Holly Cottage by Shelley Adina

Author:Shelley Adina [Adina, Shelley]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781939087928
Publisher: Moonshell Books, Inc.

Chapter 6

Calling himself all kinds of a fool for not being able to go to sleep while Maggie was out in the company of Alden Dean, Jake had finally given it up altogether. He had risen, dressed, collected a shovel and the holly tree from where it languished in the garden, and borrowed Lewis’s two-seater steam landau for the trip over to Maggie’s cottage.

In rambling about the place, moonglobe held high, trying to decide where to plant the sapling, he checked the chickens’ house and found it secure, though a shadow slipped away out of sight as he approached.

“Not on my watch, you rascal,” he told it, testing door and windows and finding them in order. Because of the birds’ value, the doors of all the houses bore a series of interlocking cylinders and turning latches that were opened not with a key, but with a sequence of pressure studs. Maggie had the idea from the pirates’ door under the cellar at Seacombe House. These locks came as close to guaranteeing the hens’ safety from two-legged foxes as anything could.

In all, the front gate was the best place for a tree, he decided. If holly meant protection, then it was either that or the front door, but as it grew, it might block the light from the window, and that would never do.

The gate it was.

He had just finished tamping down the soil around the little tree when he heard the clip-clop of hooves coming down the road. Only the very poor or the very rich rode in horse-drawn vehicles, and if it were a wagon full of miscreants from the south bank …

Jake pocketed his moonglobe, stepped into the darkness next to the stone wall, and hefted the shovel in both hands.

The next thing he heard was—of all things—Maggie’s voice. Seconds later she opened the gate, and in his surprise, he stepped out into the light of the carriage lamps.

She shrieked—and rammed her hand down the side of her silk skirt. Where a pocket should be—and was not, in her evening gown. Where her lightning pistol should be—and was not, in her moment of need.

“Maggie! It’s all right. It’s only me.”

Her empty hand went to her heart over her short, fur-trimmed evening jacket. “Jake?”

“I say, what is this?” Alden Dean burst through the gate and pushed Maggie behind him with one arm.

She stumbled in the hard soil Jake had dug up, and in his outrage that Dean should have manhandled her that way, Jake nearly swung the shovel. But she regained her footing with the help of the nearest upright object.

“Ouch! What on earth—?” She had inadvertently grasped the stout little holly sapling, which had done its best to protect itself, right through her glove. “Where did this come from?”

“I just planted it,” Jake said lamely.

“Explain yourself, sir,” Alden Dean demanded, quite as though he had a right to.

“I brought it from Gwynn Place,” he said to Maggie. “As a housewarming present.”

Now both gloved hands pressed themselves to her heart.

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