LITMIR.BIZ

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Certainly no open-mouthed kissing on the sofa of Stonecrop Cottage.

      Blah blah blah.

      Jack pretended to agree with everything the three men said so they would go away as quickly as possible. He’d nodded so resolutely his neck ached. He wasn’t exactly under house arrest, but had been strongly admonished to leave poor Miss Nicola alone so she could recover without his dastardly interference.

      Jack wondered if he could kiss her into speech. Like waking up Sleeping Beauty or Snow White or another fairy tale heroine. The plot details were unclear—neither his parents nor his nannies had been fanciful people, and his knowledge of children’s stories and magic kisses was as limited as his botanical awareness.

      He was more than willing to learn, though.

      He had gone back to Tulip Cottage in a daze yesterday, all thoughts of shoes and feet quite forgotten. He hadn’t even noticed the cold, since in his rush to apologize to Nicola for his absence he’d come out without an overcoat. While he was up the lane, Mrs. Feather had picked all his papers up from the floor and stacked them willy-nilly on a table, and he’d been too feeble to complain about the disordered order. There was a method to his disorganization, and he was very particular about it, but how was Mrs. Feather to know that? Jack had done nothing scientifically useful since he’d arrived, just stared off into corners and played solitaire with an elderly deck of cards. It was four days before he’d noticed the queen of clubs was missing.

      It hadn’t taken the village drums long to alert his housekeeper to his amatory transgressions. Lunch and supper had been especially atrocious. Cabbage soup. And cabbage soup. One couldn’t call a small hard-boiled egg breakfast, could one? Not even salt and pepper were on the table to make the food more palatable. Those filched cinnamon buns and peaches from Nicola’s pantry would have to tide his taste buds over indefinitely. If he concentrated, he could almost still taste them; they were delightfully mixed up with the taste of Nicola’s lips.

      Today was another gray day, not only because of the weather. The euphoria Jack had enjoyed from his fancy footwear and Nicola’s kiss had worn off after the tripartite intervention. He was back to questioning himself and his usefulness to society. Reminded of his carelessness and his irresponsibility.

      Was he ever going to get over his guilt? He’d made all the amends he could, distributed a considerable fortune, apologized in person to everyone except for the young woman from Bath—

      Bath. Oh. God. No. Could it possibly be?

      The injured young woman’s parents had been evasive as to her injuries, had just said that she’d moved away. They would see that she received her share of the settlement. Her father had been aggressive negotiating the amount…because he was a solicitor.

      Perhaps a coincidence? Surely Jack had suffered enough for his hubris. But maybe not. He’d not suffered as much as those two dead men and their families.

      Jack only knew the victim as a Miss M. Mayfield. M wasn’t N, unless there had been a transcription error. And last names were forbidden here in Puddling. Nicola might tell him hers, however, if he was persuasive enough.

      If it was Mayfield, then what? He’d ruin any chance he had with her if she found out who he was and what he’d done. Or not done.

      He was the man responsible for her accident.

      Perhaps he was borrowing trouble, a silly thing to do. There must be plenty of solicitors in Bath. Plenty of solicitors’ daughters. It was extremely unlikely that he and Nicola had both come here for the exact same reason. The mathematical odds were in Jack’s favor, and Jack was an excellent mathematician.

      Jack bundled up to go for his solitary walk to think. Or, preferably, not think. He wrapped a plaid scarf around his throat but eschewed a hat. He would do what he always did, walk up Honeywell Lane, turn at New Street, go along on Market to Vicarage Lane, and St. Jude’s. Make the circuit a dozen times to kill an hour. Do it again to kill two, perhaps lingering outside the bakery just to inhale the spice-scented air.

      It was less than a week until Christmas, and the humble stone cottages were sporting wreaths on their front doors and greenery in their window boxes, all very festive and depressing him even further. The five shops had seasonal displays in their windows, but Jack had no money to buy presents, and no people to buy presents for. His mother would not be expecting anything—she was in the south of France with Miss Pemington, her paid companion, whom Jack had hired. In Jack’s opinion, the unfortunate Miss Pemington was compensated nowhere near enough to put up with Lady Ryder’s endless demands. He’d grown adept at blocking out his mother, who knew everything and meant too well, and was grateful that her inevitable letters would never reach him thanks to Puddling’s rules.

      Jack fastened his gloves and opened the door. A blast of bone crushingly cold air assailed him. He thought of all the people who didn’t have fleece-lined deerskin gloves and warm wool scarves and bespoke overcoats from Davies and Son. Jack supported various charitable institutions, but he was only one man, and there were very many needy ones throughout the empire and beyond. How did people live in poverty and survive?

      So many impoverished children, working like slaves at machinery. It was legal to employ a nine-year-old for sixty hours a week. He’d never done so in his factories, but others weren’t as scrupulous. With Christmas coming, he’d have to write to Ezra to increase his donations.

      Nicola said she would help him contact the fellow, but dare he try to see her again? He’d been pretty thoroughly warned off.

      But not by her.

      She’d looked as dazed as he felt when Mrs. Grace had thrown him out of Stonecrop Cottage. He had a feeling Nicola didn’t just go around kissing strange men, and was flattered. He’d bet half his fortune his fellow Guest was chaste, not that it should matter. Jack prided himself on being a modern man. He was no virgin, hadn’t been since his teens.

      But society women were treated unfairly, kept in gilded cages and expected to be nothing but decorative and submissive. In his opinion, they had a right to their pleasure too. Their vote, as well. Most females were as stymied as his voiceless new friend in expressing their opinions, his mother excepted, of course. Nothing could shut her up for long, but he’d rather have her state her mind in the open, even when her words weren’t especially welcome.

      Goodness, but he was turning political here in Puddling, nearly radical. He headed up the lane, mindful of patches of ice. He kept his head down, deliberately not looking up through Nicola’s gate as he passed.

      Hearing an unfamiliar refrain of music over the wind, he paused to listen. She played her little piano beautifully, with passion. Loudly, too, since the cottage’s windows must be shut against the winter air. It was as if all her pent-up words were notes, tumbling after each other. He closed his eyes and imagined her at the piano, her graceful fingers at the keys, her head bowed and lost in the exquisite sounds she produced.

      Had her vocal chords been injured in the accident she wrote about? It had been just two words in her notebook: an accident. Not carriage accident or, God forbid, train accident. Not a fall from a parapet or off a horse. Jack knew nothing about medical conditions, had been healthy all his life. He could ask Dr. Oakley, but didn’t expect an answer under the current circumstances. He’d been forbidden to see her, hadn’t he?

      But when had he ever abided by the rules?

      He thought about turning around. Knocking on her door. Kissing her when Mrs. Grace wasn’t looking. Jack had a feeling now Nicola would always be guarded, and it would be up to him to find an inventive way to get her alone again.

      A problem to solve. Jack made his circuit, keeping a brisk pace. He nodded to the few rosy-cheeked Puddling people he saw on the street. They still glanced at him with suspicion, since he hadn’t been truthful on his application to reside here. They didn’t know enough about him. The doctor and vicar knew he felt responsible for two deaths, but not the exact details.

      Jack wanted to keep it that way.

      His mother thought him a complete idiot for carrying this indelible burden, for selling

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