Ruth Axtell Morren - A Bride Of Honor

The girl flashed him a wide smile. “Thankee kindly, sir!”

Damien swallowed, watching the careful way Jonah placed the small bouquet atop his other purchases in his satchel. The incongruous sight of his blunt fingers handling the fragile blooms sent a curious pang through Damien. How would it feel to buy a woman flowers? He’d never know the pleasure.

Jonah’s keen eyes met his at that moment. “Don’t you ever fancy having a lady of your own to come home to?”

“I am content with my single state.” At Jonah’s raised eyebrow, he added, “You’ve seen my life. I’m at the beck and call of those in need anytime of the day or night.”

Jonah shrugged. “That’s why the Lord gives a man a helpmate.”

They inched their way forward through the crowded aisle between the stalls.

“I must say I’m always amazed at the ease you have in talking to women,” Damien couldn’t help commenting when Jonah paused in front of a stall selling herbs and spices. The pungent aromas of cumin and cinnamon filled the air. Dried pods and seeds were heaped in large burlap sacks on the ground at their feet.

Jonah straightened from where he’d bent to examine a sack of nutmegs. “What’s that you say?”

Damien wished he had kept his mouth shut.

Too late, the words seemed to register with Jonah and his lips cracked open in a grin. “Talking to lasses is the easiest thing in the world.”

Damien shook his head, unable to keep from smiling back. “I doubt you’d find many men to agree with you.”

Jonah draped a brawny arm across his shoulders. “All you do is look at ’em a certain way and tell ’em they’re the loveliest thing you’ve ever laid eyes on. Works about three-quarters o’ the time.”

Damien chuckled. “And the other quarter of the time?”

“Why, you just spend some blunt on ’em, and they’re yours.” He waved his arm. “Look around you at all the young women. I’d lay odds that any number o’ them would give their spinster eyeteeth to catch a fine parson like you.”

The crowded market was filled with far more women than men. Women of all ages, plump and slim, well-dressed and shabby. Damien shook his head, wondering how he’d gotten into this ridiculous conversation with his future brother-in-law.

Jonah frowned a moment, removing his arm from Damien’s shoulders and adjusting the satchel he carried. “Of course, you realize, with your sister, it was different. There was nothing I could ’a done or said to win her, if the Lord hadn’t o’ had mercy on me.”

Damien chuckled. “I think she saw what lay beneath the surface.”

Jonah shook his head. “That was pretty rotten, too. No, it took God’s grace to bless me the way He has with your sister’s love.”

Before Damien could say anything more, Jonah gestured quickly with his hand. “See the ladies standing by the fruit vendor?”

Damien’s gaze traveled to two women inspecting the fruit. One of them looked older, perhaps thirty, the other probably not more than nineteen or twenty. In their plain dark pelisses, they could have been servants out to make purchases, or young matrons doing their household shopping. “What of them?”

“What of ’em?” Jonah mimicked in mock scorn. “They’re a pair of pretty lasses who’d probably lap you up like a plum pudding if you so much as looked their way.”

When Damien became aware of what Jonah intended, his steps slowed, but Jonah hauled him forward by the elbow. The next thing he knew, Jonah was smiling and tipping his hat to the ladies in question. “Good day to ye, madam, miss. Have you ever seen such plump-looking grapes in all your life?”

He snatched up one of the fat black grapes and popped it into his mouth. “Sweet as honey.” He addressed the older woman, but included both in his smile. “Of course, hothouse grapes don’t come near to the taste of those grown outside in the warm sun and refreshing rain. When I lived in the country, I used to grow my own. Muscats, Rieslings, Gamays. You’ve never tasted a sweeter grape than those I harvested.”

“Oh, where did you cultivate grapes?” the older one asked with a simpering smile.

“I tilled the soil on a place in Surrey.”

Damien couldn’t help admiring how quickly Jonah had them entranced. He looked a well-set-up gentleman in his bottle-green cutaway coat and black pantaloons, nothing like the farm laborer he used to be. Although he didn’t lie, his words made the women assume he had been a landowner on some prosperous farm.

“Oh, yes, I grew apples and pears, too. I was only just telling my young friend, the parson here, that I haven’t seen a fruit nor a vegetable in London yet that beats anything I grew myself.”

The two women turned to notice Damien, who’d been standing slightly behind Jonah.

“Of course, he’s city bred, so he doesn’t know what it means to pick your own apple and feel the juice on your tongue at that first, crisp bite.”

Damien thought that was a bit much, considering the orchard in his backyard, but he kept silent, allowing Jonah to have his fun.

“Would you ladies like me to hail you a cab? You’ve an awful lot of parcels to carry,” Jonah asked.

“Oh, that would be most helpful,” the older said. “We live in Cheapside. It’s always hard to get a cab around here.”

“Come along then, here, let me help you with those. The preacher can take yours,” he said, turning to the younger lady.

As they began to move apart, the young girl suddenly looked down at Damien’s legs and her eyes grew round. Without a word, she handed Damien her basket, but when they began walking, she took her place beside her companion, on the farthest side away from Damien and Jonah.

Damien slowed his steps until he was walking just behind the group. Jonah continued chatting amiably with the older woman as if nothing had happened. Damien hoped he hadn’t noticed anything.

They reached the curb and in a few moments Jonah had procured them a hack from those waiting at a stand.

As the lumbering vehicle inched away down the crowded street, Jonah muttered under his breath, “Couple o’ low-class wenches. Weren’t worth your time, my boy.” He nudged Damien on the elbow and they crossed the street. “That girl was as sallow as whey. Plenty more where she came from!”

A block farther, Jonah hailed them a cab. The two climbed in and rode silently back toward the parsonage. Damien kept his eyes fixed out the window. Perhaps now his well-meaning friend would drop the subject of a wife for him.

“L indsay, now that you have had some weeks’ acquaintance with Jerome Stokes, I want you to accept his proposal of marriage.”

Lindsay stared at her father. She’d just come in from an outing with Beatrice when her father had summoned her to his library. “Papa, it’s so sudden.” Her voice sounded faint and her heartbeat began to thud in dread. Although she’d expected the words, hearing them spoken made her fate seem all the more dire.

“Will you deny your father the joy of knowing you are in good hands, regardless of what happens to me?”

Instinctively, Lindsay reached out and clasped her father’s hands, unable to bear the thought of losing her father, too. “Oh, Papa, don’t talk as if something awful is going to happen to you.” His color was a bit pale, but Lindsay knew it was the lack of sunlight from all the hours he spent in his library.

“I have passed the age of five-and-forty. Many men never reach it. Few go many years beyond it.”

As she listened to him in dismay, he released her hands and rose slowly from the settee. “Thankfully, I am a healthy man. I’ve suffered few illnesses in my life, so there is no reason to suppose you will not have me for many years yet.”