The Fearless Miss Dinah by Laura Rollins

Chapter Eleven

Henry tossed his jacket onto his bed and then tugged at the cravat about his neck. Gads, what a day it had been.

Dinah had retired sooner than he’d expected, but then again, she too had had a very long day, no doubt. Concern for her warred against the frustration and bitter disappointment he felt knowing she’d cost him his chance to finally see the face of the man who’d killed his friend. He tossed the cravat onto the bed along with his jacket and pulled at the button holding his shirt closed about his neck. Whatever his aunt had said to Dinah had clearly upset her. He’d been worried those two wouldn’t get along. They were both too headstrong for their own good. Still, he had been hoping they’d be able to make it through twenty-four hours before the sparks began to fly.

A knock sounded at his door, only, the noise hadn’t come from the door which led out to the corridor. It had come from the door which opened up to the sitting room he and Dinah now shared. Henry couldn’t remember the last time he’d used the door. He’d never had cause to before tonight.

Walking over, he heard whoever was knocking do so again. That impatience would never come from a maid or manservant. That only left Dinah, as none of his other family members would have cause to be in the sitting room.

Henry paused, placing a hand on either side of the door frame, and leaned heavily against the wood, his nose inches from the closed door. Did he really have the strength to face her again tonight? He’d spent the better part of this evening trying to decide if he should pull her aside, tell her all, and scold Dinah for everything she’d cost him. It was either that or high tail it away from Angleside Court and take himself off to another one of his holdings so his heart could come to its senses and stop jumping about erratically every time he saw Dinah’s face or heard her voice. He’d been most serious when he’d told Dinah he would never fall in love with her. He was old enough to know such was simply not who he was.

It wasn’t as though he hadn’t tried to find a wife in the past. There had been a time in his life when he’d seriously considered offering for Emily. But she’d made her opinion known. He was not the type of man she could ever connect herself with.

After David and Emily had married and while they were away on their honeymoon, Henry had tried again. That London Season had been as short as it had been miserable. The few women he had felt any sort of attraction toward began interested enough. But those courtships had all ended the same way: with Henry being dismissed as too intense and too prone to brooding. He was simply too much. It did not help matters that after each brief relationship ended, Henry had found himself neither missing the woman in question nor wishing their time together had been extended. Attraction, he concluded, he had felt. But clearly never anything more.

His experiences with romantic love may have been brief, but they had left him with a clear understanding that no woman would ever care for such a man as he.

Henry had sealed off his heart for good.

He was, simply put, not a man built for love.

“Henry?” Dinah called from the other side of the door. “Are you in there? We need to talk.”

Did they truly? Henry’s heart constricted at her voice, yet his head continued to wage battle. It was late, and they’d already spoken much today.

The doorknob rattled, and before he could do more than blink, Dinah had swung the door open and moved to walk into his room. Seeing him, she stumbled back a half step and let out a small cry of surprise.

Well, there was no escaping a conversation now.

“You wanted to talk?” Henry asked, not caring that his tone was hard. He pushed past her—her surprised expression causing his insides to feel quite jumbled—and moved into the sitting room.

There was a moment of silence during which Henry debated which of the many seats in the room he ought to take. There was a small fire in the hearth and a few of the candles on the side tables had been lit. The room was not terribly dark, but not overly well lit either.

“How long were you standing there?” Dinah asked from behind him. There was an accusation in her tone.

The courting bench seemed the best option as it was the nearest, and right now, he was too full of differing emotions to care about a seat.

He sat down facing the hearth, spreading his feet out far in front of him and folding his arms across his chest. “Long enough to know you weren’t going to leave me in peace for the night.”

Dinah blew out a huff and walked his way. Circling fully around him, she came to sit, not in one of the wingbacks facing him, as he’d anticipated, but atop the courting bench’s other seat. This placed her shoulder to shoulder with him but facing the opposite side of the room.

Her proximity was unnerving. Henry pulled his feet in closer and leaned forward, resting his elbows against his knees. His insides were a mess, torn between the unexpected and unwanted attraction he felt for his wife and the frustration and disappointment she had caused; he needed distance between them.

“You wanted to talk?” he grumbled again.

“You’re mad at me,” was all she said.

