Her mama? Then Gail’s mama was still alive, and Sylvan desperately wanted to know the identity of the woman, to question her about the child’s paternity. But Sylvan recognized this as more than the usual stick-her-nose-in kind of curiosity that had previously got her into trouble. This was personal, vulgar, and Sylvan resolved to fight it.
Gail darted away, and the vicar inclined his head. “You’re right, of course, Lord Rand. I’ll speak to the child of sin at some other time.”
Sylvan didn’t like that, and from Rand’s savage grin it appeared he didn’t either, but he proceeded with his self-sacrifice. “If you’ll come into the study, I’ll call for refreshments.”
The vicar bowed his head. “Thank you, Lord Rand. I’d enjoy that.”
Rand waited until the vicar had entered the study, then he bellowed at the footman who stood not ten feet away, “Hey! We want some food and tea in here.”
It was a travesty, a return to the tyranny of the previous day, but it expressed his opinion of the Reverend Donald in an explicit way, and when he saw Sylvan staring at him, he murmured, “Best run off as Gail did. It’s not a pretty sight when Donald starts hacking at my sins.”
Cowardly as always, Sylvan wanted to do as he said, and for that reason, if no other, she said, “I’ll come in. I might want to hack at you myself.”
With a seated bow, Rand answered, “As you wish, but you lack the necessary aptitude to hack with our dear minister.”
His tone gave her pause, but his unpleasant smirk challenged her, and she swept into the study.
The clergyman stood by the mantel in front of the flames. It was right he should do so; his damp clothes steamed where the heat touched them. At the same time, she believed his position to be a bid for power. She couldn’t remain erect; women didn’t. Rand couldn’t stand to challenge the vicar’s supremacy; Rand couldn’t. So the Reverend Donald held the floor.
Sylvan seated herself with a demure smile, and the vicar smiled back with equal restraint. A pleasant-looking man, his blond hair, blue eyes, and tanned skin showed no sign of harshness, and she couldn’t in reality find fault in his calling Gail a “child of sin.” She didn’t know a minister who wouldn’t do the same. None of them, in her opinion, were as good as they should be, but her opinion was biased.
Most of her life, she had received nothing but grief from the clergy, and that would continue until she bowed to her father’s wishes.
Rand wheeled himself into the room, bumping the end table and setting the candelabra to rattling. “I miss your pleasant wife.”
“The rain would settle into Mrs. Donald’s lungs,” the Reverend Donald answered. To Sylvan, he said, “Clover isn’t strong, and I look out for her. But Lord Rand, this young woman and I haven’t officially met.”
“Yes, we must keep up the courtesies.” Rand backed into the sofa where Sylvan sat, and the impact rocked her. “Sylvan, this is the Reverend Bradley Donald. His family has lived here on the estate since time immemorial. He showed special gifts, so my father sent him away to be taught. He went to divinity school, returned as our parish minister, and has been here ever since. It’s been about five years, isn’t that correct, Donald?”
“That’s correct, Lord Rand.” The Reverend Donald sounded mild and earnest. “And you’re Miss Miles, of whom I’ve heard so much.”
“Don’t believe everything you hear,” Rand advised. “She’s not as righteous as she looks.”
Sylvan didn’t know how to take that; she only knew she didn’t like it. Putting her foot on the back of the chair, she pushed Rand away.
“Women are never as righteous as they look, and it’s a wise man who keeps that in mind.” The Reverend Donald gestured to the footman who hovered outside the door. “Do bring in the tea.”
His presumption irritated Rand, Sylvan could see, and his comment about women irritated her, so she said, “Yes, bring it here. I will pour.”
Assuming the role of hostess removed the Reverend Donald from the center of attention and thrust her into the limelight, but her governess had trained her well. The next moments were taken up with inquiries about milk and sugar, and the beneficial effects of a good cup of tea in a chilled body.
Too soon the Reverend Donald put his cup aside and loomed earnestly over Rand. “So, my son, have you decided to put your bitterness aside?”
