For Want of a Nail
By S. Faith, © 2008
Words: 26,161 (Part 3: 6,632)
Rating: T / PG-13
Summary: Sometimes it's the little things that make the biggest difference: a poorly made shoe, a missing ring…
Disclaimer: They're still not my characters. They are still my words.
I feel like kind of a dork. I should have mentioned in Part 1 that this is sort of a continuation of the universe begun in several previous stories: "In Sickness And...", "The Scandal", "The Perfect Match", and even "The Prodigal Son". If you haven't read these, you shouldn't be too lost, though if you're feeling a bit lost, that would be why. (Will go back and edit part 1.)
As much as Mark hated to admit it, the photos of now three items positively identified as having belonged to Agnes Hase anonymously listed for sale on a charity auction site was fairly suspicious and damning for anyone with access to the house. Mariah the nurse had ample opportunity and motive (some of those pieces would have fetched a lot of money if they could have been properly fenced) and before he could seriously consider her grandson Ted, a man whom he knew and respected by reputation, Mariah would have to be eliminated as a suspect. Of greater concern at the moment though was the obvious grimace of pain on Bridget's face after her punch to his arm.
He realised he could kill two birds with one stone.
"Darling," he said to her gently, "are you all right?"
"I'm fine."
"Don't lie," piped up Nick. "You just socked your husband with a broken arm."
She sighed. "It does hurt a bit now."
"Come on," Mark said, reaching for the laptop and closing the lid. "Let's put this aside for now and go upstairs, have something to lessen the pain…" At Nick's smirk Mark amended, "…like one of your Vicodins, and have a nap."
"Mark," she said in protest.
"I'll hear none of it," Mark said, taking her right hand and pulling her to her feet.
She sighed, then went with him upstairs.
"Are you sure I should take a whole one?" she asked as she sat on the bed with a white oval in her hand and a glass of water.
"Yes. It'll kill the pain and let you sleep."
"But it'll put me out for a good long while."
Precisely, he thought. "I'll lie here with you, maybe rub a little arnica into my arm to keep it from bruising," he teased.
She sighed again, lifted the pill to her lips, then swallowed it down with a huge gulp of water.
The pain medication never took long to start working, and before he could even get his shirt off and into the bathroom to fetch out the tube of anti-bruising salve, her eyes started to get that faraway, glazed look he associated with the narcotics. "Ah," she said. "That's feeling much better already."
"I'm glad." He watched as she stood unsteadily to flip back the sheets. "Why don't you let me help you out of your clothes?"
She giggled. "You are too much."
He made a dismissive sound. "I mean so your shirt and skirt don't get wrinkled."
She grinned, lifting her arms up, and he pulled the shirt over her head, then the skirt down to her ankles. "You can take off this barbaric thing, too," she added, pointing to her bra. "It's murder to sleep in, really."
He had offered to undress her, so he had no one to blame for her teasing but himself. He pulled on her arm to turn her around, but she made a clucking sound. "You have plenty of practice doing this from right where you are," she said. She looked distinctly unfocused now.
No one else to blame, he thought again as he put his arms around her, took the bra clasp in his fingers, and undid it. He then grabbed the arm straps and pulled forward. "There. Now get in bed. I'll be right back."
He went into the bathroom, tended to the sore spot on his arm, then returned to her side to find she had already fallen fast asleep. It was just as well, because as much as he liked holding her in his arms as she lulled off to sleep, as much as he liked gazing upon her loveliness, he had something of a mission to accomplish, and as soon as he had pulled the covers over her sacked-out form, he dressed again in his shirt and left.
He told his mother he had an errand to run in Grafton Underwood proper, that he would be back soon and to let Bridget know should she wake, but he doubted she would.
He was at the Hase house in no time at all and found Mariah the nurse on the porch of the house smoking a cigarette. She grinned sheepishly as she lowered it in a manner uncannily like Bridget's. She said, "I know, I'm a nurse, I should know better… Mr Darcy, was it? What brings you our way again today?"
Damn. He had not thought of how to explain his returned presence.
