Wishes Read online

  “Of course not.” She put the empty bowls between them—one for waste, one for the broken beans—and filled his lap with beans, then filled her own.

  “Where is home, Mr. Montgomery?” she asked.

  “Warbrooke, Maine,” he answered, and once he started talking he didn’t want to stop. He’s as lonely as I am, Nellie thought, then she corrected herself. How could she be lonely when she had Terel and her father?

  He told her of his life, of growing up near the ocean, of having spent as much of his life on a sailboat as on the ground.

  “I met Julie when I was twenty-five,” he said.

  Nellie looked at him, at his profile, and she could see the sadness in his eyes, hear the grief in his voice. Her father had said Mr. Montgomery was a widower. “She was your wife?”

  He looked at her, the pain in his eyes making her feel pain also. “Yes,” he said softly. “She died in childbirth four years ago. I lost both her and the baby two days before my thirtieth birthday.”

  She reached across the bean bowls and clasped his hand. The touch seemed to startle him awake. He sat there blinking for a moment, then smiled. “I do believe, Miss Grayson, you’ve put a spell on me. I haven’t talked about Julie since she…”

  “It’s the beans,” she said brightly, not wanting him to be sad. “They’re enchanted beans. Same ones Jack used to grow his beanstalk.”

  “No,” he said, looking at her intently. “I believe it’s you who has bewitched me.”

  Nellie felt herself blushing. “Mr. Montgomery, you are wicked, teasing an old maid like me.”

  He didn’t laugh at her jest; his face grew serious again. “Who told you you’re an old maid?”

  Nellie felt very confused. “No one has to tell me. I…” She didn’t know what to say. She’d never had such a divinely handsome man flirt with her before. Wait until he sees Terel, she thought. Terel, wearing one of her beautiful evening gowns, could bring a whole room full of handsome men to a halt. “My goodness, Mr. Montgomery, look what time it is. I have to finish dinner, and Father will be home soon, and Terel will be down, and I must change clothes and—”

  “All right,” he said, laughing. “I know when I’m being dismissed.” He picked up the bowls, not allowing Nellie to carry them, and blocked her way on the path. “Tell me, Miss Grayson, are you as good a cook as you are beautiful?”

  Nellie could feel her face turning brilliant red. “What a flirt you are, Mr. Montgomery. You’ll have half the female population of Chandler blushing.”

  He took her hand in one of his and looked at it. “Actually,” he said softly, “I don’t flirt at all. In fact, I haven’t looked at another woman since Julie died.”

  Nellie was speechless. Utterly without words. That this man, so handsome, a man to set any girl’s heart on fire, would pay any attention to her, a fat old maid, was one thing, but that he acted as though she were the only woman he looked at was another.

  She snatched her hand from his. “I am not a fool, Mr. Montgomery,” she said. “You waste your soft words on me. Perhaps you should try tempting someone who is younger and more foolish than I am.”

  She had meant to set him on his ear, but all he did was smile at her, flashing that single dimple in his cheek, “It’s good to know that I am a temptation,” he said, dark eyes twinkling.

  Nellie felt herself blushing again as she turned away and hurried toward the house, Mr. Montgomery close on her heels.

  Inside the house all was chaos. Her father was home, and instead of finding what he’d expected—his two daughters entertaining his guest—he’d come home to an empty house. Anna had disappeared as usual, neither Terel nor Nellie could be found, and there was no sign of his honored guest.

  Nellie, looking like the hired help, walked into the house, Mr. Montgomery behind her bearing bowls of string beans, just as Terel came down the stairs wearing not evening dress, as her father had requested, but an ordinary day dress. Charles Grayson’s temper snapped.

  “Look at you!” he said under his breath. “Look at the both of you! Nellie, I would fire a servant who dressed as badly as you. And have you been treating our guest as a scullery maid?” he asked, motioning to the bowls of beans.

  Before Nellie could speak Mr. Montgomery put himself between her and her father, almost as though he meant to protect her. “Miss Grayson very kindly agreed to sit with me when I so rudely arrived quite early for dinner.”

  Nellie held her breath, for there was a hard tone to Mr. Montgomery’s voice, as though he were almost daring her father. No one spoke to Charles Grayson in that tone.

  Before her father could speak, before Mr. Montgomery could say another word, Terel came floating down the stairs, her eyes alight at the sight of the beautiful man.

  “What is all the fuss?” Terel said in her best there’s-a-handsome-man-in-the-room voice as she moved toward Mr. Montgomery. “Please forgive us, sir,” she said, bowing her head demurely and looking up at him through her lashes. “We are usually not so inhospitable.” Never taking her eyes from his face, she continued, “Shame on you, Nellie, for telling no one that Mr. Montgomery had arrived. If I had known, I would have hurried back from my charity work to entertain you myself. As it was, you can see that I had no time to dress properly. May I take those?”

  Terel took the bowls from him and shoved them at Nellie. “Why didn’t you tell me he was young and handsome?” she hissed. “Were you trying to keep him for yourself?”

  Nellie didn’t have a chance to answer before Terel slipped her arm through Mr. Montgomery’s and began leading him toward the dining room.

  Nellie turned away and went to the kitchen. So much for her afternoon’s flirtation, she thought. So much for a handsome man’s words that he wasn’t a flirt. Even as Nellie told herself that this was what she’d expected, she suddenly felt very, very hungry, as hungry as she’d ever been in her life.

  On the sideboard was the jam roly-poly she’d made for dessert. It was light sponge cake filled with homemade jam, then rolled into a log. Nellie didn’t even think about what she was doing. She didn’t bother with a plate, didn’t bother getting a fork. One minute the dessert was there, and the next she had eaten it.

  Afterward she stood staring at the empty plate, as much in wonder as anything.

  Anna, found by Charles, came running into the kitchen. “They want dinner, and they want it now.” The maid looked from the empty plate to Nellie’s jam-smeared mouth and began to smirk. “You eat all the dessert again?”

  Nellie looked away. She would not cry. “Go to the bakery,” she said, trying to hold back tears of shame.

  “It’s closed,” Anna answered, her tone of voice telling how she was enjoying her triumph.

  “Go to the back. Tell them it’s an emergency.”

  “Like last time?”

  “Just go,” Nellie said, almost pleading. She didn’t want to be reminded of the other times she’d eaten the dessert meant for the family meal.

  Her shame at once again having eaten an entire cake made her keep her head down throughout the meal. Anna lazily and sullenly served the dinner while Charles and Terel kept up a steady stream of conversation with Mr. Montgomery.

  Nellie didn’t enter into the talk because she was dreading the time when what she’d done would be discovered. Her father had specifically asked for jam roly-poly for tonight, and she knew he’d be angry when he didn’t get it. She also knew he’d know instantly what had happened. Every word he’d ever said to her over the years about her eating came back to her. Throughout the long meal she prayed that her father wouldn’t say anything in front of Mr. Montgomery.

  All too soon, Anna brought in the bakery cake. There was silence from her father and Terel, and Nellie hung her head lower.

  “Did it happen again, Nellie?” Charles Grayson asked.

  Nellie gave a brief nod, and there was a longer silence.

  “Anna,” Charles said, “you will serve the cake, but I believe my eldest daughter has had enou