On Miss Grey’s condition, Bernadette was more close-mouthed. If Norah felt anywhere near as much bruising from their incident as he did, John could well understand her taking to her bed. Still, he was worried about her.
And Lady Emmeline, of course.
He became restless without their company. In the end, he caught Jasper’s attention. “Do you think I should attend the young ladies before it grows too late? Perhaps with a tray of hot cocoa and some of these?” He indicated the plate that was even now on its way to the elder ladies. It was full of tiny jewel-toned pastries and little jellied things. The entire tray wouldn’t slow a man down for more than three minutes, but it seemed that ladies liked to nibble away at more dainty things.
Jasper eyed him thoughtfully for a moment. “Why yes, sir. I think it would be very helpful if you looked in on our convalescents. Being the vicar and all, of course. They are spending a quiet hour or two in Lady Emmeline’s sitting room. You should go on. I’ll have a tray sent up straightaway.”
Suddenly energized by the thought of such congenial company, John found he had to restrain himself from taking the stairs two at a time.
Even so, he arrived at Lady Emmeline’s door only seconds ahead of young Brand and Tanner, both loaded with steaming pots of chocolate and trays of absolutely miniature food. It looked like a feast meant for some very wealthy mice. John shook his head. Matthias’s cook was a true craftsman but the very sight of all those tiny, jammy things made John long for a thick steak and a foamy ale.
Miss Higgins answered John’s tap and only slightly raised her brows at his somewhat lame excuse of “checking on my injured flock.”
“Well, if that’s what ye wish to call it, Vicar. The ladies are just sittin’ and readin’.”
John nodded. “I like reading!” Good Lord, I am such a gubbins.
Miss Higgins turned away and John could hear her murmuring to the ladies. She opened the door again. “The ladies will see you, Vicar. Mind you don’t keep them up too late nor be too jolly. Lady Emmeline is right headachey this eve.”
John said something inane about being quiet company and then he was allowed within with his beasts of jammy burden in tow.
NORAH ONLY GLANCED up at John Barton for a moment as he entered, just long enough to nod a greeting in what she hoped was a congenial manner, and then she looked back down at the book she was reading aloud to Emmeline.
He took the chair opposite her and sat quietly, thankfully not interrupting her with banal greetings.
Her voice remained smooth enough and her hands barely shook as she turned the pages. It was astonishing how the pounding of her pulse alerted no one to her dire condition. The ache in her chest was a silent cry and the blurring of her vision didn’t matter, for she’d read this collection of poems to Emmeline so many times that she knew them by heart.
“Snow in thy heart and chill in thy soul,
May it melt before the fire of mine love.
And whilst thee dream, mine words cajole
A southern wind to the wings of thine north-bound dove.”
Her voice caught in her throat at those words. Norah paused to pick up the cup young Mr. Brand had poured for her before he left. She took a casual sip of her chocolate and let the bitter richness distract her from her hammering heart.
Vicar Barton did nothing to ruin the silence, so Norah allowed the book to close in her lap. A glance at Emmeline assured Norah that her cousin had fallen asleep to escape the throb in her head. Miss Higgins was all abustle in the bedchamber off the sitting room, tending to something apparently more urgent than chaperoning two young ladies sitting with a vicar.
Norah leaned back a little in her chair. There seemed no point to maintaining perfect manners before a man who had already seen her at her shrewish worst. Would he ruin everything by mentioning it? No, he was surely too considerate for that.
Sipping the chocolate gave her something to do. Casting her gaze anywhere but at the man sitting opposite her, she spotted a tray of ornamental treats. Her belly chose that moment to growl into the silence.
John Barton snorted. Norah rolled her eyes at her own absurdity and let simple laughter loose, a gentle chuckle in the hush.
“I suppose now I’ll not be able to refuse to eat those crown jewels on a plate.”
He smiled and rose. Taking the tray in one hand, he held his other behind his back and bowed like Jasper. “A tiny morsel of utmost artistry, Miss Grey?”
Norah sighed. “It’s that or put them under glass for future generations to admire.” She chose something that looked like a ruby on a golden disc and popped it in her mouth. Her eyes widened. “Raspberry tart?”
