Nellie did laugh when she was on top of the wall. What a day, she thought, what an incredible, unbelievable day! No standing over a hot stove or hanging wash; instead she was walking with a divine man who treated her as though she were beautiful.
She stood on top of the wall and began to walk along the rim, her hands out for balance. Her childhood had ended one day when she was twelve years old, on the day her mother had died. For sixteen years there had been no foolishness, no wasted hours in her life.
Jace stood back and watched her walking on the wall. She seemed to grow younger and happier by the minute. He made a leap, and in a moment he was on the wall with her, and when he held out his hand to her she took it. “If we fall, we go together,” he said, liking the idea of tumbling down the ditch together. “This way.”
Nellie, holding his hand, followed him south along the wall toward Midnight Lake. A gust of wind came and she almost fell, but he caught her in his arms and pulled her close to him. Nellie had never been held by a man, and she could feel her heart pounding.
With one swift movement Jace pulled the pins from her hair and threw them away. Nellie’s long, chestnut hair flowed to her shoulders.
“Beautiful,” he whispered, and he put his cheek next to hers.
Nellie thought perhaps her body might stop functioning.
He pulled away, his face inches from hers. “I’d kiss you, but we seem to have an audience.”
Nellie looked across the ditch to the park to see half a dozen young couples playing croquet, only now they had paused to look at Nellie and Jace on top of the wall. “Take me away before I die of embarrassment,” she whispered.
“Your wish is my command.”
For a flash Nellie thought of what her father would say when he heard of this, but she pushed the thought from her mind. Now was all that mattered.
Jace got down first and then lifted his arms to help Nellie down. She had a moment of doubt that he could hold her, but she was beginning to trust him. He took her weight easily, and for a moment he held her to him.
“People are watching,” she said, pushing him away while blushing and laughing.
He took her hand and began to run with her, down one side of the ditch and up the other, then through the trees east of the lake, then further until they were at the edge of the park. Jace stopped, Nellie beside him, her heart pounding from the run, and looked out across the rolling countryside to the mountains. In the distance was a train, and they could hear its faraway whistle.
I’m falling in love, Jace thought. Falling in love with this woman who looks at me as though I’m twenty feet tall. She looked at him through her thick lashes, and he felt as though he could do anything. Julie had looked at him like that. And when he was married to Julie he could do anything. And since her death he had been able to do nothing.
But now, with every minute he spent with Nellie he was feeling more alive.
Nellie was trying to tie up her hair, but she had no pins or string.
“Leave it down,” he said, looking at her and wanting to touch her, but it was too soon yet. He knew he needed to go slowly with Nellie. And he was willing to go as slowly as needed.
“All right,” Nellie said softly, and she put her hands at her sides.
He led her up a little hill, then pulled her down to sit beside him, and when Nellie was seated he turned and put his head in her lap. Nellie was, for a moment, too shocked to respond.
“Mr. Montgomery,” she at last managed to whisper, “I don’t think…” She trailed off. Somehow, in the lessening afternoon light, it seemed right that this heavenly man should rest his head in her lap. The whole afternoon had been magical, and this was just part of the magic. Tomorrow she would be back to cooking and cleaning, but today she was going to participate in the magic.
He closed his eyes, and, tentatively, she put her fingertips to his temple to touch the soft hair there. He didn’t open his eyes but gave just a bit of a smile, enough to make the dimple in his cheek show. She ran her finger along that dimple.
“Did you get your dimple from your father or your mother?” she asked softly. For this moment she could pretend she was like any other young woman and this man was hers.
“Father’s family,” he said, not opening his eyes. “Montgomerys now and then have dimples, and sometimes the girls get red hair.”
“And your mother’s family? What are they like?”
Jace smiled as Nellie’s hand softly stroked his hair. “Talented. All the Worths are reeking with talent. My mother sings, her sister paints, my grandfather sings, my grandmother and her father paint.”
