“They’ve never been anything but,” Rand answered. “What brings you home?”
“Vulgar curiosity.” James snapped his fingers at the hovering butler and Peterson helped him remove his greatcoat and beaver hat. “I wondered why you hadn’t come to visit when you were in London. Have I displeased you in some way?”
“Not at all,” Rand said warmly. “I simply thought it best that Sylvan return to Clairmont Court.”
“Why? Are you in a hurry to be a widower? Thank you, Jasper.” James smiled with satisfaction as Jasper and three of the stable hands each carried a portmanteau up the stairs and into the house. “Jasper, care for the trunks, if you would.”
“What about the coachmen?” Jasper asked.
James feigned ignorance. “What about them?”
“Oh, for God’s sake.” Rand dug into his pocket and handed Jasper coins. “Give them their vails and send them on their way.”
“You’re a brick,” James said warmly.
“And you’re back because you’ve already run through the allowance I gave you.”
“Rand, you have such a suspicious mind.”
“Which is no answer.” Rand clapped a hand on James’s back and pushed him toward the study. “Your mother’ll be glad to see you, anyway.”
“A face only a mother could love,” James replied, deriding himself.
“Come and have a drink and tell me your fortunes.”
“Just a minute.” Pointing to Peterson, James said, “You! See to getting those bags to my room, will you? And tell Betty I’m back and she needs to prepare a nice joint for dinner, with plum pudding and a blancmange to finish.”
“You’re so charming to those born to a lower station,” Rand mocked.
“I was polite,” James protested. To the butler, he said, “I was polite, wasn’t I?”
Peterson bowed. “Indeed, Lord James, you were.”
“There you have it.” James waved an expansive hand. “I was polite.”
“You don’t even know his name.”
“Why should I?”
“He’s been here for twenty years.”
“Well.” James poured himself a whiskey and tossed it off. “He does his job well, then.” Rand groaned and James laughed. “You’re a stick, cousin. I heard rumor that some storms did damage here.”
Rand lifted his brows and stared. “Where did you hear talk like that?”
“In London, if one keeps one’s ears open, one hears many things. But this is more than a rumor—I saw that driving through the fields. Wiped the wretched buggers out, did it?”
“Pretty much.”
“Going to reopen the mill to help them?”
Rand stared at James in amazement.
“I knew it, I knew it!” James exploded with frustration. “I can see it in your face. You’re guilty as hell.”
Rand found himself on the defensive. “The women have asked me, and I’ve been thinking about it.”
“Thinking about it.” James threw his glass into the fireplace and the crystal shattered. “Dammit, Rand, are you addled? Do you want to start the whole thing all over again?”
Honestly puzzled, Rand asked, “What do you mean?”
“I mean some thatch-gallow out there doesn’t much like that mill.”
“You don’t much like that mill.”
“I’m not snuffing people over it.”
“Snuffing people over—”
“It was the mill, always the mill.” James strode over and grabbed Rand by the lapels. “Can’t you see? The women who worked at the mill, the mill itself, Miss Sylvan.”
Rand jerked himself free and stumbled backward. “Sylvan had nothing to do with the mill.”
“She helped one of the mill workers when she was injured. If some crack-pate wished to shut the mill down, then Miss Sylvan was a villain greater than the others.”
“The only one worse, in fact, was Garth.” Much struck by James’s good sense, Rand rubbed his chin. “Interesting theory, James. Makes sense out of nonsense.”
James stood and stared intently at Rand, his chest heaving. “Then you’re not going to do it.”
“Opening the mill,” Rand said softly, “will flush out the bastard who killed my brother, then, won’t it?”
With a loud curse, James threw himself into a chair.
It rocked back on its rear legs, and Rand caught it before James toppled. “What difference does it make to you? You’ll be in London. No taint of business will affix itself to you.”
James fixed his gaze on Rand. “I’m not going back to London.”
Ever cynical, Rand said, “Never fear, James, I’ll fix you up with another allowance.”
“Won’t go back for anything.”
Surprised, Rand studied James. His cousin looked as if he suffered from the ague. “Did you get yourself in some kind of trouble?”
“Yes, there’s some kind of trouble, all right.” James ran his fingers through his travel-tossed hair, and his disheveled appearance reminded Rand, just for a second, of his brother. “You don’t understand trouble. Nor did Garth. Go blithely through life, never thinking about the consequences to those of us to whom the consequences have meaning.”
“What?”
“Never mind.” James hauled himself erect. “Just don’t be surprised if you see me dogging your footsteps.”
19
Lunch basket in hand, Rand returned to the entry to find Sylvan triumphantly heading for the study. Within, he could hear Aunt Adela greeting her son and his mother exclaiming about her nephew, but Rand caught Sylvan and swung her around. “No, you don’t.”
“But, James—”
“Can wait to see you. I have something I wish to discuss which concerns you.”
She stopped tugging at him and stared suspiciously.
“Not that.” He gave her a push toward the door and teased, “Although you’re a wanton to think of it.”
Sylvan glared at him, then plucked her shawl, gloves, and bonnet from the impassive butler’s hand and said, “Thank you, Peterson.”
