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The best protection any woman can have... is courage.
~ Elizabeth Cady Stanton
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“Mrs. Eames?”
Prim resisted the urge to leap away from James as Nanny came around the tree line. Despite their relative isolation, there was nothing improper about their proximity.
“Yes, Nanny?”
“Master Ellis wanted you to watch him, if you might.” Nanny peered between her and James, bright with curiosity, but Prim responded with a stern look of her own. She had nothing to be embarrassed about. There was nothing to see, nothing possibly could have been overhead.
But those softly spoken words were seared into her mind.
Oh, couldn’t I?
Was he implying that he was physically stirred by her? By her...what? Presence? Looks? For all the words baffled her, Prim warmed from head to toe. The back of her neck burned, the hollow between her breasts, and the inside of her thighs. Something she hadn’t felt in a long while curled low and hot in her belly.
“Mrs. Eames?” Nanny repeated.
Prim cleared her throat. “Of course, I will.”
She started back to the top of the hill, aware that James fell in step behind. Not offering his arm, but allowing her to lead the way. She was glad for that. Touching him, even his arm right now, would have been awkward. What did one say after such an admission? Her mother had never taught her how to respond to conversation of that nature. Mostly because it never happened.
Thankfully, her jumbled thoughts were diverted as they came back in sight of the hill.
Ellis yelled, “Mama, watch me!” and dove belly down onto the waiting sled and took the hill. Headfirst.
“Good Lord,” she whispered, her hand to her heart. Luella and Hazel were jumping up and down, clapping their hands.
Behind her, James chuckled. “Boys will be boys, Mrs. Eames. I wish I’d done that as a lad.”
And diverted even more.
“You never went sledding?”
“There was rarely enough snow where I grew up to make much of a go of it. Even when there was...” His eyes dimmed and for a moment Prim caught a glimpse of something forlorn and lonely before he shook his head, once again filled with boyish delight. “It does look like a grand bit of fun, doesn’t it?”
He was watching Ellis slide to a halt, looking a tad envious now. “Do you want to try it?” She meant it as a jest but Prim nearly laughed aloud at the excitement on his face. “You do, don’t you?”
His grin was sheepish. “Perhaps. I won’t, of course.”
None of the adults present were partaking of the sport. Prim knew he’d appear foolish in their eyes if he were to act so immaturely.
“You’ve been telling me all this time how I need to speak up for what I want? Wouldn’t it be rather hypocritical of you not to do what you want?”
* * *
James heard the dare in her voice. His prim, proper Mrs. Eames encouraging such a thing?
“You think I won’t?”
Her brows rose, a smirk touching the corner of her mouth. No, she didn’t.
“Mama! Did you see me?”
The boy raced up to them, towing the sled by its rope behind him. His light brown hair stood out at divergent angles from beneath the brim of his cap, his face was red, as he panted with the effort of his climb...or the exhilaration of his play.
“I did, Ellis,” Prim answered softly, but after a quick peek at James, added, “Well done. That was quite brave of you.”
The boy’s grin was jubilant, but he looked at James as curiously as the nanny had. “Who’s he?”
“Manners, Ellis,” she scolded. “This is Mr. MacKintosh. Mr. MacKintosh,”—of course the sweet ‘James’ of moments before was gone—“this is my son, Ellis, and my daughter Luella.”
James held out his hand to the lad, who blinked at it in surprise before shaking it.
“Will you sled with us, sir?”
He shot a look at Prim. “I thought I just might.”
* * *
A half hour and several trips down the hill later, James had gained the adamant approval of the Eames children, and a persistent shadow in young Ellis. When they finally left Pilgrim Hill and began a slow walk back toward 5th Avenue, he had a child on each hand while Prim trudged ahead with a sleepy Hazel in her arms.
Ellis’s enthusiasm hadn’t dimmed at all. He kept up a steady stream of chatter all the while as he skipped along by James’s side.
“Do you like baseball, Mr. MacKintosh? I love baseball. I play sometimes with my friends at school. Do you play? I play third base or sometimes first base. George Davis plays third base. He plays for the New York Giants. Number forty-four. Do you like them? I love them. My uncle Jeremy took me to the World Championship game a couple months ago at the Polo Grounds. It was great! The Giants versus the Orioles. Mr. Davis has the biggest mustache I’ve ever seen. I’m not sure how he can even breathe. Why don’t you have a mustache, Mr. MacKintosh...?”
On and on it went, without even a breath’s space for him to answer. But the incessant babble didn’t bother him as it surely perturbed Nanny, who muttered a dozen pleas for him to ‘cease his nonsense’ from behind them as they walked along.
In fact, he found the whole thing somewhat soothing.
Comfortable.
The thought should have troubled him more than it did.
* * *
“Thank you for a wonderful afternoon, Mr. MacKintosh,” Prim stopped at the gates of the park facing 5th Avenue and turned to him, offering her hand.
Gone was the tidily groomed gentleman who’d met her an hour before. In his place was a man, his hair shaggy and curling around his face, his tie gone, and his collar missing. He looked wonderfully masculine. And as happy as she.