“And what do you do?” Nellie was growing more bold as he lay there, his eyes closed. When Terel was small Nellie had held her and cuddled her, but as Terel grew older she’d wanted to be independent and hadn’t allowed Nellie to mother her. Today Nellie was beginning to remember how pleasant it was to touch another human being. She ran her fingers through his hair, feeling it curl as she mussed it. She touched his eyebrows, his chin, felt the whiskers just under the surface of his skin.
“A little of both,” Jace said, his voice husky. It was difficult for him to remain quietly in her lap, difficult not to take her in his arms. Not yet, Montgomery, he told himself, not yet.
“My mother tried to teach me to sing,” he said, “but I never had the discipline. I’d rather be on a boat. My grandmother taught me some about drawing, and I was able to use that to design a few boats for my father’s company, but mostly I just did what I could.”
Nellie suspected he was being modest. Just as she’d sensed his loneliness when she’d first met him, she now knew he was not telling her all the truth. “No doubt your father paid you a salary in spite of the fact that you are a wastrel.”
His eyes flew open. “I earned my keep. In fact, I designed a yacht that outran everything on the eastern seaboard. Neither of my brothers could design a rowboat, and I have some medals at home that—” He broke off, then grinned and settled back in her lap. “I’ll owe you for that, Nellie,” he said, smiling. She’d made him act like a bragging schoolboy. He picked up her hand and kissed the palm. “Now tell me about you.”
“There’s nothing to tell,” she said honestly. “I have no talents, no accomplishments.” Except eating, she thought. One day she ate three whole cakes.
“Music?”
“No.”
“Art?”
“No.”
“You can cook.”
“So can a great many women.”
He opened his eyes and frowned up at her. “You’re not telling me the truth. There must be something you like more than anything in the world.”
“I love my family,” she said dutifully, but when he kept frowning at her she sighed. “Children. I’ve sometimes thought I’d like to have a dozen children.”
“I would love to help you,” Jace said solemnly.
It took Nellie a moment before she understood what he meant, then she blushed furiously and pushed at his shoulder. “Mr. Montgomery, you are wicked!”
He leered at her, wiggling his eyebrows. “You make me feel wicked, Nellie.”
She laughed. The sun was setting, and the day was growing dim. She didn’t know how it was possible, but he was even better-looking in the fading light.
“Listen,” he said.
There was a church at the north end of the park, and in the stillness they could hear a Christmas carol.
“Choir practice,” Nellie whispered. “For the services on Christmas Eve.”
“Christmas,” Jace said softly. “Last Christmas I don’t even remember where I was, but I got drunk and stayed that way for two days.”
“Because of your wife?”
Jace sat up and looked at Nellie, looked at her lovely face, then put his hand on her cheek, then touched her hair. He looked down at her body, at her big breasts, her waist over hips that he’d like to put his hands on. He wondered if her thighs were as white as the skin on her neck.
It sudde
nly occurred to him that he hadn’t had a woman since Julie. In the four years of his wandering no woman had appealed to him. When he’d looked at women, all he saw was Julie, and every woman paled in comparison to her. But now, looking at Nellie, he wanted her so much that he found his hand was trembling.
“Let’s go listen to the music,” he said at last. He had to get her away from the quiet solitude of the park or he didn’t know if he could control himself.
Nellie had no idea what was going on in his mind, but she knew she didn’t want to leave the park. No man had ever looked at her as he just had, and although it frightened her, it also excited her. She was sure that today was a one-time event and that tomorrow there would be no strolls with a handsome man, so today she had to take all that she could.
“Nellie, don’t look at me like that. I’m only human, and a man can take only so much.”
She hesitated.
Jace rocked back on his heels and groaned.
The groan made Nellie laugh. She wasn’t sure what was going on, but the look on his face made her feel powerful—and beautiful. “All right, let’s go listen to the carols.”
He helped her stand, and it seemed that his hands were all over her body at once. Nellie’s heart leapt to her throat; her blood pounded in her temples.