Remembering his conversation with James, Rand chuckled as he wrapped the lacy white shawl around her shoulders. Peterson, too, remembered, for he nodded and smiled as he held the door for her.
Then they stepped onto the terrace, and she flinched from the light.
Rand was struck by a wave of déjà vu. Hadn’t they played this scene once before? Hadn’t he been the one who feared to be outside, and hadn’t she forced him to go out into the sunshine where his healing would begin? He looked to see if she remembered, but the coburg bonnet, with its soft crown and floppy brim, hid her face as she tied the ribbons beneath her chin.
Remembering how aggressively she had stormed his reservations, he resolved to try like tactics. He waited only until they were out of earshot of the servants before saying, “I need your opinion about something.”
“My opinion? Why?”
He gripped her arm as they started down the stairs. “Because I respect your opinion.”
“Do you?”
She sounded distant and distracted, and he grappled for a way to prove himself as they strolled the same rutted path they’d taken in April. “It seems to be a common trait at Clairmont Court. Haven’t you noticed? The village women respect you, too.”
“I…” She twisted her arm until he would have been a brute if he’d held it, and when she was free, she said, “The mill women have called on me, but…I…”
“They probably arrived at a poor time for you to receive them.” He excused her, then administered obligation. “Of course, they consider you an ally, and right now they need their allies.”
Her face reddened, and she snapped, “I don’t know why they would consider me an ally.”
“Because they want to convince me to reopen the mill.”
“The mill.” She skidded to a halt. “How can you do that?”
“If I finance the mill, the men will have work with good wages. They’d be constructing the
mill, and that’d get them through the winter.” He took her arm again and gave a gentle tug, and she lurched after him. “The mill will be finished by next summer, and the women would have work then.”
“But why would you do it?” She pushed at the bonnet’s brim as if its properties of concealment irritated her now. “Devote a year of your life and a good part of the family fortune building and setting up a mill when your brother died violently in the last one?”
“You know why.” They reached the ocean and he turned toward the mill. “Since the storm, the villagers have been asking—begging, really—that I rebuild. They don’t want to leave Malkinhampsted. It’s been their home for generations.”
Loosening her bonnet, she let it dangle by the strings around her neck. “Yes, and Mr. Donald can say what he likes about resignation to God’s will, but nobody in the village or on any of the outlying farms wants to watch their children starve.”
“You know that without even talking to them, don’t you?”
Her mouth drooped at his pointed comment, and with surly disdain she said, “It would take a lesser genius than mine to know that.”
“You have a gift for empathizing with others.”
“No, I don’t.”
“I think you do.”
“No. I don’t understand you at all.”
“Hm.” He pretended to think as they climbed the rise near the mill. “I suppose that might be a problem between us. After all, we’re married and as close as two people can be. We share an intimate bond.”
“Sh.”
“We make love in every imaginable way, but I still don’t know what you’re thinking.” Keeping one hand beneath her arm, he slid the other around her waist and turned her to face him.
Her chin firmed. “Why do you care?”
“Because you’re my wife. I married you because—”
“Because the vicar and your brother caught us in an improper embrace.”
“No! They caught us in an embrace because you appealed to me, body and soul.”
She stepped out of his arms and walked rapidly away. “That’s nice.”
“I didn’t have to marry you.” He was talking to her back.
“Yes, you did.” She pulled her hat up and tied the ribbons again with a savage gesture. “You said so.”
He’d said it then, but he hadn’t meant it. “I am—was—the brother of a duke. I didn’t have to do anything I didn’t want to.”
Sylvan laughed with what sounded like genuine amusement. “Oh, Rand.” Stopping, she cupped his face in her gloved hands. “Do you really believe that? Don’t you know the only way you could have left me at the altar is if you were a different man with a different family? Only a boor would leave a woman in such a dilemma, and you’re not a boor.”
“You’ll turn my head with compliments like that.”
She ignored his pique. “Can you imagine what your mother would have said had you refused to wed me? Or your brother? Or even Aunt Adela?”
“Well, yes, they would have been upset.” He understated the matter, and he feared she knew it. “But I really could have refused.”
“Another man could have refused. Perhaps James could have refused. But not you, Rand.” She patted his cheeks. “Not you. So.” She walked on again. “Why are you telling me about the mill?”
This wasn’t turning out as he had hoped. “I want to consult with someone about the mill. Unfortunately, the someone I want to consult with is protecting herself and excluding everyone—everyone!—from her thoughts.”
“You don’t know that!” But she refused to turn and look at him until she topped the rise above the mill. There she halted until Rand came up beside her.
Staring fixedly at her shoes, she clung to her protective shell, and he didn’t know that he’d accomplished anything with his probings and fumblings. Awkwardly he waited for her to say something, anything that would set things right, and when she didn’t, he reached out and untied her bonnet and slipped it off her head. He just wanted to look into her face, to see the messages there. With his hand he ruffled her hair, completing the disarray that the wind had initiated, and she looked so like the jaunty Sylvan he’d first met that he wished he could kiss her.
