From Waif to Gentleman's Wife

by Julia Justiss

  Ned hastened towards the door, pain and regret lancing through him as he watched the desire in her eyes turn to confusion, then hurt. Gritting his teeth and clenching his fists, he made himself turn his back on her and walk out.

  The following morning, a listless Joanna sat beside Davie as he drove her to the schoolhouse, bubbling over with enthusiasm after telling her proudly how, for the first time yesterday morning, Mr Greaves had entrusted him with the reins for a short while.This would probably be the last day she needed to work at the building. Mr Tanner was coming by with the final load of stone; the carpenter had given Davie wooden pegs to attach by the door for the children to hang their cloaks and jackets, and while they toiled, she would review her books and primers one final time to be ready for the beginning of school next week.

  She ought to be excited and full of anticipation. But after a sleepless night followed by a solitary breakfast—for Mr Greaves had been called away early, Myles told her—she now felt dull, confused and frustrated.

  Perhaps it was best that she hadn’t seen him this morning. She’d lain awake all night with every nerve afire, desperate with need, bereft after hovering a touch away from having him set off the spark that would ignite the long-building conflagration between them. With every particle of her being, she’d longed to immerse herself in a fire that would consume them as fiercely as the one that had engulfed the stocking mill.

  In the keenness of his gaze, the sheen of moisture on his skin and the tension radiating throughout his body, she read that Ned Greaves craved her as much as she wanted him. Responding giddily to that knowledge, she’d done everything short of stripping him from his garments to let him know how eager she was to comply. So why, at the end, had he repulsed her?

  After incredulity, her first response had been indignation. How dare he turn his back and walk away with some feeble excuse about needing rest, when what she needed was the imprint of his hands on her body, the taste of his tongue on her mouth and her skin, the feel of his manhood sheathed within her?

  After the several shocked moments of immobility required for her to accept that he had walked away, she’d slipped from the room to her chamber, still burning with a lust overlaid by remorse and embarrassment. Why, when he so clearly wanted her, had he chosen not to take her?

  Perhaps the burns were paining him more than he’d revealed. Perhaps, having declared he would not trifle with a woman under his protection, he thought it dishonourable to go back on his word.

  Through the long hours of the night as she tossed and turned, she’d decided the first possibility might have some merit. But she’d dismissed the second. How could she have made it any plainer that she considered him honourable—and wanted him anyway?

  Or did he merely desire her as a man desires an attractive street trollop, tempted by her sensuality but not interested in coupling with a woman who showed herself to be blatantly available?

  Had her forward behaviour repelled him? A wash of humiliation heated her skin as she recalled the final and most distasteful explanation she’d entertained before falling at last into a fitful sleep early this morning.

  Now she wondered if there might not be another more compelling reason. Could it be that, though he might desire her, as a manager of some standing within their community, an experienced man with close ties to a highly placed aristocrat, he did not wish to entangle himself with the widow of a gentleman whose family had repudiated her? A woman with few connections that might be turned to his advantage; indeed, as the sister of a man his employer had recently discharged, one whose ties might be used to his disadvantage.

  With his expertise and capability for hard work, a man like Mr Greaves might well earn a chance to manage a much more extensive and important property for his noble patron—especially if he allied himself to a female who had well-placed relations.

  Whereas she could do nothing to advance his career.

  Suddenly Davie pulled up the horse, startling her out of this latest of her gloomy reflections. With a second shock, she realised they had already reached the schoolhouse.

  ‘Got you here all right and tight, ma’am,’ he said as he came around the gig to hand her down. ‘Just like I promised! See, ’tweren’t no need for you to stare straight ahead and clutch the rail like you feared any minute I was about to run us into a ditch!’

  How fortunate Davie could have no notion of the true cause of her abstraction. ‘Not at all,’ she replied, flushing a bit at having spent the transit indulging in morose contemplation of what was looking more and more like not a mutual passion, but an unrequited affection for her employer. ‘Just…pondering.’