"Oh," he said, thinking quickly, "my wife Bridget misplaced her sunglasses and thought she might have left them somewhere yesterday, so I'm backtracking everywhere we were yesterday in the hopes of finding them."
"I'm sorry, I don't recall she had sunglasses on when she arrived," said Mariah, "and I haven't found any."
"Ah well. Thanks anyway." He put his hands in his pockets. "How is Agnes doing today? When we saw her yesterday she had forgotten meeting me the day before."
A look of sadness washed over Mariah's face. "She has good days and bad days. She has better days when she has visitors, but in the three months I've been with her the only visitor I've seen her have was her grandson."
Three months? he thought, then said, "That's a shame."
"It's possible she used to get more visitors before—" She stopped suddenly. "Well, before."
"Before what?"
"Well, with the old nurse." Mariah held the cigarette up and took a drag, then spoke confidentially: "She had an accident and died. Fell down the stairs, right here at the house. Very sad."
Mark tried very hard to rein in a reaction. It was true that people did occasionally fall down stairs and die as a result, but he thought of Bridget's response to hearing of this accident… well, he would either have to lock her in the bedroom to keep her from investigating further, or suck it up and help her.
Neither sounded remotely palatable, but in the interest of marital harmony and peace of mind, he realised he would have no choice but to go with the latter.
"You might not have heard about it," continued Mariah, "as you live in town."
"I had not. How terrible for Agnes for such a thing to have happen in her own home."
"She was pretty shaken up at the time. She'd been napping in the sitting room like she does after tea and the commotion startled the bejeezus out of her. It's a good thing Ted was there to call the ambulance and take care of her until he could find another nurse."
Nothing like adding fuel to the fire, Mark thought, thinking of Bridget's reaction to Ted's being there to visit at the time. "Was Ted actually there when it happened?"
"Oh no," said Mariah. "He was apparently having lunch at the pub in Grafton Underwood when it actually happened. Poor Agnes recalls clear as day how she called Ted's mobile to come home at once. She'd been too afraid and too weak to get up to see what had happened."
He had to admit his lawyerly thought processes immediately concluded that Ted might have been anywhere when he got the call on his mobile, and knew Bridget would think the same.
"What a tragedy," he said neutrally. "Well. I shan't take any more of your time, and I had better continue on my quest for the sunglasses. Good afternoon." He smiled, tipped his head cordially to the side as a sort-of bow, then retreated for his vehicle.
As he got back into the car to go home to his parents', he was filled with a growing dread about telling Bridget what he'd found out, and decided to bring a peace offering back with him.
When he returned to the house, she had apparently recently awakened to slip herself into a long tee shirt (which he noticed was inside out) but was still somewhat drug-groggy. "Where did you run off to?" she asked grumpily.
"I had an errand to run," he admitted, then sat down on the bed beside her.
"What kind of errand?"
He handed her a little white bag, more of the delicious truffles she'd enjoyed at the street fair. Her face lit up. "Thank you!"
He placed a kiss in her hair. "You're welcome. How are you feeling?"
"Better than before." She turned her face to the sun, to the doors leading out to the balcony. "Nice day outside?"
"Yes."
"Want to join me?"
He grinned. As if he would say no.
They spent some time standing at the balustrade of the balcony, peering out over the countryside with his arm about her waist. He heard, felt, Bridget sigh from beside him before she said, "I lived here in Grafton Underwood for most of my childhood that I can remember, yet there's something about the view from this house that just… wow. Takes my breath away."
He smiled. "You do realise that someday this place will be ours, don't you?"
She turned to look up at him, a slight lack of comprehension evident in her features. "Ours?"
"I love my parents, but they are, unfortunately, not immortal."
She blinked. "What about your brother?"
"He doesn't want the house. Harder to set up a charitable foundation that way."
"Oh." She looked a little overwhelmed. "Well, yes, I suppose this should have occurred to me before, but… wow. This house makes the Holland Park house look like a child's model."
He chuckled. "It's large, I'll grant you that."
"Crikey," she said, still looking dumbfounded. "Any other surprises for me today?"
