Chapter 5

 

“Thomas, would you mind terribly walking with me into the village?”

“Hmm?” He’d been sitting at the desk in his bedchamber, staring at his uncle’s letter and hadn’t heard Maddie enter the room.

“I know you just came from there,” she continued, leaning against the open door, “but Cook needs some things for Christmas dinner and I wanted to do a little shopping anyway.”

“Can’t she get them herself?” he asked absently. Maddie’s brows rose and her eyes widened in response. Thomas shook his head and he stood, closing the distance between them. “My apologies. Of course I’ll accompany you if you’d like me to.”

She searched his face for a moment before speaking again. “Is all well with you?”

Her voice was hesitant and he instinctively reached out to comfort her, sliding an arm around her waist and drawing her further into the room. “It is now,” he smiled.

Maddie’s arms came around his neck and she returned his smile, though not fully. “You could tell me if something were wrong.”

If it was anything else, he might have told her then. It wasn’t as though she was a stranger whose trust he was unsure of. But they’d only just begun this new version of their relationship—if that’s even what it was—and he didn’t want to burden her with his news until he’d had a chance to come to terms with it himself.

He opened his mouth to speak, then shut it again. What if sharing the burden made it easier to bear?

“You’re absolutely right.” It did—might—concern her, after all. If he couldn’t make a living, he’d never be able to ask for her hand. “I received a letter from my uncle today.”

“The one who employs you?”

He nodded, glad she was in his arms. He was the one being comforted now, but this was a tradition he was happy to continue.

If she didn’t throw him over.

Thomas pushed the thought away. “Yes, the one who employs me. Or did. He’s run off with an actress and closed his office.”

She sucked in a quick breath. “And you have no employment now.”

“No, I don’t.”

“Oh, Thomas...” She went up on her toes and tightened her hold on him. “I’m so sorry.”

Her hair held the faint scent of gardenias and her body was warm against his. He closed his eyes and nuzzled her neck. This. This is the reaction he’d been hoping for. They had a long way to go if they were going to make a life together. Hell, he didn’t even know if she thought of him as a genuine suitor. Was he still just Kit’s little brother who she happened to like kissing?

“Maddie, this may not be the right time, but I need to know...” He loosened his hold on her and set her a little away from him. “Do you think you could ever care for me?”

“I have always cared for you,” she smiled, palming his cheek.

He covered her hand with his own. “I don’t mean as a friend, or as Kit’s brother.”

“You mean as a beau. A– a lover.”

He nodded, kissing her palm and clasping her hand to his chest. “As a prospective husband.”

She didn’t respond, and the pounding of his heart filled the silence until he thought the wretched organ might explode. Was there so much to consider?

“You have always been my friend,” she said at last. “But when you kissed me...nay, when I asked you for a faux courtship and you agreed without asking anything in return, I let myself consider the possibility.”

“And what was the verdict?”

Pink crept up her neck and into her cheeks. “That if you wanted to change the plan, to make it a true courtship...” She paused, flattening her hand against his chest, where she could no doubt feel his poor heart beating to the rhythm of his anticipation. “I would be amenable to that.”

His breathing hitched, then he sighed heavily in relief. It wasn’t a declaration of love, but nearly so. And it had only been a few days since their night by the fire.

“Even though I have lost my employment? I have no money, Maddie, no home to offer you.”

“Then don’t offer yet,” she said simply.

A surprised laugh burst from him. “Such an easy solution! Your parents won’t mind?”

“My parents will mind terribly,” she replied all too matter-of-factly, patting his chest. “Not because of who you are, but because of your situation. We don’t have to tell them, though. Not until we’re ready to.”

His relief mingled with a pinch of shame. When he was employed, Maddie was happy to have the world think he was courting her. But this temporary setback—and he sorely hoped it was only temporary—had her wanting to hide their relationship from her parents.

Her thumb traced the lapel of his cutaway coat. “What about your mother?”

