The little boy was crying in earnest now, but Will paid no attention to the tears and instead kept up a cheerful chatter as he peeled the outer page off his newspaper. Still talking, his fingers worked quickly for a minute or two and then he held something out. The boy stopped snuffling and took the paper boat, and a bright smile spread over his face as he mimed its passage through an imaginary rough sea before showing it to a harried-looking nursery nurse, who seized his hand and pulled him away. She threw a brief ‘thank you’ at Will before vanishing into the crowd, and I went over to him, and found my voice.
‘Hello again.’
Will jumped, but when he turned to look at me there was no nervousness in his expression, just unabashed pleasure. Up this close I could see his eyes were a clear and lovely blue, beneath eyebrows a few shades darker than his hair, and his features were stronger and leaner than I had thought at first. Will Davies was evidently something of a charmer, and I found myself for once unable to think of anything else to say. I could only twist my fingers together and hope he would speak first.
He did, but it didn’t really help. ‘Miss Creswell,’ he said, nodding.
‘Mr Davies. That was…very clever, what you did for that little boy.’ He looked at me for a moment, and his eyes narrowed just a little bit and he took another sheet off his newspaper. He unfolded it, then his nimble fingers went to work again and a moment later he was handing me a rose, barely out of bud, with the petals curling outwards in the first welcoming hint of the full bloom to come.
I took it, and the expression on my face must have been much the same as the little boy’s. The fact that the rose was black and white, with smudgy print and a flimsy stem, meant nothing; it had appeared seemingly out of nowhere, just for me. ‘Thank you,’ I said, and tucked it into the band around my hat. ‘That should annoy Mother quite satisfactorily.’
Will laughed. The sound was lower than I’d expected it might be, and my response to it was a faint but pleasant confusion.
‘Talk in the kitchen says you’re off to London,’ he said.
‘I leave tomorrow. I’m expected to attend an awful lot of very dull parties with an awful lot of very dull people.’
‘Oh, I’m sure you’ll have fun when you get used to it.’ But his expression said, clearer than words, that he hoped I would not. Something clicked into place between us in that moment, but it remained unspoken. It sat, quietly glowing inside me, and in him it manifested itself in a forced lightness of tone.‘What time is your train?’
‘Well, that’s the good part, at least,’ I said, ‘I don’t have to sit on the train and breathe in all that cigar smoke. Uncle Jack is going to be taking me down in his motor car.’
‘The Silver Ghost?’ Will whistled. ‘You are a very lucky girl, Miss Evangeline.’
‘Call me Evie.’ It suddenly seemed important that he not think of me as one of the Creswells, after all he wasn’t one of the servants. If I had expected a modest protest from him I was pleasantly surprised.
‘Evie,’ he said, pretending to mull it over. Then he nodded. ‘I approve. As long as you promise to call me Lord William, and to bow each time you see me.’
‘My Lord,’ I said, dropping into an elaborate curtsey. Rising, I saw his smile, just before it faltered and we fell into silence. We both looked away, casting about for something to say to prolong the meeting, and with a sinking heart I remembered my arrangement with Miss Peters.
‘I have to go. Although I would have loved to stand here all afternoon, even in this faintly awkward silence.’ Turning it into a joke made it a little easier, at least, and he was surprised into a laugh. ‘Thank you so much for the sweet gift,’ I added, my voice a little softer. I wanted him to know I meant it, that I wasn’t merely being polite.
His smile slipped, leaving his expression defiantly hopeful. ‘I’ll never make one for anyone else.’
‘Good. I’m glad.’ I looked at him for a long moment, and then, obeying an instinct deeper than both etiquette and good sense, I stepped close and placed a quick kiss on the edge of his mouth. I paused, then said, ‘I have a feeling I’m going to miss you, Will Davies. Why is that, do you suppose?’
‘Because I’m irresistible?’
I smiled. ‘Have a lovely spring, I’ll be thinking of you. And when the new scullery maid starts in a week or two just make sure you’re not too irresistible.’ I briefly wondered at my own boldness, at both the kiss and the implication behind my words, but it was an exhilarating feeling nevertheless, and the look on his face told me it was not unwelcome. When I left him standing there I was determined not to look back, but felt the weight of his gaze between my shoulder blades like a warm hand, and the smile on my face made people glance twice at me and give me quizzical little smiles in return. But it was with Will that my mind stayed from that moment on.
Those two months felt like two years. The London Creswells were charming company, and the house magnificent, but it wasn’t Oaklands. In the same way, there had been plenty of potential suitors, many of them handsome enough, all without a doubt extremely wealthy, and some of them even amusing, but there had been no Will Davies among them. Not one of them made me smile the way he did, or caused my chest to flutter the way his touch had. I arrived back at Breckenhall on a warm day in the middle of May, and would have loved to have found some reason to wander around the town, and past Frank Markham’s shop window a few times, but the train had been delayed so we were late arriving. At least I was back in the same town, and might see Will at any time, and I would have to be content with that for now.
Uncle Jack, who wasn’t my uncle at all but an old friend of my deceased father, was dressed in his usual casual clothes that we both knew would make Mother wince, and it cheered me so much to see him that disappointment was pushed to the to the back of my mind. My attention was taken up, for the moment, with the opportunity to put some of those clandestine driving lessons into practice: here was Uncle Jack in his marvellous motor, and no Mother to put her foot firmly down on the fun. But he was not to be moved.
‘Absolutely not. Your mother would never allow me to set foot in the house again if anyone were to see you. And as for what she would do to you, well –’
‘Then we shall keep each other’s secret.’
‘We shall do nothing of the sort. And you don’t know how to drive anyway.’
‘Oh, don’t I?’ I couldn’t help grinning.
‘Evie …’
‘For your information, Uncle Jack, I’ve been driving a good deal whilst in London.’
‘Why did you have to tell me that?’ he groaned. ‘Now I can’t pretend any more that I’d no idea.’
‘You knew?’
‘I’d heard. But if your mother knew she’d have you confined to your rooms until you turn sixty.’
‘Then it’s a good thing I know you won’t tell her,’ I said, though with less certainty than hope. ‘Besides,’ I went on, eyeing him up and down, ‘someone who dresses as you do can’t possibly tell tales to my mother and expect them to be believed.’
‘What’s wrong with the way I dress?’
‘Honestly, you never wear the right clothes! It’s why I love you, of course.’
I stopped as we reached the car, and stared in surprise. A girl of around my own age sat huddled in the back, looking at me with wide blue eyes, and a terrified look on her face.
I wasn’t quite sure what to say, but I had to say something, if only to make the poor girl feel better. ‘Hello, whoever you are! Uncle Jack, have you been out collecting waifs and strays, or are