The vicar—for she must continue to think of him as the vicar!—gazed perplexed at the tray. “Then why not simply make a raspberry tart that looks like a raspberry tart?”
Norah shook her head. “It’s a mystery to me, sir. I like to eat proper food. This plate makes me want a bit of toasted cheese on bread.”
“Steak and ale,” he murmured.
Still, they tried some more. They even made Miss Higgins come in to taste a selection, for Norah dared not send the tray back uneaten. “The poor man worked so hard!”
Soon enough, the array of dainties was reduced to crumbs. Emmeline never woke to partake, but Norah assured her conscience that Emmeline preferred chocolates and had already had a double serving of those earlier in the day.
Miss Higgins agreed that the ornate tray was “right silly” even as she popped the last ruby-raspberry tart into her mouth and returned to her tasks, wiping her hands on her apron.
Norah had to admit to herself that the impractical, beautiful food had been incredibly satisfying. She must remember to compliment the cook.
John Barton sat back with a sigh. “I’d never have believed it. The man is a mad genius.” He shook his head and gave Norah a tranquil, overfed smile. “Every day I think, ‘What a day I’ve had!’ and then I think the next day will be terribly dull in comparison.” His smile widened. “Things are never dull around you, are they?”
Norah looked away. “I’m the most ordinary person in the world.” She smoothed her skirts and then, restless under his gaze, stood to brandish the poker at the fire though it did not need it.
“I think you are a very odd person, actually. You are an oyster, shut up tightly, never letting anyone see the pearl within.” He shook his finger at her. “But I’ve cracked you, you see.”
You have shattered me, in fact, sir. She was heart-sore from these past days with him. She forced a calm smile and turned the conversation from herself.
“You are not Staffordshire-born, Vicar Barton. From whence do you originate? Do I hear a hint of Gloucester in your speech?” It was cheating, but Norah still stung from his secrecy with her while telling Emmeline everything. And it took his attention away from her own secrets.
“You are correct,” he said.
“Yet you chose this place to settle, far from your home.”
His cheerful confectionary daze seemed to recede and he frowned into the fire. “I’m fond of my city and the people, yet ...” He seemed to struggle for a moment. Then, he shook his head. “My mother is a good woman but not a demonstrative sort. She takes her cues from my father most of the time. I barely left a mark on my home despite all the years of my life there. I was an ill-favored child. I fear my parents were more likely to hide me than to parade me before their associates.”
This Norah could scarcely believe. Her doubt must have shown in her expression for he shook his head ruefully. “It is truth. In a house absolutely chock-full of family portraits, there are none of me. My father had little interest in me at all until I did well in seminary school. Then suddenly, no detail of my life escaped his notice. Alas, his hopes were doomed to be dashed. He believes me to be his single egregious failure. I was meant to follow in his footsteps, you see, likely long before I was even conceived.”
“Do you mean choosing the
Church?” Norah couldn’t see how a bishop could regret it when his son chose the same as he had.
“Ah, but I do not serve the Church. Not the way he meant for me to. I am a country vicar. I serve the people of Haven and Havensbeck. At this distance, I am as far from whom my father wishes as I could possibly be.”
“Your father is the Bishop of Gloucester. You grew up in the bishop’s palace.” Norah marveled. He made it sound cheerless and intimidating. She imagined a silent, lonely, perfectly-dressed little boy, quelled by his domineering father, oppressed by the grandeur of his surroundings. Then she thought of shabby little Arthur Tanner, free to throw snowballs and slump on muddy steps, suffering loss but with his loving family knit tightly to him in his time of grief. “Emmeline told me.”
He only blinked. “Yes. Didn’t I say?”
“No, actually, you didn’t. You only spoke of Haven, the Higgins family, your choir and young Simon Goodrich. It is as if you didn’t live before you landed here.”
He nodded. “I suppose it’s because I didn’t. I tried to be someone my father would respect, but in time I came to see that he might be the one missing the point of church work.”
“How can that be? He’s the Bishop!”
