Charlie grinned. “So, you must be the one everyone is talking about.”
Rena blinked over at Lord Barric’s brother, caught off guard by the familiar way he spoke to her, as if he had known her a great many years.
“I might say the same about you,” she remarked.
Charlie’s smile grew. He was much as she’d imagined: a rake who clearly knew he looked the part. His jacket was blackish blue with velvet facing—a rather ostentatious statement for church—with not a stitch out of place. Still, his eyes were kinder, less prowling than she might have expected from his reputation, and though he walked with a confident gait, there were circles sleeping beneath his eyes.
“You are Edric Hawley’s widow,” Charlie clarified, as if Rena had missed a hidden point.
“Yes,” she parried. “And you are Lord Barric’s prodigal brother.”
At last Barric cut in. “This is my brother, Mr. Charles Fairfax.” He nodded to Nell. “And may I introduce Lady Hawley and her daughter-in-law, Mrs. Hawley.” His eyes brushed Rena’s as he came at last to her introduction.
“Ah, Mrs. Hawley.” Charlie’s bow was a lazy afterthought, as careless as his quicksilver eyes. “I can only imagine what the gossips have told you about me.”
Rena once again took in Charlie’s rakish appearance. “I’ve heard nothing that doesn’t seem entirely plausible, Mr. Fairfax.”
At her forthright answer, Charlie laughed, the sound bouncing off the polished pews and high rafters. Several parishioners glanced back at them, then murmured as they bumbled toward the door. Barric pivoted to whisper something in Charlie’s ear, though the words seemed to go unheeded.
“Come, now, Mrs. Hawley,” Charlie said, shaking his head. “I won’t begrudge you your reputation if you don’t turn up your nose at mine.”
“I have no reputation worth your interest,” she retorted. She took two steps toward Nell, trying desperately to signal it was time to leave.
“That’s not what I’ve heard,” he disagreed. “Your reputation is all over town. Tongues are wagging, you know.”
Rena could only guess the kinds of stories Charlie might have picked up about her around town—or from his own brother, for that matter. Rena’s eyes passed uneasily to Barric, but he was no longer looking at her. The day she lost Edric’s ring, she confided much to him in the expectation of confidentiality. She spoke of her elopement, of widows burned on their husbands’ funeral biers, of her own supposed shame in fleeing India. Had he said as much to his brother?
“We are so much more than our reputation,” she finally managed to reply, her face warming. “Stories cheat; truth is found only in friendship.”
Charlie’s answering bow was a hint more genuine. “A pity,” he said. “For I myself have many stories.”
Barric snorted. “Each more boring than the last,” he muttered, and this time Charlie’s false smile, nearly strained, softened Rena toward him. She recognized his weariness only because she felt it mirrored back from deep within herself.
Saddened by the thought, Rena made no reply, and so Nell swooped in to fill the silence. “And how have you been these past few weeks, Lord Barric?” She disarmed both men with a serene smile, neatly brushing aside the previous conversation. “We have all missed you here in Abbotsville.”
“I’ve been very well,” Barric said as Alice met them in the aisle and looped her arm through Rena’s.
“Lord Barric,” Alice greeted, nodding meaningfully at Charlie. “It seems your brother has followed you home.”
“France did not agree with him,” Barric replied with a casual, familiar smile. Rena couldn’t help wondering what it had been like when he had come upon Alice in the shadowy hall and kissed her without uttering a word. Did he even remember the kiss that Alice still cherished? Or perhaps he had just been hurting. Perhaps he stumbled upon her in the darkness of his own grief and still didn’t know what to make of it. Rena knew that feeling all too well.
Charlie snatched up Alice’s hand and bent over her captured fingers. “Ah, Miss Wilmot,” he purred with a teasing grin. “Still radiant as ever, I see. The stained-glass light paints you very prettily this morning.”
