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A smile tempted her. A prick stung her heart.
And almost immediately, mortification overwhelmed her.
“Oh no,” she muttered, stepping away from the window. Shaking out her hands. “No, Hulda, we arenotdoing this again.”
It was just a little spark, nothing important. But sparks led to embers led to flames, so it had to be snuffednow, before her heart again crumbled to ash.
Not only was it inappropriate to indulge in any sort of pining over a client, but Hulda... Hulda wasn’t made for pining. Not mutual pining, at least. Never in all her thirty-four years had any man, of any station or background, looked at her with any amount of sweetness. And when she got moon eyed over one or the other, it always ended in embarrassment, or heartbreak, or both. She had gotten rather numb to it after all this time, but a silly part of her still squeezed through now and then, and she loathed it more than anything else, including socks by the kitchen sink. A perk of being a consultant for BIKER rather than contracted staff—she usually didn’t stay around long enough to form any significant attachment.
Perhaps because Silas Hogwood was on her mind today, her thoughts drifted back to Stanley Lidgett, who had been his steward at Gorse End. Hulda had been only twenty-one at the time, still hopeful and perhaps a little desperate. Although twenty years her senior, Mr.Lidgett had carried himself well, bore a strong jaw, and worked with a logical effectiveness she’d admired. She recalled stupidly curling her hair every morning, cinching her corset a little tighter, always seeking himout to ask after his day or bring him his favorite tarts from the kitchen. Her affections were probably obvious to the man, and he’d addressed her with withering contempt after Mr.Hogwood’s arrest. Perhaps he’d known about the magical siphoning, perhaps not—regardless, he was fiercely loyal to his employer and very blatantly disgusted with Hulda.
He’d called her ugly, and a rat. She’d heard the first before. Never the second.
She’d sobbed the entire way back to the States.
Shortly after returning to her home country, she’d overheard another interest of hers mocking her mannerisms at a local restaurant. It was then she’d accepted her old-maid status. Once she resigned herself to it, she was able to focus on more important things, like her work. She’d stopped divining for herself. She’d stopped pinching her cheeks. Stopped adding lace to her dresses.
And she’d done very well for herself. Very well, indeed. She would greatly prefer to continue that trend.
Sitting on the edge of her mattress, Hulda set her spectacles on the side table and dropped her head into her hands. “It is good that you have a kind client,” she told herself, enunciating every word. “How very fortunate for you. And it will be equally good to sort out this business with the wizard so you can move on. Do your job, Hulda. No one wants anything else from you.”
Resolute with that plan, Hulda stripped off the day’s dress, washed her face, and blew out her candle.Sleep on it,she admonished.
Something crunched when she laid her head on her pillow. Confused, she reached up to find a small, gauzy parcel she hadn’t noticed before. Sitting up, she relit her candle and nearly cried.
There was a gauzy bag of lemon drops on her pillow, tied off with a yellow ribbon.
And only Mr.Fernsby could have left it.
Chapter 17
September 18, 1846, Blaugdone Island, Rhode Island
A few days after hiring Baptiste, Merritt groggily woke to the sun in his eyes—he’d forgotten to close the drapes last night. The remnants of a strange dream clung to the inside of his skull. Something about a giant tree and talking goats and the Mississippi River being a deity, but the more he tried to piece it together, the more disjointed it became, until he felt like he was trying to drink clouds and couldn’t remember any details at all.
Rubbing his eye, he propped himself up on one elbow and glared at the window.
Then promptly froze, breath caught halfway up his throat.
That was nothiswindow. The drapes were wrong, and so was the carpeting. And that dresser... it wasn’t his, nor was the mirror above it. His confusion only mounted when he saw his dresser was still here, against the wall closest to him. His wall, his corner, his laundry basket. But beside the laundry basket... part of that wall was not his wall. It was white compared to his cream. And the other half of his bed was not his bed. The blankets didn’t match, and in fact appeared to have been messily fused with his own.
But more importantly, there was a woman sleeping in them. Specifically, Hulda Larkin.
He gaped at her, alarm running up his navel and refracting off his sternum and into his limbs. He desperately tried to remember last night—
Only, the half of the bed Hulda was in wasn’thisbed.
He let out a tense breath. The house had shifted again, during the night! Reforming bedrooms, cutting his and the housekeeper’s in half and gluing them together!
And he didn’t have pants on.
Cool sweat broke over his forehead as he secured the blanket to his hips and tried to figure if it would be better to sneak away or to wake Hulda immediately. Neither could end well.
He scooted toward the edge of the mattress, making a vow to start sleeping fully clothed from now on.
As he pushed his feet over the edge, he glanced back at Hulda, ensuring she was still asleep. She was, probably because she was lying on her side, her back turned to the window. The blanket rested across her ribs, revealing the gauzy sleeves of her nightgown. Her hair fell over one shoulder in a braid that was barely still plaited; most of the walnut locks had freed themselves and waved over her neck and pillow. She didn’t wear her glasses, of course.
He’d never noticed her eyelashes before. They were dark and full and splayed across the crest of her cheeks. And the way the morning sun poured from the window... she looked almost angelic.
