With Love, Louisa by Ashtyn Newbold
Chapter 19
“Does Jack know you’re here?” Cassandra poured a drop of cream into her own teacup, then into Louisa’s.
“I confess, I did not think it wise to tell him.” Louisa smoothed her hands over her skirts. Why was she so nervous? Mrs. Warwick and Cassandra were both far too kind to make her uneasy. This was a simple social call, and any woman had the right to visit her mother-in-law and sister-in-law for afternoon tea, especially when they lived so close by.
“I think you are right,” Mrs. Warwick said with a sigh. “He and my husband do not always see eye to eye.” It was still so astonishing how much her eyes looked like Jack’s. The first time she had met Mrs. Warwick, Louisa had noticed the kindness in her eyes, assuming it was what set Mrs. Warwick’s eyes apart from Jack’s. But now, Louisa realized it was one of their greatest similarities. Jack had a kindness about him that she hadn’t noticed at first, but now that she had noticed, it was one of her favorite things about him.
Louisa bit her lip. She felt guilty visiting Jack’s family without his permission, but they were her family now too. She missed having a motherly figure to converse with, and without her sister Alice nearby, she needed a sister as well. Although important, those were not the only reasons she was there.
Ever since her conversation with Jack two days before when she had tried to mention his father, he had been more distant. She blamed it on his hard work in training the new members of the household, but part of his distance from her seemed deliberate. She had made it obvious that she was curious about his family. Did that mean he was avoiding her so he would not have to answer her questions?
Louisa took a deep breath, planning her words carefully. “Do you miss him?” Louisa asked, turning toward Mrs. Warwick. “Do you miss Jack?”
Her eyes immediately flooded with tears. Drat. Louisa hadn’t meant to make her cry. Mrs. Warwick blinked fast, clearing them as she took a sip of tea. “Yes. It is a difficult situation.” She looked like she wanted to say more, but she clamped her mouth closed.
Cassandra drummed her fingers in her lap, adding creases to her pale green skirts. “It does upset my father when he discovers that I have been visiting Jack. If it were up to him, we would separate ourselves from him entirely.” Cassandra’s voice was quiet. “I refuse to do that.” She didn’t look at her mother, which led Louisa to believe that Mrs. Warwick was a little more compliant, and that was why she hadn’t come to visit Jack.
“Would he—would your husband be upset to know that I am here visiting you today?” Louisa didn’t wish to drive even more distance between Jack and his father by upsetting him.
Cassandra exchanged a quick glance with her mother. “It might upset him a little, but I doubt he would forbid your presence here.”
Louisa nodded in understanding, filing through the questions in her mind, deciding which to pose next. There were so many. “Do you have other friends in town? I feel that I have hardly met anyone. I thought you might be able to help me. Are there any other young ladies who I might have the opportunity to meet and befriend?”
The two women exchanged yet another glance. This time it was filled with even more obvious concern. “I’m afraid there are not many young ladies who wish to connect themselves with our family,” Mrs. Warwick said. “Nor young men.” She eyed Cassandra, whose brows drew together in apparent irritation.
“That is not entirely Jack’s fault,” Cassandra said in a defensive voice.
“Your father disagrees.” Mrs. Warwick added another cube of sugar to her tea, shifting uncomfortably.
Silence filled the room for several seconds before Mrs. Warwick cleared her throat noisily. “Forgive me, Louisa. I am not accustomed to visitors here. It still astonishes me that you married my son. It may take me a few months to fully comprehend it.” Her eyes welled with tears again. “It is my hope that eventually our…situation can be different.”
Louisa nodded. “It is my hope as well.” She didn’t know what else to say. Disappointment fell heavy in her stomach. She had hoped that coming there would give her answers, but both women seemed just as secretive as Jack.
The conversation turned to lighter things, but Louisa’s mind was elsewhere. She tried her best to answer their questions about her time at Larkhall, but she found it odd how Mrs. Warwick avoided speaking of her own son. Cassandra was silent most of the time, watching Louisa carefully. When it came time for Louisa to leave, Cassandra offered to walk with her.