“May I have some more of that jolly cream cake, Miss Sylvan?” Rand asked in the supercilious voice of a London dandy. “It’s delicious.”
“As soon as you have submitted to God’s dictates, you’ll once more be at ease.”
“Here’s your cake.” Sylvan passed a plate to Rand and played her role in his social parody. “Your confectioner is extraordinarily talented.”
Ever tenacious, the vicar said, “Outbursts such as yesterday’s would cease, and you could do good works, with me to guide you.”
“You!” The Reverend Donald had broken Rand’s sham tranquillity at last. “What can you teach me?”
“While it’s true I am younger, I feel I’m older in wisdom. My education and experience has helped me grow far beyond my years.” He leaned over Rand. “And I know what troubles you.”
Rand shoved the cream cake into the vicar’s chest with such force it sent him toppling over an ottoman. “Nobody knows what troubles me.”
Sylvan could scarcely believe Rand’s actions, but the vicar stood and with a napkin wiped himself off as if such violence occurred every day. In forbearing tones, he said, “The Lord has seen fit to show me the reason for your fear and desperation. If you would work with me to save the souls of this parish, I would dispense with your uncertainty.”
“Goddamn you.”
Rand was working himself into a frenzy, and the situation had escalated beyond anything Sylvan could imagine. She hated seeing Rand with two red spots on his cheekbones and his hands shaking. The Reverend Donald had the knack of being unerringly irritating, but Rand didn’t have to respond. He’d been doing so well today; he didn’t have to retreat to the chaos of yesterday.
But it was too late. Rand shouted at the Reverend Donald, “You’re nothing but a pile of manure with two dispensers.”
“Lord Rand!” Both the vicar and Sylvan spoke at once, both offended, both embarrassed.
“Lord Rand, there’s no excuse for your lack of control,” Sylvan said.
“Lord Rand, you shouldn’t speak so in front of a lady!” the Reverend Donald said.
Rand looked wildly around him. “She’s no lady. She’s a camp follower.”
“Lord Rand, although that’s true in a sense, we must forgive her sins, for her intentions were pure.”
Sylvan found herself on her feet, staring at the Reverend Donald and considering him as a specimen for medical dissection.
The vicar seemed not to notice, however, and laid a gentle hand on her head. “A woman’s place is in the home, and those lambs who stray outside their bounds swiftly find themselves delivered unto the wolves. But a wise shepherd does what must be done to herd the lamb back into the fold, and welcomes her back when the proper penance has been made.”
“You are an idiot.”
Rand’s flat pronouncement echoed Sylvan’s sentiments. The sentiments she would have expressed if she could have spoken. And why was Rand defending her, anyway? He’d just finished tossing her out to be savaged.
Folding his hands before him, the vicar bowed his head. “I am an idiot in the eyes of God, but I know the word of the Lord. I had already heard of Miss Miles’s transgressions, and while we must not cast stones, your condemnation of her showed your own good judgment has not completely deserted you.” Earnestly, he reached out to Rand, but Rand scooted away. “That’s why I know you are the one who can help me convince Lord Clairmont to cease building his cotton mill and dismantle his stable of wantons.”
Stunned, confused, Sylvan said, “Wantons?”
Tears sprang to the Reverend Donald’s eyes. His voice sounded choked, his grief too real. “Good women who us
ed to tend their homes and families, and now go out every day to toil while their husbands cook and care for the wee ones.”
“Ah, so they’re not really wanton, they’re just not bound by tradition.” Sylvan felt an empathy for the women who so labored.
“My dear daughter, I can see how misguided you are, and I welcome this challenge to put your feet on the right path.”
Her feet were about to make a path up his back when the thump of running boots sounded in the hallway and James spun into the room. He stared at Rand, red-faced with fury, at Sylvan, standing with fists clenched, and at the Reverend Donald, patient and serene. “Heard you were here, Reverend.” James’s voice was too loud and his manner too hearty, and for the first time, Sylvan saw him with a lock of hair disturbed. “I had wanted to speak to you about…something…which disturbs me very much.”
“Of course, my son.” The vicar seemed untouched by the suspicion that James might be acting as a shield for Rand.