“Let’s go,” Jace said, grabbing her hand and pulling her forward.
The pretty little white church stood out against the dark sky. The double doors were open, and golden lantern light spilled out into the cool night air. Jace put his arm around Nellie, and when she shivered he led her inside the church. They stood at the back and watched and listened as the choir leader took the men and women through Christmas carol after carol. Some of the choir members smiled at Nellie and looked in question at Jace, who stood protectively near her.
Nellie leaned against the back wall of the church and knew she’d never felt so good in her life. Her clothes brushed against his and, behind the cover of her skirt, he slipped his fingers into hers and squeezed.
They listened to the lovely music for some time, content just to be near each other, fingers entwined, and to do no more than listen.
It was when the choir leader directed the singers to change from carols to hymns that Nellie felt Jace stiffen.
“What is it?” she whispered.
“We have to go,” he said urgently.
Some instinct told her that under no circumstances should they leave the church. She tightened her grip on his hand and said, as though to an unruly child, “We must stay.”
Jace didn’t move but stayed where he was, and Nellie tried to figure out what had upset him so. The choir began to sing “Amazing Grace,” and at the first notes she felt Jace’s hand in hers begin to tremble.
The choir had just begun to sing when Jace dropped Nellie’s hand and stepped forward into the center of the church aisle. Nellie watched as he closed his eyes and began to sing the hymn. He had a beautiful, rich tenor voice, and the perfection of his tone showed his years of training. One by one the choir members stopped singing and listened.
Jace didn’t hear the words he sang; he felt them.
The last time he’d sung the song was at Julie’s funeral. He’d stood over her grave, dry-eyed, bareheaded in the frigid cold of Maine in February, and felt nothing. He felt neither the cold nor his deep sorrow. He imagined his pretty little wife in her coffin, their tiny son wrapped in her arms, and he’d felt nothing.
He had sung the song, and while others had wept he had shed not a tear. For four years now he had felt nothing, had moved, had eaten, had slept, but he had felt nothing. For four years he had not laughed or cried or even been angry.
Now, as he sang the old, mournful words of the hymn, he remembered Julie, remembered her laughing, remembered her as she struggled to give birth to their child.
It was time to say goodbye to the woman he had loved so much. At long, long last tears came to his eyes. Goodbye, my Julie, he thought. Goodbye.
When Jace stopped singing, the stillness inside the church was profound. No one even breathed—and there was not a dry eye in the building. They had felt the emotion in Jace’s words and responded to it.
At last someone blew his nose, and the spell was broken.
“Sir,” the choir leader said, “we’d like you to sing in our choir. We’d—”
Nellie hurried forward. “We’ll talk about it later,” she said with finality, and she half pushed Jace out the door. Outside he leaned against the church wall, and Nellie took his handkerchief from his pocket (hers was dirty) and gave it to him.
Jace blew his nose loudly, then gave a weak smile to Nellie. “Not much of a way for a man to act in front of his girl, is it?” he mumbled.
His words made Nellie’s heart flutter, but she controlled herself. “Your wife?”
He nodded. “I sang that at her funeral”
“You loved her very much?”
He was recovering himself and realized that for the first time since her death Julie wasn’t quite as clear to him as she had been. He looked at Nellie, and it was her features he saw instead of Julie’s. “Loved,” he said, emphasizing the past tense. “Yes, I did.” He put his hand on Nellie’s cheek. “Could I walk you home, Miss Grayson?”
“Home?” she asked, as though she’d never heard the word before. Then suddenly, like fire drenched by water, she came back to reality. “What time is it? Oh, don’t tell me. Father will be frantic. They’ll not have had their dinner. Oh, no, what have I done?”
“Something for yourself, for a change,” Jace said, but Nellie was already running west toward her house. He ran after her.
While Nellie and Jace were in the park, Terel was entering Dr. Westfield’s clinic. She was beautifully dressed in a suit of dark plum, the tight-fitting jacket covered with black braid sewn on in an intricate design.
