A Timeless Romance Anthology: Winter Collection Page 2

  “Oh, I do love flowers,” Miss Kilchrest said, her arms laden with blooms, likely the last they’d see in a while. The chill of late autumn hung heavy in the air.

  A light sprinkling of rain began as it so often did. Usually, Isaac didn’t even note it. But the timing today might actually prove helpful.

  “There’s an overhang just this direction,” he said, motioning toward a nearby building. “If ye’ll just step that way, ye’ll be out of the rain.”

  “How thoughtful.” She shifted the flowers into one arm. She offered a wiggly-fingered wave to the other men then slipped her arm through his.

  Isaac took a deep breath as they walked swiftly away. His moment had come. Months of working to gain her notice were about to pay off. Soon she’d send the other men packing, and he could move on to the next part of his plan.

  Safely under the overhang, he charged ahead. “Miss Kilchrest, I feel we’ve come to know one another these past months.”

  “Indeed.” She smelled her flowers, obviously at ease with him. A good sign.

  “I think ye’ve come to feel something of a preference for my company.”

  She touched his arm briefly. “Of course, Isaac. Who could possibly not enjoy your company?”

  With that extra encouragement, he cut directly to the heart of the matter. “I wish to ask you, then, if ye’d be so good as to consider me yer beau, rather exclusively.”

  She did not appear nearly as shocked as Alice had, though perhaps a bit surprised. Her smile, however, remained serene. “You sweet man,” she said. “I didn’t realize you were so fond of me.”

  “Who could possibly not be fond of you?” He echoed her words of a moment earlier, thinking she might laugh at the sally.

  Miss Kilchrest shrugged a single shoulder, returning her attention to her collection of flowers.

  “I don’t wish to press ya, but is there an answer to my question?”

  A flattering bit of color touched her cheeks. “Of course there’ll be an answer, I’m only uncertain what answer to give.”

  “Might I suggest ‘yes’?”

  She swatted at his arm. “You sweet man. Tis not a matter of yes or no.”

  “It isn’t?” Isaac didn’t think there was a third option.

  “This is only unexpected, is all.”

  Unexpected? What did she think he’d intended with his four months of pursuit, if not an eventual proposal? The sensible assumption was that he meant just this, to further their connection.

  She gave him such a heart-tuggingly uncertain look. “Can my answer be ‘perhaps’?”

  Perhaps. A third option, after all. “‘Perhaps,’ but not ‘no’?” he clarified.

  Miss Kilchrest looked quite pleased with that. “Yes, exactly.”

  Not no. He could accept that. For the time being.

  And, he thought with some burgeoning hope, Alice would help him think of ways to win Miss Kilchrest over for good. Alice would help, and he’d have Miss Kilchrest’s hand for sure and certain.

  Chapter Three

  Alice generally looked forward to her Sunday afternoon walk toward Killeshandra. For those few hours, she had sole claim on Isaac Dancy’s time and attention. For that brief time each week, she could imagine he fancied her, that he thought her more than merely a friend. Walking the road as they wound about the lakes felt like coming home.

  But, standing with her childhood friend, Billy Kettle, waiting for Isaac to arrive, Alice couldn’t summon enough enthusiasm to even smile. Her favorite time in the entire week, and she was dreading it.

  “Why do ya have to go, Alice? Can’t ya stay here? We could have fun.” Billy asked the same question and made the same arguments every week. He generally did so in the first moments after she left her grandparents’ home and long before she left the street where both their families lived. He’d been more overset than usual that day and had followed her all the way to Farnham Street. “No one else will feed the ducks with me.”

  She patted his hand. When they were both little, she would pat his shoulder, but he’d grown far too tall. “The ducks have all flown away now. They’ll not be back until spring.”

  “Ducks go away. You go away.” His forehead creased deeply as he pouted. Though he had the look and build of a grown man, little else about him had changed over the years. “I don’t like all the going away.”

  He kicked a pebble with the toe of his boot, his hands shoved into his trouser pockets. Poor lad. ’Twas the same difficulty, the same sadness every week. The only thing that changed was how easily he could be reassured.