He waited graciously for James to continue, but James said, “In private, Reverend.”
“If you’ll excuse me.” The vicar tried to shake Rand’s hand, but Rand refused him. Sylvan was not so brave, and she let him take her hand in his cold fingers as he said, “By the way, a woman from Malkinhampsted was attacked last night, and badly beaten.”
“Beaten?” Rand said.
“Beaten?” James sounded bored. “Oh, by her husband, I suppose. Another provincial tempest in a teapot.”
“Not at all.” The Reverend Donald drew himself up. “She was walking home from the mill.”
“Who is she?” Rand asked.
“Pert Seward. You know her, don’t you?”
Rand nodded, a nasty taste in his mouth. “I know them all.”
“The thug knocked her nearly unconscious with a rock first, and she says he wore a scarf over his face.”
“Impossible.” James glared fiercely at the vicar. “Women always walk home together. Husband probably beat her, and this Pert person doesn’t want to admit it.”
“She didn’t walk home with the other women. It was late evening. For some reason, Lord Clairmont had kept her behind when the other women left, but in his defense, he had no reason to suspect a problem such as this, and he gave her a lamp to light her way home.”
Sylvan feared to know, and feared not to know, but she had to ask. “Was she…otherwise forced by her attacker?”
The Reverend Donald took a horrified breath, and Rand and James both cleared their throats in acute masculine discomfort. “Certainly not,” the Reverend Donald said.
“Why ‘certainly not’?” Sylvan demanded. “A man who will attack and beat a defenseless woman undoubtedly wouldn’t balk at further degradations.”
“There were no further degradations.” The clergyman’s eyes glowed red with embarrassment and fury. “It is an insult to the woman to so claim.”
Sylvan spoke half to herself. “I wonder if she would tell another woman what she won’t tell you.”
“She’ll tell you nothing,” the vicar said. “You’re a stranger with a bad reputation. Her husband would bar you from the house.” Sylvan jerked her hand free from his grasp, and he insisted, “She told me all, including a description.”
James’s boots gleamed as he shifted his feet back and forth, back and forth. “What kind of description?”
The Reverend Donald gathered attention to himself with a combination of showmanship and dignity, and Sylvan realized how mesmerizing he must be at the pulpit. In a deep, dramatic tone, he proclaimed, “Her attacker was tall and strong, with eyes that glittered in the dark. She seemed afraid when I spoke to her, but after much urging, she said”—he laughed a little—“it was the ghost of the first duke.”
“Oh, nonsense!” James sounded annoyed—and frightened.
“Nonsense?” the Reverend Donald said. “I wonder. If you will recall, some of the women assert they have heard the sounds of someone following them when they walk home at night. And Charlotte claimed she was knocked down one evening by a stranger who appeared from nowhere, then disappeared again, and that was on a night the ghost appeared.”
James sniffed in disdain. “Next you’ll be pointing your finger at Garth or me because we look like the old duke.”
Sylvan stared at James, his declaration sinking into her mind. Of course! How foolish she had been. That wasn’t a ghost she’d seen, but a human being. Yet she’d immediately recognized the portrait of the duke this morning. So had her ghost been James…or Garth?
“Didn’t do it,” James said quickly.
Sylvan realized they were all staring at him.
Turning to Rand, James extended his hand appealingly. “Wouldn’t go outside in the dark to tramp around after a smelly village woman who’d been working at that blasted mill all day. You know.”
“No.” Rand laughed a little, suspicion clearing from his face. “You wouldn’t. The only thing you ever go out for is a London party or a tumble with your ladybird.”
The vicar had a thoughtful cast to his face. “I should question everyone in the manor. Perhaps someone saw the ghost—or whoever is imitating the ghost—walk last night.” He met Sylvan’s appalled gaze, and held it. He seemed to be speaking to her alone when he said, “I hope to continue our discussion later.”
“Much later,” she said under her breath as he exited the room with James stalking after him. She didn’t want him interrogating her—she had no intention of telling anyone about that ghost. She didn’t want them thinking her crazy before she’d helped Rand…Rand. She glared at him as she remembered his earlier insults.
