Chapter 36
“Can’t tell you how glad I am you’ve returned to New York,” Murray Middleton said, galloping easily beside Beatrix on his horse, Wilbur, a delightful creature that her friend Poppy Garrison Blackburn had saved from a neglectful and abusive deliveryman. “What with Poppy and Reginald out of town and Maisie constantly rearranging the furniture in our new house, I’ve found myself at loose ends of late.”
Beatrix wrinkled her nose. “I would think Maisie would want you to help her rearrange the furniture, what with how you seem to have an eye for matters like that.”
“And normally she does. However . . .” Murray grinned. “She’s in a somewhat delicate frame of mind at the moment, bursting into tears at the drop of a hat. I tend to hover when she cries, and apparently when a lady is, well, expecting, they’re prone to dislike hovering husbands. Something to do with us having gotten them in that condition in the first place.”
“Information I did not need to—wait.” She smiled. “You’re going to be a father?”
“Indeed, but the idea of fatherhood scares me half to death.” He frowned. “What if I’m a horrible father, or what if we have a daughter and she decides to run off with some bounder Maisie and I don’t approve of, and—”
“You’ll be an excellent father, Murray, and I imagine if your daughter ran off with a bounder, you’d go after her and take care of it once and for all.”
“I have grown more proficient with a pistol.”
“I would imagine you have. See? Nothing to worry about.”
“Practical advice for sure, and I have certainly missed that from you while you’ve been away.”
“Since I doubt I’ll be leaving the city again anytime soon, you may avail yourself of my practicality anytime you feel you need it.”
Murray smiled before he sobered. “I’m sorry about all that business with that Norman fellow. Seems to me as if you’d grown fond of the man.”
“I was fond of him, but I don’t care to discuss Norman any further. Once I clear my father’s name, I’ll be done with Norman for good, and that will be that.”
“You said your father hired the Pinkerton Agency to look into the matter.”
“He has, and I’ve told the agent who came to the house all I knew about the men who’d been trying to steal Norman’s research. And while I’m sure the Pinkerton Agency is more than up for investigating the situation, I’m currently feeling at loose ends. That is why I’ve decided to help by finding all the men who attended that meeting with Norman a few months back and interrogating them.”
“A frightening thought to be sure, but speaking of frightening, do you think your parents might be growing tired of exploring their artistic natures?”
“You haven’t gotten accustomed to their . . . ?”
“Unexpected gestures of fondness they’re constantly giving each other?” Murray finished for her.
Beatrix grinned. “That’s an interesting way of phrasing it, but yes.”
“While I readily admit that there’s something delightful about seeing a couple who’ve been married as long as your parents have still so obviously in love, it does take me aback when I happen to walk in on them and find them kissing or staring into each other’s eyes.”
“Rest assured, they never linger long with any new diversion, so by spring at the latest, I imagine they’ll give up art and take on something else.” She grinned. “Mother’s been talking about learning how to box, so unless you’ve begun giving boxing instructions, you’ll be safe.”
“Good to know,” Murray returned before he glanced past Beatrix and blinked. “On my word, that poor man should not be riding such a beast, what with how he doesn’t seem comfortable in the saddle, but he’s heading this way and . . . I think he’s in trouble.”
Beatrix turned in the saddle, discovering as she did so a man galloping her way, holding on to his horse for dear life, his hat long gone.
“Norman!” she yelled right as he thundered past her.
“Can’t talk now, Beatrix,” she heard him reply. “Got a bit of a situation here.”
“He’s lost all control!” Theodosia exclaimed, galloping into view and dashing past her.
Beatrix kneed her horse into motion, bending as low as she could over the sidesaddle. She then urged her horse faster when she saw Norman’s horse, one of her father’s high-spirited stallions by the name of Lightning—a horse Norman had no business attempting to ride—head for a row of hedges that was at least five feet high.
Two feet away from the shrubbery, Lightning came to an abrupt stop, and then Norman went sailing through the air and disappeared over the hedges.
While her horse, Tory, was perfectly capable of leaping the hedge, Beatrix had no idea where Norman had landed, so she reined Tory in, jumped to the ground, then rushed to the hedges, trying to peer through the branches.
“Norman? Can you hear me?”
A moan was his only response. Turning, she nodded to Murray. “Help me over?”
Murray immediately got down on all fours. “Don’t know if you’ll have enough height, but give it a go.”
Beatrix stepped up on Murray’s back, finding herself a few inches short, but then Theodosia gave her backside a hard shove, which had Beatrix moving upward at a rapid rate. She promptly tumbled over the hedge, landing directly on top of Norman, who let out an “Oomph.”
“I’m so sorry,” she said, scrambling off him. “Can you tell me where you’ve been injured?”
“I think you knocked the wind out of me just now, but . . . I’ve got an odd ringing in my head.”
Bending over him, Beatrix began probing his head, concern flowing freely when she felt him begin to shake, until she realized he was laughing. Sitting back, she gave him a swat. “Is your head even injured?”
“Well, no, it might just be my ear since I landed on one of them, but the last time I told you I injured my head, you leaned over me exactly as you just did, allowing me to enjoy the most delightful scent of your perfume.”
“You really have injured your head, haven’t you?”