  She looked up into his handsome face and almost painfully innocent eyes. “I’ll be back on Saturday as usual. We’ll have grand fun then, we will.”

  “How far away is Saturday?”

  “But six days. Not even a whole week. And yer da says he’s found a bit of work for ya to do.” She smiled encouragingly. “Ye’ll be quite busy, and I’ll be back before ya even have time to miss me.”

  His mouth twisted about, brow still furrowed. “I can miss ya fast.”

  He’d always been so sweetly loving, like a dear younger brother.

  Billy’s worried pout transformed instantly to a laughing grin. “Here comes yer beau.”

  He’d teased her about Isaac from the very first time Billy saw her arrive in Cavan with him. Billy gave her a quick hug, laughing like a child who’d heard a particularly entertaining tale. She couldn’t help smiling at his antics. He rushed away, throwing grins back at her as he did.

  She yet had a smile on her face when Isaac arrived at her side. Thank the heavens for Billy. She’d not have been able to greet Isaac with anything resembling cheerfulness without him.

  “Who was that?” Isaac motioned with a small twitch of his head in the direction Billy had gone.

  Had he never met Billy? Alice couldn’t remember introducing the two. “He’s Billy, m’ dear friend.”

  “Yer dear friend is he?” Isaac’s mouth pulled down, his eyes narrowed, still not looking at her.

  Feminine instinct can be a wonderful thing. Useful, at the very least. The man, Alice realized on the instant, was a touch jealous. And if he could be jealous of her friendship with another man, he couldn’t be quite as determined to court Sophia Kilchrest as he professed to be. Part of him, at least, must have some feelings for her.

  Alice clasped her hands behind her back and walked slowly down the road, not looking back, but certain he would follow. “Aye, my dear, dear friend. He welcomes me to Cavan Town each Saturday and sees me off every Sunday.”

  Isaac caught up to her. “Why is it I’ve never seen him?” He looked back over his shoulder several times.

  She shrugged. “Ye’ve been a bit distracted, ya must admit. Fighting off hordes of fellow knights in shining armor takes all the concentration a man can muster.”

  “But ye’ve never even mentioned him.”

  Aye, jealous he was, and no doubting it. “I’m certain I have.”

  She kept up her somewhat brisk pace, quickly leaving behind the outskirts of Cavan. That Isaac kept up with her without protest seemed a good sign.

  Alice picked up a topic other than Billy. ’Twould do Isaac a world of good to let things spin about in his mind a while. “You were to have a monumental weekend, if memory serves. How did things go with Miss Kilchrest?”

  She’d dreaded the conversation for two days but now found herself equal to it. Perhaps she hadn’t lost her opportunity after all.

  He buttoned his coat higher as they walked further from town, the chill of approaching winter stronger even than it had been the day before. “I had a chance to speak with her during that bit of rain we got yesterday.”

  Alice’s heart stumbled a bit in her chest. She did her utmost to keep her expression and her tone light and unconcerned. “A proposal in the rain? Tis hard to set a more romantic scene than that. Perhaps if ye’d arranged for a dusting of snow.”

  Isaac yet watched her with creased brow. “Yer dear friend, he is
?”

  A smile tipped one side of her mouth. The situation wasn’t entirely hopeless. “Never ya mind about Billy. Tell me how Miss Kilchrest answered yer question. Has yer courtship become etched in stone?”

  Please say no. Please say no.

  “Well...” He didn’t seem to know just how to answer. “I asked if she’d consider me her one and only suitor and...” Again his face twisted in thought. “She didn’t say ‘no.’”

  “Did she ‘yes,’ then?”

  Isaac shook his head.

  “Not yes, but not no.” Alice took some comfort in that. “And ya mean to ask again, do ya?” But how soon? How insistent did he mean to be?

  “I mean to go back and try my hand again.” He gave her a quick but earnest look.

  “Even if she makes that effort difficult?”