“He’s a jackass,” Rand declared, but his voice shook.
“So are you,” she snapped, preparing to walk out.
He grabbed her hand. “What’s wrong?”
“A camp follower?” she shouted. She shouldn’t shout; a lady never raised her voice. But this place, this post, this man made her lose all her manners and most of her good sense. “You called me a camp follower!”
“I was angry.” He excused himself as if she should understand.
“You were angry?” She gestured so hard, he ducked. “You were angry? And when you’re angry, you can say anything you wish and everyone has to forgive you? Because you’re crippled?” She backed away from him as if he were unclean. “There’s nothing wrong with you except that your legs don’t work.”
“There’s more to it than that!”
“What?”
But he couldn’t tell her. He wanted to, so badly. In one day, she’d managed to gain his trust, make him feel as if he were in command again. But he wasn’t. He didn’t know if what the vicar said was true, but Rand knew he had no right to drag Sylvan into his private nightmare.
She saw he wouldn’t speak, but clearly she didn’t think it a noble act. She thought he had nothing to say, and she tried to regain self-control. He saw her fight for breath, then the question burst out of her. “Where did he hear the rumors about me?”
“The vicar hears everything. Every bit of gossip. He doesn’t sleep, I don’t think. Always visiting his sinners, and with the uncanny knack of coming at the worst times. Consequently, he’s the best informed man in the parish.”
“He wouldn’t know about the…kissing?”
“Not that,” he quickly assured her. “Only Jasper and Betty saw, and they’re totally reliable.”
“Yes.” She put her hand to her heart, and when she looked at him, he had the feeling he’d shrunk in her eyes. Softly, as if she were speaking to herself, she said, “There are veterans of Waterloo who are begging on the streets of London. I give them coins. Sometimes they recognize me. Sometimes they thank me for saving their lives. Most times they curse me. And you’re sitting here warm and fed, with a comfortable wheelchair under you and a loving family around you, and you feel sorry for yourself.” Whirling, she ran to the door, then turned. “I feel sorry for you, too. Your family wants you to get better, but even if you walked, you wouldn’t be better. You’d still be
a craven coward, afraid to face all the nasty little incidents of living.”
She raced out and left him there, hand extended, explanation on his tongue. But his hand fell into his lap, and he looked at it as if he’d never seen it before. In the last eleven months, it had grown stronger than before. Veins rose beneath skin; each tendon and bone had broadened with exercise. His arms, chest, and stomach, too, showed the results of constant use. And his legs…he rubbed his hands up and down his thighs. His legs hadn’t shown much deterioration yet. Of course, Jasper exercised them, one at a time, morning and night. But after the months of inactivity, one would think they’d be as spindly as a poorhouse boy’s.
It hadn’t happened yet. Nothing had happened as it should. He still dreamed of walking, working, tumbling a woman…. Last night it had been Sylvan, and this morning he’d sworn to entice her into his bed so he could find out what was dream and what was reality.
Instead, he’d insulted her. He couldn’t die until he’d satisfied his curiosity about her. In spite of his taunts, he knew he had to earn her respect before she’d allow him to touch her once more.
The Reverend Donald was wrong all the time, but now he was right about one thing. Rand hadn’t grown resigned to his fate. He had to take this one last chance.
5
Seated in his wheelchair beside Sylvan as she lay in the grass, Rand saw the moment she slipped into slumber. Her clenched fists relaxed, the toes that were curled in her thin leather slippers straightened, and her knees fell apart just a little. The frown that had pressed a crease between her brows smoothed, and she released a ladylike snore from between her slightly open lips.
Not for the first time, he wondered why she needed to be in full sunshine, in the open air, before she could sleep. Every day for the last three weeks she had dragged him outside. She’d pushed his wheelchair up and down the hills, taking him to the wild places that, she said, would heal his soul. If anything, she seemed to need their solitude more than he.
Three weeks in her company, and he still didn’t know her at all—and he spent all his time thinking about her.