21 #2
Oliver swallowed the bile that rose in his throat as, standing, he wordlessly made his way from the room and to his bed. So not today, then. Surely one night’s delay would not make a bit of difference. Tomorrow. Tomorrow for certain he would convince her to give up on her plans.
The five days that had passed since coming into Oliver’s home had been as difficult as Iris had foreseen. That difficulty, however, was not for the reasons she’d expected.
Initially she’d feared the atmosphere in the house would be fraught with tension, that it would be icy with disdain and frigid with fury.
Fast on the heels of that worry had been a sinking certainty that Oliver would try his utmost to talk her out of her plans to reclaim her mother’s work.
And indeed, there had been times he’d seemed about to do so.
Moments when a look of anxiety had shimmered in his eyes, when his body had been coiled as tightly as a spring.
The shadow of the words had crossed his lips, a plea for her to decamp that would have destroyed the hope that he might understand why she was doing what she was.
Instead, however, a peculiar truce had settled between them.
A truce she was afraid to look at too closely.
Where things might have been devastatingly tense, they were instead merely awkward.
But with each tentative smile he sent her way and each stilted attempt at conversation, a careful kind of hope grew within her.
Hope for what, she didn’t have a clue. What kind of future could there be for them after this was all done?
But hope there was, against her better judgment.
And, strangely enough, she had the urge to protect and nurture that hope, like a small seedling just breaking through the soil and into the sun.
Especially as, with each day that passed, she grew to love him and his family more and more, feeling as if she was part of something incredibly precious and lasting.
But all that did not take away the fact that this stay with Oliver’s family was incredibly difficult.
Or, at least, one very particular aspect of it was.
Heaving a sigh, she paused in her peeling of the vegetables and gazed between the small gap in the kitchen curtains and into the back garden.
Since entering the cottage, she had not set foot outdoors and had hardly even looked out the windows.
Everyone had deemed it safer this way, from the Widows to Oliver to his family.
Even she herself knew it was what needed to be done.
It would be an effort in futility, after all, if they went through all this exertion of concealing her and, by some carelessness on her part, Lord Durand learned she was staying here when she was supposed to have left the county.
And in that scenario, her safety would not be the only one threatened, but Oliver’s and his family’s as well.
And so inside she had stayed. No matter how desperately she ached to be outdoors. She heaved another sigh.
“Mrs. Rumford,” Mrs. Archer said from behind her, “please let me peel the vegetables. You really needn’t do something of that sort.”
Iris smiled at the other woman over her shoulder.
Enough of the self-pity. Everyone was doing their utmost to protect her.
She would be a sad, ungrateful creature indeed if she did not do her best to keep her frustration to herself.
“Nonsense,” she said bracingly. “It is a relief that I have the opportunity to feel useful. My presence here is such an imposition, after all.”
“It is not an imposition at all, my dear,” the woman said, with such warmth that every ounce of Iris’s frustrations over her necessary isolation vanished.
“I am so grateful,” she replied. She looked down to where the woman was using a rag to wipe the counter. “But how are your hands? Are the oils helping at all?”
“They are.” She lifted her hands, peering at the thickened joints with a calm acceptance. “I know they will never be what they once were, that my days of being able to do hard work without pain are over. But it is lovely to get even a bit of relief. Thank you.”
“Of course,” Iris murmured. Then, “But you must instruct me how to make the dough for the meat pies. I vow, I am truly enjoying learning the ins and outs of a kitchen. Strachan does not allow me anywhere near the place back at home.”
They fell into easy conversation, Mrs. Archer instructing and Iris following closely.
It had been so long since she had been able to work with her hands, it felt wonderful using them again.
Between that and Mrs. Archer’s constant stream of talk, Iris’s mind was kept pleasantly occupied.
And though the woman touched on Oliver more than anything else, though she lauded his good traits and gave Iris those same baffling, long looks she had been giving her all week, Iris was too happy to wonder at it.
Too soon, however, they were done, the pies in the oven, and Iris had nothing to do but to keep herself busy.
No easy thing for someone whose sanctuary was the outdoors.
But keep busy she would. Fetching her lock-picking kit, she adjourned to the sitting room.
Best to keep her skills sharp, she thought as she opened the box and pulled each carefully crafted tool out one by one.
The exhibition was the following evening, after all, and she could not afford to get complacent.
The exhibition. A burst of anxiety rattled her bones and tightened her chest. Sylvia and the others had kept up a constant stream of correspondence from Rose House, helped along by Verity, who had volunteered to run letters back and forth.
Things were coming along smoothly, they had assured her, their parts in the evening set, clothing and weapons at the ready.
No matter their encouragement, Iris could not be easy.
Taking up one of the small locks she kept in the box, she inserted two of the long picks, working them in the mechanism, listening for the telltale click of release.
But what should have taken mere seconds took much longer, her hands shaking so badly she could not maneuver the picks right.
Blowing out a sharp breath, she tried again.
And again. And again. Only when she was satisfied with the time it took her to release the lock did she move on to the next.
And so she continued for the next hour, fingers growing more confident as she went, each soft, metallic click of release like a balm to her soul.
As she worked, she recalled her mother gifting her that very first lock set so many years ago.
How frustrated and overwhelmed she’d been as a child, the world not making sense so much of the time.
But locks did. They gave order in chaos, something to focus on.
What, she thought with a wry smile, would her mother think of how her daughter currently utilized her skills?
She rather thought she would have a good laugh about it.
Just as she was finishing up and packing away the picks, Verity sailed through the door, a letter held aloft in her hand.
“Lady Vastkern has sent along another missive,” she announced happily.
Iris smiled as she accepted it. “You seem to be enjoying yourself playing the mail carrier.”
“Oh, it is not just a mail carrier I enjoy being,” she said, joining Iris on the couch, bouncing in her excitement on the worn cushions.
She grinned, dark eyes sparkling. “I admit I feel a bit like a spy, running correspondence across country lines, evading the enemy, working for the rebellion to overthrow the government.”
Which was actually closer to the truth than Verity could ever guess. Iris and Oliver had agreed by some silent understanding that the less his family knew about what Lord Durand had done, the better. They had to live by the man’s largesse, after all.
Even so, Verity had flitted around the edges of the truth much more than she could ever realize.
Mrs. Archer entered the room. “Verity, there you are. Are you ready to leave then?”
Verity shot to her feet. “Just let me get my things,” she said before, with a sly smile for her mother, she bolted from the room.
Iris, who had been in the process of breaking the seal on Sylvia’s letter, frowned. Mrs. Archer did not appear as if they would be going out for a short stroll, not if the bag slung over one arm was any indication. “But where are you going?”
“We are headed to London.”
Iris gaped at her. “London?”
“Yes. We’ve had it planned for some time.” Mrs. Archer frowned. “I was certain we told you. I promised a friend we would visit with her long ago.”
Before Iris could think how to respond to that—she could not recall a whisper had been said about such a plan; God knew she would have remembered the idea of being left alone with Oliver—Verity came clattering down the stairs, her own bag in hand.
There was a flurry of activity as, pressing a letter for Oliver into Iris’s hands and bidding her a quick farewell lest they “miss the coach to London,” they left.
Leaving Iris standing alone in the middle of the front hall, frozen. They had left. They had truly left. And she was going to be alone, with Oliver. Or, rather, she was alone with Oliver, she thought as she looked up the stairs to the first floor, where he was currently sleeping.
An idea that excited her much, much more than it should have.