Page 17 of A Lovely White Christmastide
“Pardon me.” He moved so she could pull the fabric free. But her efforts only brought them closer together as she pressed completely into him. He should have been frustrated and far more uncomfortable with the situation, but her closeness only made him want to wrap his arms about her again and hold her until… until when? The postilion came and discovered their inappropriate position?
He cleared his throat. “Mr. Kaye, Miss Julianna, might you help us get ourselves righted?”
Kaye’s smug expression cleared and he helped a gawking Miss Julianna back to the bench. She leaned over and straightened her sister’s skirt as Carswell helped Miss Haynes grasp Kaye’s hand.
The door to the side of the carriage still held up by its wheels flew open and the driver helped Miss Julianna out. Kaye passed Miss Haynes’s hand to the man and she disappeared out the door. Using his left arm, he pushed against the tilted side of the coach until he could stand.
Once everyone was gathered out in the dreary cold he took stock of their surroundings. The ground was muddy and the trees bare. An overcast sky hung low, threatening to unload its burden on them. The Haynes’s coach was nowhere to be seen, which was just as he’d instructed. Regret at his rash decision nipped at his conscience.
“How close is the next inn?” he asked the driver.
“Not far. Bout a ‘alf mile on. I’ll take the ‘orses an’ bring back a carriage.”
Carswell nodded. After helping the ladies to the side of the road, he retrieved the carriage blankets to keep them warm. The temperature was dropping and he wondered if they might get snow. It was a wonder they’d made it this far north without even a sighting of the white powder.
“Well, this is quite the adventure,” Kaye said, a big smile on his face as he bounced to keep warm.
“I think you mean a catastrophe,” Carswell said flatly.
“Not so,” Miss Julianna said. “I have never been in a carriage accident. Just think how much fun it will be to tell my friends, and what a story we will have to tell our Aunt Waverly.”
“But we could have been injured.” Miss Haynes cast her sister a quelling glance.
“Yes, but since we were not, it is only a great lark.”
“Speak for yourself,” Carswell said, rubbing his shoulder.
“Were you hurt?” Miss Haynes pulled her hands out of her muff and handed it to her sister.
Stepping behind him, she inspected his shoulder. When she rubbed a hand along his back, he stiffened, not knowing what to do. In all his life he’d never had a woman so brazenly touch his back. It was disconcerting.
“Raise your arm,” she instructed, holding her hand on his back.
His pulse leapt, but he did as she directed. When it reached half the height of his body, he winced.
“Hmm… you have a bit of swelling about the shoulder and your pain indicates there is probably some bruising, but I do not think anything is broken.”
Her hand fell away and he missed the warmth almost immediately.
Kaye rubbed his hands together. “How can you tell?”
Miss Julianna handed back her sister's muff. “Papa hired an apothecary and a surgeon to give us a few lessons. He said we would best know what we were about since we’d be mothers one day. Truthfully, I think it was a reaction to not knowing how to help Mama when she died. He never could stand physicians, though. Said they were just gentlemen cavorting about, begging money off innocent sick people.”
“Might I surmise that it was a physician who attended your mother at the end?” Kaye asked.
“Correct,” Miss Julianna said with a grim smile.
The way she locked eyes with Kaye after the short interchange was peculiar, almost as if a silent conversation were happening between them. Carswell could only imagine what it was about.
It seemed he was not the only one a bit taken with one of the Haynes women. It should not have surprised him. Kaye often fancied one woman or another, then the admiration would fade after a few days or a week and he’d move on to the next woman.
Slender fingers lifted his right hand and he froze.
“This did not happen in the accident.”
Carswell pulled his hand out of Miss Haynes’s grasp. “No. I need to get my hat and gloves from the carriage.”
He stalked away from her without looking back so as not to see her disgust, or even worse her pity. Most people did not notice the unnatural curl of his hand, but it had been hard to disguise when he’d lifted his arm in the air. Then again, she’d probably noticed it at dinner and breakfast. Only her good manners and kind nature had kept her from mentioning his odd hand.
