Remember Me - Regency Brides 03 (5 page)

he said after their laughter had subsided.

He watched as apprehension seemed to cloud her eyes for a moment. She looked away quickly but then looked back up at him., '!North … I mean...

Reverend..."

"Please cal me North," he insisted, since it was the only thing that made his life seem real.

"North," she said his name softly. "There is something I need to tel you-"

"Can you tel me something?" he interrupted, barely hearing her words. He knew he had to ask his next question, because it had burned constantly in his heart since the moment he laid eyes on her. "Did I ever cal on you or ever do anything to make you think I wanted to see you more?"

"No, but you real y must hear what I-"

"You see, that is what I cannot figure out." He continued, as if she hadn't spoken.

"Why didn't I cal on you? Did you have a beau, or for that matter,
do
you have one?"

She stood there frozen, as if shocked by what he was asking. "I've never had a beau."

Elation swept over North as she spoke those precious words. It suddenly didn't matter why he had not pursued her in the past. There was nothing stopping him now. "Excel ent!" he exclaimed with a wide grin. He held out his arm to her.

"Shal we go back to the house?"

She did as he asked, but he could tel she didn't understand his response or his delight. That didn't matter.

It wouldn't be long until she realized he was determined to be her first and
only
beau.

When North awoke the next morning, he was disappointed to find his memory had not improved. He didn't even feel as though he was close to remembering anything. He tried to recal if he'd dreamed of anything, and yet he knew his dreams had only consisted of one thing ... Helen.

In his dreams, she was smiling and gazing into his eyes; North was fairly sure it wasn't a dream of his past with her, but a dream of what he wished would happen.

Slowly, North pul ed himself from his bed and once again found himself shocked by the bareness of his surroundings.
Would Helen want to live in such
conditions?
He obviously was not a man of great means, nor would ever be if he continued on his current course as a minister, so would such a life be acceptable to her?

He had not even thought about that, possibly because this life seemed so unreal to him, as if he were walking in someone else's shoes. It would seem more reasonable for him to believe he was a wealthy man instead of someone who was used to doing without.

He realized he never ful y discussed his background with Helen. Perhaps she could fil in the missing information and provide insight on his exact status in life.

If he had money, where was it and how was he to get it? He thought about writing his mother about it, but then he would have to explain about his lapse in memory.

There seemed to be no solutions in sight.

The strange, foreign feelings he'd been experiencing al morning only increased when he pul ed on the plain cotton shirt and britches he'd been given by one of the church members. They were slightly tight around his broad shoulders and a tad long in the leg, but it was the quality that made it seem so odd. If he lived and helped out on a farm, wouldn't he be used to dressing like this?

How he wished he could find just one answer.

He walked around the cloth that divided his room from the living area. There was a basket of food items set on the table, and the only thing he could manage to eat, since it required no cooking skil s, was the plums. The rest of the bag contained rice, potatoes, dried beans, and a few jars of figs, which North instinctively knew he did not like.

Since his stomach was growling, he knew that he was left with only one choice: He would have to go out and gather some eggs and get milk from the cow. Then, of course, he'd have to figure out how to actual y cook the eggs.

Taking a deep breath for fortitude, North stepped out of the house, walked across his front porch, down the steps, then behind the house to the smal barn.

The first thing that greeted him was the cow. She had such a baleful look on her face, as though she were afraid he was about to have her butchered. North decided right then and there the cow would be cal ed Queen Mary, after Mary, Queen of Scots, because he had an idea that is what the martyred queen's face must have looked like when she was being led to her execution!

"Look here," he spoke to the wary cow. "I don't have the slightest idea what I'm about, so if you'l be patient with me and let me take some of your milk, I'l let you have al the grass you can eat. Do we have a deal?"

Queen Mary continued to stare at him without so much as a blink. "Come on, give over, old girl," he urged as he patted the coarse hair on her back. This time the cow just turned her massive head away from him and let out a long breath.

"Hmm, not very trusting, I see."

"Are you expecting her to just hand over her milk in a bucket?" a young voice asked from the doorway. Embarrassed, North jerked around to find Josie and Helen standing there smiling at him.

"How long have you two been standing there?" he asked careful y. "Long enough to see you know nothing about farm animals," Josie answered, only to receive a nudge from Helen. "Josie, don't be indelicate," Helen scolded. North held out his hand. "No, don't correct her, for she is right. I fear that I wil starve for my lack of animal husbandry knowledge."

Helen and Josie giggled at his pitiful expression. "You won't this morning!" Helen told him, holding up a cloth-covered basket that smel ed delightful. "We have brought fresh muffins and milk, so your…uh…Queen Mary, is it? Your Queen Mary wil not have to be bothered this morning."

Hunger overcame any embarrassment North might have been feeling. He quickly led them to the benches under his oak tree. It wasn't until he had finished off two of the muffins that he was able to talk.

"These are quite delicious!" he complimented with a satisfied sigh as he reached over to take another.

"I knew you would like them. Christina told me you once ate a whole plate of them," Helen told him, as she brushed the crumbs from her light pink skirt.

Today she was clad in a short-sleeved cotton day dress, and her hair was tied back with a matching pink ribbon. It was a simple gown suited for the hot, humid weather that also suited Helen's beautiful, creamy skin, black lash-framed eyes, and pink lips.

His ears perked up at hearing a name she had not mentioned before. "Christina?

Who is she?"

There was a stil ness that came over Helen that North did not understand. It was as though she had said something she shouldn’t; yet it didn't make sense. How did Christina fit into both their lives?

"She is a girl I grew up with," she answered vaguely and quickly. She then jumped up from her seat and said in an edgy tone, "I have an idea! Since I grew up on a farm, I could show you how to milk the cow." She started walking toward the barn. "There is no time like the present," she yel ed over her shoulder.