It had been such a lovely time. She hated to have it end. James had taken the hill more than once. After his first solo trip, he’d brought the children with him one at a time, openly enjoying himself.
His glad surrender of his dignity had prompted a few of the other men to join in the fun, much to their children’s delight. As none of the ladies had partaken, Prim hadn’t given in to the impulse to join in either.
She almost wished she had.
In her wildest dreams, she couldn’t imagine Fletcher ever lowering himself to play like a child or with one—in public or private. James wasn’t the type to lecture about knowing one’s own mind. He did what he wanted and damn the opinion of others.
She did admire that about him.
“I’ll accompany you to your door.”
Her front door was clearly visible across the street, no more than a few yards away. With her hands full as they were and Nanny’s energy visibly sapped, it was kind and expected of him to offer, but she was uncertain of who was still within. She wasn’t prepared to face another lecture regarding the absolute inappropriateness of keeping company with James MacKintosh.
Not quite yet, and certainly not in front of her children.
The time to openly reveal their “courtship” would come soon enough.
“We can manage,” she said firmly, motioning for Nanny to retrieve Ellis and Luella, who both protested being torn from his side.
They liked him but she wasn’t surprised. She was fast discovering there was much to like in James.
Still, she could see he meant to argue. He was a gentleman after all.
“Are you sure you want to do this?”
“Do what?”
“Proceed with this courtship?” he asked, his brogue low and intense. “If the point is to show your brothers you can live your own life?”
The original point had been only to gain some freedom from the concentrated courtship of Mossman Leachman. However, Prim refrained from pointing that out now. James’s idea sounded like a far superior one.
Besides, if she did nothing more than merely create a temporary distraction, what would have changed in her life when James tired of the game and moved on? Mossman would step right back in, her family’s pestering would recommence, and she’d be right back where she started, none the better.
But if she began to stand up, take firm hold of her own life. If she showed them all she was determined enough to make her own decisions then, when James did turn her aside, she would be in a better place to do as she liked.
That was what she needed and what she should strive for. Her simple statement at breakfast regarding James’s suit had startled all her brothers into silence. It shouldn’t have. Wouldn’t have, if she’d taken some action before.
“Yes. I think so.”
“You’ll have to have a bit more conviction than that if we’re to succeed,” he chided and stepped closer until Prim had to tilt back her head to look at him.
The warmth of his body radiated outward, entreating her to move closer still. A slight shiver went through her that had nothing to do with the cold. With the excitement flowing, a measure of confidence accompanied it.
“Are you prepared to take back your life, Mrs. Eames?”
“Yes.” Then, more forcefully, “Yes, I am.”
“Good.” He nodded with satisfaction. “Then we’ll begin. I thought we’d start with the usual things. Ice skating in the park, a sleigh ride or two, perhaps? I assume you’re attending the Harkness Yule Ball Sunday evening?”
She was...with Shane, who was full of talk about how Leachman was looking forward to seeing her and dancing with her, despite the recent misguided association with James. Regardless of what Shane believed, Leachman never looked forward to dancing, not with his two left feet.
No, she needed to stop prioritizing what others demanded of her or even caring about what they thought. A shudder raked her at the thought. How terrifying but wonderfully liberating as well. The words of the NSWSA’s current president, Mrs. Anthony, filled her mind:
‘Forget conventionalisms; forget what the world thinks of you stepping out of your place; think your best thoughts, speak your best words, work your best works, looking to your own conscience for approval.’
Though invigorating at the time when she’d applied them to nothing more than the suffrage movement, they were positively inspirational now. She would step out of her “place.” And she’d be glad for it.
“That sounds lovely.” It did.
James nodded. “Good. Tomorrow afternoon then?”
“Oh, no. Not tomorrow.”
“Mrs. Eames,” he began to scold.
She bit her lip. “No, I’m not trying to put you off. I have a previous engagement.” Leaning toward him, she added in a whisper, “A meeting of the NAWSA. The National American Woman Suffrage Association,” she added when he appeared confused.”
“Ah.”
“We’re planning a rally for the governor’s visit next month, you see. We intend to picket his hotel.”
“You mean to storm the building?”
“If we must.”
James chuckled.
“Laugh as you might, Mr. MacKintosh,” she said with a frown. “But we must make our demands as publicly as possible if they continue to ignore us behind closed doors.”
James raised his hands defensively, though he appeared more amused than not. “You’ll get no chastisement from me. Do your brothers know?”
Prim gnawed at her lip, shaking her head.
“You should tell them,” he suggested. As if she didn’t already know that she should. “And why don’t you ask Mrs. Preston to join you?”
Margaret Preston? Surely not. Prim couldn’t have been more shocked by the idea.
“Surely this isn’t something she’d be interested in?”
“You’d be surprised.” James said. “The day after, then? I’ll call for you and begin to woo you publicly. I will hover with all the outward signs of helpless devotion.”
He tapped a finger against her chin, his eyes filled with pleasure. Once again, she was afraid of what she had gotten herself into.
Not with their plan but with him.
