Page 6 of When Jess Wainwright’s Curiosity Was Satisfied (Wainwright Sisters #4)
Chapter Six
C adoc wanted to laugh at the obstinacy of the woman in his arms. He’d heard the hitch in her breath when he set his hands on her waist. She was far from impervious to his touch. The curtains in the front window fluttered, and before he could knock, the door was flung open.
“What did you do to her?” Lavinia Wainwright demanded.
“She twisted her ankle on the icy road, and I was kind enough to bring her home.”
Lavinia scowled up at them. “Were you following her, you brigand?”
“Vin, stop. Loathe as I am to admit it, I don’t think I would have made it home without his assistance.”
The sisters exchanged a look. Vin’s face finally softened, likely because she saw the lines of exhaustion and pain etched into Jess’s expression.
“Your sister was determined to endure the pain and walk home by herself after her injury. I found her clinging to the livery stable on the outskirts of town.”
Jess grimaced. “You may set me down now. You’ve seen me safely home and can be on your way.”
“Your ankle needs to be tended. And it should be elevated.” Cadoc turned to Vin. “Where can I lay your sister?”
“She has the attic room. Follow me.”
Cadoc repressed the urge to take in every detail of Jess Wainwright’s life. Her cottage reminded him of the one he’d grown up in, cramped but cozy. He imagined the laughter of she and her sisters soaring to the rafters. A laughter he’d imperiled when he’d threatened to expose her sister Lavinia.
He had to duck his head when they ascended the narrow staircase, or else risk bashing in his skull.
The room at the top of the stairs was sparse. There was a writing desk in the front of the window, a chest at the foot of the wrought iron bed, and a small bookcase. Cadoc ruthlessly squelched the itch to explore everything in her space, especially her bookcase. Getting an intimate glimpse of her inner life was humbling. And made him question his disreputable approach anew.
“You can set me down now,” she said in an imperious tone.
Vin stepped aside as he lowered her to the bed and crouched, taking her right ankle in his hand. He deftly unlaced her boot and eased it off.
“Vin could have removed my shoe.”
“Yes, Vin could have removed her shoe,” Vin sarcastically echoed. “Vin can also remove your head if she thinks you’re taking liberties.”
“There’s no reason for either of you to be so cross,” he said over his shoulder. “I needed to see for myself how badly it was sprained. I was going to ride for the doctor if his intervention was warranted.”
“Is it bad? We have chorale practice in three days.”
“It looks like three or four days of rest will alleviate the swelling. But you’ll need to bind it until it heals completely. For at least two weeks.”
“Have you had medical training, Mr. Morgan?” Vin interrupted.
“No. I’ve just seen my share of injuries, both mild and tragic, in the mines.”
“So we needn’t call for the doctor?” She asked with an expression of trepidation.
Cadoc suspected they could ill afford the expense. “No you needn’t. It should heal quickly as long as you stay off that foot.” He curled his hand over hers and the feeling of intimacy intruded again. Like a pang in his chest. “But if you’d needed a physician’s care, the cost would have been at my expense.”
Vin harrumphed behind him. “We don’t need your charity, and I’m not inclined to accept anything from you, Mr. Morgan.”
“It’s not charity,” he protested as he locked eyes with Jess. “I feel responsible. If I hadn’t goaded you, you might not have been in such a hurry to get home.” He wanted his reassurance to stand for more than his offer to pay for a physician. He wanted it to be an apology as well. An abbreviated, premature one, because she still hadn’t agreed to the wager, but an apology nonetheless.
“Believe me, Mr. Morgan, you did not rile me. The road was slick and I fell. And my sister is correct, we don’t need your charity.”
Her rebuff felt like a fist to his gut. He supposed it was no more than he deserved for his high-handed treatment of her the last few weeks. “I would have helped however I could,” he gruffly insisted.
“Be that as it may, I can care for my sister from this point forward. We’ve received a letter from Scotland I’d like to share. Can you see yourself out without banging your head, Mr. Morgan?”
