With a somber expression, he made his way to his now homeless tenants. There was a weeping woman with two young children, an older daughter with dirty blond hair, and a father with a jaw clamped tight like stone. The family gaped at him, the children the barest bit afraid, no doubt awed by the thick sludge of sweat and ash on Barric’s brow, or perhaps the blackened blisters that already pulled tightly at his skin.
He assured them that all would be well, that he would find them another place until they could rebuild, that they ought not to lose hope. He gave them the name of a smaller family who might take them in until they found something more permanent. They thanked him desperately and clutched his hand in gratitude, but his mind was too busy to mark their words, too distracted, his thoughts leaping faster and harder than the flames he had already battled.
The workers had already begun to scatter, returning home with downcast eyes and shoulders sunk low in defeat, and for all of Barric’s reckless confidence, even he ached in ways his body wouldn’t fully realize until morning. He left Charlie waiting by the ruins long enough to sink to the river’s bank and drag a palm full of frigid water over his face, then his hair. He welcomed the cold sting of the water as he washed the ash from his skin and watched it swirl away into the creek.
Water still trailing down his shirt collar, Barric walked with Charlie back toward Misthold, their steps wearily slow but straight on course. But then, just ahead, Barric saw a slender shape moving in the distance, shadowed against a gnarl of trees, heading straight in the direction of William’s house. Alone.
Charlie saw her at the same moment and shook his head. “Don’t, Jack,” he said in a weary voice. “Let her be.”
But it didn’t matter how many times Barric promised to let her be, to stay away from her, because she would always be standing there with those soulful eyes. It was time something was done about it.
Ignoring Charlie’s warning, Barric strode to catch up with her. Several other people were milling ahead of her as they journeyed home, their voices bouncing through the trees, unrestrained. Not that it mattered. No one in all of Abbotsville was sleeping now.
Not wanting to be seen by passersby, Barric caught Rena’s hand from behind, and she gasped as he pulled her behind a tree.
“Lord Barric!” She seemed unable to form another word, but was breathtaking even in her confusion. Strands of hair had escaped her long braid, and her shawl hung loose over one shoulder, revealing the nightgown beneath. Maybe it was the frenzy of the fire, the utter chaos of the night, the unreasonably late hour, but anything seemed possible. Barric might do anything, say anything he wanted, and it would all seem a dream to them, just like the fire and his foolhardy stunt on the roof.
His first instinct was to order her to leave his property, as he had hoped the parson might suggest when he’d spoken with him. He wanted to tell her to find help elsewhere, to rely on someone else’s charity for a change. “Go.” He’d said the word once; he could say it again. But what kind of man would he be if he did? His eyes traced her face, and she shifted uncomfortably but didn’t pull her arm from his grip.
“You said once that I could cast you off,” he finally managed, watching the fear take hold of her eyes. “Ban you from my fields. Certainly it would make things easier if I did.”
“Yes,” she agreed brokenly. “I’m sure it would.”
He considered his hand still curved around her wrist, reminded of how skeletal she’d been when he’d first met her, when dark hollows had greeted him from beneath a hungry set of mournful eyes. One word from him, and she’d flee. She had far too much pride to plead.
But then, again, he remembered the parson’s warning. “She is a ruined woman, Barric, and will live the rest of her life as your rumored mistress.”
Rena spoke when he would not. “You’re casting me off, then?”
The despair in her voice crumbled his resolve. He lowered his head, his lips coming within an inch from hers. Breathing in her fear, he told himself to kiss her, quickly, before he could convince himself otherwise. But there were unshed tears in her eyes which made him hesitate. Was she thinking of Edric? he wondered.
His fingers tightened on her arm as he waited for one of those tears to fall, but still she did not break her eyes from his. The opportunity was too perfect, he told himself. No one could see them. No one would know.
If he were any other man, his lips would have already been on her. His uncle’s words encouraged him on. “Such dalliances are to be expected of a young man, especially one of your temper.”
