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“It had beentoosweet.”
“You should have one again. I promise you will love it again.”
Jenny beamed. “Not everyone is gifted with the love of sugar, Nicholas.”
He opened his mouth to speak but then his eyes moved past her to something over her shoulder. His face lit up like a child’s. Following his gaze, Jenny saw a sweets stall with children tugging at their mothers’ skirts, begging them to purchase some for them.
His sweet tooth was one of the few things about him that had remained unchanged. A glimpse of her old Nicholas further sent warmth to her heart. Perhaps she had judged his change too hastily and too harshly.
“Come.” He took her arm and covered the distance between them and the stall. He selected at least three different kinds while she settled for some sugarplums.
As they waited for the vendor to package their purchases, his gaze fell on the next stall that displayed ribbons. He turned to her with that familiar impish glint in his eyes.
“Do you care for some ribbons?” He asked, knowing very well that ribbons had never held her fancy.
In fact, Jenny had never fancied any of the frilly little things that girls seemed to like. She thought them meaningless and ridiculous. She threw him a glare and he burst out laughing.
“I don’t understand why you chose only sugarplums,” he said, reaching into the sweets box and plucking a piece of chocolate. “This is a little piece of heaven that you ought to try.”
She took the chocolate from him and plopped it into her mouth. Her movements drew his eyes to her lips and she suddenly felt self-conscious. She turned away from him.
“Don’t hide from me, Jenny,” he murmured softly, turning her around to face him. “How is the chocolate?”
“Lovely. Not as sweet as that treacle tart.”
The cook had accidentally put too much sugar in the tart that had ended her love for tarts. After eating it, she had suffered a bellyache while Nicholas—the rambunctious boy that he was—had moved about with an excess of zeal and energy.
“It looks like Iwas the only one that enjoyed that thing.” He gave her another chocolate as they continued walking. He grinned. “Do you remember the look on Cook’s face every time we got caught?”
On the evenings they had been feeling particularly daring, they would lay siege upon the Hanover kitchens to replenish their sugar supplies and would get caught on purpose just so they could have a laugh about how the cook had chased them out—pink-faced—with a rolling pin.
"Cook's temper flaring was almost as satisfying as the sweets,” Jenny reminisced and Nicholas looked in his box of sweets.
“We did have a golden childhood, did we not?” He murmured, selecting an orange-colored sweet and eating it.
"Your Grace!" a voice lifted from behind them, interrupting Jenny before she could throw in her response. A group of three women approached them, laughing and waving at Nicholas.
“Your Grace,” one of the women said, dropping into a low curtsy. “We did not know you would be at the park today.” Jenny gathered, from the way he returned their greeting, that he was familiar with them.
"I suppose we would see less of you now that you are about to enter the parson’s trap,” a dark-haired woman that Jenny recognized as the widowed lady Heatherford, said, throwing a meaningful look in Jenny's direction. Nicholas introduced her as his fiancée then.
"Come now, Patricia,” another said. “Wewillsee him before then. Just like the good old days. Won't we, Your Grace?" She looked expectantly at Nicholas who gave them a dashing yet bashful smile.
Their familiarity and the suggestive tone of their conversation disquieted Jenny and she could not help reflecting that indulging the fairer sex had always been a part of who Nicholas had become. The man she knew nigh on nothing about.
As the smile on her face gradually faded, Nicholas noticed and he leaned in to whisper, "Are you well?"
"I wish to go home,” she deadpanned, remembering the exact terms of their marriage.
What had she been thinking? That a walk in the park, a few laughs, and shared memories were going to change things?
She must be the veriest fool to believe that.
