Shadow among Sheaves

by Naomi Stephens

Thomas snickered. “A bit peevish tonight, aren’t we, Barric?”

  As Uncle George seemed rather fond of games, Rena expected him to appear pleased as his son circled the conversation like a swooping vulture, but he frowned at Thomas and merely said, “Don’t be insolent.”

  Thomas held up his hands as if to profess his own innocence. “I was only curious to know if her father knew any of the rebels. It’s a legitimate question, I would think, given her upbringing.”

  “My city did everything in its power to end the mutiny,” Rena said defensively. “Our maharaja sent nearly all of his troops into the fray.”

  “We are speaking of your father,” Thomas redirected, his lips pinching beneath his thin mustache. “Don’t tell me your father didn’t want independence like the rest of them.”

  Rena nearly stood from her chair. “Just because he valued independence,” she snapped, “does not mean he condoned slaughter.”

  Thomas raised his eyebrows mockingly. “Well, then he’s practically a gentleman, I suppose,” he said, and downed the rest of his wine.

  “My father worked with your soldiers.” Rena spoke heatedly, warmth creeping to the tips of her ears as her indignation grew. “He aided them before and after the mutiny.”

  “Oh, of course.” Thomas grinned. “That would be how you met Edric. Apparently, he didn’t mind marrying into the wrong side of the mutiny. Though I suppose we could expect no less from a Hawley.”

  Barric had gone very still beside Rena, his hand fisting beside his plate as he cut in icily. “There’s no need to be cruel.”

  At the reprimand, Thomas bowed his head slightly, though his eyes appeared far less than penitent.

  “This discussion,” remarked Uncle George, his voice strung tight like a bow string, “is hardly appropriate for the dinner table with ladies present. We are, after all, here to celebrate Christmas.”

  As if he couldn’t help himself, Thomas shook his head, then looked right at Rena. “Do you even celebrate Christmas?”

  She knew exactly what he was asking, and she half wished she could stab him with a fork rather than answer. “The vows I spoke to Edric,” she finally said, very softly, stunned by her own resolve, “I spoke to your god.”

  “Your people, your soldiers, your god.” Thomas caught up his own fork between his fingers and attacked the fish offered to him from a platter by a footman. “I hear a lot of ours and yours in there, Mrs. Hawley.” He dropped the skewered fish carelessly to his plate. “Perhaps you ought to go back to India after all. Besides, I’m not entirely sure it’s right for a pagan to be at a Christmas celebration.”

  At that, the parson swept in with a commanding voice. “This conversation is over.” His hard eyes panned the table, clearly outraged. No one would meet his gaze, not even Thomas. “Now, as we are all remarkably well-educated people,” he continued, tempering his tone, “I suggest we find a more fitting topic to discuss.”

  Everyone at the table mumbled their awkward apologies to the parson, all except for Rena, who offered him a grateful, exhausted smile and turned at last to her meal.

  Barric had not released his fisted hand all evening. He knew if he opened his mouth to say anything, he’d end up knocking Thomas right out of his chair, and then there’d be no end of it. Charlie knew. His eyes often found Barric’s from across the table, sending a subtle warning for him to leash his temper.

  But to hear them speak to Rena of her family, of Edric, was cruelty beyond anything Barric had ever heard, even from them.

  Lamb cutlets, beef roast, venison, asparagus, beet root—on any other night, finding such a magnificent spread on his table would have pleased Barric considerably, especially for a party, but he barely tasted even one of the nearly ten courses. And so dinner passed in agonizing slowness, the conversation forced and awkward. Barric noted that Rena said very little to anyone other than Charlie, the parson, and the gentleman seated directly beside her.

  He used the first open opportunity to lean closer. “I have never seen anyone look so miserable at my table,” he observed. “And I am sorry for it.”

  Rena hardly spared him a glance. “I’m afraid your wealth has been quite wasted on me tonight,” she admitted, setting down her glass. “I’m not much for forcing conversation or ignoring impudent stares. In truth, I have enjoyed very little of your feast.”