As Louisa tied her bonnet ribbons under her chin, Cassandra stepped into the sunlight without anything covering her curls. She likely planned to gather a few wildflowers on the way to put in her hair. Louisa smiled at her sister-in-law, grateful for the company. “I’m sorry to have made your mother so uncomfortable by visiting today,” Louisa said. “I am just…a bit frustrated that Jack seems to be keeping secrets from me.” The words spilled out. Even though she was Jack’s sister, Louisa needed to confide in someone.
Cassandra was rarely seen without a smile, but in that moment her expression was somber. “There are events that Jack does not like speaking of. None of us do.” She sighed. “It is not my place to tell you. I wish I could.” She cast Louisa an apologetic look. “I do believe Jack will confide in you eventually. Give him time.”
Louisa nodded. Patience was not one of her virtues.
“There are other secrets of his that I am willing to share,” Cassandra said, eyebrows wiggling.
Louisa’s spirits lifted. “Now I am very intrigued.”
Cassandra laughed. “The day you first rejected his proposal, he was quite distraught.”
The butterflies found their way to Louisa’s stomach once again. Why did the idea of Jack being distraught over her in any way cause her stomach to flutter? “How so?”
“I think he has been smitten with you from the first moment he saw you. He pretended his intentions for marrying you were all noble, but I suspect it injured his heart, not only his pride, when you first refused.” Cassandra’s grin grew wider.
Louisa tightened her lips to keep from smiling. “He hardly knows me, and he especially did not know me when he first proposed.”
“He was intrigued by you.” Cassandra stopped to pluck a small yellow flower from the side of the hill. Rather than tucking it in her own hair, she pushed the stem between Louisa’s ear and her bonnet, embedding it in her hair. “Soon enough he’ll love you. You shouldn’t have any fear that he won’t.”
Louisa’s stomach flipped, her heart following suit. A hard laugh escaped her, and she tugged on the tips of her gloves. She searched her mind for something to say, but she came up blank.
“Do you think you could ever love him?” Cassandra prodded with a mischievous smile.
Louisa cast her a scolding glance, to which Cassandra only laughed. “You two are quite alike in your attempts to embarrass me.”
Cassandra did not seem to actually expect an answer, because she turned toward the hillside, laughing as she collected more flowers for her own hair.
A few minutes later, they reached the edge of Benham Abbey’s property, and Cassandra bid her farewell, still wearing her sneaky smile as she walked back toward the path.
Making her way toward the house, Louisa still felt a slight flush on her cheeks, and she couldn’t only blame the summer heat. Why did it flatter her so much to think that Jack’s feelings, no matter how slight at the time, could have influenced him to propose? She hadn’t ever given much meaning to his flirtations, but each moment now stood out in her mind. When he had teased her two days before about noticing his lips, she had nearly burst into flames with the embarrassment of it all. Because yes, she had in fact been noticing his lips far too much of late.
Louisa started toward the front doors, willing her cheeks to cool. She didn’t know whether or not Jack was home or not, but she certainly didn’t want him to see her while she was blushing. When she got close to the door, something caught her eye from below a tree around the back of the house. She squinted, walking closer.
Was it…?
Jack?
She moved slowly, examining the odd scene in front of her. A discarded pad of paper sat on the ground, face down on the grass. Jack was also laying prostrate on the grass, his head nestled into his elbow. Her heart picked up speed as she approached, her feet moving faster. Was he all right?
As she came within the shade of the tree he was under, a loud sound startled her, making her jump back a step. She paused, listening as the sound repeated itself, joining the chorus of birds in the tree above.
He was snoring.
She covered her mouth with one hand, careful not to laugh and wake him. From the discarded pencil and paper, it seemed he had been attempting to draw before opting to nap instead. Crossing her ankles, she carefully lowered herself to the ground, scooting closer to him on the grass. The last time she had been this close to him while he was unaware had been when she had cleaned the blood from his face.
She would have to be very quiet so as to not wake him this time. With the loud birds singing up in the trees, any sounds she accidentally made would likely be drowned out. She assessed his profile, smiling to herself at the way his cheek was squished against his arm. The bruising on his nose had almost faded completely, leaving just a few traces, and of course, the slight crookedness that would likely never change.
