Shadow among Sheaves

by Naomi Stephens

  “Oh yes, Lord Barric,” she replied, stretching slightly. “That is exactly what I was thinking.”

  Her idle tone set him more at ease. “Lord Barric?” he challenged. “I don’t think it’s entirely right for you to call me that when I have you in my bed.”

  She crooked an eyebrow at him. “Just Barric, then?”

  He leaned down once more, much closer than before. “Jack,” he murmured, pressing the name tightly against her lips. “Just Jack.”

  In agreement, her fingers touched his face, and he was sinking again, as he had done time and again when he felt her near. He hooked a hand around her back, hauled her to his side of the bed, then heard a door somewhere in the manor clap shut rather loudly. Rena stiffened against him, a hand coming up and bracing against his chest as they both listened. A catapult of shouts echoed through the lower chambers, three voices at least.

  Rena sat up abruptly, clutching the sheet against her chest, her eyes wide and suddenly frightened. “Who do you think it is?”

  Barric strained to make out words, certain now he heard Charlie’s voice. And another voice, far less welcome.

  With a groan of annoyance, Barric leapt from the bed, grabbing his scattering of clothes from the chair and pulling into them. “Just…wait here,” he muttered, fumbling to tuck in his shirttails. “I’m sure it’s nothing.”

  As if to disagree, the door clapped back on its hinge, banging against the farthest wall as Charlie swept into the room. His eyes went wide upon finding Rena in his brother’s bed. Stunned into momentary silence, he turned abruptly to face Barric instead. “Er…m–morning.” He offered a half-repentant smirk as Barric shrugged into his jacket and glared at him.

  “So…,” Charlie hedged when his brother did not speak. He was trying to sound casual, but Rena saw his eyes pinch tellingly at the corners. “I suppose it’s safe to say the rumors are true?” Irritation crept further into his voice as he added, “You might have mentioned as much to your only brother.”

  Barric ignored the accusation, reaching for his boots. “What are you doing here?” he demanded.

  “Our uncle has arrived to…congratulate you? On your marriage.”

  Barric shook his head. “Tell him to wait.”

  “He’s on his way up right now,” Charlie said, gesturing innocently toward the door. “So, unless you’d like to have this conversation with him in here…” He trailed off, tipping his head meaningfully toward Rena.

  “You should go,” Rena agreed, carefully avoiding Charlie’s eyes.

  Barric stopped at the bed long enough to brush his lips against hers. “I’ll be back very soon,” he promised.

  Charlie held the door for Barric, glancing over with a sly grin as he slipped it back shut behind them. “Honeymoon’s over, eh, Jack?”

  Giving his brother a slight shove, Barric bounded down the steps as quickly as he could, hoping to intercept his uncle before he got too close to his chamber. Barric muttered an oath as he turned a corner and Uncle George came jogging up to meet them.

  “Tell me it isn’t true,” his uncle commanded, pausing several steps down and gripping the banister at his side. His voice was sterner than Barric had ever heard.

  “You’ll have to excuse me,” Barric replied, refusing to feel sheepish in his presence. “My wife is waiting. Say what you must, but be quick about it.”

  His uncle paled at his words, falling back another step. “You married her,” he said, shaking his head. “You actually married her? No. I can’t believe it. You’re lying.”

  “You may ask the parson if you wish,” Barric responded blandly. “I’m sure he will give you a full account.”

  “Have you lost your mind?” His uncle’s voice carried through the hall on a bouncing echo, and Barric glanced over his shoulder, up toward the chamber he’d just left. He was certain Rena had heard his words. With a glowering look, he pushed past his uncle, descending the rest of the stairs at a rapid pace. Silenced by his own fury, his uncle followed, with Charlie trailing not far behind.

  Barric’s mood certainly didn’t improve when he rounded the last corner and found Thomas waiting at the bottom of the stairs.

  “What is he doing here?” Barric demanded of his uncle.

  When his uncle didn’t answer, Thomas spoke on his own behalf. “I’m here to see the show,” he explained, his expression turning dark. “So, tell me, did you finally give her exactly what she wanted?”

