Forever and Ever by Patricia Gaffney

own, not fer a second, for there’m plenty o’ things I can be—”
    “I’ll see you tomorrow,” Connor interrupted.
    “Oh, will ee? Well, ain’t that fine. That’s—”
    “I very much doubt that,” Sophie said severely. “In my opinion, Mr. Pendarvis, that would be very foolish.”
    “Very foolish,” Tranter echoed, nodding adamantly. “I very much doubt ee’ll do any such thing. You listen to yer nurse; Jack, and obey ’er wise words. Miss Deene, she’m knowed far and wide for ’er wisdom, see, not to mention ’er loveliness, which she’m famous for, too, and a base, low miner like yerself, or
my
self, come t’ that, couldn’t do better’ n take ’er advice in all matters, great and small. Because she’m truly a pillar o’—”
    “Thank you, Mr. Fox,” Sophie cut in, laughing. “Good afternoon to you now.”
    Tranter bowed from the waist. “Yer sarvant,” he said to the floor, and sidled out of the room.
    Before he could consider his words, Connor said softly, “I like to hear you laugh.”
    She kept her head down and made no answer.
    “You were laughing the first day we met. Do you remember?”
    She’d been dabbing gently at the cut on the inner side of his biceps, supporting his arm in the crook of her elbow, so that his wrist rested lightly against the side of her breast. Because of what he’d said, the innocent contact was too personal now: she stepped away to rummage in the paper parcel for another bandage.
    “How’s Birdie?” he asked smoothly.
    “Ah, Birdie. She was very taken with you, you know.”
    “Was she?”
    “She still speaks of you.”
    “What does she say?”
    “She calls you ‘the nice man with big hands.’ ”
    Connor chuckled. He waited until she had to touch him again, to wind a strip of gauzy white cotton around his arm, to say, “Will you go for a walk with me next Saturday afternoon, Miss Deene?”
    Her face was a study. He saw pleasure light up her eyes before she averted them and said quickly, “Oh, no. I can’t.”
    He studied her profile, the aristocratic nose with its fine white nostrils, like porcelain, and her pretty mouth, the lips meeting at just the right, seductive angle. She wore her hair in a little net at the back of her neck today, a snood, he thought it was called, but a few long, wavy wisps had escaped, softening the severity of the style. Her refusal to see him came as no surprise. He shouldn’t have asked her anyway.
    But he was tired of doing what he was supposed to do. “We wouldn’t go far,” he pressed lightly, “just along the river in the village. You’d be perfectly safe.”
    She lifted one eyebrow at that, and the side of her mouth curved slightly. But she said again, “No, I can’t.”
    He stood up, so abruptly she started. “You must forgive my impertinence. I’ll not ask you again.” Grinding his teeth against the pain, he tucked the loose end of the gauze strip roughly inside the neat bandage she’d made. He looked around for his shirt.
    She snatched it from the desk before he could reach for it. “Mr. Pendarvis,” she said, and the low urgency in her tone stopped him. “I can’t meet you because—I
can’t.
Next Saturday is Midsummer Day, and I’m the precentor of the children’s choir—we’ve a program planned outside on the green. If it doesn’t rain, there’s a festival as well. It’s—an important day in Wyckerley.” She subsided, and he could swear she was blushing again. Because she thought she’d sounded too eager to explain herself to him?
    He made a great business of having trouble with his shirt, so she would help him put it on. It worked; and then he pretended his left arm was too stiff to bend, so she’d button the shirt for him. While she was doing it, he watched her face, which had gone very still, so close to his, so very lovely. She was anything but indifferent to him, he knew that now. Because he wanted to, he lifted his hand to one of the strands of her golden hair and drew