left to deal with when Bellefonte went to his reward.
“Two weeks then,” Leah said, “and you’d best let Nita know that as well. We’ll likely leave here before the neighbors start to call, and that might be a good thing.”
Which meant what? Nick didn’t dwell on her comment, but instead drew her to her feet.
“I’ve something I want to show you.”
“I am at your disposal, Nicholas.”
As they made their way through the stables, the feed room, and the saddle room, to a space tucked against the back wall of the barn, Nick reflected that he liked it better when she called him Husband.
“This is a woodworking shop,” Leah said, scanning the tools hung neatly along the walls and the wood stored and organized by size along another. “This is yours?”
“It is. I have one in the mews in Town, and another at Belle Maison.”
“Your hands.” Leah picked up Nick’s bare hand and peered at it. “I’ve wondered what all the little nicks and scratches are from, and this is why you have them, isn’t it?”
“Mostly.” Nick eased his fingers from hers. “I like to make birdhouses.” He pulled a bound leather journal down from a high shelf. “I can show you some of my designs, if you like. You take the stool.” He pulled it up, and Leah had to scramble a little to take her seat. Everything in the room was scaled to Nick’s size—the stool, the workbench, the drafting table, even some of the tools were proportioned to fit Nick’s hands.
And yet, she looked as if she’d been made to fit in this room with him, on this fine mild morning, sharing a little of himself he hadn’t shown to anyone else.
“This is one I made for my stepmother,” Nick began, opening the book. He’d drawn sketches, and then colored illustrations all over the pages. She studied each one, asking questions as if birdhouses mattered.
“This is lovely.” She traced the lines of the birdhouse on the page. “It looks like a garden house, a little hanging gazebo, with trellises and flower boxes. How could you even see to make such things?”
“I wear magnifying spectacles,” Nick said. “The next one was for my papa, though a birdhouse is hardly a manly sort of present. I was eight, though, and had found my first personal passion.”
“Eight is a passionate age,” Leah murmured as she followed his castle with a finger. “Was this for your papa?”
“I only had illustrations in my storybooks to go by, but it was my version of Arthur’s castle. My father loomed in my awareness with all the power and mystery of the legendary king, of course.” And now his father lay dying, and Nick’s birdhouse had weathered to a uniform gray where it hung outside the earl’s bedroom window.
He would repaint Papa’s birdhouse when they repaired to Belle Maison.
They spent most of the morning in Nick’s shop, the time passing easily and pleasantly. Nick showed her sketches of the current work in progress, the birdhouse design intended for Ethan, then suggested they repair to the house for lunch.
As she slid off the high stool, Leah linked her arm through his. “Do you ever miss your mother, Nicholas?”
“I never knew her, but yes. I wish I’d known her. Do you miss your mother?” Nick posed it as a question, but any woman would miss her mother at the time of her own wedding.
“I did,” Leah said. “When I went to Italy, I missed her terribly, but it was her idea that I go. And as to that, she proved prescient. When I left England I didn’t realize I was carrying a child. I was twenty and figured my body was just upset, which it was. Darius guessed before I did, and thank God he was his usual blunt self about it, or I might have done something stupid.”
“Something stupid?” Nick stopped short in their progress past the single iris and stared down at her as her meaning sunk in. “You would have taken your own life?”
“Young people can be dramatic when they think they are in love.” Leah regarded the iris as she spoke.
“Irises symbolize messages,” Nick answered her unasked question. “You would really have taken your own life, but for your pregnancy?”
“I don’t know, Nicholas.” Leah watched the iris as if it might change from purple to white while she stood there. “My father had killed my husband, and there was to be no recourse. I could not prove we had married, because Aaron had taken