“Yes. I bid you both good day,” he gave them an exaggerated bow and made a swift exit.
Bacchus was standing exactly where Cadoc had left him, his chestnut coat covered in snow. He stroked his muzzle. “I’m sorry old boy, not much further.”
The snow was nearly blinding and Cadoc sighed in relief when he saw the giant oak that stood at the end of the lane. His home was less than two hundred feet away.
When the stable came into view, the head groom rushed out. “No need, George. I’ve got him. I’ll give him a rubdown and some oats while you tuck into the supper you likely have ready to go.”
The bandy-legged man gave him a gap-toothed smile. He was a former miner like Cad, and he’d been like a father figure. When one of the drays crushed his foot and he was confined to a bed for weeks until he could make his way about again, Cad took care of him in return. All of George’s family was gone - taken by disease or the mine - and he lost the lease on his cottage. Cad and his sisters had made room for him in their cottage.
The man had always had a way with the dray horses, so when they moved to Cumbria, Cad asked George to accompany them as the new head groom.
“Right you are, young lad. I have a bowl of stew and some fresh bread,” George rubbed his stomach to illustrate. “This weather’s for neither man nor beast.”
“If you’re going up to the house, will you let Caris know I’m home and I’ll be in shortly?”
“Aye. Don’t tarry overlong, the stew may be gone by the time you finish.”
After he’d tucked Bacchus in with a bucket of oats, he made his way up the steps. The storm was in full, blinding swing, and the outline of the house in the distance was nearly obscured by the snow. He sighed in relief when he shut the door behind him and stamped and shook the flakes from his coat and boots.
He left his footwear to dry by the door and crept to the kitchen in stockinged feet. When the household was settling in for a storm like this one, they all tended to gather there, in front of the giant hearth. He heard the laughter before he saw them.
He rounded the corner and leapt into a crouch, growling as loudly and disturbingly as he could. Ella and Caris’s screams were most gratifying.
“Cadoc, you gave us a fright!” His sister chastised with bright eyes. “Come, have a seat and a bowl of stew. I’ve kept it warm for you.”
Caris was very fond of the wood cookstove he’d bought her when they moved into Heathsted, and delighted in using it.
“Will we be able to take the sled out tomorrow, Uncle?” Davy eagerly asked.
Cadoc regarded him over his spoonful of soup. “If ‘tis not too cold, and the visibility is better, I don’t see why not. The snow is so dense I could have lost my way between here and the stable and staggered into the woods. You would have found my bones in the spring.”
Ella’s eyes widened. “You would have turned into a ghost, Uncle? Like Marley from the story you read us?”
Cadoc curled his hands into claws and crossed his eyes in her direction. “Exactly like Marley. I would have haunted you.”
She squealed and ducked her head against Caris’s shoulder. Caris stroked her hair and glowered at him. “When she has nightmares because of your teasing, you’ll be the one to brave the cold floorboards and comfort her.”
“Ella, look at me.”
“I don’t want to, Uncle,” she protested and burrowed her head further into Caris’s armpit.
“I was only teasing. If there are ghosts, they have more important things to occupy their time. Like figuring out how to get to heaven.”
She lifted her head. “Not everyone goes to heaven when they die?”
“The vicar will tell you that only those who’ve been baptized get past the pearly gates.”
“Is that what you think too?”
“I think that if you’re good, and you treat others the way you want to be treated, there’s a place for you in heaven. Whether or not you’ve been baptised.”
“Blasphemous,” his sister muttered with a smile. And then she wagged a finger in his direction. He knew she was scolding him for his treatment of the teacher. Because such treatment was far from a reflection of the tenet he’d just espoused.
“Your teacher has a sprained ankle,” he confided to the table at large. “I rescued her and took her home on Bacchus.”
“I don’t have to be a wise man now?” Davy could barely contain his excitement at the prospect of the pageant being cancelled.
Cadoc ignored Caris’s raised brow.
