Honour's Redemption

by Joan Vincent

  She managed a nod.

  “I’ll check the horses and then I’ll bring in the bucket,” the boy told her.

  Ruth ignored him and picked it up. “Come inside with me.”

  At another peel of curses, the boy halted. “’Haps I should fetch Mr. Merristorm?”

  The trust in the boy’s face nearly broke Ruth’s heart. She saw him look back at the stable. A vivid recollection of the day her fiancée deserted her gripped Ruth. Her father had cautioned that heroes were often made of clay. With great sadness Ruth realized she could not shield Jemmy from this bitter lesson. “Breakfast will be ready shortly.”

  * * *

  A warm nuzzle against his cheek tipped Lucian into awareness. He tried to shrug away the haze from his eyes. Blinding pain sucked away all thought.

  With an effort Lucian managed to get the heels of his hands to his forehead. He pressed it against his palms until the contact enabled him to bring some order to the chaos. Words danced like angry gnats just out of his reach.

  Ruth? How did she— A sudden flood of icy water washed any thought from his mind, stole his breath, and jarred him into full consciousness.

  Lucian put a hand to the ground to lever himself up. His hand collided with something soft and his hand slid away from him. He jerked it back and loosed a string of invectives when he realized what coated it.

  When he shook his hand to free it of the clinging muck a sharp pain lanced through Lucian’s head. He blinked at the dancing coloured lights until everything came into focus.

  Daylight? What in damnation— Lucian closed his eyes and concentrated. Two odours teased his senses into sharp focus—brandy and horse droppings. Neither made any sense.

  Black night, winking lights, carts, horses with nosebags, smugglers, and the odd rectangle of dark flooded back with dizzying force.

  Caught like a green coronet on his first picket duty to watch for the enemy. Lucian loosed a string of curses.

  Exhausted he slumped back against the gate. His gaze lit on the trailing reins of the gelding. He looked up and saw the horse was saddled. He closed his eyes. Lucian knew he had groomed the animal before retiring. The smugglers had saddled it, but why?

  Lucian opened his eyes and saw the empty bottle between his legs. Ruth had been here. He was certain he had heard her voice. What had she believed?

  Water dripped from his hair onto his face. The wet cold penetrated his senses. What she believed was very evident.

  Is that what the smugglers wanted? Lucian wondered and knew he was right. If he were discredited and exiled from St. Cedds vicarage the Claytons would be at the smugglers’ mercy.

  Great urgency enabled Lucian to ignore the pounding headache. He turned to the side, planted both hands in the dung, and came up on his knees. One leg landed on the bottle. Cursing Lucian kicked it away.

  Jemmy, pale and wide-eyed gaped at the bottle across the gate. He slowly brought his gaze to Lucian’s. “Ye smell like a brandy bottle. Why’d ye do it, sir?” the boy asked plaintively.

  Lucian planted a muck-coated hand atop the partition. “I didn’t,” he gritted as he slowly pulled himself upright. A wave of dizziness nearly pole-axed the attempt. His stomach heaved. He clung to the post.

  “Ye ain’t gonna be sick?”

  The disgust in the boy’s voice pricked Lucian. Swallowing down the bile in the back of his throat he waited for the world to stop spinning. When he no longer thought he would topple over Lucian fumbled at the gate’s latch.

  “Why’d ye do it?” Jemmy repeated dumbly as he flipped it up. “You shoulna–”

  “Take care of the gelding,” Lucian managed as he tried to take a step through the gate and went down on one knee.

  “Yer jest like ‘em all,” Jemmy said, his voice breaking.

  Lucian raised his head, the pain in it nothing in comparison to that in his heart. Worse, he couldn’t fault Jemmy or Ruth for the conclusion they had drawn. The boy’s resigned sigh sent a shaft through his heart.

  “Ye went and fell and hit yer head,” Jemmy said.

  “No,” Lucian said clearly. He blinked at the fluid clouding his vision and belatedly realized it was blood. “I didn’t fall,” he said enunciating each word. “I was hit from behind.”

  “Aye,” Jemmy said cynically.

  Lucian reached for the boy but saw his filthy hand and dropped it. “Last night I heard the smugglers’ signals. I went reconnoitring and they caught me like a babe.” He raised a palm up in a helpless gesture. “Do I sound foxed, Jemmy?”

  The lad tilted his head and studied the man. “Ye smell like yer are.”