  “The difficult things are often the most worthwhile.” He nodded just off the path in the direction of the lake. “Like this here.” He stepped off the path and bent over, plucking a bright yellow flower from the ground. “Blooming so late in the season is hardly an easy thing, and yet this daisy here has managed it.”

  “Tis a sowthistle.” She smiled through the light correction.

  The look he gave her was utterly amused. “Daisy. Sowthistle. Colaimbín. Ya can’t expect a man to know the difference.”

  “Perhaps that is yer problem with Miss Kilchrest. Perhaps she’s a flower expert and is disheartened by yer ignorance.”

  Isaac eyed her hair a moment. Her hair? What was the man about? He pulled a few low leaves off the stem of the sowthistle he’d picked and tucked the flower into her bun. Alice ordered her cheeks not to heat, but they only paid her the tiniest heed.

  A tender gesture it was. A man couldn’t be entirely indifferent to a woman and have such a thought even cross his mind.

  Isaac didn’t linger over the moment as Alice would have loved him to do. He simply nodded and continued on down the road.

  “Ye’ll help me, won’t ya?” he asked.

  Alice shook off her scrambled thoughts. “Help ya with what?” She lightly fingered the flower in her hair. She’d never look on a sowthistle the same way again.

  “Help me work out just what will turn Miss Kilchrest’s head? I’m all at sea in this.”

  He wasn’t the only one. How could the man act so fond of her in one moment—acting jealous of another man, picking wildflowers for her—and determined to claim Sophia Kilchrest’s hand in the very next instance? It seemed men were thicker in the head than she realized.

  “Ya wish me to help ya win her over?” Her heart dropped at the thought.

  He nodded enthusiastically. “What better person to help me than you? Ye’re a woman.”

  “Noticed that, did ya?” she muttered.

  “So what do ya suggest?”

  Thickheaded, foolish man!

  She picked up her pace, tension pushing her ahead. “I’ve no advice for ya, Isaac. Ye’ll have to sort this one out on yer own.”

  “No advice at all?” He spoke from a bit behind her, no longer keeping pace. “Because ya can’t think of anything? Or because ya don’t want to help me?”

  Not want to help him? He made her sound selfish, petty. Could he not even guess at her reasons? She was jealous and heartbroken. But she was also worried. She didn’t know Sophie Kilchrest personally, but there was something about her she didn’t like. But she did like Isaac, more than seemed advisable, in fact.

  She slowed her steps enough for him to reach her side again. “Can ya tell me what it is about Miss Kilchrest that has captured ya?”

  Something like relief entered his expression. He thought her question a sign she meant to help rather than a moment of self-inflicted pain. To know why she’d been passed over wouldn’t necessarily help ease her regrets. She only hoped knowing the whys would lead to some degree of acceptance.

  “Well,” Isaac said, his tone filled with pondering, “she’s beautiful.”

  There was no arguing that. Alice knew she was no beauty, though she’d not thought herself wholly plain.

  “And she is genteel and sophisticated.”

  All things Alice knew she was not, and yet that ought to have been an argument in her favor. “What in heaven’s name is a genteel and sophisticated woman going to do living on a farm?”

  He shook his head firmly, eyes turned directly ahead. “Ya make me sound as though I live in a tiny crofter’s cottage on a half-acre of barren soil.”

  “I said nothing of the sort.” She’d learned over the four months she’d known Isaac Dancy that he could be a bit touchy about his land. “I know ya have some of the best land in all of County Cavan. And I further know ya’ve built a fine home for yerself. But in the mind of a woman like Sophie Kilchrest, who has lived all her life in a town the size of Cavan in a fancy house with all the comforts she must have there, the life of a farmer’s wife will be entirely foreign to her.”

  Isaac didn’t appear to even ponder her very logical argument. “She has a kind heart and giving spirit. Such a woman wouldn’t turn her nose up at the life I have to offer her. I’ve told her enough of my home and life. If she hated the idea, she’d not have continued acknowledging me week to week. And she certainly would have answered my question yesterday with a no.”

