by Cheryl Holt
Fanny was galled at being forced to rely on the paltry coins the vicar’s wife doled out, especially when the sanctimonious woman enjoyed flaunting her elevated position and how it contrasted with Fanny’s reduced one.
For three decades, Fanny’s father had been the vicar. They’d lived in a fine house next to the church and had been respected members of the community, so when she knocked on the rear door of the parsonage, she felt like a supplicant or a beggar. She’d be invited in to see the new minister writing his sermons at what had been her father’s desk. His wife would be sitting on the sofa in what had been Fanny’s mother’s parlor.
At one humiliating point, Fanny had sold her mother’s wedding ring to the vicar in order to purchase food. He’d given the ring to his wife as a gift, and whenever Fanny stopped by, she cruelly waved it under Fanny’s nose.
The tonic was bitter to swallow, but in the past few years, she’d suffered so many indignities that one more hardly registered. She could tolerate the other woman’s condescension if it helped her support her nephew, Thomas.
“Camilla, please,” Fanny scolded. “Watch your language.”
Fanny gestured toward Thomas who was across the room at the dining table practicing his letters.
“He’s heard worse,” Camilla said.
“Yes, he has,” Fanny agreed, “but we needn’t broaden his base vocabulary.”
“Don’t tell me how to speak to my own boy.”
Fanny couldn’t win the argument, so she didn’t try.
“I’ll be back in a few hours. If she pays me as she promised, I’ll bring some stew meat with me.”
“Meat, bah!” Camilla sniped. “Fat and gristle is more like.”
Camilla was always angry that they couldn’t afford the quality of victuals that had been their typical fare in better times. Her sense of entitlement—as well as her gnawing hunger—made her surly.
Though she never said as much, she seemed to blame Fanny for their poverty, as if their father’s death and Camilla’s subsequent plunge to indigence had somehow been Fanny’s fault. Fanny was weary of defending herself over the calamities, and she was eager to be away.
She grabbed her shawl and bonnet, and she stood in front of the mirror, studying her reflection as she tied the bow under her chin.
With her slender torso, heart-shaped face, and bright green eyes, she recognized that she was attractive. Her hair was long and blond, an unusual shade of luxurious gold, the color of ripened wheat. Since they had no servants, she rarely styled it, finding it quicker to simply brush the lengthy tresses and pull them back with a ribbon.
But her looks didn’t matter, and she shouldn’t continue to pretend that they did. Her lack of a dowry insured there would be no husband, no family of her own. She’d never even had a beau, and circumstances had compelled her to accept that she never would.
Still, it was amusing to dream of a different life, one filled with pretty gowns and tons of delicious food, where there was no need to worry over the least little problem.
She wasn’t a woman prone to vanity, but there was no concealing the fact that her dress was shabby and plain, her bonnet tattered and torn. She couldn’t help but wish that she had a fashionable outfit to wear into the village, but cash was scarce and new clothes a frivolous extravagance.
She slipped out and hurried down the path to the lane, when Thomas called to her from their decrepit cottage.
“Aunt Fanny! May I come with you?”
Fanny spun around, smiling.
Thomas was an amazingly sweet and winsome child, and it was impossible to understand how he’d sprung from such an unpleasant mother. Luckily, he was nothing like her.
While Camilla was blond and blue-eyed, her face wasn’t flattering. Her eyes were too narrow, her nose too large, her chin too square. Previously, she’d been plump with good health, but her figure had gone to flab, and her forehead was creased with frown lines that were evidence of her dour temperament.
In contrast, with his rosy cheeks and pert nose, Thomas’s features were so appealing that he resembled a cherub painted on a church ceiling. His hair wasn’t blond, though, as an angel’s might be, but a dark brown that was almost black, and his eyes were very blue, traits that Camilla claimed made him the spitting image of his aristocratic father, John Wainwright.
“No, darling,” Fanny said, “you can’t come. You have to finish your school work.”
