The Invasion
W illiam woke from a doze, shaking his head to clear the fog. His ankle was thrumming something fierce, the relentless ache stealing away his energy and making rest nearly impossible. He supposed the dull pain might be the cause of his fatigue, sapping his strength bit by bit.
His front room was dark except for the glow of the fire, which was beginning to flicker and die. Soon, he would be without light. Shadows crept along the walls, stretching and fading as the embers crackled softly.
William sat up, setting off sharp twinges in his leg.
Dr. Hadley had instructed him to recline on the settee and rest, promising to send over someone to assist him, but the doctor must have failed to locate anyone.
William would need to get up and take care of himself.
The prospect was unpleasant, but he was hardly the sort to sit idle when things needed doing.
He attempted to stand, then dropped back down with a hiss of pain and a muttered curse that would have made his mother frown.
Huffing a deep sigh, he tried to think of what to do.
The fire needed to be stoked, and he needed to eat if he was to maintain his strength.
But his ankle was a fiery throb, and Dr. Hadley’s admonition had been clear—he would take far longer to heal if he failed to stay off his feet.
It is obvious the doctor is not going to find someone willing to attend me on Christmas Eve, he thought grimly.
For the first time, William considered if his life choices were questionable. He might have built a successful smithy, but he had no family and no close friends. Now he sat injured during the holidays without a solitary person to assist him. Not one person was thinking of him this evening.
He rubbed his jaw, feeling the bristle of his beard against his palm. It was a sobering thought, one that lingered longer than he would have liked. His stomach growled loudly, as if to contribute its sentiments to the conversation he was having with himself.
With a loud groan, William fell back onto the settee and raised his legs back onto the arm. He would rise and tend to the fire, then find a meal in his kitchen, but for now, he just wanted to lie back and scowl at the ceiling, his thoughts swirling around his solitude.
He must have drifted off, for the next thing he knew, the click of a door handle startled him back to wakefulness. His eyes flew open, heart leaping in his chest. He heard the scrape of the back door opening and the sound of footsteps on the stone floor of his kitchen.
Someone huffed with exertion, followed by the unmistakable thud of something heavy being placed on the oak table where he ate his meals. William frowned. The doctor had found someone to send over?
Was it one of the boys who lived in the cottage on the next street? Surely, it was not any of the men from the inn nearby. William muttered under his breath at the thought. Was his nocturnal visitor inebriated? The doctor had better sense than that … he hoped.
From the back, he could hear a candle being lit, a soft glow of light seeping through the doorway, casting long shadows along the floorboards.
“Mr. Jackson?”
William struggled back up to a seated position, surprise causing his heart to thud like a drum. It was a woman! But who …
Oh, no! No, no, no … Please, the doctor did not send ? —
“Mr. Jackson?”
It was her! Bathed in the light of the candle fitted into the holder she held in her hand.
The glow accentuated her blonde hair, casting her lovely face in gentle shadows and illuminating her serene expression.
The woman he had been avoiding these past weeks now stood in his home, like a ray of sunshine cutting through winter's gloom.
So much for maintaining my distance!
“Dr. Hadley sent me to tend to you. He said you are injured?”
William shook his head in dismay, stroking his beard while he tried to think. “You cannot be here!”
Mrs. Brown ignored his protest, walking around the room to light more candles before setting down her candleholder and taking up the fire poker to bank the fire.
William watched, helpless and astonished, while savoring the cheeriness that she brought with her.
The room, which had felt so dreary just moments before, now glowed with warmth and light, her presence lending it an unexpected brightness.
“Dr. Hadley impressed upon me the importance of your health to our little community, and assured me that no one would learn of my presence.” She poked at the coals expertly, sending sparks fluttering upward. “Do you know that the lock on your back door is broken? It does not catch properly.”
She came forward to stand before him. William scowled. “What on earth are you wearing?”
He could hear his tone was barking, but he could not help it.
Shock at her proximity—the woman who had been in his thoughts since their meeting the month before—warred with the pain in his leg and the impulse to maintain the privacy of his home.
