“I should go,” Aaron said. “It’s late.”
“No, take your time with it.” Fosbury knotted his apron at the waist. “I’ve some yeast dough to start for tomorrow’s bread. Give a shout if you need anything.”
He disappeared into the kitchen, whistling as he went.
Aaron had just grown accustomed to his comfortable pocket of quiet when the creak of the door ripped it open again. He turned his head, expecting to see one of the fishermen or farmers come in for a late pint.
What he saw nearly knocked him off his stool.
Diana Highwood.
She rushed through the door, slammed it closed, then stopped dead in her paces. Staring at him.
Aaron didn’t know what to say, but it seemed she was waiting to hear something. He finally settled on “Good evening.”
“Good evening.”
Another long, uncomfortable pause.
She looked at the empty stool beside his. “Might I join you?”
Bemused, he waved a hand in invitation.
She approached the bar and settled on the seat, daintily arranging her skirts.
Aaron lifted his drink, stealing glimpses at her out of the corner of his eye. He’d spent a great many stolen moments admiring her, but tonight something was different.
She was different. He couldn’t look at her tonight and see a paragon up on a pedestal. She was a disheveled girl sitting on a barstool. Damp from the rain, cheeks flushed, wisps of flaxen hair matted to her brow. She looked impulsive. Sensual.
More beautiful than ever.
Between her intoxicating looks and the fact that he was on his third whiskey, he was addled. He didn’t know what she was doing here, but so long as she was sitting next to him, he was going to stare. He propped his elbow on the bar and drank in every detail of her rain-misted face, savoring.
Her gaze fell to his tumbler of whiskey. “You’re having a drink?”
“Yes.”
She picked up the tumbler and stared into it. “Is it brandy?”
“Actually, it’s—”
Before he could get the words out, she’d lifted the glass to her lips and tossed back half the contents in one swallow.
“ . . . whiskey.”
She set it down. Stared at it, wide-eyed. Coughed. “Oh. So it is. Goodness.”
After a moment’s pause, she lifted the tumbler again.
This time, he acted. He grasped her slender wrist, cutting her draught short. “Miss Highwood, you shouldn’t.”
“Oh, I think I should. I think this is exactly what I need.”
“But your health.”
“You mean my asthma?” She set the tumbler down, and he released her wrist. “My asthma hasn’t troubled me in years.”
“Of course it has. That’s why you’re here in Spindle Cove.”
She shook her head slowly. “I haven’t had a breathing crisis since the one you witnessed here in this tavern. That was two summers ago. Susanna consulted with physicians in London, and she thinks I’ve outgrown it. People do, she said. Apparently, I’m . . . I’m cured.”
She was cured? Aaron was confused. This didn’t make any sense. Her breathing troubles were the reason the Highwoods had moved to this village—the sea air was beneficial to her lungs.
She fidgeted with the necklace he’d mended just that day—the one with the vial of precious tincture dangling from the chain. “I don’t even need it anymore. I know in my soul, I don’t. I only wear it out of habit.” Her blue eyes met his. “And because you made it.”
Her confession was like a punch to the jaw. It came out of nowhere and set his head spinning.
The whiskey was starting to hit her, too. He could tell from the glassy sheen in her eyes and the unsteady motions of her hands. But mostly, by the ridiculous words spouting from her lips.
He tossed a few coins on the bar and stood, putting a hand under her elbow to help her to her feet, too. “Come. I’ll walk you back to the rooming house.”
He didn’t give her a chance to object, tucking her arm through his in a way that he hoped wouldn’t look improper to anyone who might happen to see.
“You were right today,” she confessed. “I’m not clumsy.”
No sooner had she said it than she stumbled over the doorstep.
“Not usually.” She giggled.
Giggled? He didn’t remember ever hearing Diana Highwood giggle.
“I broke the necklace on purpose, just so you’d have to mend it. So I could watch you mend it.” She shook her head. “That’s dishonest of me, isn’t it? Why would I do that? Lie to you, lie to myself.”
He herded her across the lane and onto the village green. It was muddy, but the shortest route. Getting her home as quickly as possible seemed his best strategy.
“Miss Highwood, you need to rest.”
“I don’t need to rest. I’m cured. I’m perfectly well.”