Mark sighed. He realised he could stay silent on the subject no more.
"Bridget, when I went out during your nap, getting you chocolates wasn't all I went to do," he said. "I went to speak to Mariah."
"The nurse? Why would—oh Mark. You didn't."
"I didn't walk up to her and accuse her of stealing from Agnes, if that's what you're thinking," he said gruffly. "Give me a little credit."
"So what did you do?"
Leading her back inside to sit once more on the bed, he described his conversation with Mariah, told her every detail he'd learned, and her reaction was about what he'd expected it to be. "I remember Mum telling me about someone dying in an accidental fall here in Grafton Underwood but… well, I admit sometimes I tune my mum out when she's going on and on about town gossip." She stopped and took a deep breath, then continued dramatically, "Mark, don't you see how horrible this looks for Ted? The old nurse might have found out… and had to be silenced!"
"Bridget." Don't be ridiculous was poised to come out of his mouth, and figuratively he bit his tongue. "Ted was in the pub having lunch. I'm sure witnesses were interviewed by the police. That's not the sort of thing they'd overlook."
"Oh, but what if they all lied for him? You said he's very powerful."
"What of the auctions, though? I saw that the oldest one was fewer than three months ago, which is when Mariah started. She could have been lying about not having seen the mirror."
"Unless Ted took the mirror away before—" She suddenly stopped talking, and pouted. "Mark! I can't believe you went and did this without me!"
Her little outburst took him by surprise. "What?"
She leaned forward and lightly punched him in the arm again, this time with her good hand. "You wanted to try to prove me silly and wrong."
"Silly and wrong?" he said with a laugh. "Being silly is the worse crime?"
Lowering her brows, she leaned to punch him again. "Don't make fun of me. I'm on drugs."
This only made him laugh harder, which caused her to raise up her left foot and try to push him off the bed. He grabbed her ankle, which prompted her to get her right foot and right arm involved in her efforts to evict him onto the floor.
He was bigger, stronger, and not impeded by the diminishing effects of narcotics, so he had a definite advantage over her, and shortly was in fact literally over her.
"Do you concede the fight?" she asked, which was laughable as he had her pinned down by the wrist (right arm) and shoulder (left arm).
"Concede from my winning position? I think not."
She raised up her head and placed her mouth on his throat, which he had foolishly left exposed, then grazed her teeth over his skin. "How about now?"
"Hmmm."
He realised that in his effort to avoid further injuring her broken arm, he had made a tactical error in only pinning down her left shoulder. Her left hand and fingers were still quite free, still fully functional, and she put them to work.
"Oh," he said softly, closing his eyes. "I concede."
Shortly after Mark left the room to take Bridget up for a nap, Nick eyed her closed laptop warily. He wasn't crazy about technology—he didn't even like using the mobile he had—nor was he crazy about opening Bridget's computer without her permission, but the contact information for the charity auction website was right there within his grasp, and he was itching to make a phone call.
To hell with it, he thought, picking up the laptop and opened it. It awoke and revealed the last page they'd viewed. As he clicked through to the Contact Us page, he was thankful that Bridget wasn't so security-minded as to require a password to wake the computer back up.
He quickly located a London phone number and dialed it, introducing himself as an attorney for a party who believed that the items up for sale might be stolen.
The woman on the other end of the line made a sound of surprise. "Oh, no, that can't be."
"How can you be certain?"
"The contact for the donating party assured us that the items belonged to the family for generations. However, I would be happy to do some research for you and call you back."
"Yes, thank you very much." He gave the woman his mobile number, thanked her for her time and disconnected.
Shortly thereafter he headed down to the kitchen to begin preparing lunch, a three cheese quiche. He had taken the time to grate the cheese, make and brown the crust, and was in the middle of beating the eggs to a froth when his mobile began to ring.
"Bloody hell," he said, setting the bowl down, glaring at them as if they shouldn't dare to go flat while he answered the call. He reached into his pocket, grabbed the mobile and pressed the button to answer it. Gruffly he said, "Yes?"
