She led him through the parlor, down the hall, and out the side door to the garden behind the house. The garden was one of Nellie’s great pleasures. Her father thought that using any space for flowers was frivolous, but in this one matter Nellie insisted on having her own way.
The late fall sun was setting on the garden, and it was beautiful. Amid the tall corn grew marigolds, and chrysanthemums lived beside the cabbages. Poppies grew along the back fence, and in front of them were herbs that Nellie used in her cooking.
“Beautiful,” he said, and Nellie smiled in pleasure. She rarely got to show off her garden. “Did you do this yourself?”
“A boy comes twice a week to help me weed, but I take care of it mostly myself.”
“It is as lovely as its owner,” he said, looking at her.
For a moment Nellie thought she was going to blush, but then she realized he was just being polite. “Would you like to sit down?” she asked, motioning to the little swing set up under the grape arbor. She hurried forward to remove the string beans she’d been breaking when Terel had called her to help with the hats.
“Yes, thank you,” he said, taking the bowls from her. “You wouldn’t mind if I helped, would you? It would make me feel at home.
“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.