  ‘Don’t need to worry none about the school,’ Davie assured her. ‘Children hereabouts are most of ’em as eager to start as me. If’n they give you any trouble, I’ll be here to deal with ’em. Anything else I kin help with after I put up them pegs? Mr Greaves charged me strict that I weren’t to leave you alone, so I’ll be hanging about until the workmen come. Might as well make use of me.’

  Seeking a task he might enjoy, she said, ‘Perhaps you can help me sort the books and slates.’

  At the mention of books, his eyes lit. ‘I’ll be done with these pegs in a trice, then.’

  True to his word, Davie had the pegs aligned and tapped into place before Joanna had organised the first armload of supplies. ‘You’re a dab hand with a hammer,’ she observed. ‘Did you ever think of training as a carpenter?’

  ‘Ma thought I might, but Da wanted me to take over the farm. Never wanted that myself—don’t like the feel or smell of dirt on my hands. Used to scamper off from the fields to the village and hang about at the carpenter’s and the smith’s.’ He grinned. ‘Da soon learned where to fetch me. Got a beating for it, but didn’t discourage me none.’

  Joanna shook her head and laughed. ‘Apply that determination to your studies and you will go far! Now, would you fetch the rest of the books from the shelf in the alcove and bring them to the table, please?’

  With a nod, he loped to the storage area. ‘Whoa, now, what’s this?’ he asked with a laugh from behind the enclosure. ‘This hole here under the thatch screen be what Mr Tanner’s going to finish today? Best he does, else some young one might sneak back here, wriggle through and be off to the fishing creek afore you know he was gone!’

  ‘Truly?’ Joanna asked as the grinning Davie emerged with the books. ‘Then until after the mortar hardens on Mr Tanner’s repair work, I must remember to ask only the largest of my pupils to fetch supplies.’

  Carefully Davie set the books on to the table. ‘What be all these for, ma’am?’

  One by one she showed him the primers, one with sums for math, another with the alphabet and simple sentences. Davie lingered over a larger, longer illustrated book. ‘And this one, ma’am?’

  ‘That’s a book about India, full of legends and mysteries. I plan to read some of the stories aloud to the children.’

  Reverently Davie paged through the book, pausing to admire the copperplate illustrations. ‘Looks powerful interesting. Some day soon, I’ll be able to read it all for myself.’

  ‘You will indeed,’ she replied, her heart touched anew by the intensity of his hunger for learning. ‘And when you can read it, Davie, it shall be yours.’

  He looked up, startled. ‘You mean—to keep?’

  ‘To keep,’ she promised.

  He shook his head. ‘You couldn’t, ma’am. Such a beautiful book, it must cost a powerful lot.’

  ‘A costly book should be owned by someone who fully appreciates its value. I can’t think of anyone who would make it a better owner than you.’

  His face beaming, Davie was stuttering an incoherent thanks when the sound of a galloping horse interrupted them.

  Recalling the disaster to which the sound of pounding hoofs had called them yesterday, dread seized Joanna’s throat. Without a word, both she and Davie sprang up and hurried outside to greet the rider.

  ‘Mr Elliot,’ Davie called to the man
who pulled up before them. ‘What be amiss?’

  ‘One of the men what’s always hanging about the Hart and Hare, a drifter from Nottingham who’s done some farm work hereabouts, come to Mr Greaves this morning and told him the man behind the mill fire was hiding in the area. They done traced him to one of the abandoned farmhouses out beyond the Miller place. Heard he mighta taken a hostage and the word is, ’tis Granny Cuthbert. I’m riding to fetch my brother so we can go help.’

  Davie ran over and grabbed at the horse’s reins, preventing Elliot from riding off. ‘Granny’s in danger?’ he cried. ‘Are you sure?’

  ‘No, but Mr Greaves said we should act as if the threat was real. If you’re ready to spring that pony trap, lad, you can come along.’

  ‘Sure would like to.’ His pale face strained with apprehension, Davie looked back at Joanna. ‘But…but I promised Mr Greaves I’d stay with Mrs Merrill until Tanner and the stonemasons arrive.’

  ‘Just passed Tanner’s wagon heading this way,’ Elliot said. ‘Should be here any minute.’