"Hello, Mr Wentworth? This is Ms Jennings." It was the woman from the auction house, and she sounded slightly nervous.
"Ms Jennings. So good of you to get in touch so quickly."
"Yes, well, we're all very grateful for your call," she said. "Saved us a great deal of potential liability."
Intrigued, Nick knit his brows. "What did you find out?"
If Mark had to surrender, it was the sweetest sort of surrender imaginable.
The playful tussling had put an extra little spark of passion into things, and he'd had her tee shirt and pants off and across the room in no time flat. He had broken away from her only at her insistence that he be as undressed as she was, and returned quickly to the bed, determined to finish what he'd started.
"Where was I?" he growled into her ear as he rolled to have her beneath him.
"I think you know—oh," she said, giggling then sighing as he dove upon her neck with his mouth, running his fingers hastily over her hip and leg, carrying on with great enthusiasm.
"Oh, ohhh, Mark," she hissed into his ear just as things were getting particularly satisfying, which spurred him on until she added, "Someone's at the door."
He then heard the pounding, followed by:
"Mark? Bridget? You've napped long enough. Get up. This is important."
Not again, he thought.
This time it was Uncle Nick, whose voice and presence was about as effective as a wet blanket at putting out even the hottest of smouldering embers. He pushed himself up and away from Bridget, locating and putting his shirt back on.
"One moment." In his haste to get into bed with his wife he had carelessly tossed his clothes aside, something that he now regretted, as he could not locate his boxers; there was a reason he usually folded them tidily.
"Mark!" she said quietly. "What about me?"
"Stay under the sheets."
"No way, then he'll know for sure."
"I'm sure he knows for sure already. Besides, he's already practically caught us in the act at least once before, as I'm sure you—"
"Mark, boy, what's taking so long? Looking for your bloody pants?" called Nick impishly. Bridget turned crimson.
He gave up on the boxers and slipped back into the trousers, carefully though quickly tucking in the polo shirt and fastening the trousers. He picked up Bridget's shirt and helped her back into it so she could at least sit up decently, though he had also lost track of her bra, but didn't have time to care.
Mark at last went to the door and opened it. "Yes, what's the matter?"
Nick's eyes went quickly to Mark's trousers, which he realised that in his haste he had zipped up so sloppily the tail of the shirt was poking out the fly, then over to Bridget; the small of her back was visibly quite bare. Nick's smirk was undeniably amused and impossibly smug.
"'Napping'. Right." He strode in regardless. "Anyway. I've just spoken with a Ms Jennings from the auction site."
"Oh? What did you find out?" asked Bridget eagerly.
After righting his trousers, Mark sat beside Bridget and subtly pulled the covers up around her. She was so interested in Nick's answer she didn't even notice him doing so.
"You were partially right, Bridget. The items were stolen—" He paused in that dramatic way he had, looking to Bridget, who looked smug until he continued, "but not from Agnes."
Nick's addendum had Mark's attention in a snap. "What?"
"Turns out they were among a cache stolen from a small villa in France fifty years ago."
For the confusion swirling around in Mark's head, Nick might have suddenly began speaking Urdu. "Are you joking?" Mark asked at last. Bridget sat enthralled.
"I'm not. All auction activity has been suspended pending further investigation. They need to determine under whose jurisdiction possession of the goods might be prosecutable: the UK's (no statute of limitations) or France's (which has long since passed)." Sensing he might lose Bridget in legalese, he veered back to the tale at hand. "They were apparently stolen by an illustrious thief working in the south of France at the time, someone hitting the richest and most reclusive of families. Apparently signed himself as 'Le Lapin Agile', or simply 'Le Lapin'."
'The nimble rabbit,' Mark thought. Probably a local hero, practically a Robin Hood. At that Mark inwardly groaned—all he needed was for Bridget to romanticise the crime and the criminal.
Bridget spoke at last. "How exciting!"
He sighed. Just as he suspected. "I doubt though that Ted, a legal expert, would risk everything to kill a nurse to get rid of items that are likely considered legally his under the law anyway, regardless how he came upon them," scoffed Mark.
