“That’s just it. When you wanted me out, when you were giving me deadlines, I could manage. These last weeks have been too comfortable. We’re pretending like we belong here, but we don’t. Not really.” She bit her lower lip as if to keep from going on, her tongue darting out to moisten it.
He studied the line of her lower lip and grew warmer as he did. Doesn’t she know what she’s doing to me? Rand took a deep breath and pulled himself together.
“Are you”—he paused, groping for the right word—“are you afraid of me? Afraid I’m going to force my attentions on you?”
She shook her head from side to side, swallowing hard as she did as if a lump had lodged in her throat. Not me then. Yourself?
“Good,” he said. He made himself busy building up the already roaring fire. “I’ll admit having you here wouldn’t pass muster with the ladies in Montreal, much less those in London, but it’s driven by necessity. It’s an arrangement of convenience. A temporary one.”
Awkward! She’s bound to think of the sort of “temporary arrangement” her mother warned her about. He knew he had babbled like a fool, but Meggy still didn’t answer him.
He stood and turned back to her. Her rosy cheeks and firmly closed lips hadn’t changed. He found her utterly adorable and felt utterly foolish. A tumble isn’t enough with this one. Keep your hands—and other parts—to yourself until you know what she can give you.
“It’s the children’s safety that matters,” he said. “Do you think you can put up with our situation a bit longer while we try to find a safe place for them?”
She let out a breath, and her face relaxed, but she still didn’t smile. “The longer they stay, the harder it will be for them to leave.”
The rush of relief her words brought on shocked Rand. I should be helping them leave, and all I want to do is keep them here!
“Would the Grady boys travel to the villages farther north?” she went on.
“I can’t ask that. It would be a long, uncomfortable journey.” Just like it would be for you. He waited for her to work that out.
He thought she wanted to argue, but her shoulders sagged. She looked beaten down. He liked it better when she argued.
“Give it more time, Meggy. Nothing is forcing you to leave.”
You were. Her scathing look said it though no words were expressed. He couldn’t bear it. He strode to the door and flung it open. “Hark, ye minions in the kitchen. Come in here by this warm fire. It’s time we talked about Christmas. Tell me what to do with this room.”
When have I ever cared about the holy day? Not in many years. I still don’t. Let’s see her fight this ploy.
She held out her arms when the children ran in. Her eyes over their heads glared daggers at him. She knew what he was about. She had not, he realized, agreed to stay.
Lena tumbled into bed, asleep before her head hit the pillow. Meggy felt her forehead. Cool, thank God. It had been three weeks since her fever broke, but still Meggy worried.
She felt like a fool objecting when Rand bundled the little one up to “Go fetch some greenery to dress this place up.” Aside from her worry, his little outing sounded to Meggy like one more silken thread tying them to his house, but she had threatened repeatedly to haul Lena north to find Grand-mère, so she could hardly refuse an outing.
Lena enjoyed every minute of it. She rode on Algernon’s back into the deep woods and clapped with glee while Rand and Drew cut particularly thick branches and loaded them on the sledge. She almost exploded when Rand led them to a pond surrounded by holly bushes, heavy with bright red berries. She demanded that he lift her down so she could direct the selection.
He didn’t direct them to mistletoe, Meggy noticed, relieved. The English soldiers told tales of mistletoe, many of them enough to make her blush and duck away.
Satisfied her daughter was merely exhausted, not sick, Meggy rose to see Rand sitting on the opposite bed putting Drew’s splint back in place.
“Don’t frown at me, young sir,” he said. “Our agreement was that it would come off during the day and go back on at night. Those bones take a long time to firm up.”
His gentle hands touched her heart as effectively as they did her son’s arm. She remembered the feel of them the night she cried in his arms, and longing overtook her. Oh Meggy! This won’t do.
Drew nodded. He opened his mouth as if to say something, but a yawn escaped him.
“To bed!” Meggy ordered. “You’re as exhausted as your sister.” She avoided Rand’s eyes, lest he read her thoughts. Her son didn’t object when she put an arm around his shoulder and urged him to stand; he allowed himself to be led down the hall to the attic stairs. And he didn’t object when his mother followed him up the stairs. Weeks before he had banned her, insisting he wasn’t a baby who didn’t need to be tucked in. He was now allowing her to check that the heated stone had done its job between the sheets, to help him in, and to tuck the covers around his thin shoulders.
“‘Night, Mama,” he said on a yawn.
“Good night, Drew,” she replied.
“Best day ever,” he said, his voice fading.
She kissed his head and stood. “Yes, love. A wonderful day.” The best in many years.
She had one foot on the stairs when she heard a voice from the attic say, “I really hope we can stay here.”
Rand stood in the hallway, leaning his back against the wall. He pushed himself upright when she stepped down. His wistful smile wobbled.
“Asleep?” he asked.
She nodded. “I expect so. He was fading fast.”
“We wore them out.”
