The Noble Guardian

by Michelle Griep

  “There is no supposing.” His dark eyes sought hers. “I see it daily in your care of Emma.”

  She grinned. “Emma makes it easy, for she is a sweet little lamb.”

  As if Emma understood the praise, her cherub cheeks turned her way, a happy squeal bubbling out of her. Emma was sweet and far too easy to love.

  But as they walked along the trail to morning worship, Abby’s grin faded. Despite it being hardly a fortnight since the captain had hefted Emma into her arms, already the girl had made an indelible mark on her heart.

  One that would bleed when they handed Emma over to her aunt.

  Chapter Eighteen

  Samuel put all his muscle into pounding the final nail into the newly fashioned springboard. It wouldn’t last long, formed out of rowan wood instead of steel, but it ought to at least get them by until they reached the next inn and could change carriages. He set down the hammer, then offered the layered strip of board over to Cleaver. “Want to ride out and see if this fits?”

  The postilion nodded, his earlier ill feelings about the morning’s delay pacified by a thick slice of Wenna’s partridge pie when they’d returned from church. “Aye, and if so, I’ll be back for your muscle to help put it on.”

  Cleaver’s exit ushered a small breeze into the stable, but not enough to stop a drip of sweat from trickling down Samuel’s brow. He swiped it away, shoving back the damp hair sticking to his skin. How long had it been since he’d made the effort to visit a barber?

  He paused a moment to roll up his sleeves, chiding himself for not thinking of doing so sooner, then glanced over to where Bigby shaved down a thick strap of leather to attach the springboard—if it fit.

  “You need my help?” he asked.

  “Nay. I’m near to finished.”

  Good. If God’s grace held, they’d have the carriage fixed by dark and be on their way come morning. A blessing that, yet one he held lightly. Putting too much stock in an expected outcome was never a good idea.

  Grabbing a currycomb off the workbench, he sought out Pilgrim, who stood tethered just outside the door. The horse bobbed her head at his approach, then went back to munching on the green shoots nearest the stable wall.

  “Someday, my friend,” he breathed out in a soothing tone, matching the words to the pace of his strokes. “Someday soon, God willing, you’ll not be driven so hard. No more heaths to roam. No highwaymen to hunt. Only sky and fields and wind. Just you and I and a stretch of land as far as the eye can see.”

  The chant was familiar, a common litany he used when grooming his horse, but this time it struck him as empty. Lonely, somehow. As friendless as a solitary tree left to weather on its own in a vast sweep of moorland.

  Shoving the odd thought aside, he crouched and studied the wound on Pilgrim’s foreleg. Pink skin, not inflamed or swollen, knit the injury together. Soon new hair would cover the damage, leaving the gash naught but a memory.

  Even so, Samuel scowled. The damage never should have happened in the first place. He stalked back into the stable and flung the currycomb onto the bench, drawing in a deep breath to calm the ever-present rage that flared whenever he thought of the wicked man.

  “The day off did yer horse good, no doubt. Aye?”

  Bigby’s bass tone crept up on him from behind, and he turned to face the man. “Aye.”

  “Then what’s got yer blood still aboil?”

  Samuel clenched his jaw, wielding silence like a great, grey blade. More often than not, the tactic worked, causing the inquirer to back down from the sheer discomfort of the moment.

  Yet Bigby stepped closer, peering at him right in the eye. “There’s no hiding it, lad. Ye’ve got a fire in yer belly”—he aimed a stubby finger at his gut—“and secrets enough to keep that blaze stoked hot.”

  He forced his brows to keep from raising. The farmer was bold, yet with an outspoken wife like Wenna, he likely had to be.

  “Maybe.” Samuel folded his arms and widened his stance. “Or maybe not.”

  Bigby chuckled, his ale belly jiggling beneath his work apron. “‘T’aint no maybe about it, though I respect yer silence. Never have known me a lawman what didn’t hold his cards close.”

  Samuel sucked in air through his teeth. How the blazes had the canny farmer figured that out? Not that he’d admit to it, though. He narrowed his eyes, prepared to scan the slightest twitch on the man’s face. “What makes you think I’m a lawman?”

  “The gleam o’ yer tipstaff.” Bigby nodded toward Samuel’s hip.