  Davie nodded. ‘Soon’s he arrives, I’ll come on after you. A cottage out past the Miller place, you said? Expect I can find it.’

  Though Joanna was uneasy at the idea of being alone, if the arrival of the stonemasons was imminent, the urgency the boy must be feeling to see to the safety of the kind old woman who’d taken him in was far greater than the comfort she’d derive by compelling him to remain. ‘No, go on now, Davie. Granny may need you. I’ll be all right until Tanner and the men arrive.’

  Davie’s anxious eyes searched her face. ‘You’re sure, ma’am?’

  ‘I’m sure,’ she assured him. Almost before the words had left her lips, Davie released the bridle of Elliott’s horse and raced to the gig. ‘Lead on!’ he cried as he untied the reins and scrambled up to the bench.

  Smiling after the boy as he whipped the horse and drove off, Joanna turned to peer down the road. Would the man they tracked turn out to be the one who’d set the mill fire? Might it be the disturbing Mr Hampton?

  A little shiver of unease slithered down her spine. Something about the man convinced her that despite his appearance as a gentleman, he was capable of single-minded zeal in furthering his cause—and would not be daunted by the prospect of taking innocent lives.

  Whoever it was they chased, she hoped by mid-day he would be safely in the hands of the sheriff.

  The rider and gig having disappeared down the lane, it seemed overly quiet. Though in truth, she had to admit that in full mid-morning light, with birds chirping in trees that swayed and danced in the breeze, throwing a kaleidoscope of changing patterns of sun and shade across the grass, the scene was no different than it had been on any of the other days she had worked here. Still, Joanna admitted, she would feel better once Tanner arrived.

  Telling herself she was being a nodcock to let the memories of the unsavoury Mr Hampton unsettle her, she went back inside the schoolhouse. With the stonemasons soon to arrive and cover the alcove with dust while they mortared in the last of the stone, she’d better move the rest of her supplies over to her desk.

  Keeping her ears pricked for the sounds of a heavily laden wagon coming down the lane, she set about her task.

  Some half an hour later, she’d moved all her books and supplies out of the work area, but the masons had still not arrived.Perhaps they’d stopped to water the horses. To distract herself from a lingering unease, she opened the book about India and flipped through the pages, pausing over the illustrations that had so fascinated Davie. Would he one day journey there to make his fortune, as he’d predicted? She was smiling at the image of him as a young India nabob when a soft, sibilant scraping caught her ear.

  The tiny hairs on the back of her neck bristling, she turned towards the door. Where, to her dismay, Mr George Hampton, a saddlebag slung over one shoulder, slipped through the door and halted just inside the threshold.

  Chapter Fourteen

  H ampton started, as if surprised to see her even as she leapt to her feet. Fumbling to doff his hat, he offered her a patently false smile.

  ‘Hello there, ma’am. Didn’t see your gig outside so didn’t think you were here yet,’ he said, confirming her impression. ‘A good day to you, though.’ Seeming to regather his confidence, he advanced into the room. ‘Have you thought any more about what I told you yesterday?’Despite his jocular tone, behind his conventional greetings she sensed a fervid, almost desperate air that set all her protective instincts on full alert. Eyeing the distance between her desk and the door, she gave him a reluctant curtsy.

  ‘Twas impossible; she could never get past him and out of the only exit without him catching her—if he indeed wished to prevent her leaving. And what would she do if she made it outside? Davie had driven away in her gig, and, hampered by her skirts, she could surely not outrun him.

  What in the world was keeping Tanner and his stonemasons?

  Telling herself she was being ridiculous, for the man had done nothing as yet to warrant her alarm, she willed herself to reply calmly, ‘Yes, but I’m afraid I must return you the same answer.’

  Despite her resolve, a cold sliver of dread knifed into her belly as he walked closer, smiling. ‘Are you sure? My obligations now take me to London. I might have good use there for an attractive lady like you, while you could disport yourself at the shops and the theatre. You’ll find me a generous man, my dear—and I do promise to keep you well…entertained.’

  Last night she had nearly expired with desperation for the sort of ‘entertainment’ he was implying. The thought of Mr Hampton touching her, however, sent a shiver of revulsion through her.