Henry never had been very capable of hiding his emotions; it was something he used to fight for, to keep his emotions locked up, but several years ago, he’d given up. Passion about every aspect of his life was just a hallmark of who he was. His family had come to see that, even accept it. Dinah would just have to do the same.

Henry glanced over his shoulder toward her. Her hair was beginning to come free of its pins, and it curled down her back in a most unruly manner. “Is there a question in there?”

“I think you owe me an explanation, at the very least.”

Did he, now? Her presumption continued. And yet, like earlier that day, he found himself giving in to her insistence at inserting herself into his life.

“Mr. Harding brought some bad news this afternoon.”

“And . . . that’s why you’re angry?”

Henry pursed his lips. Of course she didn’t understand. She wouldn’t, not knowing the whole story. If he told her, might she not feel the weight of all she had cost him? He suddenly very much wanted her to know, to fully understand, all she stood guilty of.

Henry rubbed his hands together, acutely aware of the calluses he had developed these past months during his work posing as a smuggler. “I assume Mr. Harding never explained to you why I was pretending to be one of the smugglers when Adele was taken.”

“No,” she said, her gaze still forward, toward the darker side of the room.

Even if Mr. Harding had told Dinah, the man didn’t understand the full depth of what finding Spade would mean for Henry.

“The man who directs most smuggling in this area once killed a friend of mine.” It was almost word for word what he’d told Mr. Harding so long ago.

Dinah shifted about in her seat, twisting around until she could face him fully. “How awful.”

That was one way to put it.

“What was his name?”

“Steven. Steven Jacobsen.”

“How long had you two been friends?” she asked.

Not long enough. Henry sat back up in his seat, his shoulder brushing against hers as he did so. The concern in her eyes was apparent. It chipped away at his desire for her to feel guilty.

So he turned back toward the hearth and spoke without looking at her. “He was the son of a farmer—a man who worked some of the land at Kingcup Estate. We grew up playing together. Later, we fished and hunted. When my dog had pups, I gave him the strongest of the litter. When his mother baked blueberry scones, he’d snitch some and we’d eat them together, secretly, behind the stables.”

He hadn’t talked about his childhood memories with anyone before. David had known Steven, but there were enough years between them that Henry’s friend and his brother hadn’t ever been particularly close. Somehow speaking of those times further eased his anger and frustration, two emotions he was finding himself struggling to hold onto. He wanted to feel them, wanted them as yet another brick in the wall between him and the woman at his side.

Dinah placed a hand on his arm, just above the elbow, silent permission to continue.

Henry angled his face in her direction. She watched him, her face half-lit by the fire in the hearth. Despite the many shadows in the room, he could still see the worried purse to her lips, the concern in her blue eyes. Her eyes showed a lot of emotion; he’d seen quite the range today alone. He’d been told his did the same. Was this what it was like when others looked into his eyes? A heady awareness of another’s soul? A desire to lean in and learn more?

“Steven had been married less than a year.” He found himself continuing; his malice toward Dinah was all but completely gone now, but he pressed on anyway. It felt right to tell her, no matter his reason. “Upon hearing of his death, his wife succumbed to a deep melancholy. She was with child at the time, but grew deathly ill, almost overnight.” He’d been there for most of that time, pacing the halls, waiting for the doctor to either declare her turning for the better or dead herself. “The baby was not well when he finally arrived. I held him in my arms for a bit before . . .” Those days had been some of the worst of his life. “He was so small. The doctor said there was nothing that could be done for either him or his mother. I buried them both beside Steven not three months after he was shot.”

“Oh, Henry, I’m so sorry.”

He placed a hand over hers. He hadn’t ever spoken of that time, of seeing after Steven’s wife and child; he hadn’t expected saying the words aloud to make much difference. But they did. He felt surprisingly lighter, strangely more at peace.

“After all you meant to one another,” Dinah said softly, “how could you not feel obligated to seek out your friend’s killer?”

She did understand.

Irritation pricked in his stomach. Blast it all, but he’d been so bent on staying resentful toward her.

Henry placed his elbow against the low back of the courting bench and leaned away from her, resting his head in his upturned palm. “I’d finally worked my way through the smuggling operation to the point where I was on my way to meet him,” he said with his eyes closed. “The man calls himself Spade, among other things. It seems he changes his name as often as he changes his shirt.” It was only one of the man’s habits that made him extremely difficult to find. “Then, a little girl stumbled upon us at night, and one of the men decided it was too much of a risk to let her leave.”