Her smile grew as she noticed the thick lashes that shadowed his cheekbone, and the freckles that the sun had brought out on his nose and cheek. Without a devilish smile on his face, he appeared tranquil and innocent. If she were an artist, she would have picked up the nearby paper and created a likeness of him in that moment so she could remember it forever.
Her heart thudded as he stirred. She held her breath, watching him with wide eyes until he went still again. The snoring continued, transforming into a whistling sound. She bit her lip to keep from laughing. She didn’t care if he would be embarrassed that she was watching him. If he took pleasure in embarrassing her, why should she not take pleasure in embarrassing him?
Plucking the flower out of her hair, she raised it carefully above his head, sliding it amongst the thickest part of the hair at the front of his forehead. Thankfully, he slept through it. She grinned as she looked down at him, imagining how appalled he would be to find the flower in his hair when he finally awoke.
An even better idea struck her, and she reached for the pencil and art book. A blank sheet of foolscap was already folded over the back. Louisa turned it over, poising the pencil over the paper while looking at Jack with one eye closed. Working as quickly as she could, she drew him sleeping with the flower in his hair. The work appeared to have been done by a child. As soon as she filled in the final lines, she signed her name at the bottom. She pressed her lips together, nearly losing control of her laughter as she set the book beside him on the grass.
Just as she was about to walk away, she caught sight of the corner of the page behind her own drawing. Curiosity tugged at her, so insistent that she couldn’t help but return to the book. Stooping down, she checked Jack’s face to ensure she wasn’t caught as she slid her drawing aside enough to see the one below it.
Her heart leaped as the picture came into view.
The woman in the drawing was unmistakably her.
Louisa’s brow furrowed as her chest flooded with warmth. Had Jack drawn it that very day? She had been thinking he was avoiding her, that perhaps he didn’t care for her like she had dared to hope that he did, but if he had drawn this…he must have cared at least a little. Her stomach fluttered with those blasted butterflies again, but this time she didn’t banish them. In the drawing, she was smiling. He had somehow depicted her with impressive accuracy without even being near her during the process. She scowled at him, even as he slept with the ridiculous flower in his hair. Why hadn’t he told her he was such a skilled artist? Did he even realize that it was a talent of his?
She could hardly believe that she had ever thought him prideful. If anything, he was not proud enough. He saw only his faults, and he disguised his disappointment with himself by pretending to be arrogant and confident.
A flood of understanding washed over her, and she found herself staring at his face again as he slept. She needed to leave before he saw her.
Carefully positioning her own drawing at the top of the art book, she slid it even closer to his face before walking away. A laugh bubbled out of her chest as she made it safely around the side of the house and out of sight. Her heart swelled with emotion as she walked through the halls of the house. The things she felt were new and thrilling, and she could hardly make sense of them. When she finally found the morning room, she slipped inside, kneeling in front of the window that overlooked Jack and her drawing.
And then she stared at him a little longer.
“What the devil…” Jack rolled over on the grass, rubbing his blurry eyes. The creature that stared up at him from the art book could not have been his own work. He studied the drawing, blinking the sleep from his eyes. It looked like a man with a flower in his hair, sprawled on his stomach under a tree. As he studied the hasty lines, he could only conclude that it was the work of a child.
His brow furrowed, and he tipped the paper to one side. The man in the picture did look oddly similar to him. His stomach flipped. The prospect of a strange, unknown child watching him sleep for long enough to draw this picture was unnerving to say the least. His eyes darted from side to side. Were they still watching him?
He staggered to his feet, wiping the grass from his trousers.
How long had he been asleep? Judging by the position of the sun, he would guess at least a few hours had passed since he had set his drawing down to take a short nap. Jack flipped the drawing over, relieved to see that his own work was still there. His drawing of Louisa wasn’t as polished as he would have liked it, and there were certainly parts of her face that weren’t quite accurate since she hadn’t been there in front of him while he worked. But next to the strange drawing that had been beside him when he awoke, he would call his own work a masterpiece.