  He smiled wanly, touched by her candor. “I confess I’m not much for it either,” he replied. “Perhaps my wealth has been wasted on us both this evening?”

  At last Rena returned his smile, and Barric was struck by the unguarded kindness he found in her expression, a gentle brightness he’d spied before, but only on very rare occasions. When he angled closer to hear her reply over the other conversations, his knee brushed hers beneath the table, and they both froze, conversation forgotten. He waited for Rena to pull back, but she’d gone quite still, as if waiting for him to move away first.

  When he made no immediate move to do so, her jaw tightened. “Your uncle,” she noted pointedly, “is watching us, my lord.”

  Barric shifted back at once and instinctively dropped his eyes, feeling like a coward. He shouldn’t care if his uncle saw him speaking closely with his own guest, or if the gossips circulated his name with hers. But there was a part of him, stronger than he wished it to be, that still minded. Rena must have minded too, for the next time he turned toward her, she studiously avoided his gaze. And so he was forced into conversation with Lady Angelina instead, who demurred very prettily to his questions, all while shooting acerbic glances at Rena across the table.

  Dancing was proposed by the ladies after they had consumed their cordial and finished their champagne. Traditionally the men would have excused themselves to the study to smoke while the ladies retired to the sitting room, but none present seemed to mind the slight breach of etiquette. There were several enthusiastic dancers present, of whom Lady Angelina was the most outspoken, inspired, as she claimed, by Misthold’s impossible charm.

  Out of the corner of his eye, Barric watched the men stand first. He didn’t think he could bear to watch Thomas dance with Rena again, but he also didn’t want to lose the opportunity to confront his uncle in private. As if reading his thoughts, Charlie circled the table lazily and placed a hand on the back of Rena’s chair.

  “If you don’t dance with me,” he insisted with a broad smile, “I’ll leave for France at once.”

  Barric watched the relief register in Rena’s eyes, the glimmer of gratitude as she slipped out of her seat and placed her hand in his. As Charlie led her from the room, he shot one last glance back at Barric as he went, an unnecessary warning. The room now empty, Barric at last met Uncle George’s waiting stare, and felt his mood darken as every horrible insult and cutting remark from the dinner returned to him.

  “Barric.” His uncle spoke his name quickly, his tone urgent in a way it almost never was, as if he could sense the weak hold Barric now had on his temper. “I know you think I’m a cad, but I only—”

  Pushing back from the table with a lurch, Barric stood. “Not here,” he said, stalking out of the room. With a sigh, his uncle followed. As they crossed the hall, Barric caught sight of Rena and Charlie lining up on opposite sides of the room for the first dance. Beside them Thomas and Lady Angelina had been matched, but Rena kept her eyes fixed only on Charlie, her chin lifted despite the whispers from those who watched them. Charlie smiled eagerly as if the whispers were what gave the dance its charm.

  The music triggered the dancers to move, and Barric watched, unamused, as Charlie took up Rena’s hands in his and spun her. The piano played at a jaunty pace, but she kept up remarkably well, as if she had practiced the steps in her sleep. Barric remembered the night of the festival, when she rejected him so emphatically. Would she reject him again if he cut in now?

  Dragging his eyes away from her, Barric continued down the hall. His uncle followed closely behind as he led them both to a smaller sitting room, which had once been his mother’s morning do
main.

  “You have every right to be angry with me,” his uncle said as soon as the door was closed. He held up his hands in surrender. “Things, in there, they got out of hand. That was not what I intended.”

  “Angry?” Barric repeated incredulously. He took two steps toward his uncle, then halted himself, shook his head to clear it. “What the devil was that?”

  His uncle rifled around in his pocket for his usual pipe, then a match, then seemed to reconsider both objects, setting them down on the table. “I needed to see what, if anything, was going on between the two of you. I didn’t want to believe the rumors, but I couldn’t trust your own word that nothing was nothing.”

  Barric balked at his uncle’s words. “You tortured that girl,” he said, half question, half accusation, “just to see what I would do?”

