“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.
“So,” she said finally.
He smiled at the clump of toadstools near his boot. “So.”
“What exactly are you doing with this Miss High-and-Mighty-Wood?”
“She’s not high and mighty.”
“No, no. She’s quite nice, I’m sure. And beautiful as anything. I just don’t know what she’s doing with you.”
“She’s catching a ride to and from Hastings. That’s what she’s doing.”
“Aaron. You cannot expect me to believe that. You brought her here. I’m cutting your hair.”
The violence of her snipping began to alarm him. He was afraid he’d lose the top of an ear.
He said, “Stop clucking over me like a mother hen. I’m a grown man. I’m entitled to my privacy.”
She snorted. “After all the headaches you gave my Dennis, I think I’ve earned my turn.” Her voice softened as she set the scissors aside and ran her fingers through his trimmed hair. “I just don’t want to see you hurt.”
He stood, turned, and looked down at her from his full height, as if to say, You’re worried about this getting hurt?
She brushed the clipped hair from his shoulder. “Yes, you’re big. Yes, you’re strong. Big and strong don’t add up to invincible. I remember too well what happened with that schoolteacher.”
He sighed with annoyance. “That was ages in the past. And Miss Highwood isn’t anything like that.”
Years ago, Aaron had taken a liking to a schoolteacher from a nearby village. They’d done some courting; he’d made some plans. Only to learn that she’d never been interested in a future with him. She’d just been hoping to make a certain bank clerk jealous—and she’d dropped Aaron like a hot brick the moment her ploy had worked. She was married to that clerk now. They lived in Lewes, in a house with glazed windows.
“I’ve known Miss Highwood for nearly two years, Jemma. She’s a fine person.”
“Mm-hm. Fine indeed. Too fine for you. That’s a lady what could marry into a fortune. A grand house. Fine carriage. Dozens of servants.”
“You’re not helping,” he grumbled.
“Yes, I am. The best way I know how.” Her brown eyes held his. “Let this one go, Aaron.”
He thought of that pendant hanging about Diana’s neck. The tears she’d shed at his kitchen table because she’d let his dinner escape. The sweetness of her kiss.
“I can’t let her go. We have something.”
Jemma huffed out her breath. “Well, whatever your ‘something’ is . . . I hope you’re prepared to fight for it.”
I am, he thought to himself.
She crossed her arms and peeked into the house again. “I’ll say this for her. She’s been in there counting jacks with Billy for near a quarter hour. No one would put up with that child’s games unless she were related to him, or hoping to be.”
Her grudging approval made him smile. It was what he’d come for, after all.
“Billy’s a good boy. He has a good mum.” He gave his sister a fond rub on the top of the head, just as he’d done when she was a girl. “I’ll stock up your woodpile before I go.”
An hour later, Diana thanked her kind—but notably wary—hostess for the tea and biscuits and expressed a wish to have a wander in the garden.
She rounded the side of the house, only to narrowly miss a collision—
With Aaron.
He had shorter hair. And three children clinging to him—a giggling niece attached to either leg, and Billy hanging from his neck. She’d obviously caught them in the middle of a favorite game.
Aaron froze, a helpless expression on his face.
“You . . .” Diana cleared her throat and said in a low, solemn voice, “Mr. Dawes, you have a little something.” She motioned discreetly toward her body, indicating the position of Billy’s stranglehold on his neck. “Just here.”
“Oh. Do I really?”
She nodded.
“Hm.” He shook his whole body, as if he were a dog just come out of a lake. All three children clung tight and laughed.