  Samuel’s gaze followed the movement, only to see the hem of his waistcoat hitched up on the brass end of the wooden baton he kept tucked in his waistband at all times. In one swift movement, he yanked the fabric over the instrument.

  Bigby’s ready smile faded, mirth replaced by pity in his watery blue eyes. “Ahh, son, don’t let the worst of man ruin the best o’ you.”

  Hah! The sentiment, while likely well intentioned, stuck in his craw like a glob of gristle. The old fellow had no idea of what he spoke—or to whom he was speaking. Living here in the heart of England, secluded by hedgerows and fields of wheat and rye, Bigby couldn’t possibly understand all the vile crimes he’d seen or the depth of depravity no one should have to witness…all embodied in the slit-eyed, square face of Shankhart Robbins. The mere thought of the man coiled his hands into fists.

  Samuel turned away, finished with the ludicrous conversation.

  But a strong grip on his shoulder stopped him. “Ye keep holding on to such anger, Captain, and it’ll do you in.”

  He wrenched from the man’s grip. “This has nothing to do with me. There’s danger out there on the road, one Miss Gilbert and young Emma shouldn’t have to face.”

  The farmer jutted his jaw. “Ye’re a God-fearin’ man. Leave that danger to Him.”

  Pah! If only it were that simple. “All that woman and child have is me and my gun standing between them and a man more ruthless than I’ve ever known.”

  “Yer not God.” Bigby’s voice lowered to an ominous tone. “So quit tryin’ to be.”

  He stared at the man, seeing yet not seeing as the words barreled into him, booming as loudly in his heart as if God Himself thundered the message down from heaven.

  “Yer not God, so quit tryin’ to be.”

  Sweet everlasting! Was that what he’d been doing?

  Shame left a nasty taste at the back of his throat. When it came down to it, he was no better than Shankhart. Not really. Just two sides of the same pence. While pride drove the highwayman to boast of his conquests of the innocent, was it really any different than the smugness Samuel harboured in his own heart every time he hauled in a villain? For ill or for good, did not pride always precede destruction? And by harbouring unforgiveness, was he not destroying himself, just as the farmer suggested?

  Oh God… He swallowed hard.

  Bigby cuffed him on the arm. “Don’t take it too hard, Captain. It’s to yer credit that ye care for the woman and child, but ye can safely leave them in God’s hands. Not that He can’t use yer gun, though, mind ye. There’s no sin in wanting to protect them. The fault lies when ye think ye’re their sole protector. Aye?”

  The sharp edge of the farmer’s words cut deep. He’d taken beatings before, but none so brutal as this. His shoulders sagged. His head. His soul.

  Forgive me, Lord. The old man couldn’t be more right, and for that I beg Your forgiveness.

  Bigby shuffled his feet, his big boots rustling wisps of straw littering the ground. “But it’s well beyond caring now, ain’t it, Captain? Leastwise where the lady’s concerned. Have ye told her?”

  Samuel jerked up his head, stunned by the man’s continued perception. Were the farmer in need of an occupation, Bow Street could well use his abilities. Donning a mask of indifference, he stared the man down. “There’s nothing to tell.”

  Bigby chuckled. “Why, it’s plain as a bleatin’ goat stuck in a briar patch that ye love the woman. What’s keepin’ ye from claiming h
er? She’s a right fine female.”

  Love? He clenched his jaw tight lest he gape. Surely that wasn’t what these foreign urgings were. Were they?

  No, he wouldn’t—he couldn’t—allow it.

  He pivoted and snatched up a hoof pick from the bench, Pilgrim’s mute company much preferred.

  But Bigby was a hound with a bone, his footsteps dogging his every move. “The woman deserves to know, lad.”

  “I’m not the man for her,” he rumbled.

  “Ye ought to let her be the judge o’ that.”

  He clenched the pick so hard, the metal shook in his hand. Even if this burning in his heart were love, there was no way he could admit such an offense to Miss Gilbert. For an offense it surely would be. He couldn’t compare to a baronet, not in wealth or stature, and surely not in temperament. He was no fine dandy, serene and mollycoddling.

  And even if he did have feelings for her, would Miss Gilbert return them? An impossibility, of course, but on the slightest chance that she did, he could offer her nothing save a rugged life with a very broken man. And oh, blessed heavens, she merited more than that.