  ‘A kind offer, sir, but I lived for some years in London. While the metropolis does have its charms, I prefer the country. I don’t wish to be impolite, but you mentioned having a journey to begin, and I must complete some work. Perhaps you can stop by when you are next in Hazelwick?’ Pasting on a smile, she motioned to the door.

  And then froze, her attention seized by the sound of someone approaching—not the clop of hoofs and the creak and squeal of a heavily laden wagon, but a rumble of voices and the tromp of many footsteps.

  This was not, she suspected, Tanner and his wagon.

  ‘Excuse me,’ she said, walking towards the door. ‘I’ll just see who—’

  She gasped as he seized her arm and pulled her back. ‘Sorry, but you’re not going anywhere, schoolmistress.’ Slamming the front door shut, he threw the bolt.

  ‘What do you mean by this?’ she demanded, as incensed as she was alarmed.

  ‘Remember you mentioned retribution to those who cross the authorities and I told you a clever fellow don’t get caught? Well, you’re about to witness that. Sit down on that bench and keep silent unless I give you leave to speak. Do what you’re told and I won’t have to hurt you.’

  ‘I have no intention of remaining here—!’ she began hotly, only to have him grab her by the arms and slam her against the door. Her head jerked back to hit the sturdy wooden panel so violently, lights and stars danced before her eyes.

  ‘Sit and be silent,’ he growled, ‘or I’ll give you another taste of that.’ Roughly he thrust her towards the bench.

  Still dizzy, Joanna nearly fell into the seat. Queasy as little dots of light continued to swim before her eyes, for a few moments she had to concentrate all her energy on taking deep, slow breaths, until her stomach settled and the pounding in her head eased.

  Meanwhile, Hampton dragged two more wooden benches over and placed them behind the door as a makeshift barricade. As the noise of the approaching group grew louder, he closed and locked the window shutters, then took two pistols from his saddlebag and primed them.

  She could hear the group right outside the building now. A moment later came the sound of a fist pounding on the door.

  ‘Mrs Merrill, are you there?’

  Hampton levelled one of the pistols at her and motioned her to silence.

  A few long minutes ticked by. ‘Don’t
seem like nobody’s inside,’ man’s voice said.

  ‘I know she’s there,’ Davie’s voice answered. ‘Hardly been half an hour since I left her—besides, she don’t never close the shutters when she leaves. Mrs Merrill!’ he called. ‘Are you all right?’

  ‘Answer him and I’ll shoot you,’ Hampton warned softly.

  ‘Probably she went home,’ another voice said. ‘Let’s get going! That varmint must still be in the area somewhere! Mr Greaves is counting on us to check the cottages here to the west while he makes a sweep towards the village.’

  Her hopes, soaring at the sound of Ned Greave’s name, plummeted. Ned was a mile away in town, too far distant to help her. She would have to deal with Mr Hampton alone.

  ‘No,’ Davie’s insistent voice recaptured her attention. ‘She’s in there, I’m telling you! She knew I’d be back for her; she wouldn’t a left alone. If she ain’t answering the door, ’tis cause someone’s not letting her. Hold on, Mrs Merrill, we’ll get you out! Johnston, grab the axe by the woodpile. I say we break down the door.’

  With a curse, Hampton turned to her. ‘Tell him if they try to break in, I’ll shoot you. And I will.’

  Logically she knew that committing cold-blooded murder before a crowd of witnesses wasn’t a very rational action—but Hampton didn’t look rational. Fear choked her as the sounds of scuffling outside were followed by the bang of something slamming into the door.

  Desperation flashing in his eyes, Hampton hissed, ‘Now, or by God, I’ll put a ball into you!’

  ‘D-Davie!’ she called, her voice shaky. ‘It’s Mrs Merrill. I am here, being held against my will. Mr Hampton has a loaded pistol and threatens to shoot me if you try to break in.’

  Mutters and outcries from the crowd followed her speech. A moment later, Davie’s voice called, ‘What do you want to release her, Hampton?’

  Joanna looked over at Hampton.