Beauty and the Blacksmith (Spindle Cove #3.5)(19)

“I’d like to buy a gift for my sweetheart,” he said. “And I’m not sure what she’d like. I thought perhaps you might be so good as to help me choose.”

A helpless smile tugged at her lips. He didn’t need to buy her anything, but she couldn’t deny the thought made her dizzy with joy.

Until Charlotte popped between them. “Mr. Dawes, you have a sweetheart? Who is it? Who?”

Aaron watched as Diana’s cheeks paled. She gave him a look of pure panic.

“Do tell, do tell.” Miss Charlotte bounced on her toes. “Who is your sweetheart, Mr. Dawes?”

“I . . .”

He didn’t know what to say. He didn’t want to lie, but clearly Diana hadn’t told her sister anything about the two of them. That struck him as a mite strange—his own sisters had told one another everything about their romances. But they were closer in age than the eldest and youngest Highwoods were. And more to the point, they’d never gone courting with young men from a different social class.

“Charlotte, don’t harass him so,” Diana chided. “Is your business complete, Mr. Dawes?” She was clearly anxious to change the subject.

“Yes, thank you. And your shopping?”

“Nearly done.” She called to the shopgirl and asked her to wrap up one of the lorgnettes.

“We have some time before we need to start back,” Aaron said. “I thought perhaps the three of us could take some luncheon at—”

“But you haven’t purchased your sweetheart’s gift yet,” Charlotte said.

God, the girl was like a bulldog with a bone.

“Do tell us who it is, and we’ll help you choose. Is it Sally? Pauline? Oh! I know. Gertrude, the upstairs maid from Summerfield.”

Aaron shook his head. “None of those.”

Charlotte snapped her fingers. “One of the Willett girls. Or that miller’s daughter from the next parish. What’s her name again? Betsy?”

He shook his head.

“Do we know her?” she asked.

“I . . . I’m fairly certain you do.”

Diana gathered her purchase from the shopgirl and thumped her sister with it. “Charlotte, stop. You’re embarrassing him.”

Embarrassing her, too, Aaron would warrant.

“We’d be glad to take some luncheon,” she went on. “Thank you very much for the suggestion, Mr. Dawes.”

He was quiet over their meal of pigeon pie. He didn’t know what to make of her reluctance to tell the truth. She wasn’t ready to tell anyone, obviously. He supposed it was understandable, this soon. But would she ever be ready? That was the larger question.

Perhaps she didn’t see matters going that far.

Aaron surreptitiously touched the packet buried deep in his breast pocket—the small quantity of gold and gemstones he’d accepted in payment from the jeweler. He’d requested compensation in materials rather than coin, thinking he’d make something special with it.

Like maybe a ring.

But now he was feeling like a fool. If Diana didn’t even feel ready to tell her own sister about them, Aaron was getting too far ahead of himself.

He lifted his ale and regarded her over it. Like she did so often, she fidgeted with the slender chain always about her neck and the vial of tincture at the end of it.

Except . . .

He blinked and looked closer.

She wasn’t wearing the vial on her chain today. Instead, he saw his pendant. The quatrefoil one he’d made for her. The one she’d been hiding in pockets and under pillows for months. Until today.

It wasn’t a public confession. But it was something, that.

He drained his ale and thumped the tankard on the table. “If you don’t mind,” he announced, “I’ve an errand on our way back to Spindle Cove. Someone I promised I’d call on today.”

Charlotte perked with interest. “Is it your sweetheart?” And close on the heels of her question, “Ow!”

He was certain Diana had kicked her under the table.

“No, Miss Charlotte, it’s not my sweetheart. It’s my sister.”

CHAPTER 7

“Aaron Jacob Dawes, what are you doing?” Jemma chased him around the kitchen, flogging him with a damp rag and scolding him in shouted whispers. “I could have your hide, bringing such ladies around to my house with no notice.”

He held up his hands in innocence. “Don’t be angry. They’re fine.”

His sister peered through the doorway into the small sitting room, where Diana and Charlotte were sitting with Jemma’s three small children and a tray of tea biscuits.

“You’re lucky I baked this morning. That’s all I can say.” Jemma gave him the sharp side-eye that all the Dawes women used.

“You know why I’m here.” He plucked a set of shears from a drawer and handed it to her. “Let’s go outside and have this done.”

Aaron removed his coat and cravat, then assumed his usual seat on a stump in the back garden. The air smelled damp and green. A few early daffodils were poking through the ground.

Jemma set about clipping his hair. Several moments passed in quiet, save for the snipping of scissors. Jemma was a stubborn woman—always had been—but insatiably curious as well. He sensed a battle going on between her desire to know and her unwillingness to ask. But if he kept silent long enough, he knew which side would win.