  He shook his head, refusing to turn around and face the farmer’s all-seeing eyes. “There’s too much at risk.”

  “Flit! Did not our own Lord risk His very life for the likes o’ us? It’s more noble to love, even if it’s not returned, than to live without it. Why, ’tis one o’ the greatest of all the commandments, man!”

  “You don’t understand. She’s promised to another.”

  “Ahh, but she’s not yet married to the man now, is she?”

  Samuel scowled. The farmer mucked up so many sentiments, he couldn’t begin to name them were he asked to at gunpoint. It was safer by far to embrace the anger he’d kept company with these past years.

  “No.” He spit out the word, then turned once again to face the farmer. “I will deliver her to her baronet, and that’s the end of it.”

  “For her, maybe, but not for you.” Bigby arched a brow at him. “Ye’ll be heart-sore a good long time, I reckon. It’s a cold ache. An empty one. And well I know it, leastwise till my Georgie comes home.” Bigby’s gaze strayed out the stable doors, focusing on some undefined point in the distance. “Aye, ought to be any day now, ol’ Georgie will be riding up the road to home.” The farmer’s face softened, erasing years of toil and worry. How long had the man been missing his son? And why had the boy not returned?

  “Where is he?” Samuel asked.

  “Wanted to see the world afore he settled into farming alongside me. Georgie picked up and joined the queen’s finest.”

  Samuel cocked his head. “Navy?”

  “Aye. Sailed fer America the spring of ’13, proud as a full-feathered peacock to patrol and keep safe the waters of Lake Erie. Ought to be home any day now.”

  A sick twinge tightened Samuel’s gut. The year ’13 had been notorious for British losses in the fledgling country of America, especially in the north. “Do you know the name of his ship?”

  “The Queen Charlotte.” Bigby shifted his gaze back to him. “Georgie’s last letter home were from late August o’ that year, saying he were proud to be on deck of one o’ the best in the fleet.” The man’s bushy brows drew together. “Been nigh on two years though, since. He’s like to be too busy to put pen to parchment, I reckon, but he ought to be home any day now.”

  Despite the summer heat, a chill leached into Samuel’s bones. He nodded, then escaped out to Pilgrim. A report of the damages from that particular year had crossed the magistrate’s desk. Devastating damage—especially on Lake Erie. If George Bigby had indeed been aboard the Queen Charlotte, he was either captured or missing. Or worse…killed. Samuel gathered up Pilgrim’s front hoof and glowered. Ought he tell the Bigbys what he knew?

  Or let them go on staring down that road, watching with love in their eyes for a man who may never come back?

  Abby jabbed the needle into the fabric of the breeches she was mending, promising herself she’d not look out the window. Not again. She’d already been caught in the act of staring at Captain Thatcher as he brushed his horse. Not that Wenna had said anything—which might’ve been worse. The knowing gleam in the woman’s eyes had unleashed Abby’s imagination to entertain all sorts of accusations and innuendoes. Which was silly, of course. There was nothing between her and the captain, so the woman could have nothing to say on the matter. Truly.

  Ignoring the squeeze of her heart, Abby wove the thread in and out, forming a tight seam.

  “Ye’re a fine hand with a needle. Ye’d ne’er be in want of employment should ye need to get by on yer own, and that’s a fact.” Wenna winked at her from her chair near the hearth. No fire crackled today, for the late June afternoon was warm enough.

  But even so, heat flared in Abby’s belly from the woman’s praise. Of all the years she’d spent sewing in her stepmother’s and sisters’ company, not once could she remember such a kind word—and to this day she prayed to forget all the harsher cuts.

  “That seam is as puckery as those little lines by your mouth, Abby.”

  “Keep your back straight when you sew. La! You hunch like a decrepit fishwife.”

  “Do you see Mary and Jane creasing their brows while they embroider? No man will want you with such wrinkles, girl!”

  She straightened in her chair, correcting her posture out of habit, and glanced down at Emma, who yet slept sweetly in her basket. Would that Emma might never bear the same hurtful scars she suffered.

  Outside the window, a movement from the corner of her eye snagged her attention. A shadowy figure. Dark and tall. Commanding enough to warrant a second and third look.