  Lucian waited.

  “But ye can carry yer liquor better’n any man I ever knew.”

  Struggling to take a step Lucian said, “Take care of the horses. Please.” When the boy moved to do as he asked, Lucian tottered to the stable door and rested for a moment against the doorjamb.

  “Why’d they jest kosh ye on the head ‘stead a killin’ ye?” Jemmy asked as he led the gelding into its stall.

  “I don’t know,” Lucian admitted. He looked at the boy. “’Haps my head proved too hard after all.”

  “It’s ruffled Miss Ruth’s feathers somethin’ fierce,” Jemmy said, disapproval heavy in his words.

  Lucian looked at the boy’s stiff back. Opprobrium, sought with disdain for so many years, now tasted foul. He couldn’t decide what was worse: that Ruth condemned him without a single doubt or that his previous behaviour had given her every reason to jump to the wrong conclusion.

  Throwing a stirrup over the saddle, Jemmy looked at Lucian. “Ye’d best see ta cleanin’ up. If ye can.”

  With a slight nod that sharpened his headache, Lucian slowly turned and limped his way to the pump.

  Once there he rested his head against the cold metal. The dizziness ebbed. Lucian raised his head and with great care not to move it too quickly, worked the pump until water gushed. Lucian stuck one hand and then the other into the cold fluid.

  He watched the muck sluice away. If only it was as easy to wash away his past. His breath hitched on a possibility never before realized.

  “Here, I’ll help ye,” Jemmy said behind him. “Ye’d give yer own muther a turn, ye would.”

  Deeply touched by the lad’s willingness to help despite his obvious disapproval warmed Lucian. It gave him hope. “Thank you,” he said. He tried to shuck off his coat but the dizziness returned with a vengeance.

  It seemed an eternity before coat and shirt were stripped off and freezing water poured over Lucian’s head. It washed away the worst of the pain and restored thought. Pushing his hair back with one hand Lucian reached for the spout.

  “’Cor,” Jemmy exclaimed.

  Before Lucian could lever himself upright the lad shoved something against his head. “What the bloody hell,” he said and instantly regretted jerking back from the stab of pain. Lucian clapped a hand over Jemmy’s and drew a steadying breath.

  “Yer bleedin’ summut bad,” the boy said as he wriggled his hand free. “I’ll fetch Miss Ruth.”

  Lucian grabbed hold the boy’s arm. “No.”

  “Then what?” Jemmy challenged. He put a hand on Lucian’s shoulder. “Ye ain’t much use ta her if ye can’t stomach a bear garden jawing.”

  With a heavy sigh, Lucian released him. “’Haps your right. A little blood may get me badly needed sympathy.”

  “What’s thet?”

  Lucian looked at the boy with his left eye. “Something that acts like a sort of muzzle.”

  Jemmy grinned. “Shortenin’ the sermon so ta speak?”

  “Yes,” Lucian said, “but don’t mention that to Miss Ruth.”

  “Aye, sir. We fellas have ta do fer one’nuther.”

  A true smile lifted the corners of Lucian’s lips. His heart lighter, he struggled onto his feet. When Jemmy instantly snaked an arm about his waist, he put a hand on the boy’s shoulder to steady himself. “Tell the bugler to blow the tattoo to charge,” he muttered.
<
br />   “Aye, sir,” Jemmy replied smartly. “Won’t tell Miss Ruth ‘bout thet ye consider her like one a yer battles neither,” he whispered as he helped Lucian lumber towards the back door.

  Chapter Twenty-one

  The commotion at the back door turned Sairy Jane from the stove. “Bless me lord—”

  Ruth followed her gaze and saw Lucian, his magnificent chest distractingly bare, leaning heavily against Jemmy. Her lips pressed into a thin line, she abruptly hauled upward her gaze which had trailed down Lucian’s chest to the dark vee of hair that disappeared beneath his breeches. Hurt and anger sizzled in her stomach.

  “Please, miss,” Jemmy protested. “Let him explain.”

  Lucian slowly raised his bowed head. “I am sorry, Ruth,” he said contritely. “It’s not as it appears.”

  “You—you bounder,” Ruth blurted. “Why didn’t you stay in Whitby? We are better off without you.”

  Lucian stiffened, straightened, and found a set of troopers still galloped in his brain. He blinked back the pain. When he again found Ruth’s face, her green eyes blazed with a blend of fury and agony. Tears brimmed in her eyes.