“But I’ve been at it for an hour already.”
“Yes, and you need to do another two hours before you’re through. Don’t you want to grow up big and smart like your father and grandfather?”
“No. I want to be a dangerous pirate like Captain Jean Pierre, The French Terror.”
Jean Pierre was currently the scourge of the Seven Seas, and boys all over England were enthralled by tales of his violence, daring, and bravery.
“Jean Pierre attended school, too,” she maintained, having no idea if the vicious criminal had or not.
“He did?”
“Yes. He can read and write better than anyone.”
Thomas pondered this lie, then swallowed it.
“All right,” he ultimately grumbled, “but once you’re back, may we walk by the river?”
“Yes, we may.” She nodded to the cottage. “You go on now. Keep your mother company until I return.”
At the suggestion, he scowled, his distaste obvious, but he didn’t remark. He whipped away and went inside.
He was so obedient and clever, and he was astute enough to realize that his mother detested him. They both knew it; they occasionally skirted the edge of the issue, but there was no way Fanny could justify Camilla’s behavior.
At age sixteen, Camilla had accompanied their neighbors to London for the social season, but she had been poorly chaperoned. She’d thrived on the parties and gaiety, on the wickedness and immoral conduct. She’d fallen in with a bad crowd, had come home pregnant and in disgrace.
The scandal had ruined their family. Their father had been forced to surrender his position as the parish vicar, which had cost them their income and house and status. If that weren’t punishment enough, Camilla had refused to exhibit any remorse, which had shocked the town’s rural sensibilities, so they’d been shunned.
Even after the shame had killed their parents, Camilla still wasn’t sorry for the catastrophe she’d wrought. She’d loved John Wainwright and had relished her indecent life as his paramour. All these years later, she could talk of nothing but London, and if she’d had any notion of how to manage it, she’d move to the city and resume her decadent habits.
Thomas represented all that Camilla had lost. Not her parents. Not her home. Not her reputation. She wasn’t concerned about any of those things. No, she mourned the loss of the whirlwind that was London, and Thomas was living proof of how she’d failed to retain what she craved.
Fanny sighed, wishing she had the temerity to leave Camilla to stew in her own juice, but she never would.
They had been reared as sisters, but they weren’t blood relations. Fanny’s own birth mother had been a young girl, much like Camilla who’d been seduced by a great lord. As a tiny baby, Fanny had been left in a basket on the church steps, with a note requesting that she be placed with a good family.
The vicar and his wife had kept Fanny and raised her as their own daughter, so when her mother had begged Fanny—on her deathbed, no less—to watch over Camilla, it was a charge Fanny wouldn’t shirk.
She hurried on, wondering if there would be another letter in the morning post from pompous, horrid Michael Wainwright, which was the real reason she was walking to the village. His threats were aggravating in the extreme, and she often entertained herself by conjuring visions of the ugly, vile ogre he must be.
His last missive had imperiously informed her that they had begun legal proceedings to take Thomas, and Fanny was determined that they would never have him, although she hadn’t breathed a word of the situation to Camilla. She didn’t trust Camilla�
��s decisions regarding Thomas, and she was quite sure if the Wainwrights demanded custody, Camilla would be so flattered that she’d hand him over without batting an eye.
“Over my dead body,” Fanny muttered to herself, trudging on, murmuring oaths and prayers that she hoped would keep the Wainwrights at bay.
She approached the village, and her chores were swiftly completed. There was no new letter, and the vicar’s wife was out and had left her no money, so she wasn’t able to buy any food. Irked and disheartened, she started home, taking a shortcut through the woods.
At the stile in the fence, she climbed over and slid down the opposite side to follow the narrow trail that led back to the road. It was criss-crossed with blackberry brambles, and after a half-dozen strides, her skirt snagged on the thorns, snaring her as tightly as a rabbit in a trap.
