by Liz Carlyle
“I am!” he cried, looking up at her. “I love her. Yes, Nancy’s young. But she’s a good Christian, Lady d’Allenay, and admired by all. She’s kind and loving—and most importantly, she knows her own mind.”
“Yes, and soon she’ll know yours, too,” Kate warned, “and she’ll be telling you what to think every morning over breakfast. Her opinions will be yours, or you will have—and do pardon the irony here—hell to pay. Trust me. I know.”
“Nothing could make me happier,” vowed the rector, his eyes drifting about his new home’s foundation. “But indeed, my lady, you must think me most ungrateful. Your generosity—it seemingly knows no bounds.” Suddenly, he paled, and turned back to her, his mind working furiously.
Ah. At last it had occurred to him. “Yes, go on,” said Kate wearily. “Say it.”
“Surely … surely, my lady, you didn’t think to dissuade my affections with this new rectory?” he croaked, “or … or the glebe land?”
“As in a bribe? Certainly not.”
I meant to ensure you could afford to keep up my sister after she marries you.
As she inevitably would. Oh, Kate could buy the girl time, and build her a decent house. Aunt Louisa could insist she have a Season in Town. Uncle Upshaw could scowl. And Mamma could trawl her matrimonial nets through Bellecombe baited by a dozen of her handsome puppies. But in the end, it would all come down to this: a marriage of hardship and simplicity.
The awkward life of a parson’s wife.
Kate cleared her throat sharply. “The glebe land is for the Church,” she said. “For you, yes, and all who come after you, Richard. Besides, were I to bribe you, I should do the thing properly. With cold, hard cash—of which I have little.”
The rector exhaled with relief. “Well, then,” he managed. “Well. Then I—I renew my proposal for your sister’s hand. I ask your permission to pay her my addresses.”
“It looked to me as if you were already paying them,” said Kate dryly.
His color drained again. “I—I can’t think what got into me.”
“A man of the cloth is still a man like any other,” said Kate evenly.
“But I know your feelings in this regard.”
“Richard, none of this is within my control.” Kate softened her tone. “And if you persist in this folly—or I should say, if Nancy persists in it—Uncle Upshaw will simply order her to Town now instead of waiting for the Season to start. He is her guardian. I‘ve no influence with my sister, and never have had.”
The rector’s eyes softened. “I … I’m sorry I brought her out here. Truly.”
“I think it a vast deal more likely Nancy brought you out here,” said Kate. “I know you’re a man of honor. But I’m sure tidying the vestry became tedious. The dust, perhaps, made her sneeze. She began to sigh, then suggested the two of you take a little stroll. It no doubt seemed perfectly innocent at the time.”
Mr. Burnham cut his guilty gaze away.
Deeply irritated with her sister, Kate spurred Athena half around. She had lost all interest in the new construction. “Just try to understand Uncle Upshaw’s view, Richard, and keep the girl in check,” she advised. “You must earn not just her affection, but her respect, if you mean to marry her. And if she chafes at that—why, that tells you something, does it not?”
“I … I hardly know,” he said. “Does it?”
Kate shrugged. “As Nancy is so quick to point out, I am myself unwed and apt to remain so,” she replied. “But here’s the long and the short of it. Nancy is almost nineteen, and has never had a Season. Never seen London. Never been courted beyond this county. Before she does something so drastic as to—”
“—marry beneath her,” the rector supplied, his mouth twisting.
“Oh, Richard! I do not think that. I do not.”
“Lord Upshaw thinks it.”
“No, he merely fears she has lived a rustic life,” she said, “and wants Nancy to see a bit of society. He would never make her marry a man she didn’t love. I counsel only patience, Richard. You must both be sure.”
Burnham lifted his hand to take hers, his soft curls ruffling lightly in the breeze. “I am sure,” he said, gazing up at her. “But I understand, Kate. I will be more firm with her.”
On a nod, Kate let his hand slip away and wheeled Athena a quarter turn. “I trust you will,” she said over her shoulder. “Oh, and Richard—steel yourself on another front. My mother means to come for the shooting season.”
“Mrs. Wentworth?” Dread sketched over the rector’s face. “How … delightful. And her lively friends, too, I daresay?”