Norman pushed himself up to his elbows. “I don’t have an injured head, Beatrix, although I am most assuredly suffering from an injured heart, a condition brought about by my own stupidity.” He sat up before reaching out and taking hold of her hand, the action and his recent words taking her by such surprise that she didn’t even try to tug her hand from his.
“I was an idiot, but I’m here to try to make amends,” he said. “I’ve already spoken to your father and extended him a most fervent apology for even entertaining the thought that he was behind the continued threats to my research, so now I’m here to do the same with you.”
“How did my father react to your apology?”
“He was quick to accept it, although he did launch into a rather scathing lecture about how I’d mistreated you. He told me he’d be happy to take me to Grace Church so that I could seek out the advice of a man of the cloth. However, when I hesitated about that because I really wanted to seek you out without delay, he then launched into a bit about how men of science should not dismiss religion but should embrace it since God is the only explanation for life . . . or something to that effect.” He winced. “I must admit I missed some of it because your mother began whispering things to your father to add, and then your aunt Gladys chimed in, and then Edgar a moment later.”
“Did you come to New York with Aunt Gladys and Edgar?”
“No, it was one of those unexpected happenstances I’ve been experiencing ever since I met you.”
“Were you able to make amends with my father?”
“I believe so, although I’m relatively certain Gladys is still put out with me, because after I told him I wanted to borrow his fastest horse, she’s the one who convinced your father that Lightning would be a good choice for me.”
“She knows you don’t ride horses, Norman.”
He glanced at the hedges. “Clearly, although I’m getting rather proficient at tumbling off them.”
“You should have told my father that, because he would have never chosen Lightning for you.”
“I didn’t have time. As I said, I wanted to get to you quickly, but in all honesty, even if I had admitted to your father that I am less than proficient at riding a horse, there is a possibility he still would have given me Lightning, what with the way he was going on about how I mistreated his daughter.”
“Is everyone alive over there?” Theodosia called.
“We’re fine,” Norman called back. “How’s Lightning?”
“I think he’s snickering.”
“Of course he is.” Norman turned back to Beatrix and blew out a breath. “I owe you a heartfelt apology.”
“Did someone tell you to add that heartfelt business?”
“Gladys might have mentioned it.”
Beatrix pressed her lips together to keep from smiling. “Of course she did, but since you did travel all this way to apologize, I believe it would be churlish of me to do anything but accept it.”
Norman rubbed his head. “Perhaps I have suffered some type of head trauma, because I swear you just accepted my apology, and with absolutely no fuss.”
“I’m not a fussy kind of lady. I’m practical. I told you I wanted you to apologize to my father, which you have done, and then you apologized to me, although I’m not sure how you came to the conclusion I wasn’t guilty of the charges your mother laid against me.”
“Well, I wrote out a summary of everything, and after studying it for a full day, I—”
“Decided there wasn’t enough evidence against me?”
“No. I abandoned the summary because it didn’t matter. What mattered was that I know you—know you better than I’ve ever known anyone, including Theo—even though I’ve not known you for that long, if that makes any sense.”
Beatrix blinked to keep the unexpected tears that were threatening to blind her at bay.
What Norman had said did make sense because . . . she knew him too.
He was annoying, opinionated, and too intelligent for his own good, but he made her laugh, was incredibly kind when one least expected it, and she found him more interesting than any man she’d ever known, and . . . she was rather certain she loved him.
He’d been willing to carry her straight out of her aunt’s house when he’d thought she was in danger, and then he’d come to visit her at Marshall Field & Company, parading past her in the most outlandish jacket she’d ever seen, the sight of him in that jacket leaving her laughing. He’d also abandoned his work on his electrical conveyance vehicle to help his little niece and her friend build a peddle-boat, and then there was Hubert.
Norman, without anyone asking, had created a new leg for a man he didn’t know, an act of kindness that spoke to his true heart, and an act that might very well have been the moment when Beatrix’s fondness for the man had turned into something more.
“It makes perfect sense,” she finally whispered when she realized he was waiting for a response.
He smiled. “That’s a relief. I really didn’t know how I’d go about explaining it any differently.” He leaned closer to her. “And now that that’s out of the way, I feel compelled to set matters completely right between us, and even though I’d intended to do this differently, I simply can’t wait.”
If she’d been standing, Beatrix was fairly certain her knees would have turned just a touch weak.
“Or perhaps you’d like for me to wait,” he said, his gaze locking with hers. “From everything Theo and I have read, this type of moment is usually expected to be done in certain settings, and this”—he gestured to the hedge they were sitting beside—“doesn’t lend itself to, well, . . . an expected setting.”
“You’re not really a gentleman who does the expected.”
“True, probably because I’m a rather unusual man.”
“I’ve recently discovered I find unusual to be most appealing.”
A mere second later, Norman was drawing her to him, pressing his lips against hers in a kiss that was so unexpected and yet so completely perfect that Beatrix felt a shock run through her, one she was quite convinced felt exactly like what Norman’s electrical currents would feel like.
“While I hate to break up such a touching moment, we got a man that wants to talk to you, Mr. Nesbit. And to make sure you come quiet-like, do know that I ain’t got no problem with shooting one of you—and that one would be the woman, if that’s in question.”