  Alice wondered if Miss Kilchrest was simply stringing Isaac along. She couldn’t prove it, nor make any argument that would likely convince him. Neither could she force herself to help the man who’d captured her heart win over another woman.

  He’d long since set his mind to courting Miss Kilchrest. Though his determination and dependability were among the reasons Alice liked him so very much, his stubbornness could, at times, be so very frustrating.

  “I wish ya luck of it, Isaac. I’ve a feeling Miss Kilchrest will not be easy to win over.”

  He shoved his hands once more into the pockets of his coat. “Then how do I go about it? I gave her flowers yesterday, but so did everyone else. My offering didn’t seem to stand out to her.”

  Sophia Kilchrest is a fool. Alice once again brushed her fingertips along the petals of the flower Isaac had only just given her.

  The road made its lumbering turn around the lake, a wind blowing off the water that made her shiver. She’d need to start wearing her heavier coat as the season turned. Winters were not generally bitter in Ireland, but they were decidedly cold and, more often than not, wet.

  “Do women have a favorite flower?” Isaac asked. “Perhaps if I chose better, she’d appreciate it more.”

  Isaac is a fool too, it seems. “Giving a woman flowers isn’t about the flowers. A woman who really loves a man will love any flower he gives her, not because of the flower, but because of him. She’d not even need offerings. Simply being with him would be enough.” Isaac had picked flowers for her now and then during their walks to and from Cavan, but she hadn’t needed such things. He treated her kindly. He shared his thoughts and his worries. They’d found an ease with each other and, she thought, a closeness unique to the two of them. “If a woman really loved a man, she’d light up simply because he was nearby and think of him when they’re apart. She’d be just as happy talking with him as she would be spending an afternoon in silence. ’Twouldn’t matter in the least, so long as they were together.”

  She’d all-but bared her soul, nearly confessed what she never intended to. But did Isaac realize as much?

  If his distant expression were any indication, he’d not made the connection. “I’m competing with half the men in County Cavan. I have to think of some way to stand out.”

  Alice shook her head, both out of frustration and sadness. How could he not see what was so obvious? “If she loves ya enough to marry ya, Isaac, then none of those other men would matter in the least.”

  He picked up a pebble off the road and skipped it over the rippling water. “Ya don’t understand.”

  “What don’t I understand? I’m a woman, like ya said.”

  He pulled his hat down more snugly on his
head. “A woman, aye, but not one who has men clamoring after her.”

  The man might just as well have slapped her for all the sharp, immediate pain of that observation. No, she hadn’t hordes of men desperate to enjoy the pleasure of her company. She hadn’t even one.

  “Billy likes me, so I suppose that’s something.” She knew if Isaac pressed her about Billy, she wouldn’t be able to lie to him, but admitting the only man who thought her special actually thought of her the way a child did a playmate would only humiliate her that much more. She rushed her words, not wanting to give him a chance to ask questions. “I’m meaning to stop here a bit, spend some time at the lake before winter comes.”

  When she stopped, so did Isaac. Thoughts flitted across his face. His mouth moved without sound. She set her gaze out over the water, grey with the clouds hovering above. She’d rather look at the scene in front of her than see rejection in the face of the man beside her.

  “You can go on ahead.” As soon as the words left her mouth, she knew that “going on ahead” was what she desperately needed him to do. Being with him while his heart was elsewhere, listening to him sing another woman’s praises, was more than her battered heart could bear.

  “I can’t leave ya all by yerself.”

  Ya already have. “I know my way, I assure ya.”

  “But—”

  “Ya have animals to see to. We’ve spoken of them all, I’ll remind ya.” Indeed, she knew the name of his horse, both his cows. She knew exactly how many chickens he had, how many pigs. She knew just what was planted in every acre of his farm, despite never having actually been there. Sophie Kilchrest likely didn’t know any of those things. Alice would wager Sophie didn’t care, either.

  “Ye’re certain ye’ll be fine here alone?”

  Alice nodded. She needed to be alone. Needed it.

  Isaac hesitated. “But ye’d have to walk the rest of the way by yerself.”