His first thought was that Elizabeth had come home, but she would not use the front door. And she could not operate locks.
He pushed the door open two inches and stopped. There was light inside his rooms, but he had left no lamps burning when he’d left at nine o’clock that morning. He was considering going to the pub and asking Delores if she had lit his lamps when he heard a sound from inside his rooms.
Elizabeth?
But that did not explain the door or the lamps.
Then the door opened fully, and he took a step backward in surprise. He stumbled to a stop, catching his balance on the wall, and stared at Hazel.
In his rooms.
“You lit my lamps.”
She smiled at him. “That is all you have to say to me?”
“Yes.” Duncan’s brain was not working as quickly as it usually did, but then it often did not work properly when something happened that he did not anticipate. Hazel being in his rooms was most certainly something he had not anticipated.
She limped to the side and spread her arm toward the interior of his rooms. “Why don’t you come in so we can talk?”
Duncan stepped forward into his rooms, but stopped just inside the door. He did not want to track mud and drip water on the rug.
Hazel moved to stand in front of him. She lifted the sodden hat from his head and leaned past him to hang it on one of the hooks affixed to the wall behind his back.
Duncan stood completely still, but when she was close, he inhaled deeply the scent that was so particularly hers—lavender. It reminded him of springtime and sunshine and the lavender stalks he had liked to put in the parlor when the flowers were in bloom.
She returned to her place in front of him and reached toward the top button of his coat. When her hand brushed his neck, he startled without meaning to, shivers sliding down his back.
She paused, her hands hovering in the air a few inches in front of him. “I want to help you undo the buttons of your coat.”
Duncan considered this and remembered his experiment. Also, his fingers were very cold and that would make it difficult for him to undo the buttons. He nodded and then stared at the hollow at the base of her throat while she undid the buttons from the top to the bottom. When she finished, she reached her hands inside his coat and rested them on his shoulders. She looked at him, and he met her eyes, holding the look for several seconds and enjoying the sensation of her warm hands on his cold shoulders.
“You are completely soaked,” Hazel said, not moving her hands and not looking away. “You’ll catch a cold if you don’t get out of these wet clothes and warm yourself.” Her cheeks turned pink, which made him think that maybe she felt extra warm, as he was beginning to feel.
“You left Ipswich nineteen days ago without saying goodbye to me,” Duncan said. “Your school is in King’s Lynn. You said your future was there. Sophie was there.”
“I was wrong.”
Duncan furrowed his eyebrows. “You were wrong?”
Hazel pushed her hands back, sliding his coat off his shoulders. She helped him draw his arms from the wet sleeves, and then he hung the coat on one of the hooks. When he turned back, she was facing him again. He missed the feel of her hands on his shoulders.
“I thought the school would make me happy, Duncan. I thought it would give me purpose and security and that I would love the work, but I was sad and lonely, and . . . I missed you. I missed the life we made here.”
“You said our life was not real.”
“I was wrong.”
“You are a very intelligent woman, and though I know I have accused you of ignorance and insufficient education on some topics, I do not think you have ever been wrong.”
“I want a life here in Ipswich, with you, if you will have me.”
“Have you? What does that mean?”
“I want to continue to be Mrs. Penhale.” She stepped toward him.
She was very close now, and he felt himself tensing, but then she lifted her hands and he made sure he did not flinch as she pulled the knot out of his cravat, which opened his shirt at the neck and made him very warm.
“I will go to the Stillman School every month or so, or when Sophie needs me, and I will continue the parlor school here so that I do not have to give up teaching entirely. But I want to be here . . . with you. Make a real life. With you.”
She pulled the cravat from around his neck by tugging on one side until the other end was free of his collar. She dropped it on the floor, and though he hesitated moving because he liked the way Hazel was making him feel, after a moment Duncan had to lean down and pick it up. He turned at the waist to hang the wet cravat on one of the hooks as quickly as possible.
She was smiling when he turned back to her, which he interpreted as her not being angry about him cleaning up after her.
His body was getting warmer, which made his still-wet clothing feel even colder. He shivered, and Hazel reached for his hand. She pulled him toward the stove, which made him warmer with every step. It was very smart of her to have started a fire before he returned, and though he had many questions about how she had gained entrance into his rooms and when she had arrived, he did not ask them.
He realized he was still wearing his muddy boots, and so he took them off and set them to the side of the fire where they would dry but not so quickly that the leather warped. He was standing in front of the stove in his socks, pants, and shirt that was open at the neck.
“I feel very confused,” Duncan finally said.
“I feel very awkward,” Hazel said, shifting her weight from one foot to the other
“Why?”
“Because I do not know how to say what I have to say without nuance and subtext, but you will not understand that, which means I shall need to be very direct, and that is embarrassing.”
“I am sorry I do not understand nuance and subtext. I do not want you to feel embarrassed. I do not want you to leave again.”
“What do you want, Duncan?”
Duncan considered for a moment. “I want to be happy again, and I have been happiest when you have been here.”
Hazel stretched her hands toward the stove, even though she was not the one who had been in the rain for hours. “Do you understand what love is, Duncan?”
“Of course.”
“Tell me what love is to you?”
“Love is . . .” This was difficult. Solid things you could touch or ideas that had already been written into words were much easier to explain. He thought for several seconds about what to say because Hazel had come all the way from King’s Lynn, and he did not want her to leave again. And she had asked him a question, and he wanted to give the right answer.