She twisted and turned, trying to ease the fabric free, but the more she struggled, the more entangled she became. She wanted to yank at the material and rip it away, but if she wrecked her dress, she hadn’t the means to purchase another.
Thunder rumbled off in the distance, and a few raindrops fell, bouncing off the rim of her bonnet and dampening her shawl. She was a pathetic sight, stuck in the ditch, on the deserted lane, and she began to weep, the tears dripping down her cheeks.
She was exhausted, lonely, and famished, and she loitered, fuming and jerking at the branches, when finally, she heard the clomp of a horse’s hooves. An expensive animal rounded the bend in the road, and a single gentleman, whom she didn’t recognize, was riding it.
He was incredibly handsome, very tall and fit, with broad shoulders, a thin waist, and long, long legs. His hair was black, and his eyes were a mesmerizing sapphire that lured her in and made it difficult to glance away. Thomas was the only other person she’d ever seen with eyes so blue, and she couldn’t quit staring.
With his brown coat and tan breeches, his knee-high boots and wind-swept appearance, he looked dashing and carefree, as if he’d been out hunting or perhaps racing with a companion.
From the cut of his clothes and his confident demeanor, he was obviously wealthy, and while she should have instantly beckoned to him for assistance, she hesitated. There was something about him, a power or energy that unnerved her. She wasn’t afraid of him and didn’t think he’d hurt her, but he frightened her all the same.
He saw her, and she must have seemed sufficiently wretched that he tugged on the reins.
“Hello there,” he said, gazing down at her from his elevated perch.
“Hello.”
“Are you real? Or are you a fairy?”
“A fairy?”
“Well, we are in the forest, and you’re hiding in the grass.” He paused and evaluated her. “With that fetching bonnet tipped back on your head, I’m guessing you’re real. I don’t think fairies wear hats.”
“I’m very real.”
“Are you all right?” he inquired.
“No, actually, I’m not.” Embarrassed by her dilemma, she blushed bright red. “I fear I’ve had a spot of trouble.”
“And what is that?”
“My skirt is caught on the thorns, and I can’t get it loose.”
“A catastrophe of the worst kind.”
“I might rip it if I pull too hard.”
“It would be a pity to ruin such a pretty dress.”
He was either too far away to discern the garment’s ragged condition, or he was too gallant to be critical of her attire. Or he was blind.
“Could you...help me?”
“I thought you’d never ask.”
Nimbly, he jumped down from his horse, like a bandit or a cavalryman born to the saddle, and he strode over. With her being so short, he towered over her, and when she caught herself gaping up at him, she blushed even more furiously.
She shifted away, furtively swiping at her cheeks, hoping he wouldn’t observe that she’d been crying, but of course, he noticed immediately.
“What’s this?” he said very gently. “Tears?”
“No, no. It’s the rain.”
“Ah...the rain,” he murmured. He studied her and smiled a dazzling smile. “It’s not as bad as all that, is it?”
“It’s fairly bad,” she was shocked to hear herself say.
“No, it isn’t,” he insisted. “You haven’t realized it yet, but it’s your lucky day.”
“Why is that?”
“Because I am about to rescue you—like a knight in shining armor.”
Though she’d been morose only moments earlier, she chuckled. “It’s just a bramble.”
“Well, every knight has his yoke to bear.”
He braced his feet, fists on his lean hips, as he assessed her predicament. Being very polite and cautious, he pointed to her skirt.
“May I?”
“Yes, please.”
He stepped in, and it was the first occasion that Fanny had been so near to an adult male. She was stunned by how her heart raced, by how she prickled all over with goose bumps.
Boldly, as if he fondled strange women all the time, he rested a hand on her waist while he used the other to turn her to and fro. She could feel the heat from his skin, so hot and marvelous that it seemed to burn through the fabric of her dress, and she resisted the impulse to lurch away from the intimate contact.
