Spinster and Spice (The Spinster Chronicles, Book 3) Page 11

  The entire family, apart from Izzy and Georgie and Tony, looked at him in bewilderment, and it only occurred to him then that none of the others seemed remotely concerned about the weather, nor had they considered leaving.

  Just him.

  “Nonsense,” Mrs. Lambert told him with a wave and a knowing light in her eye. “We have plenty of room here, and no need to rush you off. You will both stay here this evening.”

  He blinked at the statement and glanced at Izzy. She looked as stunned as he felt, which made him smile.

  And agree.

  Chapter Nine

  Eventually, all secrets come to light. Even if that light is only one tiny flickering flame.

  -The Spinster Chronicles, 6 December 1817

  There was no possible way of sleeping with two unexpected guests in the house along with the rest of the family.

  Was her mother actually insane? To invite the Mortons to stay in their house when the weather was perfectly fine for travelling… It was madness! Izzy hadn’t brought up the weather as a hint to encourage an invitation for Kitty and Sebastian; she’d only said it because it was so perfectly wintery!

  Why in the world would she want them to stay? After the embarrassment of being summarily dismissed to sit with the children, when it was Izzy alone who had suggested the Mortons come to dinner. She had been forced to abandon Kitty in her hour of need, unable to temper anything her family said or did, or explain anything to Sebastian, who would have undoubtedly been shocked by the Lambert family antics.

  But her mother wouldn’t be put off, and so Sebastian and Kitty had stayed the night.

  There was only one problem.

  Despite what her mother had claimed, they did not have plenty of room for everyone, and there had been no rooms to spare.

  Oh, there were rooms for David and Jane, and for William and Anna, and for Catherine and Daniel, as those rooms were always prepared for them and occasions to stay at the Lambert family home tended to be fairly frequent. With all of that, however, there were only two guest rooms to spare, leaving either Sebastian or Kitty without a room.

  Enter her mother yet again, who had been quick to suggest that Miss Morton stay in Izzy’s room, while they would make something up for Izzy.

  Polite protestations had been made, of course, but everyone had chimed in that Izzy would be fine, and that this was a regular occurrence when guests were staying with them.

  Unfortunately, that was all too true, and in these particular circumstances, that meant that Izzy was in the nursery with the children. At this moment, that also meant there was a small pair of feet pressing into her back at just the wrong spot. It wasn’t uncommon for her to be in these situations, but on all the other occasions she was in a bed fitted to her size and the children were the intruders, not the reverse.

  Oh, but Sebastian’s face when he had found out!

  It would haunt Izzy’s mind for a while, and her embarrassment had been so extreme that even Prue would have been startled by it. She had never thought that her nature with her family should be so drastically on display so early in their acquaintance, and she was not particularly giving or good therein. It was simply easier to acquiesce and obey, to avoid anger and temper, or any kind of show.

  Catherine had been only too skilled in her demands for this or that, and Izzy saw how it wore on her parents, so she’d determined to never follow suit.

  And she never had.

  Georgie had given up trying to change anything, and occasionally took a stand for her, as she had done in the dining room, but even she had been worn down by it all.

  Within the family, at least. Georgie still had quite a great deal to say when Izzy was too accommodating in the public or social realms.

  It wasn’t often than Izzy was ashamed of her behavior, or embarrassed by it, but seeing Sebastian’s reaction made it all too real, and now she was thinking too much and feeling too much about matters and details that had never really bothered her before.

  Ridiculous business.

  She shifted on her too-small mattress and lifted little Rose’s feet from out of her back, tucking them back under the covers. The girl’s blonde hair was strewn all about the pillow and rapidly tangling further still, as she was not a quiet or immobile sleeper. Her breathing was loud and almost whistled with every exhale through her perfectly formed, little-girl lips. She had insisted, with all the tenacity she had inherited from her mother, that Izzy had to sleep with her, and tell her a whole new story just for her as they fell asleep.