Swearing at the press of his uncle’s voice against his wavering conscience, Barric dropped his hands. Ash and soot still clung to his skin, and the raised welts pulled tight as he moved. Ashamed of his own selfishness, he stared briefly at a blister on his hand so he wouldn’t have to meet her eyes.
“My lord?” Rena’s voice was a mere half breath, laced with confusion. Barric glanced up in time to watch a tear finally slip its place and trace a silent path down her cheek.
“Forgive me,” he said quietly, hating that he had hurt her again. “Go home. Sleep.”
She seemed uncertain, her eyes darting toward the trees. There were hours of night left, and the darkness seemed poised to swallow them up. “Nell and I could pack our things,” she finally offered. “And be gone in an instant.”
Barric hesitated long enough to imagine what it would be like if she did as she said. William would come find Barric in his library. She’s gone, he would say, and Barric would follow him to the cottage, set a hand on the doorframe, and glance around the room. All would be bare, bed made, floors swept, nothing left of the women who had once lived there. And Barric knew exactly what he would do. He would swear under his breath and demand of William where they had gone. And when William told him he didn’t know, that no one knew, Barric would rein his temper, saddle his horse, and go at once to find them.
Rena still awaited his reply, her face upturned, no trace left of the tear which had slipped her guard and sailed down her cheek. Barric knew there was a good chance she might run, and it had little to do with making things easier, nothing at all to do with the gossips or his uncle or her tattered reputation. No, if she ran, it would be to get away from him, from this teetering, almost-moment that seemed to follow them wherever they went.
A poor, miserable bastard, Charlie had called him, and he was usually right about such things. “Run if you wish,” he said, but the words tasted like ash on his tongue.
Nell was perched by the window, half-asleep in her chair, when Rena returned to the cottage. Pausing in the door, Rena examined Nell’s shuttered eyes and the book balanced between the lady’s fingers, frowning as she realized Nell had been waiting up for her.
Though Rena closed the door as softly as she could, Nell shot up from the chair, startled from her reverie, and demanded, “The house?”
“Burned to rubble.” Rena shuddered despite herself as she slung her shawl upon its usual peg.
Nell nodded as if she expected as much. “You must be exhausted.”
“I don’t think I could sleep for a hundred years,” Rena admitted. She wanted to say more, but the rush of icy adrenaline still raced through her veins, a silent undercurrent tugging her off course. Her nightdress was wet, stiff with cold as she removed it, but her cheeks were hot.
Nell was extra quiet as she sank back into her chair, her hair falling over the chair back like a silver curtain. “Was Lord Barric there tonight?”
Rena pulled into a clean nightdress, which brushed welcome warmth against her skin. “Yes. He stopped the flames from spreading any further.”
“Did he speak to you?”
Nell’s question was like a net cast over Rena, trapping her in place. She half wondered if Nell could see the places on her skin where Barric had touched her, if all the words he’d breathed had gathered to her and followed her home. Disarmed by Nell’s cautious tone, Rena shrugged dismissively. “He said very little.”
Nell did not pus
h against the lie, but Rena knew that if she did, her words would shatter like tested glass. Instead, Nell rubbed wearily at her eyes. “Have you told him about the will?”
“Lord Barric?” Rena feigned ignorance. “Why should I tell him anything about it?”
Nell’s hand dropped flat on the table, and her voice turned suddenly hard. “If something were to happen to me, what is there to stop you from starving? From being cast out? From having absolutely nothing? What, except for that man’s thin charity, keeps us from starving now?”
Rena shook her head, stalling. “I would do as I’ve always done. Whatever is necessary.”
“Yes,” Nell agreed. “Has it not occurred to you that this man might have it within his power to save us? If something happened to me, like Alistair, you would have no one.”
“But Lord Barric already provides for us.”
When Nell spoke, she sounded exasperated. “The will, Rena. I’m talking about the will. Lord Barric is a Fairfax. You know he is.”
