Fifty Words for Rain(99)

Noah was not dissuaded by her silence. He was always ready with a small glass of wine for himself and a steaming mug of apple cider for her. He told her quite candidly that she did not have to stay if she didn’t want.

But she always did.

He did the talking. She tried to tune him out, but his voice was so charming, invoking an image of rolling green hills.

And so she listened.

He’d grown up in Cornwall, the youngest of four boys. His French mother was a drunk who died young and left him nothing but recipes for jams, which he’d tried and failed to re-create.

It was his way of trying to know her and of dealing with his anger at having never got the chance.

He made her laugh with his terrible French.

His father was a teacher who had died four years ago. His oldest brother had sold the family home, and they’d all been forced to fend for themselves.

“We never had much,” he confessed sheepishly. “And me being the youngest, I usually got leftovers. But there was lots of love.”

He told her how the nuns at school taught him to play the piano.

“I didn’t like it at first,” he said with a chuckle. “It was awfully difficult. But once I realized how happy it can make people . . . I was never good enough to be professional, of course, but I love children, so, you know, I pass the joy on.”

She caught herself staring at his lips. His perfect pink lips. Nori sat on her hands to stop herself reaching out to him.

She looked away. “I think that’s time.”

He smirked at her. “It was time an hour ago. I was wondering when you’d notice.”

She flushed. “I didn’t want to interrupt.”

He nodded. “So, Nori. Are you going to marry me or not?”

She bristled. “Don’t joke.”

“I’m not joking,” he said simply.

She rose from her seat and smoothed her skirt. “No.”

He nodded, unperturbed. He’d expected this.

“Maybe tomorrow, then.”

Nori pressed a hand to her mouth and walked away.



* * *





The days rolled together. She’d stopped counting.

Christmas came and went, with Nori getting three new dresses from Alice, a pearl necklace from George, and a handmade card from the girls.

Alice was busy and happy, throwing herself into decorating the nursery upstairs. She was confident she would conceive again soon. This time, it would be a boy. This time, surely, he would live.

Nori was grateful for her friend’s distraction. Whatever this thing was between her and Noah, it was growing harder for her to hide.

He got her two sugarplums and something called a pasty, which was quite good.

Though she did not wish to encourage his affections, she made him a scarf from gold yarn.

She knitted constantly, to quiet her thoughts.

The two of them took long walks in the snow, with their heads bowed against the wind, saying nothing. He wrapped his arm around her waist, and she did her best not to think how warm he made her feel.

He made her feel safe. And that was a luxury she had so rarely known.

They talked about music often, and she could see his idolatry of her slowly shift into something deeper.

Against her will, she told him everything. She even told him about William. It was the only time she’d seen him truly angry, but he had reluctantly agreed not to tell anyone.

Every night, at the end of their fireside chats, he would ask her to marry him.

She would say no, he would nod, and that would be that.

He never tried to kiss her, though she could tell that he yearned to by the way he held his body very close to hers. Their hands would rest half an inch apart, their eyes would meet, and it would feel just like a caress. She felt shameless before him, full of a wild desire that she had never known, had never even contemplated.

Nori knew she had to stop this. There was no future for it, none at all.

She would not be his whore, and she could not be his wife—society wouldn’t stand for it, even if the law allowed it—so what was there? What end to this was there but disaster? Had her mother’s treacherous lover and William not been enough warning?

If she had the sense that God gave a goldfish, she’d tell him plainly that they could never be and that if he continued to persist, she would have him sent straight back to the countryside.

In fact, she had resolved to tell him this a great many times. But never could.

Noah had tapped into her secret, shameful need to be wanted. She was drunk on his attentions; she reveled in his love of her skin and hair like it was salve on a lifelong burn.

She had brief snippets where she could see herself through his eyes. And there was so much beauty there it brought her to tears.

All her life she’d felt like an elephant lumbering among delicate things.

But in his honest gaze, she was no longer the elephant. She was the swan.

The days drew to a close, and though they had long given up the facade of “ten minutes,” she knew that eventually, he would tell her the words she lived in perpetual terror of hearing.

Because she had to tell him no. And that would break his heart and she found that she truly, truly didn’t want to do that.

She did care for him. As much denial as she cloaked herself in just to survive, she was forced to admit it.

He was tenderhearted, honest, generous, and full of laughter. He was more mature than his years, but still brimming with idealism. He was a wonderful person. And he fit neatly inside the tumbled mess of her psyche.