  Molly Moose had been created then, and it had the potential to be one of her best stories yet. An uncoordinated moose who could not do anything without tripping over her own feet? Rose had loved it, and Izzy predicted that Rose would intentionally be stumbling around her own house for a great many days to come.

  She would have to warn Daniel and Catherine about that one.

  Izzy exhaled and looked up at the ceiling of the nursery, listened to the six different sounds of sleeping children around her, and shook her head.

  There would be no sleeping for now.

  She pushed herself gently out of bed, careful not to jostle the mattress or Rose, then grabbed her wool shawl from the bedpost and slid her feet into slippers. The candle she had brought in with her sat on the table by the door, and she picked it up, slipping out into the corridor and lighting the wick with the lone candle at the end of the hall.

  If she couldn’t sleep, she might as well be productive.

  She was used to working while the house was silent, and while she usually wrote at the desk in her room in the middle of the night, her parlor would suffice this once.

  The stairs were more than unusually accommodating in their silence, and she tiptoed into her parlor, shivering in the darkened room. The fire had gone out, but there were still some embers remaining. She raced over to build the fire back up. She didn’t need it to be roaring, but she did require some light and warmth.

  When the flames were dancing merrily, she darted over to her desk and set the candle on it, pulling out the manuscript she hadn’t finished the other day and a few fresh sheets of parchment. She bit her lip in thought, trying to remember how she had begun the story with Rose. It wouldn’t make much difference to Cousin Frank, but if her niece ever read the story, or heard it, she would throw a fit, and it seemed that would have some effect on the story for others.

  The phrase came back to her, and she smiled at it.

  “An uncoordinated moose is an unconventional moose,” she murmured aloud as she dipped her pen into the inkwell and jotted down the words on the page. The rest of the words seemed to flow out of her as a stream over rocks, easier than ever before, her mind twice as clear.

  But Molly Moose was not afraid of being different. Nor did she feel the need to compare herself with the other moose who could walk with ease, in perfect motion, and at times in perfect formation. Molly Moose had never walked a straight line without falling on her face after exactly seven paces. Always seven, and always on her face. But Molly Moose was determined that she could do everything that other moose could do, even if she fell…

  “Couldn’t sleep?”

  Izzy gasped loudly and whirled, flinging her arms over the pages and nearly knocking over her inkwell.

  Sebastian stood in the doorway in his shirtsleeves and trousers, his dark hair far more rumpled than seemed possible for him, yet without being indecent or shocking. On the contrary, he seemed somehow more human than she had ever seen him before. She hadn’t even realized that he had seemed somehow above mortality until this moment when he was so solidly in it.

  And now his mouth was curved up in a crooked smile, and he had clearly seen her entire reaction.

  “Sebastian,” she managed, her voice quivering as her heart raced frantically within her.

  He held up his hands in surrender, eyes widening. “Apologies. I didn’t mean to startle you. I thought perhaps you’d heard me coming down the stairs. They creak.”

  Izzy swa
llowed harshly and pressed a hand to her chest. “They don’t if you know where to step.”

  “Are you in the habit of sneaking downstairs in the middle of the night, Izzy?” he asked, smiling again, his voice low.

  Izzy. Her name on his lips sounded like the humming of a particularly lovely song, though one whose tune she didn’t recognize.

  But one she found herself desperate to sing.

  “Sometimes,” she heard herself reply, smiling now herself. “But only with very good reason.”

  Sebastian grinned briefly then gestured to the room. “May I?”

  Izzy snorted softly and mimicked the motion. “Please do.”

  He nodded with all politeness, though his smile was still teasing. He sat on a couch in the room, then looked over at her, his look still far more teasing than she had expected from him. “May I ask what you are hiding over there? Or should I ignore the very frantic covering you were doing?”

  Izzy’s eyes widened, and she gaped for a moment. “Ignore it, as any perfect gentleman would!” She gave him a scolding look.

