed.
Of course it meant nothing beyond the fun of it, because she’d given up on men and love, after all, and was quite firm with herself about hoping too much. But it had been nice. And a first for Jane—a harmless vacation fling!
Tonight, Jane had been kissed. Tonight she thought, Mr. Darcy who?