  “Shut up,” Barric ordered, then ushered them all into his study. As they crossed the front hall, a small exodus of servants scattered from odd corners, trying to appear busy.

  As soon as Barric had closed the door, his uncle advanced. “I thought I told you to carry on with her privately,” he hissed.

  Charlie made a sound of annoyance. “Yes,” he agreed sarcastically. “Because that’s never caused a scandal either.”

  Barric ignored both remarks. “If you’ve all come to see if the gossip is true, then my answer is yes. All of it is true.”

  His uncle leaned forward. “Have you already taken her to bed?” he asked urgently.

  Charlie coughed uncomfortably as Barric gave his uncle a flat look, more than answer enough.

  “No more clandestine dallying behind the trees,” Thomas remarked with a clap of his hands. “At least now you can be civilized about it.”

  Barric felt his muscles tighten. “You will have a care,” he warned slowly, “with how you talk about my wife.”

  “Perhaps it can be undone,” his uncle suggested abruptly. “Annulled.”

  “I don’t wish it undone,” Barric argued. “I wish for you to leave.”

  Thomas’s smile grew fiendish. “She’s waiting for you up there, isn’t she? Haven’t quite had your fill of her yet?”

  Barric didn’t dignify that with a response.

  “I think it’s best if everyone leaves,” Charlie suggested, clapping Barric on the back. “After all, the man has had a busy day.”

  “And will doubtless have a busy night,” Thomas suggested under his breath.

  Barric’s jaw ached as he ground it tight.

  “Did you do it for the estate?” His uncle frowned as he feebly tried to understand. “Did you do it to get Hawthorn Glen?”

  “Why should it matter? You said you didn’t want the estate.”

  “Dammit!” His uncle struck again, quick like a viper. “I was not implying you ought to swoop in and inherit an impossible scandal! You’ve stripped yourself of your own good name, Barric. Why, you’ve given your father’s name to a nobody—you’ve made her a countess!”

  “Why do you think she even married you, Barric?” Thomas attempted a look of mild sympathy. “She’s slithered her way into your coffers, Cousin, and now there will be no end of it.”

  “She did not marry me for my money.” Barric pounded the words out, though of course he had suspected as much of her the evening before. But Rena’s eyes in the chapel that morning had been bright beneath the stained glass, hopeful, holding a silent promise that was sacred, nothing earthly about it. No, money did not paint eyes in such a light.

  Thomas’s lip curled mockingly. “Yes, I’m sure Edric told himself the same thing right before he took the harlot to bed.”

  That insult Barric did dignify with a response.

  He moved before he could stop himself, his fist an unchecked line of motion, striking hard until he felt the cut of Thomas’s teeth against his knuckles. It was a satisfying sting.

  Thomas drew back with a curse, spitting a spot of blood on Barric’s plush carpet. “You think you’re so much better than everyone else,” he growled from behind his now broken lip. “But look at you. Married to tawdry trash whose only interest is in that property.”

  If Charlie hadn’t grabbed ahold of Barric’s arm, if Uncle George hadn’t stepped in with a shout and shoved Thomas out of the way, Barric was certain he would have struck again.

  “Jack.”

  All the men turned at once to find Rena poised in
the doorway, just as she had been the night of Barric’s Christmas party. Only this time she did not seem hurt or torn or at all compelled to run from what she had overheard.

  Frowning, she balanced her hand on the doorframe, no veil there to obscure her look of weary disdain. Cut of oriental indigo, her gown was a stark contrast to the wide British paintings mounted on either wall beside her. The curious tangle of symbols still lined her hands and arms, a resilient ink. Lowering his eyes, Barric briefly recalled pressing his lips to each and every symbol not even two hours before.

  Charlie was the first to approach her. “Sister,” he called her, and took up her hand with that idle grin and gently kissed her knuckles.

  She returned Charlie’s smile, eyes still half-tired. Then she turned and examined his uncle, who had colored from the neck to the face as soon as he’d seen her enter.

