“But I guess I’m the right size,” Faith said.
“Exactly the right size,” William said as he put his thin arm around her shoulders and took his first hobbling steps. His legs had been unused for nearly a year and the muscles had come close to atrophy.
After the first attempt at walking, Faith had to rub his legs to relieve the pain of cramping.
At the end of the first week, William was walking on his own with the help of two canes—and that’s how
Beth saw him. Faith knew that Tristan had ordered her to stay away from her uncle, but it looked like he had at last rescinded his order.
Beth rode her horse into the walled garden and when she saw her beloved uncle, she slid off before it stopped. When Thomas and Faith saw the way the girl was running toward her uncle, as though she meant to launch her strong, young body onto his, they took off to intercept her. But Beth reached him before they did. William was smiling, not in the least worried that his healthy young niece was going to tackle him.
Beth stopped just short of leaping on her uncle, took his hands in hers and pressed them to her face. Behind her Thomas and Faith stopped, out of breath and panting. William looked at them in amusement over Beth’s bowed head.
“You look wonderful,” Beth breathed. “You have doubled your weight, and you are walking.”
“Not quite double,” William said as he put his hand on her hair that was warm from the sun.
“Not from lack of trying,” Faith said. “He eats his weight in food every day. Amy says she’s going to have to hire a new cook just for him.”
“Tristan will hire a dozen cooks,” Beth said. “A hundred of them.” She still held her uncle’s hands and couldn’t take her eyes off his face. “Come and tell me everything that you have done,” she said. “I want to hear it all.”
William tucked Beth’s arm in his and started to walk toward a bench. When Faith saw that he’d left his canes behind, she picked them up and didn’t remind him of them. He wanted to make his beautiful young niece think he was more well than he was.
Faith went into the orangery and began clearing up from their last meal. As she looked around she thought that soon there’d be no need for her to stay here alone with William and Thomas in their own little world. But she knew that the last week had been the happiest of her life. She’d had her own house, her own kitchen of sorts, even her own garden. Every afternoon in the last week William had sat on a chair while Faith had taken a shovel to the plants. He’d told her that she could get someone to do the work for her, but Faith had wanted to dig for herself.
As with everything else on the estate, everyone knew what she was doing. Three times she’d awakened in the morning to find pots of herbs and flowers on the doorstep. During the night someone had delivered them to her and, the next morning, she’d happily planted them.
“This suits you,” William said. “This garden, this place, it all suits you.”
She knew what he was actually saying. She had saved him and sometimes he seemed to believe himself to be in love with her. But she knew he wasn’t, and she wasn’t in love with him either. For all his teasing and laughing, she understood why William Hawthorne had never married. He wasn’t a man who’d likely be faithful to any woman.
“Yes, it suits me,” she said. “I’m really just a class above a farmer.”
He hadn’t said anything to that, and she thought he agreed with her. His class system, which was ingrained in him, only made her laugh.
Now, she left him alone with his niece, to spend time together. It was two hours later that Beth came inside the orangery. “You have made it very nice in here,” she said, looking around. “Is that old vine growing?”
“Yes. It’s just showing the pink tip of the leaves. I think it got just enough water through the broken glass to keep it alive.”
Beth touched the vine for a moment, then turned to look back at her. “My brother, Tristan, and I have talked about what we can do to repay you for what you have done for our uncle.”
“It was nothing,” Faith said. “You’ve taken me in, fed me, clothed me. I couldn’t ask for more.”
“But Tristan takes care of a hundred people, but they did not save our uncle. We want to give you something.”
“No, please,” Faith said. “I don’t need payment.” She thought that the truth was that if she was going to stay there, a nice fat pot of gold might prove useful. But she was going to leave in less than two weeks, so what good would gold be to her? “Really, I can’t take anything.”
“We talked to Amy and she suggested that you might like this for a reward.” Beth held out a little packet wrapped in paper with a pretty block-printed design.
Faith had an idea that it was some wonderful book, but of what use would it be to her? When they’d been sent back in time, they’d arrived wearing different clothes. Faith was sure that whatever they had here would be taken away from them.
She took the book and thanked Beth for it. “How very sweet of you to think of this,” she said. “It was most kind.”
“Will you open it?” Beth asked.
Smiling in a set way because she was sure she knew what was in the package, Faith opened it—and her mouth dropped open. It was a book of hand-copied recipes for the fabulous soap and shampoo and four other products. Faith’s first thought was that she could memorize the recipes. If she put them to memory, she could take them back to her time.
She looked at Beth with wonder in her eyes. “These are…” She didn’t know what to say. “Thank you.”