  “Tell Mr. Merristorm that he is to leave the moment he can manage to stay on the back of his horse.”

  “I didn’t drink any brandy,” Lucian bit out, “but that doesn’t mean it wasn’t poured down my throat and over my clothing.”

  Ruth jerked as if slapped. “You have not yet stooped to lies, Mr. Merristorm. Please do not do so now.”

  Forgetting why he held his balled-up shirt to his head, Lucian lowered his hand, dropped the shirt, and took a step towards Ruth. His heart wrenched when she went white as a one of the gulls in the Whitby harbour. He grabbed for Ruth when she wavered ever so slightly.

  The movement brought stars before Lucian’s eyes and he grabbed ahold of Ruth to steady himself as much as her. He folded his arms about her.

  Sairy Jane took one look at the dazed Ruth and tottering Merristorm and shook her head. “Jemmy, get a chair to ’em afore we have both of ’em on the floor.”

  Lucian altered his hold and drew Ruth to his lap as he eased down onto the chair Jemmy pushed against the back of his legs. “Come, love, it’s but a little blood. I’m fine.”

  Ruth stared into Lucian’s dark turbulent eyes and then drew her gaze to the rivulet of blood trailing down his cheek.

  He stroked hers with the back of his fingers.

  “Your head,” Ruth said moving one hand to his shoulder and reaching toward the side of his face.

  Lucian grinned foolishly at her and kissed her forehead. “Gives a man heart to know someone cares if he’s skin whole.”

  Ruth blinked and then hauled her hand from his shoulder into his cheek in an awkward slap and she scooted off his lap and onto her feet.

  “Damnation,” Lucian swore softly and put a hand to his throbbing head.

  Sairy Jane pushed a wet cloth against Lucian’s head and kept it there when he tried to bat it away. “Jest make thet hornet’s nest in yer noggin more fierce,” she told him.

  Ruth kept her back to Lucian’s bare chest, her breath raspy. “Fetch one my father’s shirts, Jemmy.”

  The boy gaped at Ruth’s back for a moment. How addled adults could act. “Aye,” he blurted and dashed to do so.

  “Get me a fresh cloth,” Sairy Jane ordered Ruth as she ruthlessly pressed the now bloody one down on the open gash in Lucian’s head. When the young woman didn’t move, she added tartly, “I don’t care much fer blood on me kitchen floor.”

  Lucian tried to peer around Sairy Jane but the old woman moved one hand to the other side of his head. She sniffed indelicately. “Stable a mighty dangerous place it ‘pears.”

  “I didn’t get this in the stable,” Lucian said with asperity. “That was someone’s idea of a jest.”

  “If you will remove that one I’ll press this in its place,” Ruth told Sairy Jane. When the old woman did so she put the cloth quickly in place and her free hand on the other side of Lucian’s head and pressed hard with both.

  Sairy Jane looked at the pair as she rinsed her cloth in a bowl of water. “Ye’ll make him pass out if ye don’t let up a might,” she chuckled.

  With a mild but unladylike snort, Ruth eased the pressure.

  Her closeness and scent set off an additional if completely different set of alarms. “One of the smugglers knocked me senseless,” Lucian said tightly to Ruth’s chest. “Like a babe.”

  His self-condemnation made Ruth grit her teeth. The frisson of longing that had spiralled to life as soon as she touched him exasperated her. “Smugglers? Perhaps if you had been sober you would have neither seen ‘owlers’ nor fallen and knocked yourself senseless.” She took the rinsed cloth Sairy Jane held out and set it sharply in place of the other which she handed off.

  Unable to hold his rising desire, Lucian resorted to temper. He took hold of one of her wrists and pulled it down forcing Ruth to look at him. “That isn’t what happened.”

  “There was a bottle—an empty bottle between your legs. You smelled like you had bathed in brandy,” Ruth snapped.

  “You smell of spring and soap,” retorted Lucian. “Did you ‘drink’ either this morn?”

  “If you were not foxed why were you sitting in horse dung in the stable?” she fairly shouted.

  “If you would listen,” he said, “I could tell you why.”

  Silence descended with an almost audible bang as the pair glared at one another.

  “My goodness,” exclaimed Marietta at the kitchen door. She took another step in and then realized Merristorm was bare from the waist up.