Alice’s smile relaxed even more, into a sisterly rebuke. As they bantered, Rena tried to picture how it might have been when their fathers still worked side by side. The spaces between them were filled with hints of how well they knew each other—there was the way William eyed Barric over Alice’s shoulder, his mouth tight on just the one side, as if they were both thinking something very particular about Charlie; the way Charlie teased Alice, clenching her fingers and daring her to protest; the way she seemed immune to his charms, as if she had known him well before such charms existed, and she probably had.
“You’ve not changed either,” Alice noted, snatching her hand from Charlie’s and smoothing it over the front of her sage-green pelisse. “Though there are those who say you are now a man of reform. This cannot be true?”
Charlie’s eyes twinkled, and Rena stiffened as he looked straight at her. “Only time will tell,” he answered vaguely, and she did not miss the way he grinned over at Barric.
The whole way home, Barric fought the urge to glower at Charlie, walking at a pace set entirely by his own irritation. He couldn’t believe his brother. Flirting in church, he thought, with Rena, of all people. They ought to drag him off for blasphemy or sacrilege or…something.
Slowing his stride, he tried to rein in his anger. Their conversation had been spirited, he reminded himself, but not suspicious, even if Charlie had drawn the usual attention. Besides, his brother had not sounded any different than he did with any of the other women in Abbotsville. He flirted with Alice too, though they all knew that was empty posturing. Would Barric have been as irritated if Charlie had approached any of the other women in attendance? Perhaps.
Except Charlie hadn’t approached Rena—Barric had.
As if coming to the same point, Charlie interrupted his brother’s thoughts in a markedly serious voice. “Careful, Jack.”
Staggered by Charlie’s earnest tone, Barric glanced sidelong at his brother. “What on earth are you talking about?”
Charlie kept walking. “It’s not as hard as you’d think,” he cautioned. “Ruining a woman.”
Barric halted. Charlie didn’t have to say Rena’s name for him to follow his meaning, and though Barric felt a thousand denials springing to his lips, each one fell silent before he could give it breath. Rena had entertained a similar suspicion once. “I won’t be your mistress,” she told him at the festival. Her assumption had angered him. Since then he had assured himself his relationship with her was one of simple charity, one man helping his fellow, an arrangement of concern such as he might offer to anyone in need.
Smirking slightly, Charlie shook his head. “Oh, don’t give me that confounded look,” he said. “After all these years, it simply won’t do.”
“You don’t know what you’re talking about,” Barric lied stiffly, turning from Charlie to continue their path toward home.
Charlie kept pace with him. “Tell me you haven’t thought about it,” he challenged. “Tell me, and I’ll never mention it again.”
Of course Barric had thought about it. He’d admitted to himself long ago that Rena was beautiful; to deny it now would be an obvious, foolish lie. Her beauty was dark and quiet, like sprawling fields cloaked in shadow. Her strength was even lovelier. And of course, there had been that tempting moment in the thicket…
When he looked back at Charlie, his brother smiled cuttingly. “Poor, miserable bastard,” he murmured sympathetically.
“Need I remind you we’ve just come from church? In any event, you’re not exactly in a position to give me advice on such matters, are you?”
“Ah, but you see, I’m exactly the sort of man to give you advice. The way you look at her, Jack—I’ve talked plenty of women into my bed with looks like that.”
“Shut your mouth,” Barric growled, his eyes darting to eithe
r side of the road, making sure no one would overhear such a condemning conversation. “And after your little banter in church, might I also remind you that one of your provisions for staying here is that you keep your hands off those under my employ?”
Charlie slid his hands in his pockets and smiled amusedly. “Yes,” he replied. “That provision makes perfect sense now.”
“Charlie.”
Charlie scrunched his nose in distaste, letting slip his usual act of carelessness. “You really think I’d set hands on my own brother’s woman?” He shook his head. “Jack. Have you forgotten I am in the process of turning a new leaf?”
“She is not my woman,” Barric disagreed again. “She was hungry, and I fed her, and that is all. I have no thoughts for anything more.”