North didn't know what to think of her behavior. Confused, he looked at Josie, and the young girl just shrugged. "She only becomes nervous and does crazy things when you're around, you know," she explained in a conspiratorial whisper.

"The rest of the time she is extremely proper and concerned at al times about being a lady."

Hmm. Interesting.
Perhaps Helen liked him as much as he liked her.

That didn't explain the evasiveness about her friend Christina, though.

"Let's go learn to milk a cow, shal we?" he asked Josie as he extended his hand to her.

Josie, clearly not thril ed by that prospect, rol ed her eyes and sighed. "Oh, al right. But I'm almost sure this is not on the list of ladylike duties I have to learn."

North laughed as he led her to the barn. "No, probably not."

~

How could I be so careless?
Helen lamented, as she paced back and forth in the bam. The more information ~he offered, the more he was going to want to know, and the more lies she would have to tell.

Oh, this was truly the most awful-idea she had ever schemed! Once North found out how much she deceived him and concealed from him, he would never want to see her again! Last night she had tried to tel him the truth, but he wouldn't listen. And she couldn't tel him now because Josie was with her.

Helen was caught in a web of her own making, one that was created for the cause of love but was truly selfish at its very core. All because she wanted something she couldn't have.

"We're here for our lesson!" North announced cheerful y as he and Josie dashed through the barn door, startling the cow and upsetting the three chickens sitting over in the comer.

Helen looked at the cow and wished she hadn't been so hasty in her suggestion.

Though she'd seen cows being milked a dozen or so times by her father's servants, she'd never actual y milked one herself. "Wel . . . ," she sounded, stretching the word out as she thought of what to do. "We need a bucket, but I don't see one."

Josie snatched a bucket that was hanging from a nail on the wal beside her. "I found one!" "Wonderful," she replied, trying to sound confident as she took the bucket from her charge. "Wel , now we need a stool."

"Like the one there beside the cow?" North asked. Helen looked keenly at him to see if he was on to her, but she couldn't tel whether he was teasing her or not.

"Uh, yes. There it is." She slowly edged her way to the side of the cow, praying the animal would not be difficult. She careful y sat down and stared with much apprehension at the cow's under parts in front of her.

She was going to have to touch the animal for this to work, and she didn't want to touch it at al . She remembered petting a cow once, but that was the extent of it.

She had never touched the underbel y of one.

She glanced back at North, who had come to stand behind her, and once again, he seemed truly interested in what she was doing. "Are you al right?" he asked when she looked back at the cow and then to him once more.

"Oh, yes ...yes…I am fine. I just wanted to make sure you were paying attention,"

she answered. .

"You have my ful concentration," North assured.

"Capital, just capital!" she murmured between gritted teeth. Taking a deep breath, she slowly reached out and took hold of the cow. The cow stirred a little, but that was al . She tried to pul like she had seen the servant do, but no milk came out.

"Trouble?" North asked.

Helen ignored him as she pul ed again, and stil nothing. Three, four, then five times she tried but only succeeded in making the cow become irritable.

Final y she couldn't take it anymore. Helen jumped up from her seat, causing the stool to fal back, the cow to move around, and the chickens to be once again upset.

"I don't think she's in the mood to be milked," Helen said quickly, as she brushed at her skirt, then tried to push a few stray hairs away from her face. North folded his arms and appeared to study the cow. "I wasn't aware that cows needed to be in the mood." "Yeah, I've never heard that, either," Josie added. "Are you sure you've milked a cow before?"

Putting her hands on her hips, Helen held her chin up with as much bravado as she could muster. "Actual y, no. But I've seen it done plenty of times." She tapped her fingertip on her hips. "Enough to know when a cow is in the mood to be milked or not!"

North narrowed his gaze at her, but she could see the humorous gleam shining in his eyes. "So how do I know when she's in the mood?"

Helen suddenly realized he'd known al along she was faking it. She pointed her finger at him and charged, "Why didn't you tel me you were on to me? You actual y let me touch that ...that...thing!"

Both Josie and North were doubled over laughing by this point. "I can't wait...to see how ...you do ...with the chickens!" he said between laughs.

Helen smiled confidently as she marched over to one of the hens and deftly scooped her hand under the chicken and quickly withdrew it, holding an egg triumphant in the air. "Now let's see you try," she chal enged, knowing what the outcome would be to a novice.

Just as she thought would happen, North walked over to the hen, poked and prodded through its feathers and, instead of an egg, got a painful peck on the wrist for his efforts.

"Oh, dear," she said with mock innocence. "I fear you did not do that correctly."

North frowned as he rubbed his hand. "I take it you've done this before?"

"Many times." '

North grinned at her, and her heart did a flip-flop. To final y have al his attention directed at her, after many months of having him be merely polite to her while she pined away for him every time she saw him, was a heady experience indeed.

The sight of him being so natural and at ease, standing in a bam surrounded by chicken feathers and a smel y cow, made her wish he were truly who he thought he was--a simple preacher.

While it was true that North was always a very nice man despite his exalted position in society, he always seemed to be aware of and took care with everything he did--every move he made. He seemed bound by the dictates of his society and the boundaries of the English society, or the ton, as they were cal ed.

Now he didn't have those restrictions on him. There was no one watching how he dressed or with whom he kept company. There were no responsibilities on him since he didn't realize that he had the burden of taking care of four estates and watching after his many investments, not to mention the people who depended on him for their livelihood. He thought he was simply a country preacher whose only worry at the moment was probably the sermon he would have to preach on Sunday and how to get his cow to give milk.