Unchaining Alice

Chapter 2

Chapter Two

James watched as Jacqueline’s dark tendrils swung across her back as she walked. He couldn’t believe how effortlessly beautiful she was. He’d seen every beautiful woman under the sun. He’d seen their painted faces and their fine gowns and everything underneath, but he’d never seen someone like her.

She led him into the dining room which consisted of a long, wooden table that was set with at least thirty plates ready for the children’s lunch. There were two long benches that were there for the children to sit at, but one had collapsed, and the plank of wood was leaning against the wall waiting for repairs.

“I will get you the ‘ammer and the nails,” Jacqueline told him and disappeared from the room momentarily before returning with a rusty hammer and a pail of nails.

James accepted them carefully, while offering her one of his smiles which more often than not had woman swooning. He’d won over more than one woman just by smiling at her. But he couldn’t help but hear a little voice in the back of his head telling him that this woman was not just going to be another notch on his bedpost. He couldn’t quite put his finger on it but she was … different.

Jacqueline didn’t react though. All she did was look at him for a moment before leaving him to it.

His eyes followed her from the room as her tiny hips swung from side to side as she retreated back to the children in her charge.

For the next hour he taught himself how to fix a bench seat. It took him half an hour to work out how to hammer a nail in straight, but after several bruised fingers and a few injuries from the nail points, he finally produced a somewhat satisfactory bench seat.

Once he’d set the bench back in its rightful place, he rolled his sleeves back down and retied his cravat that he’d taken off as it was getting to humid in the room. James wiped his forehead with his handkerchief to remove any excess condensation that had appeared on his forehead and he put his coat back on.

The first and last piece of carpentry that he hoped he would ever do.

Checking his pocket watch, he saw that it was nearly one in the afternoon so it was past the children’s lunch time. He decided to go and find the pretty matron so that she could coral the children into the dining room so that they could be fed.

He eventually found the children in a communal room, all sitting on the floor before Jacqueline who was reading to them. Something that he noticed about her as she read was that she was playing with a rosary that was on a tatty silver chain around her neck. There were children of all ages. Toddlers to teenagers that all didn’t have parents or families to care for them. They were lucky to have someone like Joseph caring for them, there was never more compassionate man. And now he knew they were lucky to have someone like Jacqueline. She was strong, he’d devised that from her guarded eyes and from the fact that she did not fall for him after just a dazzling smile.

“Uh, pardon me,” James said, clearing his throat and knocking a few times on the door. “The bench is fixed.”