He didn’t relish the idea of explaining the situation when his mother still seemed to have her heart set on a match between Maddie and Kit, particularly when Kit had his inheritance and Thomas now had only the clothes on his back. “If we’re not telling your parents, it’s only fair not to tell my mother.”

“Should we keep it from Kit?”

He couldn’t quite read her expression or body language. Was she uneasy about keeping so large a secret from her closest friend, or relishing the idea? “If I wasn’t his brother, would you tell him about us?”

“I might,” she answered, her brow furrowed in thought. “I likely would, actually. We tell each other nearly everything. If I wasn’t his best friend, would you tell him about us?”

“Probably,” Thomas admitted. “Kit and I have our shared confidences, too. But you are his best friend, and I am his brother. That might complicate matters.”

Even as he spoke the words, Thomas didn’t quite believe them. Kit had known for at least a year about Thomas’s feelings for Maddie, and he’d never been anything but supportive.

“Let’s not tell anyone at all,” she suggested with a smile, tightening her arms around him and combing her fingers through his hair.

She wanted a clandestine courtship? It was almost too romantic a notion for his heart to bear, overwhelming the twinge of shame. “A secret for just the two of us.”

“Does that mean I’ll have to steal kisses from you on the way into the village?” She gave him what was probably supposed to be a sly look, but ended up giggling.

“You can’t steal what’s freely given.” He released the hand he still held against his chest and wrapping her in his arms.

Leaning down to brush his lips over hers, he thrilled to his very fingertips when she responded in kind. He didn’t know how, but by God he would find a way to make money again if it killed him. He would make himself worthy of her.

~*~

With thick mittens keeping Maddie’s fingers warm, holding Thomas’s hand on the way to the village was no easy task. Instead, she looped her arm through his, her body warming when he smiled down at her and dropped a kiss on the top of her bonnet.

The warmth lasted all the way to the first shop they visited, despite the snow that had begun to fall. They purchased the items Cook needed first, then continued on to the milliner’s where Maddie spent a few minutes looking at ribbons in various colors. She wanted to spruce up her bonnet in time for church the next morning, but couldn’t decide which color would be best.

“Green or blue?” she asked Thomas, removing her mittens and holding up each ribbon for his opinion.

He thought—or at least gave the appearance of thinking—about it for a moment, then pointed. “The blue one. It matches my eyes.”

She couldn’t keep the grin from her face, knowing full well that the other patrons of the shop would instantly peg her as a woman in love. But she didn’t care what they thought, or who knew how she felt about Thomas.

Was it love? Maddie wasn’t sure, but she suspected it was. And while Thomas had made no declarations, he had been the one to propose a real courtship between them. Did that mean he cared for her, too, or that he thought he was rescuing her from a life of lonely spinsterhood?

He brushed his hand across her back. “Anything else you need here?”

She turned a little and tilted her face up to meet his gaze, pleased to find a version of her own foolish grin smiling down at her. “No, just this.”

She purchased her blue ribbon and they walked across the street to the tiny bookshop where she hoped to find a new novel to add to her collection.

“Mama is not so keen on my reading habits,” Maddie remarked, running a finger across the spines of The Vindictive Spirit, A Novel In Four Volumes.

“Your mother doesn’t like you to read?” Thomas’s brows drew down in confusion.

Maddie shook her head. “It’s not reading itself she objects to, it’s my taste in reading material.” She tapped the cover of volume four. “For example, if I brought this home she’d lecture me about the impropriety of reading such things and force me to return it.”

“What are you allowed to read?”

“Mostly improving tracts for girls and women,” Maddie replied with a frown. “They aren’t very entertaining.”

He chuckled. “I wouldn’t think so. What is it you’re after today?”

Maddie tapped the novel’s cover again and took a step closer to him. “I already have volumes one and two, and I’ve been aching to know what happens next.”

“Maddie Hayward, rebellious daughter,” he quipped quietly. “Your secret is safe with me.”

“That makes two, then,” she said, sending him a furtive little smile. What other secrets would they share before New Year’s Day?

