Gingerbread Bride

Chapter Eight

             

That might not be the most stupid remark Rick had made in his lifetime, but it was certainly in the top ten. Mary closed up like a tulip at night. He knew what she was thinking: that Rick, like Bosville, thought her fortune was her main attraction. He even knew how to convince her he thought nothing of the kind.

But his hands were tied. She was alone with him, with only the dubious protection of her maid. It would be unconscionable to begin to court her in such circumstances. In all honor, he had to hold her at a distance until he returned her to her family. No matter that he wanted to take her in his arms and kiss her until the fire sparking under her chilly surface flared up to consume them both.

In truth, he was not up to much kissing, and certainly not anything more than kissing. He'd strained the deuced leg again, and would be paying for it the next sennight, undoubtedly. Six months before he could return to the sea, the doctors had said. He hoped this latest strain would not delay his recovery.

****

Mary's aunt and her husband invited Rick to stay with them in their large rambling house in the countryside, just outside of Oxford.

"This place is much too big, now that all the children have flown," the aunt insisted. "It will be delightful to have young people under our roof again, will it not, Eustace?"

This proved to be an exaggeration: young people trooped in and out of the house all hours of the day. Rick soon found that Dr. Wren, though he had given up his fellowship when he married thirty years or more ago, was much in demand as a tutor. Mrs. Wren, Mary's Aunt Theodora, mothered a large and constantly changing horde of young men and their sisters, and their sisters' friends.

Everyone was full of plans for the Christmas party they would hold in just a few days, before most of them departed for family celebrations. Some, however, would stay on.

"We have eight children, dear," Mrs. Wren explained, "and some of them are too far away to come home for Christmas. I'm happy to give a little love to some other mother's child, and perhaps someone else is doing the same for mine."

They looked an ill-assorted pair: tall, thin, and elegant Mrs. Wren, and short and dumpy Dr. Wren. Her tidy afternoon gown was a triumph of understated elegance, but Dr. Wren might have been wrestling in the clothes he wore under the open academic gown. The gown, too, sat half on and half off his shoulders, and his Tudor cap tilted insecurely on his balding head.

But the connection between the two was palpable, she catching his eye and smiling at the end of every sentence, he watching her over the top of his spectacles, with a twinkle that seemed to approve of whatever she wished to say.

Rick was barely able to move the day after they arrived, but he lay on the couch in a sun room off the Wrens' parlor, where he could join in or rest, as he needed, simply by asking for the connecting doors to be opened or closed.

Mary organized the room for his comfort: a jug of iced tisane close to his elbow, a jar of biscuits, in the unlikely case he became hungry between the large meals Mrs. Wren produced at regular intervals, a rug for his knees, several books, the day's newspaper, and writing materials, so he could catch up on correspondence. Her attentions never bothered him the way his sister's had. Mary didn't fuss. She just got on with the job of making sure he had whatever he needed.

At first, apart from checking from time to time to see all was well, she left him to rest, but when he complained that he lacked company, she turned the room into a gathering place for the visitors, and he found himself discussing philosophy with an undergraduate, arguing naval strategy with another, and playing chess with a disconcertingly clever young woman who trounced him soundly but was magnanimous enough to suggest his leg might have been a distraction.