A Kiss To Remember | Herophine

Chapter Ten - The Gravestone

Hero

Although I don't deserve it, God has blessed me with a new family

Josephine Langford was a woman of her word.

Hardin hadn't guessed he would come to rue that particular virtue, but as the days passed and she made good on her vow never to be alone with him, he began to wish she would suffer another lapse in moral judgment. Although his headaches were fading nearly as fast as the lump on his skull, he considered feigning a setback purely in the hope that she might attempt to kiss him back to life.

She had obviously enlisted others to assist her in her mission. If he was so fortunate as to enter the drawing room and find her alone, they would barely have time to exchange the most impersonal of pleasantries before Maggie would come bustling in, trailing a length of white crepe for her young missie's approval or an experimental batch of almond icing for the bride cake that she would beg them both to taste. If they happened to meet on the landing outside their bedchambers, Katie would materialize like a puckish sprite, waving a short story or poem she'd just written. And he always managed to find Josephine sipping her tea alone at the kitchen table at the precise moment Anthony would come banging through the door with an armload of firewood, his cheery whistle making Hardin want to choke the lad.

If this kept up, he would soon be reduced to brushing past his fiancee on the stairs, trying to steal a whiff of her hair.

She'd done nothing to stir his suspicions since the day she'd rushed off to meet with John in the barn. Since he was reasonably certain she wasn't cuckolding him with the grizzled old man, Hardin had almost succeeded in convincing himself that he simply possessed a mistrustful and jealous nature he'd do well to curb.

He managed to do just that until Thursday afternoon when he saw her start down the lane on foot with a mysterious burden tucked beneath her cloak.

Hardin watched her go through the lace of the drawing room curtains, torn between instinct and honor.

John had set off at dawn with his flocks and Maggie was puttering about in the kitchen, humming beneath her breath. Katie and Anthony were in the study, quarreling over a noisy game of spillikins.

While Anthony accused Katie of blowing his jack-straws into a most unmanageable pile when he wasn't looking, Hardin slipped out the front door of the manor and started after Josephine, walking just fast enough to keep the slender, bonneted figure in sight without overtaking her. The day was overcast with a northerly wind and a snap in the air that made it feel more like autumn than summer.

Josephine set a brisk pace, which didn't surprise him. In the past few days, he had learned that his fiancée was no delicate flower of womanhood content to dabble in needlework and watercolor. She was just as likely to be found perched on a rickety ladder dusting the crown molding as she was practicing a new piece on the pianoforte. While Maggie reigned over the kitchen With a flour-dusted rolling pin as her scepter, Josephine tended both the flower and the herb gardens with an enthusiasm that frequently left her cheeks flushed with exertion and a charming dab of dirt on the tip of her nose.

She had nearly reached the outskirts of the Village when she made an abrupt turn toward the church. Hardin hung back, watching her every move from behind the trunk of a stately old oak. Although he felt like the worst sort of scoundrel, he couldn't make himself turn back. Not when he might discover what secret had cast the shadow of fear in those sparkling blue eyes of hers.

He could only hope he wasn't about to realize his own worst fear. Had some man supplanted him in her affections? And if so, would she be so bold as to rendezvous with him in the village church?