John leaned forward with his hands clasped, as if he really cared whether she understood.
“I appreciate that someone needs to run matters. The Church of England is a vast organization, with needs in England itself and in far-flung parts of the world. Gloucester is an old and powerful parish. It has influence all the way up to the throne. My father is a responsible leader and a fierce defender of his parish—but it is no sacrifice to him. He loves the power, loves the challenge and control, but not the meaning behind it.” He shrugged and leaned back. “My father almost never speaks to someone who isn’t a high officer of the Church or a member of Parliament. He never eats plain good food off a wooden plate in a rustic kitchen nor weds young lovers nor hammers a nail nor holds someone’s hand when they’re dying. I sometimes think he is the one who is wasting his life, not I.”
Oh, my poor heart. He is wonderful. She’d been so suspicious of his attraction to Emmeline. She was now realizing that he was, in fact, a secret romantic. An errant knight looking for his grand quest.
He looked up at her then and seemed taken aback by her expression.
Norah quickly turned away. “I suppose it is time Miss Higgins and I put Emmeline to bed. It can’t be good for her head to lay upon a stuffed chair—”
“Oh, no you don’t! Your story now, Miss Grey. I will lie down upon this carpet and sing ‘Good King Wenceslas’ at the top of my lungs until you do. I have an excellent baritone.”
The laughter in his voice tweaked at her tattered nerves. He had no notion of what his friendly attention did to her. Norah turned on him. “I will not be bullied. Besides, I’m much better at intimidation than you, for I’ve had years of practice while you’ve kept busy being kind and good.”
He glanced at sleeping, angelic Emmeline and smirked at her. “Oh yes, I can tell your life has been a right trial.”
Oh, just you wait, Vicar Barton! Marriage to “delicate little Emmeline” would be a life of tug-of-war. She would almost enjoy watching him drown in his own assumptions, if it wouldn’t hurt so much.
However, she did owe him something, for he’d been unguarded with her. She knotted her fingers a little before she opened doors in her memory that she tried not to walk through anymore. “Even before I ever met Emmeline, I had to manage my mother. She’s a darling person but she hasn’t an ounce of good sense. She married my father in a whirlwind romance and elopement. They had perhaps been drinking, the story has it. Somehow they ended up over the border in Scotland and wed in Gretna Green before anyone ever noticed they were missing.”
“But that’s romantic, isn’t it? Most young ladies would think so.”
“Most young ladies don’t have to watch their father be disowned and stripped of his title and entailment. Yes, it can happen if the baron is a good friend of the Prince Regent and is better at cards than His Highness. My father took it as a sign to be as irresponsible as possible. By the time I was ten years of age, he spent more time in a bottle than with his wife and child. One night he thought it a grand idea to drink himself into racing his horse in full dark. He fell, of course, at great speed.” She sat down abruptly, her knees giving out under the cascade of memory and loss.
“He wasn’t a strong man, but I adored him. On the few nights he was not out drinking, he would teach me to play chess by the fire. I was only a child and he seemed the most handsome, brave, dashing father anyone could want. Looking back I realize that he was lost to himself. He never knew who he was after his fall from grace. It’s only too bad that he couldn’t find himself as a husband and father.”
She dashed at her damp eyes. “Silly of me. It all happened so long ago that it seems as if it is someone else’s story that I tell.”
Her hand was enveloped in two warm ones. Her thudding heart took her back to the moment John Barton had held her on the bridge. She knew that moment had been only a gesture of his innate kindness and goodness and that he had meant simply to be a good friend, a strong shoulder. She didn’t weave romantic fantasies around it, for to read anything but kindness into it would be unjust to him and tarnish the purity of the moment itself.
So she left her hand in his and took his compassion as it was given. Perhaps it was her due, for all it had happened so long ago.
“Mama was utterly shattered. I couldn’t get her to rise from her bed. Our cook left and our manservant took the little silver we had as payment on back wages. There wasn’t anything I could do to stop him. Finally, Mama revived from her grief enough to realize that the house was cold and dark and the bread I’d been bringing her was moldy.” Poor Mama had been horrified. “She sent a letter to Uncle Bester, my father’s elder brother.”