“I fear so, yes.”
During last year’s visit, in the middle of a languid stroll through the village, Kate’s mother’s paramour, the Comte de Macey, had espied Burnham’s tiny, provincial church through his jeweled lorgnette and declared—on something that sounded suspiciously like a chortle—that he found himself in dire need of confession.
The entire household had known, even then, of Nancy’s infatuation with the new rector. Doubtless the comte’s ruse had arisen from pure devilment, and a prying wish to lay eyes upon this manly paragon. Left with little option save to graciously oblige the Frenchman in his hour of Catholic need, the Reverend Mr. Burnham had made do with a dark Anglican corner and a vestry curtain.
Whatever de Macey had teasingly confessed to the poor man had evidently singed Richard’s ear hair. He had come back out of the church pink-faced, and never spoke of it again. Kate’s mother had barely contained her laughter, and merely smacked le comte with her parasol in mock disapprobation.
“Well,” said Richard, dragging his hand through his hair again. “When do you expect her?”
“Richard, it is Mamma,” she said evenly. “One does not so much expect her, but rather simply battens down the hatches and watches the horizon darken.”
With that, Kate touched her crop to her hat brim, and wheeled Athena about to urge her into a canter. Through sheer force of will, she had not let Richard see the anger that still roiled inside her. Setting aside the cruelty of Nancy’s insult, Kate knew there was no one she’d sooner welcome into the family than Richard. But the couple might well have to wait until Nancy’s majority.
Instead, Nancy was attempting to force the issue. But if she could not give a fig for her family’s wishes, thought Kate angrily, could she not, at the very least, think of Richard’s good name? He was the village rector—and Nancy had tempted him into a situation where any passing villager might have seen.
Driven by temper and, yes, by the hot sting of her sister’s insult, Kate gave Athena her head. They flew across the field, tossing up divots of turf almost silently. The Shearns had turned their wagon and were raking up the last of the hay. Intent on her errand—and a little blinded, perhaps, by temper—Kate passed by with merely a nod.
Reaching the main road, she leaned over Athena’s haunches and sent her sailing over the fence and through the wide gap in the hedge. And in the next moment, all hell erupted.
In a roadway that should have been empty, a massive dark shadow loomed on her right. Athena reared in surprise. The great, black beast barreling down the hill reared, too, pawing so close Kate felt the hoof breeze past her forehead.
The rider cursed, and fought for control. Too late. The hard, wheeling jerk he forced upon his rearing mount sent him flying from the saddle. His head struck the moss-covered millstone that sat like a massive, immovable toad at the intersection.
Kate screamed, kicked loose her stirrup and leapt, leaving Athena’s reins to dangle. Falling to her knees in the grass, she needed but a glance to see blood was streaming from the man’s temple, his eyes open yet sightless.
Terrified, Kate turned and rushed for the fence, hurling herself half over. “Shearn!” she screamed at the top of her lungs. “Shearn! Bring the wagon!”
“OH, DEAR!” NANCY gingerly set down her basin of steaming water by the massive mahogany bed. “Oh, Kate! I’m so sorry. Poor man! I ought not
have goaded you.”
“No, you ought not,” Kate admitted. “But the fault is mine; I was careless.”
“Yours?” Nancy gave a little sniffle. “You are never careless.”
“I wish you were right.” Willing her hand not to shake, Kate stroked the heavy, gold-brown hair off the man’s forehead. “Here, give me the sponge.”
Nancy blithered on between damp sniffles about her guilt and regret and something about Richard being angry enough to throttle her as Kate dunked the sponge and wrung it out, assessing the best way to attack the drying blood that had streamed down his face and ruined his shirt.
The injured man lay now in Stephen’s bedchamber at Bellecombe, directly across the passageway from Kate’s. From the time Ike and Tom Shearn had gingerly lifted him from the verge until the moment they’d settled him onto the bed, the man had made no sound. More worrisome still, when Kate had clambered into the hay wagon to close his eyes, they had not so much as twitched beneath his lids. Nor did they now.
“Kate … is he going to die?” murmured Nancy, her eyes searching the man’s face.
Kate paused, twisting about on the bed to lean over the man. “He’s not going to die,” she said firmly. But looking at the man’s pale, strikingly handsome face, Kate was reminded of her brother, who had lingered months after his fall.