Rena had known this conversation was coming, perhaps longer than she had admitted to herself. “You mean for me to marry Lord Barric?” She shook her head, her voice strangled in her throat. “What would ever cloud that man’s senses enough to enter into such a ridiculous marriage?”
“I would never have suggested it if I didn’t already suspect his attachment to you.”
Rena could not fake enough naïveté to disagree with what Nell had said. The way Lord Barric had held her that evening delivered a clear enough message, but she sometimes suspected she might as easily be ruined as saved at his hand.
Again, Rena looked to Nell. The woman had survived their last stint of starvation, even gained back some of her weight, but she was still frailer for it. New shadows hung beneath Nell’s eyes, pulling at her aristocratic features and making them tired. Though Rena had promised to do anything for Nell, the vow had been made hastily, without having ever been tested in a life of sacrifice. But Rena was no longer a stranger to sacrifice. She knew exactly the cost, the weight, how heavy it felt against her chest. It was all she could do to draw breath beneath its weight, even now.
“You know I would do anything for you,” Rena finally admitted, instantly frightened by her own willingness. “Are you ready to command me into an uncertain marriage, knowing I would obey, for you?”
“I would never ask it of you if I thought either of you were indifferent to the other.” Nell paused meaningfully. “What really happened tonight…after the fire?”
Lord Barric had stood so close to Rena in the woods. She suspected he was vexed by his own regard for her—wanting what he couldn’t have—and Rena was not young enough to deny the way he had made her feel in turn, like her heart was clawing up her throat, desperate to get out. Ashamed, she spun away from Nell. “I love your son,” she insisted, voice firm.
“We both love Edric. I do not doubt that in the least.”
“But you think he is so easily replaced?”
“There are many forms of love. The love you feel for Edric will always be sacred. Tell me you don’t care for Lord Barric, and I will never bring him up again. But might he care enough for you to save us both?”
Rena could no longer shoulder the weight of Sir Alistair’s will. If she did nothing, Nell might very well die a penniless widow. But could Rena resolve herself to marry a man whose only inducement to accept her came in the form of a handsome estate? Barric wanted her, she knew, but it was despite himself that he did.
Rena sighed as she faced her mother-in-law. She felt as small, tired, and heartsick as all those months ago when she had gathered her things from the train.
“Tell me what to do.”
CHAPTER 16
With painstaking slowness, Rena crushed the leaves with a stone. She added tea to the bowl, then dipped a twig into the thickening paste. It had been many years since she had observed the mehndi rituals, but she remembered their basic rhythm.
She worked quickly and silently, painting clustered dots and lines on the palms of both hands, then her wrists, then her arms, all the way up to the edge of the choli’s short sleeves. The designs were not nearly as intricate as those in the wedding ceremonies she’d attended, nor as dark, but they were traditional enough to bring her some sense of comfort. She hardly knew why she had kept the henna leaves in the first place. She had brought them all the way from India, pressed safely between the pages of one of her father’s books.
She balanced her feet on the table, back curved over her bent limbs as she worked. Beneath her steady fingers, sunbursts comprised of tiny dots appeared on the tops of her feet, the tips of her fingers, the prod of each collarbone. She blew on her hands until each symbol was dry, then stood.
Nell sat silently at the table and waited, rising only to help Rena change into the traditional Indian gown which had been bought at such a remarkably high cost. Rena slid into the indigo ghagra then pulled the sari into a loose loop along her waist and shoulder. The blouse beneath was tight, cropped above her stomach to reveal a long line of skin beneath the sari. After years spent donning English fashion, she felt dreadfully exposed, shivering in the moonlight.
Turning from Nell, Rena unwound the cord from around her neck. Edric’s ring, her Indian sands—she could not bring them with her. Not to his room. Not like this. She cupped her palm around both trinkets before placing them reverently in the trunk at the foot of her bed.