“It’s only a sprain,” he said to Davy. “She’ll be good as new in a few days. I am going to try and find the crutches your aunt Ellen used when she twisted her knee.”
At the age of twenty-seven Ellen had decided it was time she conquered her fear of heights. Her solution had been allowing Davy to teach her to climb trees. She’d become dizzy when she crawled out on one of the limbs and lost her grip. She’d been lucky her fall wasn’t from a great distance and a sprained wrist and twisted knee were the only disastrous outcomes of her escapade. She’d recuperated with the aid of the crutches, and informed Caris and Cadoc that tree-climbing would not be one of the lessons she delivered as a governess.
“I saw them in the attic!” Davy volunteered. “May I come with you when you go up there to retrieve them?”
Like all children who dreamt of maps to pirate treasure and chests full of long forgotten toys, Davy was fascinated by the jumble of furniture in the attic. “Yes, you may accompany me both to the attic and to Mrs. Wainwright’s home when we take them to her.”
“If they’ve been in the attic, you won’t dare take them to her without allowing me to give them a good cleaning first.”
Cadoc nodded in agreement, because he knew better than to argue with his sister about household things. She was like their mother had been - if she wasn’t doing it or showing someone else how to do it the way she’d been taught, it wasn’t being done right.
“Can I come with you when you go see Miss Wainwright?”
No one in possession of a heart could say no to Ella’s woeful gaze. “You may come if you bundle up. That means mittens, hat, scarf, and your flannels.”
Ella complained about the long flannel pantaloons Caris forced her to wear under her skirts in the winter. She said it made her itch and peeled them off at every opportunity. “Fine,” she mumbled.
Cadoc quelled his grin at her mutinous expression because he didn’t want to hurt her tender feelings. “Then you are welcome to ride along as well.”
“But I don’t wanna go up in the attic with you. There’s a headless man up there.”
“A headless man?” Cadoc pinned his squirming nephew with a stern look.
“There’s a dressmaker’s form stashed in one of the far corners,” Caris explained.
Cad turned back to Davy. “And you told her it was a headless man? What have I told you about reading The Legends of Sleepy Hollow , Davy? And scaring your younger sister with them?”
“It’s not real,” Davy flushed and protested.
“Then how would you like to spend the night locked in that room by yourself?” Cadoc would never subject the boy to terror like that, but his teasing of Ella could be mean-spirited, and he needed to fear the repercussions.
“I might be afraid of the headless man, but Davy’s afraid of spiders,” Ella volunteered. “He wouldn’t touch it and then he ran away when Miss Wainwright tried to bring it closer.”
“Perhaps wielding the broom in the corners of the pantry for your aunt would be a more fitting punishment.”
Davy visibly blanched. “I promise to stop teasing Ella,” he vowed.
Caris lifted her hand to cover a smile. Cadoc was finding it just as difficult to keep a straight face.
“I shall hold you to your promise, Davy. Since you and your sister demolished the lemon meringue, you may be excused.”
Ella yawned, as if on cue. She stopped at the head of the table on her way upstairs and grabbed his hand. “Uncle Cadoc, will you read one of the fairytales to us tonight?”
He patted her head. “Of course, poppet. Have Nurse put you in your nightclothes and I’ll be up shortly.”
As soon as the children were out of hearing distance, Cadoc and Caris both erupted into laughter.
“He was terrified,” Caris gasped between gusts of amusement.
“He needs to stop tormenting Ella. Perhaps the threat of arachnids will make that happen.”
“I think you’ve frightened him into compliance, brother.”
“One can hope. Ella’s nightmares are not inconsequential.”
Caris grimaced. “I agree. They only prolong the bedwetting.”
Cadoc lifted his glass. “I propose a toast to the end of bedwetting.”
“I’d prefer whisky to wine, but I accept your toast.”
They shared a look of commiseration over the rims of the goblets and he pondered how Miss Wainwright would handle the sibling situation between Davy and Ella. If he wasn’t mistaken, she had as much experience as he did both bearing witness and playing the role of peacemaker.