But that was different. Stephen had fallen from a great height. His spine had been badly twisted, if not broken. It had been terrible. The panic began to rise again, and Kate forced it down.
Maintain calm, she told herself. Press on. She was of no use to this poor man in a state of agitation. “He’s just taken a blow to the head, Nan,” she said more gently. “He’s merely concussed. His heart sounds strong as an ox.”
Tucking a clean towel around his face, Kate began to sponge away the blood matting the blond hair at his temple. No, not blond, and not quite brown, either, but a dark, shimmering gold—at least six different shades of it, too, as if he’d spent a great deal of time in the sun.
And yet his thin, long-fingered hands were impeccably manicured. His shirt was of the finest cambric, the bloodstained collar starched to an inch, though a hint of surprisingly black bristle now shadowed his long, lean cheeks. A gold watch chain swung from his waistcoat, and on his right hand a faceted sapphire winked upon his little finger. There was no mistaking it. The man was a gentleman through and through—and a wealthy one.
Soon the water in the basin was tinged pink and Kate’s care was rewarded by the sight of an ugly, two-inch gash that now merely oozed blood at his hairline. “There,” she said, settling back onto the edge of the bed. “It will want stitching, I daresay, but the blood’s clotted. Who went to fetch the doctor?”
“Tom Shearn.” Nancy was still twisting her hands on the opposite side of the bed.
Just then Mrs. Peppin came bustling into the room with a dark coat slung over one arm, and a brown valise in hand. “Lawk, poor man!” she declared, setting the case atop the chest at the foot of the bed. “Here be his postmantle and gurtcoat, miss. ’Twere strapped to his saddle.”
The bag, like the rest of him, looked expensive, the leather worn soft as butter. A brass escutcheon glittered below the handle. Kate bent, and tilted it a little toward the light. The tiny strip was engraved with four initials, the first of which were legible as N.E.D. but the last one Kate could not make out; either a Q or an O with a scratch in it.
After hanging the coat, Mrs. Peppin took his hand, chafed it briskly for a time, then laid it down with a sigh. “If he don’t rouse in a bit, Miss Kate, you’d best roke about in that postmantle and try to make out who he be. Someone, somewhere is apt to be missing the poor gentleman.”
Kate set her head to one side and studied his face. “For the life of me, I cannot recognize him.”
“No, miss, he’s not from hereabouts,” said the housekeeper. “Handsome enough, though, idn’ he?”
“And he had not been to the house, you say?” Kate asked again. “He was, after all, coming back down our hill.”
“No, not a sight of him. Perhaps he took a wrong turn, saw the castle, and knew his mistake? Mayhap he’d meant to turn down the hill instead of up?”
“There’s nothing down the hill, either,” said Kate. “Nothing save Heatherfields, which is shut up.”
“And about to cave in,” added Mrs. Peppin sourly.
“Ike Shearn is going to ask about the man round the village,” said Nancy.
“Good. Well. Tom and the doctor might be a while.” Kate tossed the bloody sponge into the basin and shoved away a tendril of hair with the back of her hand. “I think, Peppie, we had better get him undressed and make sure he’s not otherwise injured.”
The housekeeper tilted her head at Nancy, and lifted one eyebrow.
“Nancy, go downstairs and watch for Dr. Fitch,” Kate instructed. “Oh, and ask Cook to steep some beef tea.”
For once Nancy went without argument. There was no question, of course, of Kate being sent from the room. Despite being both unwed and under thirty, she had headed the household for several years. And during those years—perhaps even before them—she had come to be viewed by those around her as an entrenched spinster, comfortable with her state and station in life, and more devoted to the land than she could ever be to a husband.
Even Aunt Louisa had given up hoping Kate might marry. Kate’s London Season—and the brief betrothal that had followed—had been a debacle of epic proportions. Kate had fled back to the isolation of Bellecombe with her tail between her legs, and lost herself in learning to manage the estate. No, despite her occasional jest to Mrs. Peppin, the luxury of possessing virginal sensibilities was not Kate’s lot in life.