The only other person in the office was Mary Alice Pendergast, a thin-nosed young woman some years older than Terel. In Terel’s mind, Mary Alice was an old maid just like Nellie, and therefore not any competition nor worthy of much attention.
She greeted Mary Alice and took a seat.
“I find Dr. Westfield so much more competent than a female doctor, don’t you?” Mary Alice said, referring to the women’s clinic run by Dr. Westfield’s wife.
“Much,” Terel agreed. “I wouldn’t trust a female, especially with something as serious as my heart palpitations.”
“Mmm,” Mary Alice said, agreeing. “And Dr. Westfield is so handsome, don’t you agree?”
“That has nothing to do with it,” Terel snapped, looking away. Dr. Westfield was, in her opinion, the best-looking man she’d ever seen—until Mr. Montgomery arrived in town, that is. Truthfully, it would be hard to choose between the men.
Since Mr. Montgomery had come to dinner Terel had done some checking on him. It seemed that he had some money; she wasn’t sure how much, but her sources whispered that he wasn’t poor. He was a relative of that vulgar Kane Taggert, and that man was certainly wealthy enough.
For a while Terel had puzzled over why Mr. Montgomery had taken a job with her father. Why didn’t he work for his rich cousin? It was when she remembered the way he’d looked at her at dinner that she understood. Mr. Montgomery had, no doubt, taken her father’s job to be near Terel. Terel was used to men looking at her, but Mr. Montgomery had looked at her differently—so differently that she’d felt herself flushing a few times.
Of course, he was the first man who’d looked at her; all the others had been mere boys.
She’d spent today with her dressmaker. It was her opinion that a new wardrobe never hurt when embarking on a new venture. And her new venture was the pursuit of one Mr. Montgomery. He was comfortably well off, if not rich; handsome; and, from the looks of things, he was mad for Terel. Of course, his connections to the rich Taggerts helped. She would be a cousin by marriage, and never again could the Taggerts deny her entrance to that big house of theirs. Perhaps after she married Mr. Montgomery they cou
ld live in the house with the Taggerts. The place was certainly big enough.
Yes, she thought, settling back in the chair. It would work very nicely if she were to marry Mr. Montgomery.
The door burst open, and in rushed three of Terel’s very best friends.
“There you are, Terel,” Charlene said, ignoring Mary Alice. “We have been looking everywhere for you.”
“Who is the divine man with Nellie?” Mae asked.
“With Nellie? Nellie’s at home.”
The girls looked at one another. They didn’t often have news that Terel knew nothing of. They pulled the wooden chairs into a circle and gathered around Terel, noting, of course, that Mary Alice was listening with wide-open ears.
“He took Nellie to tea,” Louisa said.
“And Nellie had on a disgusting old dress. The sleeves were much too small. Four years out of fashion if it’s a day.”
“And there was flour on her skirt.”
“Whom was she with?” Terel demanded.
“Tall, very tall, dark hair and eyes, handsome—”
“Very handsome.”
“Broad-shouldered and—”
“What was his name?” Terel asked, already getting angry because she knew who he was.
“Montgomery. Nellie said he’s going to work for your father.”
“No one who works for my father looks like that,” Louisa said, putting her hand to her breast.
Terel stiffened. “He does work for my father, and Nellie was merely showing him about Chandler. She—”
“Is that what she was doing when they were embracing on top of the wall by the park?”
Mary Alice gasped, then leaned forward to hear better.
“I cannot believe—” Terel began.
“At least a dozen people saw them!” Mae said. “The whole town is talking about it. Mr. Montgomery lifted Nellie up to the wall and—”
“Lifted Nellie?” Mary Alice said.
“Yes. Anyway,” said Charlene, “he lifted her to the wall, then climbed up with her, and in front of everyone he…he…”
“Pulled her into his arms,” Mae said dreamily.