Nick looked stunned. "Wait, what? Kill a nurse?"
Mark briefly explained Agnes' previous nurse's untimely demise to Nick. "Bridget thinks she must have had to be 'silenced'," he said.
Bridget made a dismissive sound. "That was the drugs talking. I can't imagine Ted actually capable—" She stopped, then as if struck by a bolt from the blue, Bridget exclaimed, "Oh my God!"
"What?" asked Nick and Mark in unison.
"Don't you see? Ted's grandfather must have been the thief!"
"That's a bit of a reach, don't you think?"
She looked overwhelmingly self-satisfied. "To think that I, the one who received a D in French, would be the one to point this out to two Cambridge men: 'hase' is the French word for a lady rabbit."
She was absolutely right. The coincidence would be staggering, if unrelated.
Nick said, "Well, a man might kill to hide skeletons in his closet."
It was now Bridget's turn to scoff. "Oh, nonsense. It would be exciting to have a notorious criminal turn up in one's family tree. Ted would never kill just because of that. To think, the man who brought me back to my mum when I wiped out on my bike age six was a famous cat burglar!" She practically had stars in her eyes.
Mark and Nick looked to one another, and for once he felt the novel sensation of being more suspicious than Bridget was. If she thought there was now less motive for Ted to want to kill, she was very wrong. They both knew full well the extremes to which men would go when they didn't want their secrets revealed, and Bridget should have known, too. And this was a big secret.
At last, Nick spoke. "Bridget, if Ted discovered that his grandfather was a notorious thief, he might do whatever he had to do to protect that secret, to protect his own future and legal career."
"It's nigh on impossible to be a judge when you have a criminal in your family tree," said Mark. "Especially an infamous one."
"Knowing Ted as I do," she said, "I'm going to reserve judgment." That would be a novelty, thought Mark, as she had been the one to so vehemently accuse him of thieving from his own grandmother in the first place. "So what are we going to do?" she asked, looking from Mark to Nick.
"We are doing nothing," said Mark. "If a crime has been committed, that's for the police to handle." He was thankful for their currently being in Grafton Underwood. It was far more difficult for Bridget to be mobile out here.
"I agree one hundred percent," said Nick drolly. "Mark, hide your car keys; don't want her haring off to London to speak with her old pal DI Kirby. Hide her phone for good measure, too."
At Bridget's murderous look, Mark chuckled, then quickly composed his features.
"Well," said Nick. "Now that we're in agreement that no further action is to be taken—" He turned his most penetrating stare upon Bridget. "—I suppose I should let you get back to your… nap." He strode back to the door, pausing momentarily to poke his toe at something that had caught his eye. "Ah. I believe I found your pants, Mark," he said as he left the room.
There were many moments of silence after his departure, during which Mark found himself unable to meet his wife's eye. When at last he did, she began to laugh, even though she was herself recovering from the most scarlet of blushes.
"That was mortifying," said Mark.
"It was, but really. Mark, enjoying shagging his wife?" she joked; with a dramatic flourish, she brought the back of her hand to her forehead, and added in a mock offended tone, "'Will the shades of Pemberley be thus polluted?'"
"I'm serious, Bridget."
"Oh, Mark, no one thinks any less of you for having a healthy sex life. In fact," she said, her tone becoming conspiratorial, "they're probably jealous." She raised her hand and tenderly patted his forearm. "Besides. If you don't keep me occupied, I might go have a chat with good old DI Kirby, right?"
'Healthy' was not the word that immediately came to mind—'all-consuming' seemed closer to the mark—but he thought she did have a very good point, never mind that he hated leaving things in the unfinished state that they had.
As she reached for the button at his waist, he said in a long-suffering voice, "Oh, the things I have to do to keep you safe."
There were times when Bridget almost forgot she was supposed to be convalescing a broken arm, but certain circumstances brought it heavily to the forefront. Trying to find a comfortable post-shag cuddle position was one of those circumstances. She hated not being able to just drape herself as she liked over him, since she was usually too fuzzy-headed afterwards to have to think about where her arms were. There was also the cast itself, whose bulky form did not innately lend itself to comfort.