We. The word hung between them. She couldn’t look away. They stood for a long time in the narrow hallway before he closed the space between them. He moved so gradually that she didn’t realize it until his mouth was inches from hers, his warmth surrounded her, and his eyes searched hers. She couldn’t say if his eyes searched for permission; she couldn’t think at all. There was only awareness of the man, his warmth, and his bedroom door feet away.
The kiss came gently, a touch, a caress. She let herself feel it, starved for tenderness, and she breathed in his scent—pine and wood smoke. Her hands slid up his rough shirt, around his neck, and into the hair that hung to his collar.
Long fingers cupped her head, and he deepened the kiss softly, gently, without force. She opened gladly.
When he began to unbutton her dress, she stiffened and put her hands on his chest to push him away. Perhaps it was the sensation of cold. Perhaps it was the intrusion. Perhaps reason simply asserted itself. Meggy didn’t know what brought her to her senses. She had forgotten much for a few moments, but one fact came to her clearly.
“I’m married, Rand! Fergus may be a poor excuse for a human being, but he’s still my husband. Nothing changes that.”
She almost wept when he responded immediately, with respect and concern. He stood back, but he reached out a hand to caress her cheek.
“I’m sorry, Meggy. You deserve better.” He let his hand drop, moved farther away, and smiled crookedly. “It’s the night and the exhaustion. Things will be back to normal in the morning.” He turned and shut the door to his bedroom firmly behind him.
Alone in the hall, cold and bereft, her whole body shook.
Normal? Things may never be normal again.
Chapter 15
They spent four days cutting stars from paper, making red ribbons from one of Rand’s old shirts, and making bows of yarn. When the following morning broke, bright and sunny, the children demanded to bring in the branches and decorate.
“Breakfast first, then chores,” Meggy insisted. She wanted to put off the decorating. He’s binding us here with holiday ribbons. He’s enticing me with pine.
“Dishes are clean, stock is fed, wood has been stacked,
beds are made—do you plan to scrub the floor too?” Rand demanded with a laugh in his voice two hours later.
The wretched man knows exactly what I’m feeling.
“Why would I scrub floors if you plan to tromp back and forth to the barn and get them filthy?” she replied tartly.
“Hurray!” Lena shouted as she ran to bundle up.
Soon enough they carried the first armloads in and began to place branches above the mantel in the study and the mantel in the parlor. Lena placed the stars and bows carefully, moving each one several times until she felt satisfied. Rand put holly branches on tables and lanterns, tying each with a strip of red, until Lena exclaimed, “There’s a bird’s nest in here!” and they all had to stop to admire it.
They tumbled out the front door, laughing to fetch another batch of branches, and were halfway back when they heard the voice.
“Lovely family you have, Wheatly.”
Meggy’s heart stuttered. A stranger leaned over the pommel of his saddle and sneered at them. Rand glared at the intruder.
“What do you want, Gibb?” he demanded.
“Told you I needed workers,” the man said. He was broad shouldered and hunched in the saddle. A nasty scar—a knife wound she guessed—did nothing to enhance his pockmarked face. What Meggy noticed most, however, were his eyes. She felt naked under his leering gaze.
“And I told you there are none here.”
“So what do you have here?” he demanded, looking away at last only to fix on Lena and her armload of pine. “Another willing worker. Selfish of you to keep this to yourself.”
Rand dropped the branches he had been carrying. He moved between Lena and Gibb, his hands fisted at his side.
“Good morning, Deputy Walker. I see you’ve paid us a visit also,” Rand said grimly. Only then did Meggy see the second man in the shadow of the trees. He squirmed uneasily when he came forward.
“We had a report of missing children,” he said. “Word has been passed up and down the Rideau and the Tay. Gibb thought—that is, I wanted to ask if you knew anything.”
“These children aren’t missing,” Rand told him. “They’re my guests.”
“Well then,” Walker said, “we’ll leave you to your work.”
“Guests, Wheatly?” Gibb demanded. “Relatives maybe?” He raised a skeptical eyebrow.
“Friends.” Rand never took his eyes from Gibb. He glared at him until Deputy Walker turned his horse to leave. “Come on, Gibb. We’ve seen enough.”
“See you again, Wheatly. Count on it,” Gibb said with menace in every word.
Rand stood where he was and watched them leave.
“Who was that man?” Meggy rasped when she could breathe.
“Sawmill owner. He treats his workers horribly.”
“Why is he so mean?” Drew piped up from behind them.
Rand dropped his gaze then and turned to the children. “He’s spiteful to the core.”
“But, sir, why doesn’t he like you?”
“He believes I plan to go into the timber business and ruin his little operation.” Rand bent and picked up the holly branches he had dropped.
“Do you?” Drew asked, puzzlement in his face.
Rand’s chuckle did not sound amused. “Oh yes. Thoroughly. He needs to be stopped.” He smiled at the two of them. “Don’t trouble yourself. We have decorating to do.”
He nodded at Meggy over their heads. She didn’t mistake what she saw. The man had threatened them.
“Don’t let that little man worry you,” Rand said. He addressed the children, but Meggy knew his words were for her. “Like all bullies, he backs down when you stand up to him.” Drew’s worried expression didn’t change.
