A smile spread across her face and through her heart. “Aren’t I just evil? What did they do to disobedient boys at the Cranford School?”
He sobered, but answered. “I was a day student, so cleaning duties—privy or otherwise—didn’t apply. I did feel the bite of a hickory switch more than once. It didn’t do any damage and my behavior was the better for it.”
A hickory switch was miles from Bartram’s weapon, but Patience loathed physical punishment, certain it did more harm than good. He must have seen something in her face, because he went on. “A switch, not a staff. At Cranford, punishment was proportional to the offense and meted out fairly. Not all headmasters are as sadistic as the one you encountered at Spraggins. A boy walked away uninjured, with his dignity intact.”
“You think I should be harder on the boys?”
“Your job is to civilize the little savages. I think you should use what works best to accomplish that and to teach them to make good decisions. From what I’ve seen of them, you do that.”
The approval she read in his face warmed Patience down to her toes, but she could think of nothing else to say. They sat for a while, Patience sipping tea, Zach stroking the blissful puppy.
Every fiber of her being vibrated with awareness of him close, compelling, completely male, and she couldn’t think what to do next. It had been much too long since she enjoyed a man’s company. Even then, Charles Remington’s attentions tended to wander during their brief courtship, even as he urged her to marry him. When Zach looked at her, she felt like the center of his universe.
Foolish as that was, she allowed his warm regard to inundate her as thoroughly as the sea washed over the marshes.Just for a moment. Just for now. Just for tonight.
* * *
If I don’t move, perhaps this dream will become real.Zach knew the thought for the absurdity it was, but he wished…So much. To own such a hearth, such an evening every night, such a woman to share it with.
Domestic dreams had come on him occasionally before, usually after visiting his sister when the loneliness closed in. On nights like this he knew his other goals—his determination to own a business of his own, his desire to manage a bookstore, his need for success—paled. The dream of family lay under all the rest.
Three days with a troop of rowdies and their exquisite teacher brought needs to the surface—chief among them a place of his own and a good woman to share it with. Impossible dreams tied his thoughts in knots; dreams, dark and as fiery as warm rum, heated his hopes. Zachary Newell was tired of being alone and that was the truth.
Held by light from the hearth and the company that shared it, he didn’t wish for a place of his own, he ached for it. He ached for the woman who sat with him in perfect harmony. Desire had bedeviled him all day, until it boiled in his entire body as they sat. He knew better than to act on it. If he acted on the fantasies dancing in his head, he would destroy the very thing he craved. Shared purpose, shared concerns, shared peace drew them together, creating this cocoon of serenity. He intended to savor it.
He forced his unruly thoughts to other things—the roof, the animals, the journey back to Fenwick on Sea—only to run into a ditch when he recalled the trouble that beckoned them. If folks knew Patience spent the night with a man—any man—her reputation would be in shreds and her school in jeopardy. When they realized her companion was a common coachman, it would be worse.
If he were a gentleman, he would embrace the obvious solution. He wasn’t. Zach had never envied his so-called betters, but he wasn’t a fool. Class mattered. The army taught him that as it taught little else. A coachman did not offer for the niece of an earl. It wasn’t done. Marriage to him would make Patience’s situation worse not better. Despair nibbled at the edge of his pleasure in the moment. He brushed it aside; it would keep for another day.
He might have sat there all night neither retreating nor acting, but spreading damp on his knee startled him to attention. He took the puppy by the scruff of the neck to finish his business outside while Patience covered her apologies with a hand over her laughing mouth.
He dawdled outside, fetching George who meekly went to her place in the barn, before he scooped up Hercules and carried him in.
“There’s a reason dogs don’t belong in the house,” he said without preamble. She turned from cleaning up their dishes with a spoon in one hand to smile, a sight so adorable it reminded him of his decision. “Herc and I will bunk down in the barn.”
Consternation wiped the smile away followed by a rush of expressions so varied and so clear to see that he almost laughed.Foolish woman ought to be relieved instead of confused.
For one exultant moment, he realized she wanted him—not just his presence in the house, but him. He recognized it in her parted lips, in her darkened eyes, in the yearning in her expression. He recalled the confusion, and his good sense reasserted itself. “I’ve had worse quarters,” he said.
“There’s no need! There’s an empty room in the attic. It may be dry. If it is, I can have it ready in a moment.”
* * *
The silken rope of awareness that tied Patience to Zach Newell drew her to him now, until she stood so close that she could feel the heat from his body, smell the scent of male and hardy soap on him. She opened her mouth to beg him to stay, and closed it abruptly.
“Hercules can stay in the kitchen,” she said instead, peering down at the little creature he held like a shield between them with one arm. She glanced up and saw it then, in the pupils of his eyes, wide and dark, and the tightness around his mouth. This man desired her.
Patience understood the look of desire. She had seen it in Charles when he eyed her, and more often when he leered at other women. She’d been right to push that wretch away until he tired of her, deciding her uncle’s influence wasn’t worth it. This was different, oh so very different, because she also saw respect, honor, restraint.
She reached a trembling hand to his cheek. “No one will know where you sleep, Zach. Retreating to the barn won’t help my reputation. You may as well—” She wasn’t sure what she meant to say he may as well do. She may have seen desire in others, but she had never before known the force of it in herself, the longing for passion that throbbed through her. It rattled her. Before she could finish, he turned his head to kiss her fingers, and smiled back at her.
“I would know,” he whispered. He reached over with one hand to tuck an errant curl behind her ear. “Tomorrow will come, and we’ll face what needs facing. I won’t add to it.”
He turned and left her there, more alone than she had ever been in her beloved home.
CHAPTER11
George and Algernon made poor company. Zach reminded himself several times in the long night aboutworse quarters. The straw bedding was soft enough, and the vermin few. The blanket Patience ran out to give him provided a kind of warmth; her departure left him chilled at his core. He slept little.