"Ow," she said, shifting so that her arm was free to rest over his still-heaving chest.
"Poor dear," he said, his eyes still closed. As the cast made contact with this skin, she swore he went concave in reflex; his eyes flew open in shock. "That thing is a little on the cool side."
"Sorry."
He accepted the apology by gathering her close to him with his own left arm. "How are you liking our little holiday so far?"
While it wasn't the continent, she had little to complain about so far: how could she when she had so much of his time and attention? She sighed as she smiled, turning her head slightly to place a kiss on his collarbone. "Record levels of bliss, mixed with a little intrigue, a little mystery. Very good indeed."
He chuckled. "I'm glad to hear the bliss rates well above the intrigue and the mystery."
However, not all was rosy; her stomach chose that moment to make its complaints known and they both started to laugh. "Come on. Don't want to be accused of starving you."
He helped her to dress and after dressing himself—this time each of them properly—they padded down to the kitchen, where they found the majority of a baked quiche still there on the counter. Mark cut them each a good slice and poured them each some water tinged with lemon to wash it down.
"Mark! Bridget! There you are." It was Elaine, returning from a trip to the market, or so Bridget guessed by the carrier bags in her hand overflowing with fresh broccoli. "Bit of a late lunch?"
"Yes. We were napping and slept longer than intended," said Mark after swallowing the latest mouthful.
Bridget hid her laugh by smiling and directing her attention towards her plate. "Another of Nick's wonderful creations," said Bridget, pointing with her fork. "I honestly don't know when he finds the time to do it all."
"I never understood that myself. I especially never understood why no woman wouldn't want to snap him up for his culinary talents alone."
"Mother, you must admit that he's a bit of an acquired taste," piped up Mark, tactfully saying what Bridget herself was thinking. "As his sister you're a touch biased, I think."
Elaine grinned. "I know, I know…"
"Speak of the devil and he shall appear," came Nick's voice from the staircase. "Ah, Elaine, my broccoli. Thank you. If you ladies wouldn't mind washing and cutting them up into florets, I need Mark's opinion on the lesson plan I'm devising for the next term. Upstairs, if you don't mind?"
Legal talk bored her to tears, law school lesson plans even more so, so Bridget was happy to stay and help as best she could with the broccoli, as it gave her a chance to speak with Elaine.
"So I trust you've been having a relaxing time since you've been here?" Elaine asked as soon as she had dumped all of the broccoli into a colander and run it under the tap. Bridget settled herself on a stool.
"Yes, very relaxing, except for this Ted business. Do you want me to help?"
"No, that's fine." She shook the colander to get out the excess water, then plucked a stem out and began sectioning it up. "So what is this 'Ted business'?"
Bridget then recounted everything, from the earliest suspicions to what they had just learned from Nick. Elaine was appropriately astonished, and had to set the knife down lest she mistakenly chop into her own hand.
"Well, yes, I suppose it is correct for the auction house to pull the sales pending investigation, lest they be charged themselves in any conspiracy of stolen goods. I've spent enough time around my son to know that much," she said with a grin as she resumed chopping. "What else is being done? Do you know?"
"That's just it," said Bridget, then said in a mock-stern tone imitating her husband, "'Let the police handle it, if there is a crime involved'. So… nothing as yet that I'm aware of. He certainly doesn't want me to take matters into my own hands."
"Well, this is Mark we're talking about," said Elaine with a smile. "Looking after you since you were four years old."
Bridget felt a smile spread across her own face, and silently thanked her lucky stars once more for her excellent fortune.
"What else do you think can be done, though?"
"Well, I think it's all going to depend on whether the items are going to fall under French or English law, but that's not an area I intend on mucking about in," she said, her focus firmly back on the food in front of her. "If the items are legally the family's, there's really nothing to charge him with. Ted can give that stuff away if he wants, and he can't prove he didn't have permission from his dotty old grandmother." The subtlety of her smile reminded Bridget uncannily of her son's.