“Good Lord! How long did she lie abed?”
Norah didn’t want him to think badly of Mama. Poor pretty, impractical Mama, who could have been the mold that cast Emmeline. “A few months. It wasn’t her fault. She wasn’t strong either. She loves him still, you know. They were simply ... unlucky for each other.”
“You lost him, too. Did anyone care for your grief?”
Norah shook her head. “I was fine. I’m always fine. I’m built of something different. There are people who are like fine crystal. Beautiful and precious and easily shattered. I’m made of something much more common. Wood, perhaps. Or maybe stone.”
His hands squeezed hers. “I heard you with Artie Tanner today. You aren’t even a wee bit like stone.” His fingers touched her chin and she had to lift her head to meet his gaze. “Wood, now... yes, I see the forest in those eyes of yours. Green and brown, full of life and birdsong and the rushing wind in the treetops.” He smiled. “I work with wood every day, you realize. One has to know what one is doing with wood and take great care, for if cut wrong it is ruined.” His hands sprang wide, like a piece of wood splitting apart. “Even strong wood can break, Miss Grey, if one does not take care.”
Norah took advantage of the moment to pull away slightly, taking her hands back. John Barton in the dim, candle-lit room, virtually alone with her, was too much, too intimate and far too comfortable. She would be compelled to say something starry-eyed and humiliating and confessional at any moment. Then he would still be kind and still be friendly, but he would be so very gentle, so very careful, so very sorry to have encouraged her. That pity would burn as hot as revulsion would.
She looked down at her hands clasped safely over her midriff. “That’s very kind of you to say, Vicar Barton. Perhaps you’re right. It’s merely a flight of fancy anyway.” Standing and stepping back and turning toward sleeping Emmeline put a safe distance between them. “If you’ll excuse us, Vicar Barton, it’s past time Lady Emmeline went to her bed.”
“Call me John,” he said quickly. “If you will.”
She cast him a q
uick smile of regret over her shoulder. “Oh no. That is not a possibility, Vicar Barton.”
He had to go then, although he looked mightily confused. “Then I should bid you goodnight.”
Norah answered him quickly and automatically until he left. The door shut at last. She gave Emmeline’s shoulder a shake. It didn’t work. “Oh, Emmeline, do wake up. I can’t carry you and Miss Higgins will try and probably hurt herself in doing so. Up you go, or I’ll call Uncle Bester to lift you.”
That sufficed, as it always did. Emmeline might have her father wrapped around her pinkie finger, but that didn’t mean that the effort to do so wasn’t exhausting in itself.
Norah put Emmeline to bed with a cool cloth on her head and tiptoed off to her own room. Vicar Barton had seemed to have something else to say and Norah could not bear to hear another word from him tonight, so she slipped silently through the door of her own bedchamber before he could hear her from his.
Leaning her back against the wood and listening to her heart break in the silence of her dark room was like the snap of a tree branch overcome by the cruelty of an ice storm.
I like him.
It wasn’t the right word. She knew the right word, but she dared not give in to that word. That word was never meant for someone like her.
I love him.
Oh. Well, now I’ve done it.
How was she supposed to fall out of love with the man her cousin meant to marry?
Chapter 13
C
HRISTMAS EVE ARRIVED two days later with the clatter of eager footmen and giggling maids and Emmeline dancing next to Norah’s bedside, up on tiptoes in her excitement for the ball that evening. The last few days of calm and rest had done her much good.
Sadly, that was not the case with Norah. She rubbed blurry eyes. She hadn’t been sleeping well at all lately. Perhaps it was the way she spent the last two days tiptoeing down the halls, peering around corners, snatching bits of this and that to eat on the run, all in the cause of carefully avoiding the vicar. Such tension wore at her nerves. Yet she so dreaded to be drawn into a “friendly” conversation for fear she would spew out passionate declarations and fling herself into his arms. Her love filled her, stretching her skin painfully to contain it. One prick, one tiny cut, and she would gush her feelings like a burst dam.
While You Were Dreaming Page 11