She was not merely attractive; she was a force to be reckoned with, an unwed woman who had launched a successful shop in an unfamiliar town and already made her mark.
His fellow proprietors were speaking of her incessantly, which made it all the more difficult to push her from his thoughts.
Having her in such close proximity was entirely unsettling to his carefully cultivated calm.
Mrs. Brown looked down at her cloak. “It is a winter cloak.”
“It is decidedly not! There is no possibility that cloak keeps you warm in the winter. Why does it have such wide sleeves? There is nothing to prevent the chill!”
Mrs. Brown wrinkled her nose, an expression of irritation dancing across her features. “It is beautiful, and I love it! I made it from the remnants of a coat my grandmother owned … After she died.”
The last was said with a sad intonation, and William experienced a pang of guilt. That was the trouble with Mrs. Brown—she made him feel things. Heaving an exasperated breath, he relented. “I apologize. Show it to me.”
The modiste brightened up, mercurial in her shift of mood. “I made it from green velvet and cut up my grandmother’s coat to create this fur trimming.” She turned the lapel to show him the pale pelt that framed the velvet.
“And what of the sleeves?” he asked, eyebrows raised. The utterly impractical sleeves that could not possibly assist with the retention of heat on a cold winter night!
Mrs. Brown held up one of her arms to display the deep fall. “I saw something like it in a woodcutting of a woman in a medieval gown. It appealed to my romantic side.”
“Let me see it, then.”
She twirled, her skirts flaring slightly as she spun.
Despite how impractical the garment was, William had to admit—if only to himself—that she looked enchanting in the dark green velvet and pale fur with the wide hood framing her face.
The firelight flickered, catching the softness of the fur and the rich sheen of the velvet, lending her an almost ethereal glow.
Mrs. Brown was a personification of Christmas, all warmth and bright cheerfulness in the midst of winter’s chill.
When she came to a stop, his gaze, unbidden, drifted to her mouth—the gentle curve of her lips that had lingered in his thoughts far longer than was sensible.
Despite his discomfort, he imagined standing up to take her hands and draw her close, to hold her and simply bask in the lightness she seemed to carry with her.
He shook the thought away immediately. Preposterous!
Mrs. Brown frowned, apparently noticing something odd about his expression. “Mr. Jackson, I must insist you lie back down and rest as the doctor instructed.”
With a long sigh, he shifted and settled back against the settee’s arm, stretching out his legs once more. He would never state it aloud, but it was gratifying to raise his leg, which diminished the persistent throbbing.
“Your cloak is lovely,” he admitted roughly. “But, Mrs. Brown, I need your assurance that you would not venture out into a cold snap with such a garment. You would be chilled to the bone with such gaping cuffs.”
Mrs. Brown chuckled softly, the sound gentle and sincere. “I work all the time, and then race home to my rooms. There is no possibility of my freezing out in the cold.”
“Nevertheless, Mrs. Brown?—”
“If we are to spend Christmas together, perhaps it would be easier to call me Caroline?”
William’s breath caught, and he stared at her, unblinking, for the span of a moment before he remembered to take air.
Caroline.
It was wonderfully fitting for such an exquisite and accomplished woman. The name suited her, bright and warm, with a touch of elegance.
After several seconds of silence, he realized Mrs. Br—Caroline was gazing at him expectantly.
“You may call me William.”
This was going to be a very long night. Caroline’s presence filled the room with an unexpected warmth, and he found himself oddly grateful for it. To hear her voice cutting through the silence. To see her smile brighten the dark corners of his solitary life.
William exhaled deeply, fighting back the strange fluttering in his chest.
“How did you injure yourself … William?”
There was a hesitancy to how she formed his name on her lips. William shot her a glance, observing how her eyes skittered away, and he realized the young woman was as nervous as he at this unexpected interlude of theirs.
“It was nothing. Just a mishap with my ladder. I spend little time at home, so my tools here are not well maintained like the ones in the smithy. It turned out to be a mistake to use them without inspection.”
“Huh. So nothing to do with the roof repairs at Mrs. Heeley’s cottage?”
William scowled. She was far too observant. “How did you know that?”