"I want to do something though, call Ted—"
"Oh, no, Bridget. I'm afraid I'm with Mark on this one. Leave well enough alone."
"Thank you, Mother, for resisting her efforts in recruiting you into her nefarious army," came a voice from behind them, and as she felt Mark's hand slide across her shoulder, she felt her pout extend by degrees.
"Finished already?" asked Elaine; Bridget realised he hadn't been gone all that long.
"It was a very well-conceived lesson plan," he said absently. "I'm not sure why he thought he needed my opinion." She looked over her shoulder and up to him and caught the tail end of a distracted, far-away expression.
"Everything all right?"
"Oh, just fine." He dropped his head to place a kiss on her forehead. "Except for your continued incorrigible ways," he added, inconspicuously and firmly patting her on the bottom.
Nick swept in at just that moment and said under his breath, "You'll have to do it harder than that for it to be effective."
Mark ignored the comment as Bridget flushed pink. "What would you like to do today, darling?"
"Whatever it is," said Elaine, corralling the last of the florets into a large bowl for Nick's use making whatever it was he intended on making, "you should be prompt for supper. I've asked Pam and Colin over."
That suddenly explained the volume of broccoli, much expanded from the usual. "Thank you," said Nick to his sister, as he took the bowl in his hands.
"Okay," said Mark; the lack of fuss in his tone of voice surprised her. Usually the prospect of an evening with her mother made him twitch.
"I have a marvelous idea," said Elaine. "Mark, your father's tending to the horses. Why don't you and Bridget go for a ride?"
"Mm, yes, a turn around the park on Allie sounds very pleasant," he said.
She looked at him in shock. He was agreeing to a horse ride when she had a broken arm?
"Don't look like that," he said, seemingly knowing what she was thinking. "You and I can ride together. And Allie is the most docile horse I've ever known."
She suddenly liked the idea very, very much.
They had been lucky, hitting a stretch of summer weather that was not too hot nor too chilly, not a cloud in the clear blue sky. Mark felt especially lucky, astride his father's large but gentle mare, walking leisurely along the perimeter of the fields, one arm around the waist of his lovely wife, the other controlling the reins, not that the horse was in need of much controlling. It was a challenge to sit comfortably on the saddle together, but in the end they'd made it work and though he had tried to get Bridget to at least wear a helmet, she pestered him enough that he relented and allowed her to go without one.
He briefly tightened his grip around her, and she rested her head back against his shoulder. He admitted to himself he would not have been able to plant a kiss atop her head had he made her wear that helmet, but he would never give her the satisfaction of knowing. He grinned.
"It's just… perfect out here," she said with a happy sigh. They came out from under the shade of a copse of tall trees, and the sun lit her hair with gold. He could hardly help but agree.
They were able to make a perfect circuit of the property at that pace and still have plenty of time to freshen up before dinner. When they reached the stables, Malcolm was still there waiting for them. "I'll put her away," he said.
"Much appreciated," murmured Mark, swinging his leg down over and landing on the ground, then turning to assist Bridget from her perch.
"Have a nice jaunt, m'dear?" Malcolm asked of Bridget as she raised her arms up and arched back in a cat-like stretch.
"Lovely," she said with a dazzling smile; as his heart fluttered in a most unmanly way at the sight of it, it hit home once again the pleasantly devastating effect she still had on him. "We're off to wash the stable smell off before dinner. My mum and dad are coming over."
"So I heard… I'll be in in a few." Malcolm glanced off into the distance and smiled wistfully as he continued, "Love sitting out here on days like this, in the silence… can't see the sea, but the sky… it does remind me of the service." She reached and smoothed the shoulder of his shirt down in a genial gesture of affection, and he turned to bestow a smile on his daughter-in-law as well. That his parents loved his wife too was a blessing in itself.
"Well, enjoy the view," Mark said not unemotionally. "We'll see you at dinner." Mark slipped his arm around her shoulders as they headed back into the house. His leg muscles felt slightly rubbery yet were pleasantly zinging from sitting on horseback for so long; it was something he was out of practice doing.