Ultimately, she was freed, and she moved away from him, but he’d moved, too, so they were standing very close. Much of her torso was touching his, and oddly, a thrilling connection flowed between them, almost as if a spark of energy was shooting from his body to hers.
He scrutinized her, cataloguing her features, and he asked, “By any chance, is your surname Sinclair?”
“No, why?”
“You could be a twin to my best friend, Phillip Sinclair. You have his same hair and eyes. Are you one of his sisters or cousins?”
“I’m sure I’m not.”
“His father is Charles Sinclair, the Earl of Trent.”
“I’m sorry, but I’ve never heard of him. It isn’t likely we’d have such a lofty acquaintance out here in the middle of nowhere, is it?”
“You just never know,” he said.
“You just never do.” She held out her hand, being brazen and daring as she never was. “I’m Frances Carrington.”
He clasped her offered hand in his own, not letting go as he should have.
“You are Frances Carrington?”
“Yes, and I insist you call me Fanny.”
The revelation of her identity had paralyzed him. He stood, pondering, considering, and his potent concentration made her feel attractive and interesting, which was exhilarating. Her dear, departed father had always told her she was pretty, and she could sense it when she peered into the mirror, but she’d never had the opinion validated by a handsome man.
Tentatively, she inquired, “What’s wrong? Why are you staring?”
“You’re not what I expected.”
She was confused by his comment. “I am not?”
“No, I...I meant that I wouldn’t have guessed your name to be Fanny.”
“What would you have guessed it to be?”
“Something very fast. Charlotte, maybe. Or Cassandra.”
“You’re very wicked, aren’t you?” She laughed, liking to know that he gazed at her and saw someone completely different from plain, boring Fanny Carrington.
The encounter grew intimate again, the quiet building, his powerful regard not waning, and she asked, “Have we met before? You seem so familiar to me.”
“No, we’ve never met.”
She’d introduced herself, but he hadn’t reciprocated, and she was dying of curiosity.
“Are you from around here, Mr....?”
“Michael Wai...” he started, then stuttered to a halt. “Michael Waverly. I’m in the area on business. I’ll be visiting for a few weeks.”
She could think of nothing more splendid than having him as a neighbor, and perhaps his sojourn would begin as a brief one, but would become
a lengthy stay.
“Well, thank you for your assistance, Mr. Waverly. If you hadn’t come by, I might have been stuck out here forever.”
“Do you live nearby? May I see you home?”
Despite how her sister had shamed herself, she and Fanny had been raised with a strict moral code. Fanny was aware that this was the point where she should have pronounced herself perfectly capable of proceeding the rest of the way on her own.
But he still hadn’t let go of her hand, and there were butterflies coursing through her stomach. At the moment, she was so eager to be with him that naught else mattered.
“I’d like it if you would,” she said.
“I would be honored.”
“It’s just a short distance.”
“That’s too bad,” he teased. “I was hoping it far off, so that I would have an excuse to spend hours getting you there.”
On hearing him declare that he’d relished their rendezvous as much as she, she was practically giddy with pleasure.
He led her to his horse, where she’d assumed he would grab the reins and they would stroll down the lane. To her great astonishment, he seized her by the waist and tossed her onto the animal, lifting her as if she weighed no more than a feather.
She whooped with surprise, as he leapt up behind her, and though she tried to sit up straight, to maintain an appropriate space between them, it was impossible to keep their bodies from touching. They were pressed together, her back to his front, his thighs cradling hers, his arms holding her steady and safe.
He clicked the reins, and the horse trotted off at a brisk clip. It had been an eternity since she had ridden, and as the wind blew across her face, she giggled with joy and clutched at her bonnet so it didn’t fly off.
Much too quickly, they arrived at the cottage, and as she made her goodbyes, he asked if he might stop by the next day to take her walking.
Readily, she accepted the invitation, and as she went inside, she was grinning, happy for the first time in a long time. She couldn’t believe how such a miserable afternoon had suddenly turned so wonderful.
CHAPTER THREE