  “I never said I was a perfect gentleman,” Sebastian told her as he settled in his seat, looking far too relaxed. “Just a gentleman.” He smiled warmly, then let it fade. “I won’t ask about your private affairs, Izzy. If you don’t wish to discuss it, that will be the end of it. I was hoping to sit here by the light of the fire and sketch, but since you are already here…”

  Sketch? There was no possible way he truly sketched, but the notepad in his left hand seemed real enough.

  He turned to leave, and her natural instinct took over. “Please, don’t go. I can just as easily move my work elsewhere.”

  “Nonsense,” he disagreed.

  “Perhaps we could both stay,” she suggested, surprised by her own boldness. “No one is awake to complain. You simply sit by the fire, and I’ll just remain here. Will that suit?”

  Sebastian looked thoughtful for a moment, then smiled and nodded.

  Izzy returned his smile, then turned back to her writing, but she couldn’t help sneaking a peek at him. Surprisingly, he was not watching her. He sat with his knee bent, the notepad propped upon it, sketching. No inquiries into her work, no suspicious looks, no taunting until she relented.

  That was really it? She protested and asked him to ignore it, and he respected that?

  She turned back to her desk and the pages on it, jotted down a few more lines, and glanced behind her at Sebastian, curious and wary.

  He seemed as content as he could be, sketching away in his notepad, his brow knitting slightly as he focused.

  Izzy turned back around, frowning and writing another word or two, before turning back to Sebastian. “Is there enough light for you to really sketch properly? I can light more candles.”

  “No, this is sufficient,” he told her without looking up.

  “Is it?” she persisted, looking around. “Let me light more candles, Sebastian.”

  He glanced up at her with a shockingly pointed look. “If I wanted more light or more candles, Izzy, I would light them myself. No need for you to do so.” He quirked a brow and went back to his sketch.

  Now Izzy frowned at him, not bothering to pretend otherwise, and she drummed her fingers on the back of the chair.

  “I can feel you staring, Izzy,” Sebastian said calmly.

  She frowned further still. “Why did it sound as though you were criticizing my offer to help you?”

  He shook his head once. “I did no such thing. I said I would do it.”

  “Your tone implied displeasure.”

  “Did it?”

  “Don’t be intentionally evasive, Sebastian,” she insisted, gripping the chair. “Tell me if I was right, and there was something you did not like about what I said.”

  The pencil stopped scratching against the page, and then Sebastian sighed, lowering the pad and giving her a very frank, but not unkind look. “Your offering to light the candles did not upset me in any way. It is a perfectly kind and generous offer, and very thoughtful.”

  Izzy blinked twice before asking, “And the trouble there is…?”

  He hesitated, then narrowed his eyes a little. “I was here for dinner and for the arrangement of sleeping quarters, Izzy. I saw what happened to you, and how you were treated.”

  “You needn’t make it sound as though I am abused by my family,” Izzy retorted, her cheeks beginning to heat. “I am no victim here.”

  “Perhaps not,” he considered, keeping his tone mild. “But there is a significant amount of taking you for granted, and overindulgence of your good nature. To dismiss you from dinner simply because there was not another chair?”

  “Oh, but…”

  “And where are you sleeping, anyway?” he overrode, raising his voice only enough to be heard over her. “I know my sister is in your room.”

  Izzy swallowed her retort and scowled. “The nursery.”

  Sebastian stared at her for a too-long moment. “You cannot be serious.”

  There was nothing to do but force a tight smile and shrug, wrapping her shawl more securely around her. “If we did not have guests, I could have made do on a sofa in the library.”

  “Surely not.”

  “I have done it before,” she said simply.

  “In your own home?”

  His incredulity amused her more than anything else. “Where else should I do it, Sebastian? As a guest at someone else’s home?”

  The furrows in his brows deepened. “Ideally, never.”