He flipped back to the page with the childlike drawing. As he walked back to the house, he caught sight of the initials that had been signed at the bottom in minuscule letters.
L.W.
He stopped walking, shaking his head as a smile climbed his face.
He chuckled under his breath. Despite the horror of the drawing, a sense of achievement flooded his chest. He could picture Louisa sneaking around him while he was asleep, stopping to draw that ridiculous picture. If it had been anyone else, he might have been mortified—or perhaps a bit disturbed—but instead he felt flattered. His smile grew impossibly wider as he marched inside the house, searching around every hall for Louisa. Where had she gone?
“Louisa!” he called, a laugh hovering in his voice.
He checked all the rooms on the ground floor, moving up to the first. “You aren’t in my wardrobe, are you?”
“I’m down here,” the quiet voice carried up the stairs, floating up to him with a hint of amusement.
He turned around. Louisa stood at the base of the staircase, a broad smile across her cheeks. Her nose scrunched as she tried to conceal her laughter. “Is something the matter?” She took one step up the stairs, then two.
Jack met her in the middle, stopping two stairs above her. He leaned against the banister, holding out the drawing she had done of him. “Does this look familiar?”
She tapped her chin, the corners of her eyes creasing as she pretended to study every corner of the paper. “Hmm. It does look like something I witnessed today. There was a man sleeping beneath a tree. He wore a flower in his hair and snored like a hog.”
Jack’s jaw dropped as Louisa’s laughter intensified.
No.
Her eyes were focused on something at the top of his head.
He locked her gaze in his, shaking his head. With one slow movement, he reached up to the front of his hair. He closed his eyes as his fingers wrapped around a flower. He exhaled slowly, a laugh bursting out of his mouth. “You—” his voice cut off as he lunged down the final two stairs toward her, dropping his art book at his feet.
She let out a sound that was half shriek, half laughter, turning to run away. But he was too quick, lunging down an extra stair and stopping on the one just below her instead, blocking her path. When she tried to turn and run up the staircase, he caught her by the waist, whirling her back around to face him.
Jack reined in his laughter for long enough to catch his breath. Louisa pushed her palms flat against his chest, trying to wriggle free as she laughed. When her eyes met his, she stopped, her laughter fading. From where he stood on the stair below her, his eyes were level with hers. His grip around her waist was firm, but she no longer fought against it. A surge of longing tore through his chest, and nearly kissed her, right then and there.
“I wonder…was it you or Cassandra who put that flower in my hair?” His voice came out weaker than he intended.
Louisa’s face was flushed as she looked down at her hands, still pressing against his chest. “That is a secret.” A smile still lingered in her eyes. “One you shall never know,” Louisa finished in a breathless voice. In one swift motion, she twisted, ducking around his arms and darting up the stairs.
Jack caught his breath, laughing as she stumbled over her skirts. She caught herself with the banister, turning to face him at the top of the staircase. “You forgot to offer your compliments to the artist.”
He chuckled. “I will not compliment an artist who says I snore like a hog.” He paused. “That isn’t true, is it?” He had never been told that he snored, so he suspected Louisa had invented the insult.
“Unfortunately, yes, it is true. I first noticed when you fainted after I jumped out of your wardrobe.”
What a relentless woman. He would have chased her up the stairs again, but his head was still reeling from the first time he had caught her in his arms. “Do you think it could be the change in the structure of my nose that caused it?” He laughed at the notion before realizing that it was very possible.
Louisa tipped her head back with a laugh. “That would be my first suspicion.”
He held onto the banister with one hand as he picked up the art book. Now that he knew Louisa had drawn it, the picture was becoming even more humorous. “You are a dreadful artist.”
“You are a very skilled one,” she said in an accusatory voice. “I did not know you had such a gift.”
His brow furrowed as he glanced down at his art book. Had she looked at his other drawing? His drawing of her? He had meant for it to be a surprise. When he lifted his gaze back to the top of the stairs, she threw him a shy smile before slipping around the corner and out of sight.