And he could, of course. She would respond promptly, and possibly pull him to the ground and make him forget his every scheme to uncloak the reason for her unhappiness. He hadn’t realized it until this moment, but he’d been making love to her, thinking she’d have to reveal herself through the act; she’d been making love to him, using it to conceal herself.
Perhaps his mother was right. Perhaps Sylvan needed more than two bodies on a bed. Perhaps she needed words—real words, words that would convince her of his devotion.
If only he knew what they were.
Tears gleamed in her eyes as he gazed on her, but she refused to let them fall. Her chin firmed, and she jerked her head toward the hollow below. “The mill is a wretched sight, isn’t it?”
The same sunshine that shone kindly on the earth and sea bludgeoned the wreck below. It had been a scar on the land before; now it was a bleeding wound.
Sylvan walked forward, leaving him standing, her hat in his hand. “Could you really repair it?” she called.
The wind whipped off the ocean, as it always did, and he opened his hand and let the bonnet fly. It sailed inland a long way before it descended, then tumbled into a hiding place in the long grass.
He smiled with satisfaction, and hurried to catch her. “I think so. Most of the stone from the wall is still usable, and slate for the roof is plentiful around here.” The mill loomed before him, and he sighed. Rebuilding had seemed a good idea when he thought about it; faced with the reality of the destruction, he thought himself mad. “But James is against it, of course. Aunt Adela has never approved, and if we rebuild, I fear it will resurrect my mother’s grief and worry her beyond all telling.”
“I hated the mill, too. I hated the noise and the smell and the constant danger.” Removing her gloves, Sylvan ran her hand over one of the still-standing walls. Whitewash flaked off beneath her touch.
The joints in his legs ached from the long walk, and he sat on one of the squared boulders that the explosion had flung free. Stretching his legs out, he rubbed his hips with his hands. “So you think it foolish to rebuild?”
She buffed her fingers together as if to dispel the dry feeling, and shivered. “We have to rebuild.”
Startled, he said, “But if you hate it…”
“I’d hate to see this perfect corner of England lose its people because it can’t support them. We have to rebuild.”
“And if the ghost comes out again to attack women and sabotage the mill?”
Frowning, she chewed on her lower lip. “The ghost may have been your brother’s enemy, and everything he did was aimed at destroying Garth.”
“It’s possible,” he acknowledged. “But James says it was the mill that caused the problems.”
“James knows you’re thinking of opening the mill?”
“James guessed,” Rand corrected. “And very unhappy he was, too.”
“I can imagine.” She watched him as he gently worked his legs, but she offered no assistance. “Nevertheless, we can’t let fear of a ghost control our decision. We know he’s a man, and you’re no longer an easy victim of his hoaxes.”
The old worry for her safety swooped on him, and he said, “He only strikes at night, and I’ll be with you, but we’ll be extra careful.”
She watched her hands as she carefully threaded her fingers together. “Do you want me to go?”
“Go?”
“Back to my father’s house. Is that really why you brought me here? To tell me once more that I’m…”
“You’re…?”
“Inadequate.” She looked right at him, and her grief broke his heart.
“It is I who am inadequate when I am without you.” He shook his head. “I will never send you away again. I was a fool to do it the first time.” She
said not a word, and he asked, “Do you believe me?”
“I want to.”
She did want to, he could tell, and he asked, “Do you remember that you promised to acquiesce to all my conjugal desires?”
“How could I not?” she asked with a flash of her old spirit. “You remind me at every opportunity.”
He tried to coax her to cheer. “Let me command you once more, as your duke and as your husband—believe yourself my own beloved, and know that you’ll never leave my side again. Can you do that?”
It wasn’t a real smile that she gave him: more of a hopeful one, but her reply gratified him. “I’ll try.”
The silence around them deepened, and when she realized it, she blushed and said, “We’d best be careful with all of the women. Tell the mill workers to stay inside after dark, and keep vigil over Lady Emmie and Aunt Adela.”
He hated to come back to reality, but he had to agree with her. “We’d best watch Betty, also.”
“And Gail.”
“Surely the ghost wouldn’t hurt a child.” The concept was so outside Rand’s experience, he couldn’t imagine it.
“No.” But she looked troubled. “Surely not. If we could bring your brother’s murderer to justice, that would be a bonus added to the good the mill will bring.”
He had considered all angles and would do all that was necessary to protect those he loved. “So we’ll do it.” This woman was all he thought her, and more, and however long it took him to win her trust again, it would be time well spent. Holding up his hand, he said, “Help me up.”
Grasping him, she tugged, but he tugged back and tumbled her into his lap.
She struggled halfheartedly as he turned and positioned her, but she quieted when he showered her face with light, loving kisses. When he rocked her, she laid her head on his shoulder and announced, “We shall put in an infirmary.”
Wrested back from his pleasure in her, he stammered, “W-what?”
“We’ll put in an infirmary, with bandages and herbs and splints and a bone saw.” She choked slightly in remembrance. “All the things we needed that day of the explosion.”
He hugged her tighter. “Anything you wish, Your Grace.”