“And then I couldn’t get her out without you showing your true allegiances.”

“Mr. Harding says he doesn’t think there’s a second chance for me. It’s too well-known among the smuggling communities that I was there the night everyone was caught. If I show up again, men will only grow suspicious.”

“So I destroyed your chance—”

“At getting justice for my closest friend, his wife, and his son.”

Dinah leaned back a bit. “I think I’m a bit angry at myself, now.”

Henry chuckled despite the heaviness in the room.

“Before she passed . . .” Henry paused. Who would have guessed his new wife would be so easy to talk to? He’d never known another soul he with whom he’d shared so easily. “Before she passed, Steven’s wife named her little boy after me. She said she and Steven had discussed it before he’d died and that’s what they’d decided upon.”

“How sweet.”

“And surprising,” Henry said bluntly. “Steven’s wife never did like me much.”

“How could she not like you?” Dinah sounded genuinely affronted.

The corner of his lips turned upward. “How are you so certain you won’t feel the same after you come to know me better?” Indeed, women of his acquaintance had let him know, in no uncertain words, of their dislike for him. And that included Emily.

It even included the late Lady Stanton.

But that was more than he wished to discuss tonight, no matter how much he found he enjoyed speaking with Dinah.

Henry pushed to a stand. “I apologize if my frustration caused an already horrid day to be that much worse for you.”

Strange that he’d said that—he couldn’t remember ever apologizing for being frustrated before.

She looked up at him from her spot on the bench, her face more in shadow at this angle than it had been before. “It wasn’t horrid.” Several curls had escaped her coiffure, draping down her neck and resting atop her shoulder.

“It wasn’t pleasant, that I know for certain.” Surely she wouldn’t pretend that it was.

Dinah’s head rocked back and forth as she thought. “It was a bit hard at times.”

Henry leaned in, placing his hands atop the bench’s back and bending down until his face was level with hers. Though he wasn’t certain, he could have sworn she sucked in a breath at his sudden nearness. The thought made a shot of heat shoot down his spine.

“Don’t start mincing your words with me,” he said, his voice low.

Her gaze held his, and he could see the spark of a challenge in her eyes, the same look he’d seen there more than once during their short acquaintance. It was the light of someone unwilling to back down, of someone readying themselves for a much-wanted fight. He had only known her for a short time, and yet Henry was convinced he’d never known a woman quite like Dinah.

She drew in closer, and the heat which had shot down his spine further filled him, reaching throughout his chest and making his head spin. She smelled of rose water—sweet and a bit heady.

“Today was utterly exhausting,” she whispered, her tone daring him to disagree.

Or perhaps she was daring him to agree?

Or just daring him to close the distance between them. There wasn’t much left, and suddenly he was filled with the desire to know what her lips would feel like against his. His gaze dropped; firelight danced across her lips, and they looked far too enticing—

Henry pushed off the bench, standing abruptly and turning away from her fully.

What was he thinking? She wouldn’t welcome a kiss. What had ever put such a notion in his mind? They may be married, but hadn’t he just said that morning that nothing would ever happen between them?

He turned back around to find her watching him closely, that same glint of challenge still in her eyes.

“If you are so exhausted, then I am sure you wish to retire.” He wasn’t sure how he’d managed so many words—his insides were tumbling about as though he’d just fallen down a steep hill.

It wasn’t as though he’d never felt attraction for a woman before. He knew where this would lead. It would fizzle out about the same time she realized what kind of a man he truly was. Then would come the coldness, the scorn, the avoidance.

Nonetheless, he’d never felt attraction half so strong as this.

Henry shook his head. All the more reason to not hope for more. A greater attraction would only mean greater hurt when she finally turned away from him. Finally left him.

“I suppose that would be for the best,” she said at length.

“Then I bid you goodnight.” Henry gave Dinah a bow and made his way back into his own room, shutting the door firmly behind himself.

He’d thought he’d moved past this. Thought his heart and head had finally come to an agreement. No woman wanted him, not after they came to truly know him.

Dinah, it seemed, was forcing her way in anyway.

But he wasn’t going to let her in. Not this time. Not in this way.

Let her force her way into his family, even his home if she must. Let her force her way into his work with Mr. Harding and finding Spade.

But his heart was firmly off-limits.