“Let him speak first,” Nell advised quietly. Her eyes were deeper, more anxious than before. “So that you will know what kind of man he is.”
“I thought you already knew what kind of man he is.” Rena spoke blandly, shocked by her own appearance when she finally pulled herself in front of the mirror. She looked every bit the world she had left behind—citrus colors and foreign symbols and rich bolts of fabric speckled with gold. Her skin and hair were dark as shadows as she swept the veil down to obscure her own uncertain expression.
Nell settled a thick, gray shawl over Rena’s shoulders, her fingers tightening over the rough fabric. “Trust him,” Nell said bracingly. “He will not fail you.”
The window casements were shadowed all around them, the night beyond still a gaping, black yawn. Rena was becoming more and more uncertain of their plan. To go to a man in the dead of night, dressed in such a way. “What if I am seen? What if I am ruined?”
Nell shook her head. “Lord Barric feels for you, Rena. I can see he does. But he is also afraid, much like you are afraid, and takes far too many risks with your reputation. You must force him to confront himself. To be honest with himself about his feelings.”
Rena glanced out the window and sighed. “But what if we are wrong about him?”
“I will pray we are not.”
Rena slid her fingers around Nell’s. “Then I will join my prayers with yours,” she vowed, and slipped out the door before she could convince herself otherwise.
Rena walked at a plodding pace, but she felt like she was racing ten steps ahead of herself. Even when she’d slowed her steps, barely moving, Misthold Manor loomed before her, closer and closer, as if the walls were pushing forward to meet her halfway.
At first she feared she stood little chance of finding Lord Barric’s chamber. The entire manor was encased in shadow, each of its endless windows utterly black. But then, as she turned a corner along the eastern wall, she caught sight of one window which was lit with the unsteady glow of a flickering lamp—on the third floor, four windows in from the left, a casement which overlooked the wheat fields.
“It must be,” she whispered to herself. “It must, it must.”
But she was still doubtful, fearful she would wander the halls like a thief in the night until someone found her roaming. To be thus discovered would be more than ruinous. She would be tossed out into lifelong shame and obscurity far deeper and more humiliating than that which she already inhabited. But she had to try. More piercing than the fear of failure was the ache of desperation, the knowledge that something had to change betwee
n herself and Lord Barric, and perhaps she had the power to accomplish it.
After a brief search of the grounds, she found the back door Barric had used the night he’d brought her to his study. It opened with barely a creak, ushering her once more into the echoing halls. The manor was still asleep from the lowest hall to the highest, its shadowy corners cradling her as she explored. At last the front hall materialized out of the darkness of a doorframe, even more formidable than it had seemed the evening of the Christmas party.
Saying another prayer that she would not be found—that the room with the flickering lamp was indeed Lord Barric’s—she followed the spiraling stairs up, all the while thinking she would surely happen upon a servant or Charlie before she found the room she was looking for.
When she reached the third floor without being seen, she breathed a bit easier. Twice she became turned around and walked herself into a dead end, where none of the doorway cracks were lit from within by the ghostly glow of a lantern wick.
Then she saw it.
Four doors down from the end of a hall, a flicker of yellowish light breathed dim beneath a doorframe.
Drawing near, Rena eased open the door—raw terror spiking within her even as she did—and found a man slumbering on a canopied bed, his evening lamp still lit on the table beside. Terror gave way to amazement, to the nearly incredulous relief of a prayer apparently answered.
She lingered briefly in the doorway, studying the way Lord Barric’s chest rose beneath each phantom breath. He had fallen asleep in a state of half undress, his shirt untucked from his trousers and open down the length of his stomach. She could easily picture him falling into bed after battling the flames, too exhausted even to put out the lamp or pull the blanket free beneath him.
Entering, Rena glanced through the casement, studying the abandoned fields below. There she had once stolen grain. There she had been spotted by Lord Barric. There she had worked beneath his unamused gaze.
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