She scooped up volume three of The Vindictive Spirit and made her way to the counter, surreptitiously scanning the other shelves for something Thomas might like. She was already halfway done with the scarf she was knitting him for Christmas, but she might be able to save enough of her pin money to purchase a book for his birthday in two months’ time.

They made one more stop at the tea shop for the special biscuits Cook wanted to serve after Christmas dinner, then headed back. When they came within sight of the Haywards’ house, Thomas stopped her with a hand on her arm.

“Where is your novel?”

Her eyes widened. In the blissful haze that had developed during their walk home, she’d forgotten all about the forbidden book. “It’s here,” she said, pulling it from the bag Thomas carried containing their items.

He unbuttoned his greatcoat and slipped the book inside. “If anyone asks, I’ll tell them it’s mine.”

“You know what our parents will think of you if you tell them you’ve been reading a Minerva Press novel.”

They’d think something was wrong with his mind, but Thomas only shrugged. “They may think what they like.”

Maddie shot a quick glance at the house—still too far away for anyone to recognize them—and drew him down to her for a kiss. “Thomas Mathison, you are the noblest of gentlemen.”

“Anything for you,” he said softly.

For the rest of the afternoon and into the evening there was always someone with Maddie, making it impossible for her to retrieve her book from Thomas. But when Thomas excused himself from the evening entertainment to go write letters, their predictable parents once again made an effort to retire before Kit did, leaving Maddie alone with him in the parlor not too long after dinner.

“A last attempt to wring a Christmas proposal of marriage from you, no doubt,” Maddie teased him, noting that their machinations no longer bothered her the way they had.

“Not from me, at least,” Kit returned with a wink, prying himself from his chair. “Thomas asked me to pass along a message to you—he asks that you stay here and wait for him, and that he’ll return your book tonight.”

“Excellent.”

Kit’s eyes lingered on her for a long moment, but he didn’t ask the questions that were probably running through his mind. Instead he simply smiled and took himself off to bed.

Only a few minutes later, Thomas appeared in the doorway carrying his greatcoat over one arm with the other hidden behind his back. “Would you like some company?”

“Yes,” she said, meeting him halfway across the room for an embrace. “Oh! You’re cold!”

He draped the coat over a chair and dropped a kiss on her hair, laying one freezing hand across the bare skin of her neck. “Ah, but you’re so warm.”

She gave a little shriek and pulled away laughing. “I didn’t realize writing letters required you to go outside.”

“I saw something on our way home from the village this afternoon that I wanted to go back for.” He pulled his other hand out from behind his back. “Perhaps you’ll help me thaw out by the fire?”

Maddie poked at the mass of leaves and stems Thomas was holding. “What is it?”

“Mistletoe,” he said with a small smile. “I didn’t have time to make it into a proper kissing bough, but I think this will do.”

“Yes,” she breathed, wrapping her arms around him. “I believe it will.”

His lips were warm and soft when they met hers, and she couldn’t help but sigh. “This—you—are more than I ever hoped for, Thomas.”

He kissed her once more, slowly, skillfully, until her toes began to curl in her shoes. “I have one more thing for you, darling,” he said murmured she’d opened her eyes again.

He left her for a moment and fished around inside his coat, coming up with the novel she’d purchased that afternoon. “I thought perhaps we could read it together. You’ll have to tell me what happened in the first two volumes, of course.”

“What a wonderful idea.”

They settled together on the floor before the fire, Thomas leaning back against the sofa and wrapping an arm around Maddie as she curled up beside him, resting her head on his chest. She dutifully recounted the events of the novel up through the end of volume two, then relaxed against his body when he began to read aloud.

His voice washed over her in warm waves and she let her eyes close. She hadn’t realized it until very recently, but if she’d been told she could have anything her heart desired for Christmas, this was what she would have chosen.

The clock struck midnight as he came to the end of a chapter and Maddie savored the contentment washing over her.

“Merry Christmas, my love,” she murmured.

She felt his breath catch, his heart pounding in his chest before he answered.

“Merry Christmas, sweetheart.”