Page 86 of Bane Bloom

“Miss Gray—Cricket . . .”

I looked at Hamish. As I took in his somber expression, my heart began to thump.

“You and I are barely acquainted,” he continued, “so perhaps what I’m about to say will seem strange. As you know, my wife died a few years ago. Though we hadn’t originally married for love, it did come in time, and I was cut so deeply by her death that I thought not to marry again. But over the last year or so—”

“Ham, I—” I broke off as his eyes came to my face.

“I beg you, let me get this out, and then I’ll hear whatever you wish to say.”

Feeling helpless, I nodded.

“These years of solitude have taught me that I wasn’t built for it. Two days ago, when I met you outside the church, it was like the sun had peeked out from the clouds. It was the first time since Dorothea that I could imagine building a life with someone. What I wish to ask you, Cricket, is whether you would be amenable to a courtship?”

Thank goodness Thomas had prepared me for this, else I might not have been able to stop my jaw from falling open. Had I been asked before now whether I thought I was “love at first sight” material, I would have laughed. In hindsight, I think it had been difficult to imagine that I might inspire that feeling in anyone when I’d failed to inspire it in my own mother.

His courtship request had been courteous and gentlemanly. He’d asked nothing of my family or my standing. But I couldn’t help feeling that . . . well, that Hamish Graham had been raised to know his worth. He seemed to have assumed that because I was an unmarried woman of a certain age, a possible match with him would take priority over anything that might keep me in London. That any obstacles to the marriage could be gotten around because my chances of receiving a better offer were minuscule.

In fairness, he was almost right. Almost any obstacle.

“Hamish . . .” I found myself at a loss as to how to refuse him. Worse, I couldn’t help wondering whether it was daft to refuse him. He had only proposed a courtship, after all. He was respected, had a comfortable home, might even be willing to take in my father . . . And I was holding out for what? The chance that the otherworldly creature working as the groundskeeper at Pine Cottage might return my feelings? Was it not pure fantasy? This was real.

“I can see your uncertainty,” Ham said, “and I don’t blame you. I’ve very much sprung this on you, and perhaps you might like to consider awhile before you answer. I understand you’ll be here some weeks? You could talk with Annie. The two of you seem close, and she and Bill know me well enough to give you an idea of my character and habits.”

I found myself nodding, slowly and wordlessly—and feeling wretched for it. Because there was one thing of which I was certain: I could not marry Hamish, move into his house, and then spend the rest of my life trying to catch a glimpse of another man out my husband’s windows. But I could not tell him this.

We arrived at the stable, and Ham hopped down and came around to help me, insisting that he would walk me to the door. Thomas was right that Ham was a good man, and by the time we got there, guilt had overcome me.

“Ham, I want you to know that I am well aware of the honor you do me with your offer. I’ve observed you to be a gentleman at every turn, and I have no wish to string you along. I came to Buttermere with no intention of finding a husband. I am doing botany and illustration work for the London Society of Apothecaries in hopes of an opportunity for a career with them, as I will soon be my family’s sole means of support.”

He brightened at this. “You should know that part of what has drawn me to you is your interest in art and science. It’s rare you meet a woman who has been allowed to pursue interests beyond the drawing room. I would be the last to ask you to give them up, though I would hope they might be pursued from here. And if it is a question of supporting your family, know that were we to marry, I would consider them my responsibility. Please”—he reached for my hand and held it gently between his—“don’t refuse me without giving it further thought.”

What was I to say? In truth, his appeal had touched my heart more than anything about his appearance or status ever could. Still, I did wonder about the reality of it. He would expect children, and children had a way of becoming one’s whole world. I thought again of my mother. What had she been forced to give up? Once I was home again, I would ask Papa to tell me about her. I knew he believed he was protecting me by acting as though she’d never existed, and I was sure he found it painful to talk about her. But I was finished with being “stuck.”

A horse neighed in the distance, I thought perhaps on Fleetwith Pike, above us, and I gazed up the moonlit slope. I didn’t know whether it might be Phantom or only one of the fell ponies, yet it brought some clarity to my tangled thoughts.

Had I met Ham under different circumstances, I would very likely have agreed to the courtship. But the circumstances were the circumstances, and my mind was unaltered.

Yet it felt disrespectful of his earnest offer to refuse it outright. He deserved to at least believe I’d given it due consideration. So I said, “All right,” and he squeezed my hand before releasing it and bidding me good night. Then I watched him walk back to his gig.

As it moved away toward the farmhouse, I hesitated in front of the cottage door, suddenly fearful of being inside without Thomas. Not of the spirits, but of the silence. The ache of his absence.

I retraced my steps out of the rose garden, then walked around the house to Thomas’s hut. I didn’t bother knocking, as he wouldn’t be home yet, but let myself in and set about starting a fire.

Having Thomas’s things around me was the next best thing to having Thomas. I lit a few candles and settled onto the bed with my back against the headboard, taking down a book from the windowsill—The Lady of the Lake, by Sir Walter Scott. The book he’d quoted from to help me sleep.

The story was all in verse, and the rhythm was soothing. So soothing that a few stanzas in, I read these last lines . . .

Here eglantine embalmed the air,

Hawthorn and hazel mingled there;

The primrose pale and violet flower

Found in each cliff a narrow bower;

Foxglove and nightshade, side by side,

Emblems of punishment and pride,