  Don’t do it. Don’t give in.

  But the pull of the man was too strong. Abby turned her face to the glass, making sure to keep her needle moving, and stared out at the fine lines of the captain.

  He bent near his horse, shirtsleeves rolled up. The thick muscles on his forearm flexed as he worked to clean something out of his horse’s hoof. His waistcoat stretched across his back, the flesh beneath rippling with his effort. He could conquer the world, this man, were he of a mind to. Did he know it? Or did the latent humility that was so much a part of him keep him unaware of his inherent power?

  For a moment, she allowed herself to relive the feel of his arms pulling her close, the heat of his body as he’d shared his horse with her and Emma during the storm. He’d sheltered. He’d protected. He’d been soaked to the skin from wrapping her and Emma in his riding cloak.

  “He’s a good man, that one.”

  Her thought exactly—but Wenna’s voice.

  Abby jerked her gaze back to her sewing, dipping her head slightly so the woman wouldn’t see the flaming of her cheeks. A big knot snarled her thread, and she was glad for the distraction to pick at.

  She stabbed the knot with the tip of her needle, working to free the twisted mess. “Captain Thatcher is a good man. Were it not for him, I shudder to think of what might have happened to me.”

  Indeed. He’d rescued her and Fanny from highwaymen. Come to her aid in the stable from that brute of a false guardian. When she’d fallen ill, he’d been the one to nurse her back to health. And countless times he had put her and Emma’s comforts ahead of his own. She wrangled the knot, which only seemed to tighten it further, and sighed. The captain had saved her from trouble so many times, she would have to beg Sir Jonathan to give him more compensation than what had been promised.

  “If ye’ll humour an old woman?” Wenna nipped her own thread with her teeth and added the repaired shirt she’d been working on to a growing pile of garments. Despite the woman’s earlier praise, her worn yet nimble fingers put Abby’s skills to shame. It was Wenna herself who could get by on her own with all the sewing she did for the manor house and tenant farmers hereabouts.

  But Wenna didn’t reach for the next torn shirt. Instead, she fixed her gaze on Abby. “Why are ye running off to marry another when there’s one who cares for ye right in
front of yer face? With all the pretty girls in church service this morning, the captain had eyes for none but ye.”

  She chuckled at the woman’s misguided notion. “No, Wenna, ’tis not like that at all. I pay Captain Thatcher for his care, and being the noble guardian that he is, I am sure he was merely keeping an eye out for me. He would do the same for anyone.”

  “Pish! Ye really believe that?”

  “Without a doubt.” What a silly notion!

  Finally, the threads on her knot parted. Abby licked her thumb and forefinger, then ran them along the kinked strands to straighten them out. “Besides,” she continued, lest Wenna think any more on the topic of her and the captain, “I am promised to another and am on my way to happiness, you see.”

  She smiled at the woman.

  “Are ye?” Wenna frowned. “Tell me of that man, then.”

  “Sir Jonathan Aberley is a baronet, lord of Brakewell Hall, a manor home on two-hundred-plus acres near Penrith. I have it on good authority that he is well respected.” She tugged at the thread, fighting against another knot, the kinks from the former tangle straining to overtake the smoothness she’d worked to achieve.

  Wenna’s eyebrows arched. “That be nice, miss, but that doesn’t tell me much about the man.”

  The words were an unnerving echo of the same Samuel had voiced to her not long ago, and suddenly she was glad for the threat of a snarl in her thread, for it meant she didn’t have to look over at Wenna. It was hard to remember what the baronet was like, and even harder to keep believing he was truly in love with her—but she must.

  She pulled back her shoulders and stabbed the needle into the knot. “Sir Jonathan has dark hair. Brown, I think. He is taller than I, and he dances quite well.”

  There. She pulled the thread through, victorious with the stitch and her description.

  “Fine qualities, all.” Wenna leaned forward in her chair, her gaze seeking Abby’s. “But what captures yer fancy about the man?”

  Abby dipped her head, focusing on the worn bit of breeches as if her life depended on it. How was she to answer that? How could she possibly fancy a man she hardly knew? One sweep around a ballroom while changing partners at intervals was barely grounds to know what it was about Sir Jonathan that she might admire.