"How are you feeling?" he asked of her as they headed for the staircase up to their room; each step felt heavier than the last.
"My arm's fine. You took good care of me today."
"And your legs?"
"Legs are fine. Why do you ask?"
He reminded himself that he'd been the one doing the driving, so to speak. "Shall we shower, then?" he asked, deflecting further discussion even though he already knew the answer.
"Oh yes." She hopped up the last step and bounded into the suite. He, on the other hand, reached around and rubbed his backside just over his tailbone.
"I found this and thought you'd want it."
"Found what?"
As Mark headed down towards dinner, the sound of voices from the front sitting room caught Mark's attention, and he paused to try to discern precisely to whom he was listening, aside from Bridget's voice, which he could pick out of any crowd. The other though, while female, he could not immediately place it. Very gentle, well moderated, almost sweet.
"Only found one of your favourite books from childhood, darling. It's a little worse for wear but…"
He could hardly believe it. Bridget was talking to her mother.
"Oh."
He eased himself forward to hear a little bit better, and he caught a glimpse of the two of them. He had never seen Bridget's mother look so… maternal. She handed what looked like a book over to Bridget, who accepted it with a puzzled look until she looked at the title on the spine.
"Oh," she said again, her face getting a little softer. "Thank you."
"Always nice to have a little reminder of what's important in life, I think," she said with a hint of melancholy in her voice, even as she smiled, "even though you hardly seem to need it."
"Yes." Bridget popped open the book, smiling nostalgically, as Pam glanced around herself, noticing Mark.
"Mark!" shrilled Pamela, smiling, reverting to the Pamela Jones he had come to know and love. "Stop lurking in doorways and come over here and give us a hug." She offered her cheek to him, which he was obliged to kiss.
"What's that you have there, darling?" he asked, glancing over to the pale blue book Bridget held in her hand.
"Oh. The Velveteen Rabbit," she said with a little blush.
Great, more rabbits, he thought.
"When Bridget was a little girl, we had to read her this story every night before bed, and tuck her in with her favourite stuffed—Oh my godfathers!" said Pam as her eyes lit on the clock. "Dinner time! Daddy's already with Malcolm and your Uncle Nick, Mark." With a bright smile she turned on the ball of her feet and headed towards the dining room.
After Pam had disappeared from sight, Bridget looked askance at Mark.
"What?" he said.
"That's a rather weird expression you have on your face, is all."
He laughed. He hadn't realised his thoughts about the normalcy of her mother had been that transparent.
"That's very sweet, by the way," he said to her.
"What is?"
"Velveteen Rabbit every night before bed."
She chuckled. "I had forgotten all about it, honestly." She threaded her arm through his elbow, cradling the book to her chest. "So, after dinner tonight," she said as they went off towards the meal, "care to read me a story?"
Bridget kept the book close to her side all through dinner—which went about as well as a dinner with both sets of parents could be expected to go, discussions of the possibility of impending parenthood unavoidable thanks to Mrs Jones—and faithfully carried it upstairs with her after Pam and Colin had left. After they'd readied for bed and slipped beneath the covers, she extended her arm out to Mark, handing him the tatty old book.
"I thought you were joking."
She pursed her lips. He sighed, smiled, and accepted his fate, propping a pillow up against the headboard and sitting back against it, then cracking the book open as Bridget folded into his embrace. He read the little book from cover to cover, and at the end felt emotion threatening to close his throat, saw that his wife had tears gathering in the corners of her eyes. He set the book down and reached to switch off the bedside lamp. She turned into him, slipped her arms around him, kissed him on the collarbone, then closed her eyes. He enjoyed the silence, enjoyed watching her slip into slumber lit only by stray moonlight coming in through the window.
She surprised him though; he thought her fully asleep when she whispered, "I'd love you even if all your fur wore off."
Gingerly he kissed the top of her head, even as his fingers absently reached to touch the crown of his own. In any case, it helped take his mind off of the preoccupation of what tomorrow would bring, allowing him to follow her into sleep.