  “You want Hawthorn Glen, do you?” Her voice was stone. When he did not reply, she went on. “Take it if it means so much to you that you would allow your son to call me trash. If you would have him call me a harlot because you want it.”

  Uncle George said nothing. Barric could not recall a time the man had not flung words back in the face of a challenge, but the old man held his tongue as tightly as he held Rena’s gaze. In a calm voice, she challenged, “Won’t you call me a harlot, Uncle? Like your son has called me a harlot?”

  Still, he did not speak. And so Rena crossed the room and extended a steady hand toward him. “Shall we shake on it, then?” she suggested. “And then the property will be quite yours. I’ll not break my word.”

  Barric’s uncle considered her outstretched hand. A swirling glyph had been painted in the center of her palm in a dark reddish hue, with dotted tendrils curling around the outer edge of her hand. Uncle George stared at her palm, then braved her eyes with a faltering smile. “The only offering I will accept from this hand,” he said at length, taking her fingers in his, “is your forgiveness, Lady Barric.”

  His voice deepened on the title. Thomas was the first to regain his voice, taking a lumbering step forward. “But, Father, you can’t just—”

  Uncle George held up a silencing hand. “That lip of yours is less than you deserve. Less than I deserve. We’ve taken more than enough of your cousin’s time. It’s high time we left him to his new wife.” As they all moved to leave, Uncle George caught Barric by the shoulder, fingers pressing tightly as he spoke low in his ear. “By all the saints, Barric, I hope you know what you’re doing.”

  By all the saints, Barric hoped so too.

  CHAPTER 19

  Barric leaned against the doorframe, watching as Rena danced with Uncle George. It had been six weeks since the wedding, and if he was honest with himself, he still wasn’t sure exactly what he thought of his new wife. She was quiet but attentive. She prayed often. And though her eyes had calmed in recent days, less hungry and fearful, he could not fully banish the worry that she might not love him, that perhaps her heart was still tethered to Edric in ways he could not see.

  With the beginning of spring, his uncle had insisted on hosting a lavish ball in honor of his nephew and his new bride. It was a bold statement, made in the interest of letting bygones be bygones, as his uncle had put it. Half of the guests now danced while the other half whispered distractedly among themselves about the newlyweds.

  Some said Rena trapped Barric into marriage, entirely against his will.

  Others said he hadn’t been able to help himself, that he’d taken her to bed and therefore had little choice in the matter.

  Others speculated she married him for her dead husband’s estate, or she seduced him to get Edric’s money, or they had been too carried away with lust to live apart.

  Very few suspected love.

  Barric didn’t drop his eyes or alter his stare as William came to stand beside him.

  A thin veil of silence hovered above them as Barric watched his uncle spin Rena about until she seemed half-breathless and actually laughed. He could tell William wanted to speak, could feel the stillness which descends when one is very deep in thought. He heard a soft exhale of air as William nearly spoke, but then he didn’t.

  Barric’s eyes were still fixed on Rena. “Say your piece and have done with it, man.”

  William was silent a moment longer before hesitantly asking, “Why on earth did you marry her, Barric?”

  Across the room, Charlie stepped forward to claim Rena for the next dance, and Uncle George bowed his tired acceptance. Barric studied his wife as she crossed the dance floor and curtsied to Charlie from across the narrow aisle.

  Barric had married her for many reasons.

  Because she was stronger than she appeared, and strength always spoke to him.

  Because he knew she’d slept in gutters, that she’d sacrificed everything for Nell, and he would never allow it to be so again.

  Because he’d found her in his bed that night and was surprised to realize he wanted her there, always.

  “Because,” he admitted at last, recalling his foolish denial the day he had spoken with the parson, “it felt wrong not to.”

  “And? Does it still feel right? What I mean to say is, you do have feelings for her?”

  Barric shot him a dry look. “I have feelings.”

  William glanced across the hall at Rena. “Do you believe she returns them?”