  “But it happens,” she insisted, shrugging a shoulder one more time. “I am not bothered by it now.”

  His furrows cleared, and a sad smile appeared. “And that is my concern.”

  Izzy pursed her lips but said nothing.

  “I have the feeling, Izzy, that things like this, minor though they be, tend to happen often.” His look became more searching. “Am I correct?”

  Her heart began to pound unsteadily, and not in a pleasant way. Moments from several years of her life flashed before her, things she had never argued with her family, had never even brought up, but had somehow collected into small piles of bitter seeds within her. She’d simply accepted it as the way things would be, and there was nothing in there that was truly worth the trouble of arguing or contending over.

  But the collection…

  “You are,” she whispered, struggling to find her voice. “But I don’t think about them. I don’t argue the point, I don’t refuse, and I don’t disagree.”

  “When?” he inquired, his voice soft.

  She swallowed with difficulty before she was able to speak. “When I am asked to do something, when I am told to do something, when my sister or one of my brothers speaks harshly… I am silent, biddable, and obedient. I always have been.”

  Sebastian sat up in his seat, turning more fully to her. “You can’t stand up for yourself?”

  Izzy shook her head. “No. I’m too out of practice, and it’s too late to start. And when I have done, I am overcome with guilt for whatever I said, and apologize for it.”

  “And would they apologize in return?”

  “No. Because it was my fault for taking offense.”

  Her answer hung in the air between them, and he did not look particularly pleased by it. Not exactly angry, but unsettled somehow. As if he had known her long enough to approve or disapprove of anything or have any opinion at all on her life or her manner.

  And yet…

  She wanted to know his thoughts. She wanted to know how he felt about this. She wanted to confide in him about many things and hear him share with her. She wanted to hear about his days in the army, his days at Lindley Hall as a child, and what he spent his time doing.

  Suddenly, his thoughts mattered. His feelings mattered. His wishes mattered.

  He mattered.

  And he thought she mattered enough to stand up for herself and not be so nice. It was a confusing and intimidating thought.

  Izzy smiled a little at him, now that
the silence had stretched enough to become blatant.

  He returned it easily, and whatever moment he’d had with her description vanished with it. He drew his knee back up and returned to sketching, leaving Izzy to her solitude.

  She did not go back to her writing right away, though. She watched him sketch, fascinated by the way his hands moved, though she had no idea what he was sketching. She could see him process whatever it was he was drawing in his face, the way it shifted and changed with each moment. His eyes danced across the page, and the color of them was indistinguishable in the dark of the room, but she knew how blue they could be. Not quite to his sister’s intensity and brightness, but only a shade or two behind them. He was a handsome man, she had always known that, but there was so much more to him.

  And she was only just coming to know that.

  A reserved man who apparently did not tease, but had no problem teasing her whenever the occasion arose. A proper man who did not want Izzy to be biddable or submissive. A gentleman who could sit in a room with a young woman without any chaperone in the middle of the night and not take the slightest advantage of the situation.

  A man who had secrets without hiding anything at all. Such as his ability to sketch.

  But then, it was entirely possible that he was not that skilled at it, and only drew for his enjoyment. Rather like her writing.

  With that in mind, she turned back to the incomplete story with a wince and tried to recall what adventure she had put Molly Moose through with Rose. It was difficult to remember, considering Rose had chimed in with suggestions throughout most of it, some of which Izzy had actually taken and included. If only there were a way for someone to record the details of the stories as Izzy told them so as to avoid all this trouble later.

  Izzy tapped her pen absently against the parchment, closing her eyes to focus, taking herself back to only a short time ago in the nursery when she’d told this story.

  She did not have time to be without inspiration or productivity. She had to bring more stories with her when she met with Cousin Frank and be ready to answer about more of them. She did not think he would want to continue indulging her without some sort of promise in the future. Her inability to recall the stories her imagination had conjured up so effortlessly was going to get in the way of a newfound dream coming to life.