  “Tortured?” Uncle George shook his head. “You’re using your words a bit liberally, don’t you think? Did you see the meal we fed her? Probably the best she’s eaten in a year, poor little scarecrow. The rest will fade with time.”

  “You let that son of yours tear her to pieces!”

  “I will have words with my son,” his uncle answered flatly. “But you should see yourself, Barric. Making eyes at her in the midst of high company. And don’t tell me you weren’t ready to take a swing at Thomas in there.”

  Barric didn’t deny it. He turned his back on his uncle and braced his hands on the mantelpiece, studying the whites of his knuckles.

  His uncle’s voice gentled. “And yet you’d have me believe this is all nothing? I can’t blame you, of course. She is an impressive little imp.”

  Barric still didn’t turn to face him but spoke instead to the stone mantel. “You shouldn’t have brought her here, like this.”

  “Agreed.”

  “I want you to leave. And take your blasted son with you.”

  There was a silence but no footsteps to signal his uncle’s departure. “If you can’t help yourself,” Uncle George murmured, his words slow and paced, “I understand. But, please, carry on with her privately. Such dalliances are to be expected of a young man, especially one of your temper. But I’d be remiss if I didn’t warn you. You’re an honorable man, like your father. But you must remember you can’t allow it to lead to anything. Desperate women are often in the practice of snaring honorable men into marriage.”

  Barric half imagined his uncle having this same conversation with Charlie. He was certain such words must have been spoken to his misguided brother at some point, something to trigger a long line of mistresses and ill judgment. Barric barely raised his voice. “I wonder,” he said, “what makes you feel entitled to come into my house and give me such advice.”

  “Jack, I’m your uncle. I have responsibilities to you, and to your parents, God rest their souls. What do you think they’d have to say about you carrying on with this girl? Wouldn’t they be concerned?”

  “Don’t use them against me!” Barric snapped, finally turning toward his uncle.

  His uncle’s patience slipped a rung as well. “Can’t you see how ridiculous she looks at your table?”

  “She will always have a place at my table,” Barric growled, advancing. “The people in this hellish town can call her whatever they want—harlot, leech, scarecrow.” His uncle winced at his own word. “But know that at the end of the day she has a place at my table.”

  Uncle George raised his voice at that. “You know she must be nothing to you! That she is beneath you.”

  “But of course she is beneath me!” Barric thundered back. “She’s a wretched beggar!”

  His uncle’s demeanor changed on the instant, a flash of guilt as he glanced over Barric’s shoulder. With a sigh, he shook his head. “Oh Barric.”

  Barric turned, and there she was, framed in the open doorway, her eyes luminous in the scant light of the hallway. He swore aloud as soon as he saw her. “Rena,” he said, taking a step toward the door, but she turned from him and fled before he could say another word.

  “Let her go.” His uncle placed a hand on his elbow. “It’s for the best.”

  Barric jerked, throwing off his touch. Barric had never disliked his uncle, never even blamed him outright for Thomas’s behavior. For years Uncle George had enabled Thomas because part of him pitied his motherless son. But that was not all. Barric’s uncle was slippery. Calculating. And deeply faulted. Barric knew this was why his father had always squabbled with Uncle George, why they even came to blows one night over dinner, much to his mother’s dismay. Some weeks Uncle George was welcome in their home, laughing with Jack’s parents over a bottle of wine until it was nearly morning; other weeks he was exiled to his own home, waiting for forgiveness while Barric’s father swore never to see him again.

  But Uncle George always came back. He was like Charlie in that way.

  “Stay away from her,” Barric snarled. “And the next time your son says anything to her, I swear I’ll break his jaw.”

  His uncle had no response to that, so Barric left him and took off toward the sitting room in search of Rena. The music played on, pounded out on the piano, and all of the dancers still seemed in high spirits. But Rena was no longer there. Neither was Charlie.

  Ignoring Lady Angelina as she called out to him from the line of dancers, he rushed for the front door, tossing it open as he tore down the steps, onto the paved terrace below. Rena was already at the edge of the lawn, moving quickly, lit only by moonlight. Her golden dress was simple but stately, giving her a look of foreign royalty.

