Crow’s Nest

”I’ve gotten a note,” I say to James while draping my coat over his arm and handing him my hat and gloves. ”Where is she?”

Once I’m inside the library, I see Miss Walker looking out the French doors at Miss Parkhill, off in the garden painting a watercolor of a marble statue and its surrounding hedge. My relief at catching Miss Walker alone is immeasurable.

Ann takes one look at my bruised eye and swollen nose and gasps. ”I didn’t imagine for one second that Mr. Ainsworth would fight back. Are you all right?”

I let out such a sigh of relief that I levitate slightly off the floor and forward into her arms. ”This? No, not him.”

”Who then?” She asks a bit shaken.

”Ann, I don’t believe you’d know him. He’s not the sort you would know.”

”But you would?”

Nervously, I pull at my collar. ”For two minutes, I knew him. It was business.”

She kisses me lightly, mindful of my busted lip. ”What kind of business? Anne, you do look hurt.”

I take both her wrists and pull her to me tighter. With enthusiasm, I say, ”Let’s ride over to Shibden and have a look at something I’m building. We could take your carriage and be here and back in no time. What’d you say? Lovely day and all?”

She rings the bell to rouse James and send word to the groom.

”Now that you’ve mentioned carriages.” She turns to me for an answer.

Despite the pain it causes me, I beat my fist against my chest. ”Do you understand why physically I had to do it?”

”Anne, why couldn’t you just let him leave?”

”Because you are mine to protect and he molested you.”

Still holding the servant’s bell, she collapses onto the couch. When I approach her, she begins to cry.

”I’ve never had anyone like you in my life. Can you understand? My family, they think they’re helping, but they’re not.”

I drop down on the cushion next to her and catch her tears as they fall. ”Ann, you mustn’t listen to them. They’re medievalist who don’t understand anything about love and passion, and because of it, they stay miserable all their lives. I’m always going to be here for you and put your best interests first and love you always.”

”Why?” She asks, continuing to cry. ”Why would you stay when I’ve treated you so terribly?”

And before I can stop her, she leaves the couch and nervously paces on the other side of the room.

The distance between us feels dangerous. The floor a trap of quicksand. How to stop it? How to stop it!

I leap up from the couch and quite literally shout across the room at her, ”God knows! Can you not see how much I love you?”

At that instant, James appears in the doorway, looking confused. ”Ma’am?” He asks, as evenly as he can muster.

Ann Walker begins to laugh. ”James, we’ll be needing the carriage.”

Ignoring James, I continue to shout emphatically, ”That is why I had to do it! It was mine to do.” I look up to gauge her reaction and see the butler instead of Ann staring at me with a worried look on his face.

Then I taste it. The blood in my mouth. I press my handkerchief to my nose, and immediately it turns red.

Ann turns to James. ”Two things before you go. Miss Lister will need some bandages, very quickly, and the cook should make a lunch basket. Thank you, James.” Then she turns to me, ”Should I send for Dr. Kenny?”

While pressing my handkerchief harder against my broken nose, I study myself in the mirror while waving her suggestion away, ”I can very well care for myself, without that quack fluttering over me.”

”Why do you dislike him so?” She asks as James shuts the door behind him.

”Ann? If I’d been allowed, what kind of a doctor do you think I would have been? Better than him, surely.”

She appears in the mirror’s reflection behind me and turns me around to look at her. ”Probably a very good one,” she says, stroking my cheek, ”with a gentle, loving bedside manner.”

Amazed by whatever miracle is happening, I kiss her as hard as I can without bleeding