The words sounded like a miserable lie in his own ears, as if he’d been tasked with convincing himself and was failing. Was she really nothing to him but charity? Had his interest in her really been the effects of impulse or too much wine, as he had once assured himself? No, no. The lie was no good. As Charlie had said, it would never do.
Charlie’s tone turned serious again. “Can you be sure that such will always be the case?”
Barric looked grimly at Charlie, and his sudden lack of surety on the matter unsettled him. To pursue Rena would be terribly wrong. She was wounded in unseen ways, unspeakably vulnerable, and he had no wish to interfere with her grief. All she had in life depended on him, on his mercy and restraint, and though Barric knew it was rather common for masters to carry on with their servants and underlings, he had never wished to be common.
Barric needed to stay away from Rena. That much was quite settled. For as much as Barric was his father’s son, he was also his own man, and he was never carried away from himself, never driven by impulse, never one to act selfishly—until he was.
“Come on,” Barric said to Charlie, feeling suddenly tired. “Let’s go home.”
CHAPTER 11
The winter months were a trial. Rena and Nell had done their best to save some of the food Rena’s harvest labor had purchased them, but their stores were running dangerously low despite their frugality, and they could nearly see the bottoms of their barrels. Alice and William still invited them over for dinner on a regular basis, strictly in the name of friendship, though Rena had a hard time not calling it charity.
“My brother and I grow weary of only each other’s company,” Alice would say if Rena ever tried to decline. “Honestly, you’re doing me the favor.”
At other times, items would mysteriously appear on their front steps. Sometimes a basket of nuts, a bushel of apples, once even a leg of mutton large enough to split over the course of several meals. Rena was grateful to be cared for in such a way, but her pride still stung. She couldn’t help feeling like a hindrance to those who had so little and still tried so hard to provide for her.
At this time, Barric would go weeks without being seen. Holed up in his tower, as people said, keeping an eye on Charlie. If she did chance to meet him in town or on the road, his greetings were quick and perfunctory, sometimes even sharp. She feared she had shared too much with him during their last conversation, overstepped her bounds by mentioning Edric, and she could only determine he now regretted his decision to help her.
So, the next time Rena passed Lord Barric on the road, she lowered her eyes, said nothing, and continued on her way. At first Lord Barric seemed entirely likely to let her pass, his steps crisp and grating against the dirt road. He was several feet beyond her when she heard him pause, and then he doubled back, catching up with her.
“You have frosty eyes, Mrs. Hawley.”
She kept her tone light. “I am in a terrible hurry.”
“Really?” He sounded like he didn’t believe her. “In a hurry for what?”
She gestured toward town. “I am posting a letter,” she said. “To my parents.”
His eyes flicked down to the envelope in her hand, apparently searching for proof. “I see. And what have you told them in your letter?”
Her hand tightened on the paper. “That I am well,” she said, stiffly, as if dictating the letter’s contents word for word. “That I am living with good people who take care of me. That I am not starving.”
He walked slightly closer to her, brushing her arm with his. “And what did you write about me?”
She studied him out of the corner of her eye. She could only see his profile, but he wore a thin smile. “What makes you think I’ve written about you at all?”
“Tell me you haven’t, then.”
“Very well. If you must know, I told them there is a fearsome, old dragon who lives in a mansion on the top of the highest hill.”
His smile stretched as he continued along, ambling idly at her side. “And did you tell them you refused to dance with this fearsome, old dragon?”
Her face felt rather warm as she remembered her once adamant refusal. Would she refuse him again, she wondered, if he ever pleaded with her for a dance?
“I merely told them he is a very obliging master who swoops down upon us from time to time.”
Barric slowed a few paces and glanced down the road, as if realizing he had now followed her well out of his way. His eyes fell to his feet, and he was silent for a moment. Rena fully expected him to beg his excuses and leave, but he turned to face her instead. “And will you return to them?” he asked, eyeing her letter. “To your parents?”
Rena’s chest tightened. She herself had returned to that same question in many moments of distress. In India, at least she would be among her own people, her family. True, she would always be scorned for having married Edric, but she would also have her parents, her home, the smell of citrus rinds and spices in the morning.