  He halted halfway down the next set of stairs, still towering over her. “Rena,” he said thickly. As soon as she heard his voice, she stilled, then straightened, then turned to meet his gaze. He expected to see tears in her eyes when she looked up at him, but there were none to be seen. Instead, she stared at him bleakly.

  “Forgive me.” Barric spoke urgently, saying what needed to be said, and saying it quickly. “My uncle, he makes me say things I don’t mean.” He saw his words moved nothing in her eyes. “I swear I didn’t mean it.”

  “You have nothing to apologize for, Lord Barric.” She hit him especially hard with the title, and he took the blow as he had deserved it, without flinching. “You said nothing that wasn’t entirely true.”

  It would have been better if she had yelled at him, if she showed even a touch of anger. But, no. Rena believed what he had said, what his uncle had said, what everyone seemed to believe. That she was nothing. “It isn’t true,” he said, shaking his head. “It isn’t.”

  “Of course it is. I am a beggar, and you feed me. That’s all there is.”

  Though he’d said similar words to Charlie, to William, he didn’t like hearing them from her lips.

  She turned without a goodbye, and this time he rushed the last few steps to bar her retreat. “Don’t leave,” he murmured, catching her shoulders with his hands. “I’m sorry. I was a coward in there, a miserable fool.”

  She looked like she wanted to strike him, vindictive as hellfire in her shimmering dress. She was so much stronger than anyone seemed to realize, Barric thought, and she’d already given more of herself than he’d ever seen a person give on another’s behalf. He searched her eyes for that flicker of brightness she’d let show over dinner—proof that pain had not snuffed it entirely—but found only a tempest of indignation and scorn.

  Barric’s hands tightened on her shoulders. Suddenly he wished he had really kissed her the night of the festival, just so he could know what it would feel like now, how it would be to brush his fingers down her throat and hold her still for a second. Edric knew how it felt to hold her, how it felt to kiss her, to make her feel whole. Barric flinched as the thought passed over him. He had no right to be jealous of her husband—no right at all to be jealous of a dead man.

  “I want no part of your Misthold.” Rena’s voice was empty as she pulled out of his hold and turned away from him. “This place will never be home to me.”

  Barric stiffened as she threw his own words bac
k at him, an unpleasant echo of their last meeting on the road, from the morning before. For as long as the dinner party had been, it might have been years since Barric stood with her in that flurry of snow, his hand curving around her cheek as he watched the snowflakes gather in her hair. Banishing the image, he spoke in a low voice. “Don’t talk like this. I meant what I said.”

  Did he, though? He tried to make peace between them, to make her feel at last like she belonged, but at the first turn he had told his own uncle she was beneath him. A wretched beggar he had called her. His eyes fell from her face. What kind of man was he, to have spoken with such contempt of a woman who trusted him?

  “Cast us off if that’s what you wish,” Rena challenged, her English accent faltering more than he had ever heard. “Ban me from your fields, or call me whatever you’d like, but you will leave me alone, sir.”

  He dropped her shoulders, released her as Charlie came bounding down the steps.

  “There you are!” Charlie called out, coming to a shuffling stop beside his brother. “Is everything…all right?” One look at Barric’s face, and he knew everything wasn’t. “What’s the matter?” Charlie demanded, looking between Barric and Rena and back again. “What happened?”

  Rena stared at the tree line. “I got overly warm,” she lied, her voice soft and even. “But I feel much better now.”

  Charlie stared at her face. “You’re a rotten liar,” he decided.

  “Even worse than you?”

  Charlie gaped at her response, and Barric coughed on his own surprise.

  As the shock wore off, Charlie’s eyes hardened. “A liar, am I?”

  “You are unhappy,” she said, defending her question. “The unhappiest man I’ve ever met. You may have been a rake when you left Misthold, but you have not returned the same. Why do you pretend as if nothing has changed? Do you think such lies come without cost?”

  Barric was not surprised Rena had so easily seen through his brother’s artifice. She was quiet but sharp and had spent as much time as Charlie keeping hurtful things buried.