Meggy followed them into the house, doubt lodged in her heart. One thought rang true. Bullies don’t back down. They come back over and over.
Rand watched Meggy going about her tasks in a daze. Gibb had terrified her. On the second day, he went up to the bedroom she shared with Lena when the two of them were busy baking bread. As he suspected, her cloth sack lay packed and ready with their pathetic collection of belongings.
I have to get them out of here. He had no more idea where to send them than he had the day before. He briefly considered sending them to the earl. If they left immediately, he could have her out before Gibb made more trouble. He thought about taking them to New York and putting them on a ship for England. England, the land of laws giving a father absolute power over his wife and children. He shook his head.
A vision of Meggy turning up at the door of Chadbourn House in London with a note from Rand struck him. “Kindly take in these fugitives. By the way, don’t allow her animal of a husband near them, even if all legal right is his.” His sister and brother-in-law may have failed him once, but he knew they would protect Meggy without question. Unfortunately, it would put them in the precarious position of harboring fugitives. The idea soured. Still, it may be the only way. I have to keep her from bolting before I think it through.
He went to the kitchen and poured a mug of coffee. Bread had been put to rise. She’s made many more than we can use. Supplies for the journey, he suspected.
“Don’t you have sums to finish?” he said pointedly to Lena. “Drew is at my desk finishing his. Please do the same.”
“Yes, sir,” the little girl said.
He waited until he and Meggy were alone. “Sit,” he said, “and stop looking like a skittish deer. You’re putting me off my feed.”
That bought him the slightest smile from her, but she didn’t tease him back; it almost killed him.
“Don’t leave yet,” he said bluntly. When she started in surprise, he put up a calming hand. “I know what you’re thinking, and you may be right.”
“You agree?” she asked cautiously.
He nodded, almost choking on his own lie. “You have to go, but you need to be prepared. If you give me a few days, Drew and I can make you a sledge to pull.”
“That might help. If Lena tired, I could pull her.”
Like hell. “Possibly. I’ll give you blankets to cushion it and for warmth. The children need warmer shirts, though, to put under those thin jackets of theirs, and at least a second set of mittens so they can double up.”
“But how?”
“I can fetch yarn and wool at Grady’s. I can go this morning. I’ll get spare blankets. You can use the old ones to make spare shirts.”
She hesitated. He watched her debate whether to agree to stay.
She finally said, “They do need warmer clothes. I’ll get busy tonight. I can make them each a shirt and mittens in two days if I work into the evening.”
Rand began thinking up ways to slow her down, but he nodded as if he agreed. “Two days then.”
He left for Gibb’s Mill thirty minutes later, determined to question Jacob Walker. He needed to know how much time he had to make his move.
Chapter 16
He had, as it turned out, no time at all.
Rand went immediately to the deputy constable’s office, the closest thing to government in the village. He had known and respected Jacob Walker since he came to the country. He expected straight answers. The deputy constable looked miserably uncomfortable. “Sorry, Rand. Gibb is an interfering worm, but the law is the law.”
“Quite right!” The third man in the office stood a head shorter than Rand and stout as a cow. Rand recognized him from Perth as the popinjay who had dismissed him when he attempted to get information about Meggy’s grandmother.
This little weasel is the magistrate for the district?
Walker gave Rand a subtle glance, one eyebrow cocked at the weasel that was just short of disrespectful. “Allow me to present Mr. Luther Nebling, the assistant magistrate.” He gave the word assistant the slightest emphasi
s.
Rand glared down at the balding pate of the self-important little man. Assistant indeed.
Nebling paid him no mind. “Magistrate, and fully authorized to demand the return of the errant wife of Sergeant Ferguson Blair, who has willfully and with malice stolen the man’s children from his hearth and home.”
Blair? Rand’s mind raced. Meggy never used that name. Can he mean a different husband, a different family? Logic told him otherwise.
“I have to enforce it,” Walker said apologetically.
“Of course you do, you fool!” Nebling shouted. “And this man can be held in contempt if he tries to interfere. As soon as Blair gets back with them—”
“Back? What do you mean?”
Nebling smirked and raised his chin. He let his arrogant expression be the answer.
“Blair left not a half hour ago with two of his men and a writ to fetch them back,” Walker told him. “Sorry. I had no way to warn you.”
If the mast of a frigate had landed on Rand’s head, he wouldn’t have felt any more stunned. He didn’t even register Nebling’s nasty laughter.
“If that man hurts those children again, I’ll kill him,” Rand spat, turning on his heels.
“You’ll hang for murder if you do.” Nebling smirked. He turned to Walker and sputtered, “Go after him, man. He made threats. Do your duty.”
“Do it yourself, you lazy lump.” Walker’s words reached Rand as he mounted Algernon and turned his head to the road.
Rand was out of town before he realized neither man had followed him. He pushed Algernon past the point of common sense, trying to catch up to the sergeant and his men. Only the realization that a lame horse would prevent him from rescuing Meggy forced him to be cautious.
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