“I will remain with Nell,” she decided in a thin voice.
“Here, in Abbotsville?”
Her hesitation grew. “My home is with Nell. Wherever she goes, I will go.”
He nodded as if her answer made sense, but the corners of his eyes creased as if something about it had also distressed him. “We shouldn’t see each other often,” he said after a moment. “Ought not to, but I want you to know this place—Misthold—it is yours too.”
Rena was too stunned to speak straightaway. His uncertainty gone, Barric’s green eyes settled on hers. “I would like you to stay—forever, if you wish. I want you to consider your place here your home.”
His words were the kindest spoken to Rena since she had alighted in Abbotsville. She had been given food, yes, and shelter, but these were but physical things, which could not quite fill the emptiness still echoing within her. She knew what it must have cost Lord Barric to speak so openly to her, neither had she overlooked his warning—they ought not to see each other. Still, after all the months she’d spent feeling useless and unwanted, Lord Barric had offered her a sense of belonging. He was not speaking to her out of pity, nor out of obligation. He had seen her otherness as all the others had, and although they could not be friends, exactly, she would always know he wanted her there.
Rena felt herself open, however slightly, like the blue lotus flowers which floated in her mother’s garden fountain—the sacred plant bloomed each morning and closed again at dusk, a Hindu symbol for purity. Enlightenment. How long had it been since Rena had felt anything but dusk within herself?
She opened her mouth to offer her thanks, but then a few white, frosty flecks flitted in front of her eyes, and she lost focus. Tipping her head back, she stared at the gray expanse of sky as it filled with a lively swirl of white.
“Snow,” she breathed, feeling the cool melt of flakes against her neck and upturned face. As soon as she spoke the word, like an answer to incantation, the snow began to fall harder, thicker, enveloping her and Barric and obscuring their view of the road. Eyelashes now coated, Rena held her hands with palms turned upward toward the sky and watched the flecks melt on the warmth of her skin. She felt herself smile in earnest. “I’ve never seen snow before.”
Barric
cleared his throat. “I should let you post your letter,” he said, but did not move to leave. He reached out, instead, and touched a gloved hand to the side of her face.
It occurred to Rena, perhaps belatedly, that they still stood in the middle of the road, visible to any passing horse or carriage that might happen to take their route.
“Thank you,” she said quickly, and Barric dropped his hand. “I want you to know I am thankful for your…offer.”
He looked unsure, his eyebrows slanting low over his eyes. Taking his hand in both of hers, Rena brought it quickly to her lips and pressed a firm kiss to his fingers for emphasis. Then she waited, anxiously, for his reaction. He might be angry with her for taking such a liberty, especially there in plain sight. He might strike her away and deride her. Yet again, hadn’t he been the one to bridge the gap between them?
When she dared to meet Lord Barric’s eyes, they seemed a lighter shade of green in the snow-whitened daylight, and he smiled faintly down at her.
“I shall have to hope it snows much more often,” he murmured in reply.
By the time Rena returned home, the bottom of her skirt was frozen stiff and her jaw throbbed from clenching, but she was still smiling. The squall of snow, Lord Barric’s words, the smiling look which had stolen into his eyes—all were enough, together, to make her feel somehow younger, if only for a moment.
“It’s snowing!” she announced to Nell, stomping her feet in the entryway as she pulled the door shut behind her.
Nell was busied over the stove, stirring something in a large tureen, but she threw up her hands as she caught sight of her daughter-in-law.
“Look at you, now, absolutely covered in snow!”
Pulling Rena the rest of the way into the room, Nell stripped Rena out of her shawl, brushed a few stubborn flakes from her hair, then dragged a rocking chair nearer to the stove. As Rena sunk into the chair, Nell dropped a dry blanket over her shoulders.
Heedless of Nell’s fussing, Rena stared out the window, still entranced as she watched the falling snow. “I think winter might be my favorite season of all,” she decided.
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