  When she met her sister’s astonished gaze, chagrin started from Ruth’s toes and streaked upward. Never had she acted so unladylike and all because Lucian had nearly frightened her out of her wits. “Jemmy,” she called, “where is that shirt?”

  “Why ever are you both shouting?” Marietta asked as she satisfied her curiosity about the shoulders and back of a well-made man. Then remembering why she came, Marietta put a hand to her heart. “We have a visitor who I am certain can hear every word.”

  Lucian turned his head to look at Marietta.

  Ruth saw Marietta pale and followed her gaze to Lucian’s head. Blood had begun to soak through the cloth. Before Ruth could ask, Sairy Jane pressed a clean one into her free hand. Only then did she realize Lucian had released her wrist. Ruth waved for Marietta to turn away.

  “What—what should I do about our visitor?” Marietta asked as she reluctantly did so.

  “Who is it?” Ruth and Lucian asked as one. “Never mind,” she added. “Come Sairy Jane, I shall wash my hands and—”

  “Do not cease caring for Merristorm on my account,” an unknown male voice drawled.

  Ruth gaped at the fine gentleman who now stood at Marietta’s side. Though handsome in face the ruffles at throat and wrists and his mincing stance with quizzing glass to eye were so at odds with the scene that a gurgle of laughter bubbled up in Ruth.

  She half swallowed it and glanced down at Lucian’s profile. The tightening of his jaw and sudden tenseness told her he recognized the dandy. And that he wasn’t too happy about the man’s sudden appearance. Ruth smiled apologetically at the stranger. “Sir, I fear you have found us at a rather importune moment.”

  “Forgive me, madam,” he bowed lowly with a flourish of a lace edge handkerchief and then put it to his lips.

  Ruth was almost certain he stifled a laugh.

  “I am quite struck dumb, Merristorm,” Baron de la Croix said with provocative flip of the handkerchief, “that you have taken a wife.”

  A stunned silence fell across the kitchen broken only by a staccato of running steps on the stairs outside and Jemmy’s hurried arrival. The lad skidded around the unexpected male figure that blocked his way and gaped.

  “Wife,” Marietta said in a voice strangled with laughter.

  “Wife?” repeated Jemmy and switched his gaze to a furiously blushing Ruth and Merristorm. His s
uddenly speculative gleam took on a mischievous glitter.

  “Not for my lack of—” Lucian began.

  Ruth started and bumped his head hard.

  “Ouch!” Lucian exclaimed.

  “Jemmy, bring the shirt here,” Sairy Jane ordered. She took hold of Ruth’s arm and drew her away from Merristorm. “I’ll see to Mr. Merristorm here. Ye’d best see to yer guest.”

  Surprised by the tone of command, Ruth walked mutely to Marietta’s side.

  “Mr. Merristorm’ll join ye after he’s cleaned up a mite,” Sairy Jane said, her tone now almost servile.

  Ruth dashed a look of dire warning at Lucian and then motioned Marietta to go ahead of her.

  The gentleman bowed the young ladies out of the room. After a curious questioning glance at Merristorm he minced after them.

  * * *

  Lucian hesitated at the door of the parlour. De la Croix leaned against the fireplace. Ruth sat on the sofa with her back to the door.

  The baron was telling an outrageous tale. Ruth chuckled and then laughed. The rare sound of it struck a note of pure delight in Lucian and a hunger for more. Jealousy rose at its inspiration.

  The fellow’s dammed prettier than I recall, Lucian thought spitefully. But the events around the Prussian von Wilmar who had almost killed Sarah Edgerton, now the baron’s best friend’s wife, had proven de la Croix was not the dandy he pretended.

  Lucian unconsciously tugged at his wrinkled cravat and tugged down the waistcoat he had borrowed from Sampson. He made a mental note to fetch the new garments he had ordered in Whitby if they were not sent out today. Straightening with the arrogance of a light dragoon Lucian strode into the parlour.

  The sight of a sober and neatly dressed Merristorm widened André’s eyes. He raised his quizzing glass to his eye and surveyed the tall lean figure before he lowered it and offered his hand.

  “How do you come to be in Whitby, my lord?” Lucian asked bluntly.

  André sighed dramatically and poised his quizzing glass against his chin. “I was at the Wise Owl when I heard mention of your name. Miss Jenkinson told me of your recent arrival. Curiosity is a troublesome sin.”