  Barric frowned at that question. He knew Rena had married him partially out of fear. Fear of destitution. Fear of leaving Nell unprotected. Fear of the kind of life which had already dealt her blow after wretched blow. He also knew she was drawn to him, that her eyes held a certain depth when he looked at her, and that when he kissed her she felt warm and willing beneath his touch. But love was something else entirely, and their bargain still stretched beneath them, a shaky foundation for any marriage.

  Could he be certain she returned his feelings? No. But he was about to find out.

  Without answering William’s question, Barric crossed the floor and intercepted Rena’s hand, tugging her away from Charlie in the very middle of the dance. “You won’t mind if I cut in,” he said softly to Charlie, then pulled his wife decidedly into his arms.

  She drew a sharp breath but did not stiffen or draw back from him. She was so beautiful, Barric thought, her shades-of-midnight hair shimmering under the lights. He remembered the times he’d watched her dance with other men—William, Thomas, Charlie. Even his uncle had asked her to dance that night, well before Barric had been able to offer his own hand. Far too often Barric had watched from the perimeter and ached to hold her.

  Well, enough was enough.

  He smirked down at Rena’s startled expression, glad to have caught her off guard. His hands curved around her waist, fingers pressed against her ribs. “There’s no escaping me this time, Rena. You’re going to dance with me.”

  The music tugged them together and pulled them apart, a dizzying set of steps, but Rena kept her eyes on her husband. As he met her again at the center of the aisle, he pulled her in, nearly against him but not quite. He held on to her a moment longer than was necessary, until whispers began to drift throughout the crowd.

  “People are talking,” Rena commented, her voice barely heard over the thrash of the piano.

  His fingers slid from her waist, and they were separated, briefly, down the line. She waited the few beats it took to return to him, and as he drew her against him, he paid no heed to the other dancers or those watching.

  “Do the whispers bother you so much?”

  She closed her eyes and imagined what the guests suspected of her, what they whispered to each other behind their cupped hands. She only loved him for his money, they said. She trapped him into marriage, or else he’d taken her to bed as any man might when overcome by a set of beguiling eyes. Indian witch…

  “They are like shadows, I suppose,” Rena decided, resetting her gaze on her husband. “Nothing of substance.”

  “Good,” he agreed, then leaned down to whisper intimately in her ear. �
�Let them talk.”

  His fingers pressed against her waist, and she was struck, not for the first time, by how deep his gaze was. There wasn’t a woman from there to Liverpool who hadn’t set her cap at him, and yet Rena’s expression was the one he studied with such curious attention. Despite everything, she and Barric seemed suited to each other rather well, with their solemn expressions and watchful eyes.

  “I want Nell to move into Hawthorn Glen.” Those unexpected words jarred her, so she missed a whole step, but Barric’s hand tightened as he helped her recover her footing.

  “But…Hawthorn Glen is yours,” she answered with some confusion, shaking her head. “It is your reward. For marrying me.”

  “I don’t want it.”

  “Why?” She frowned as she foresaw his answer. “Because it was Edric’s?”

  He hesitated at that. “There is something else—someone else—Edric left behind,” he admitted, his eyes falling heavy on hers, “which I am much more inclined toward.”

  She lowered her gaze, knowing well enough that he was speaking of her. “But you already have her, my lord.”

  “Do I?”

  The music ended there, and Barric was obliged to release her, to bow. But she still hadn’t answered his question, neither was he satisfied with her silence. Capturing her hand, Barric led her through a side door to an abandoned outer terrace. After so much time spent in the cramped hall, the open air made Rena’s breath feel strangely shallow. The trees were beginning to bud above them, smelling of honeysuckle and evening rain. When Barric did not speak right away, she glanced up at the watchful moon, so full it seemed ready to fall from the sky and shatter like a saucer.

  “I didn’t marry you for the Hawley estate,” Barric said at length, his voice tight but controlled. “I didn’t marry you because of some daft bargain I made when I was angry. I married you because I wanted you. We could be married for a hundred years, and I’ll still not have what I want. Not unless you can say the same.”