After tugging off his tall riding boots, they set about drawing off the man’s coat. His elegant cravat having been whipped off by the roadside to wrap his head wound, Mrs. Peppin’s capable fingers began instead with the buttons of his brocade waistcoat.
“Lawk, miss, did ever ye see such fine stitching!” the housekeeper declared, fingering the silk lining.
Kate lifted her gaze from the sleeve she was wrestling. The waistcoat looked more expensive than anything even her dandified brother had worn, while at the same time utterly understated. “Savile Row,” she murmured, “or something near it. Here, help me lift him.”
The man was solidly built, but little by little his outer garments were tugged, pushed, and peeled off, then laid aside for brushing. Mrs. Peppin folded his waistcoat and set his pocket watch on the night table by the basin.
Then, as if reconsidering it, she picked the watch back up, and flipped open the cover. Her worn blue eyes flicked over it, then sharpened.
“Engraved?” asked Kate.
“Aye.” The housekeeper turned it around. “To Edward with love,” she said, “from Aunt Isabel.”
“To Edward.” She leaned across to examine it. “The initials on his bag are not quite decipherable, but the first three are clearly N.E.D. Well done, Peppie. It seems at least one of our patient’s names is Edward.”
“Well, let us pray he’ll live to see his poor auntie again.” Mrs. Peppin seemed touched by the notion that such a tall, strapping man might have someone to mourn him.
Kate turned her attention to the man’s shirt. “This is ruined with blood,” she said ruefully. “I’d better just cut it off.”
After fetching scissors from her sewing basket, Kate tugged the man’s shirttails from his trousers, the fabric still warm. That was good, she reassured herself. Warm was good. But that rising warmth merely served to carry the man’s tantalizing scent, a faintly woody aroma that reminded her of chestnut and fresh citrus. And man. Yes, for all his infirmity, their patient still smelled very much—and very temptingly—like a man.
A little irritated with such fancies, Kate seized his shirt and slit it stem to stern with her scissors. The fine lawn fell away to reveal a smooth, broad chest literally layered with muscles.
“Lawk, look at that!” Mrs. Peppin whispered.
“I’d have wagered the fellow never did a day’s work in his life.”
Perhaps not, Kate ruefully considered. But he’d certainly been doing something. “I daresay he boxes,” she murmured. “Many wealthy men seem to have a proclivity for that brutal sport.”
But on her next breath she saw the ugly white pucker of flesh alongside his rib cage. Mrs. Peppin lightly touched it. “Poor love,” she said. “Looks to be a knife wound. Could he be a military fellow?”
But at that very moment, a faint sound escaped his lips, no more than an exhalation, really. Kate set away the scissors with a hasty clatter. “Edward?” she said urgently, leaning over him. “Edward, can you hear us?”
His eyes flicked back and forth beneath his lids, and he seemed to give an odd sort of shudder. On impulse, Kate seized his hand. “Edward, you’re at Bellecombe Castle,” she said a little loudly, “in Somerset. Can you hear me?”
But the man’s eyes had stilled, and his hand went limp in hers. She held it thus for some minutes, but he did not stir again. A cold fear settling over her, Kate laid it down, his ring winking blue fire in the afternoon sunlight.
He is not Stephen, she told herself again. He will not die. I shan’t permit it.
After a time, they set about drawing off the man’s trousers, leaving him in nothing save drawers and stockings. Kate could not help but eye the dusting of dark hair between the mounds of his chest muscles. It thickened as it trailed down his belly, then vanished suggestively beneath the linen of his drawers.
Drawers that now hung almost tantalizingly low, having been dragged down by the removal of his trousers, leaving the thin, snowy fabric pulled taut—and leaving little to Kate’s imagination. She was debating the decency of attempting to pull them back up again when a knock sounded and Hetty, their kitchen maid, stuck her head in the door.
“Beg pardon, Mrs. Peppin, but the stillroom’s locked.” The girl’s gaze swept down the man, catching on his thick, strong hipbones. “Lawks, hang my stars and garters! Dangerous ’andsome, in’t he?”
“Mind your London tongue, Hetty; good country girls don’t make so bold.” Mrs. Peppin was already sorting through the keys at her waist. “Now do ye watch his eyes, Miss Kate,” she added as she rose. “I’ve a notion he’s stirring.”
