by Shana Galen
Her parents had made her promise to be a paragon of virtue, and she had agreed. Now was the time to remember her promise and behave herself.
Pru rose and lifted a cup of steaming tea. She could have used a glass of wine, which was more customary during dinner, but she would take what she could find. She drank the tea down, practically scalding her throat, and then lifted a bowl of...
“What is this?” she asked.
Mr. Pope leaned closer to the food on the desk and sniffed. “It smells like some sort of soup.”
“Yes.”
“Does it look as bad as it tastes?” he asked.
“I haven’t tasted it yet, but I would not call the appearance pleasant.” She squared her shoulders. She would eat, and that would take her mind off those wicked lips of his. “Still, I am certain it tastes divine.” She dipped her spoon into the yellow-ish green broth, put it to her lips, and winced.
“I can’t even see you, but I can tell it’s disgusting.”
“Not disgusting,” she said, wiping her mouth with the napkin to remove any trace of the liquid from her lips. “It’s not what I am used to.”
“That’s why Payne went to Blunley. He wanted decent food.”
“I suppose I cannot blame him.” She reached for a piece of bread and took a tentative bite. “The bread is not too bad. A bit lumpy.”
Taking her suggestion, he reached for it as well.
“Will Mr. Payne be back tonight?”
“Not if he finds a woman willing to let him share her bed.”
Pru blinked, and the bread she had been swallowing seemed to lodge in her throat. She began to cough and was forced to drink Mr. Pope’s tea to dislodge the bread.
“Are you well?” he asked when she had stopped hacking.
“Yes, quite well.”
“I’ve forgotten some of my manners,” he said. “I shouldn’t have said that in your company.”
“It’s quite alright. I have traveled the world. I know something of...these sorts of matters. Why...I mean, do you mind if I ask you a question?”
He gave her a wary look. “Go ahead.”
“Why didn’t you go with him?”
“I had a prior commitment.” He made a gesture to indicate the two of them and the room.
“You could have postponed it. You must be hungry,” she said, eyeing the food suspiciously. “And perhaps you are hungry for more than food,” she said in the most judicious way she could think of.
He smiled. “You mean, why don’t I go bed a woman?”
“You seem to be interested in such things,” she said, thinking of the way he’d touched her hand and tasted her with his tongue.
“I think the answer is obvious,” he said. “No woman would have me.”
Pru stared at him—his rumpled clothing, his tousled black hair, a face that had once been handsome but now looked thin and weary. “I’m a woman,” she said.
Mr. Pope seemed to go completely still. His visible eye, which had been looking away, now fastened on her and she felt as though he was seeing right through her. She did not know how much, if anything, he could see from that eye, but however much it was, it felt like too much in that moment.
“I should go,” she said abruptly.
“Wait.”
“I forget how early night falls this time of year. If I stay, I will have to walk home in darkness. I’ll come again tomorrow.”
She moved toward the door.
“Miss Howard. Wait.”
“We’ve made a good start. Remember your squares, and we can continue tomorrow.” She opened the door and was through it as quickly as possible. “Good night,” she said.
And then for some reason she could not fathom, she ran through the vestibule, out the door, and all the way back to the vicarage.
Nine
Nash lay in bed that night, Miss Howard’s words echoing in his mind over and over. I’m a woman.
Did she want him? Was that what she was saying?
She had not resisted his flirting, but he had not taken that as a sign of real interest. He’d begun stroking her hand to rattle her more than anything else. He did not need to imagine boxes and numbers. He’d always been able to learn and remember quickly. He hadn’t been bored, precisely, but he had thought it might be amusing to make her squirm.
But instead of jerking her hands out of his or telling him to stop, she had seemed to grow breathless at his touch. So much so that he began to think she grew breathless not from discomfort but from arousal.
He shouldn’t have kissed her hand or licked her palm, but by that point he was not only curious at her reaction, he wanted to taste her. It seemed every time he encountered her, her scent was slightly different. Today it was faintly of rose water and bergamot tea. But underneath those familiar scents was the underlying mysterious and heady scent that he had come to associate with her alone.
He probably shouldn’t have been close enough to her to even know the scent of her, but now that he did, he would not soon forget it.
He was hungry for physical touch. He did miss the smiles and laughter and whispers of women. He was not the kind of man who took random women to bed or sought out a different woman every night of the week. But he’d had his share of liaisons, and the last of those had been a long, long time ago.
He had thought he would never meet a willing woman again. He would not pay for a woman and so, at one and thirty, that part of his life was over.
I’m a woman.
Why had she said that? She couldn’t possibly want him. He lifted his hand from the sheets where it rested and brought it to his face. Pushing his hair off his forehead, he touched the brow of his left eye. Slowly, he slid his hand down and along the knotted scar that snaked over his eyelid. The doctor had said he was fortunate not to lose his eye. Nash didn’t know what difference it made if he could not see out of it.
Unfortunately, he could still remember the moments before the attack. He could remember the yellow of the sun on the stone of the building where he had been hiding, the dark brown of his rifle butt, the familiar weight of it against his shoulder. In his periphery, there had been the blue of the sky and the white of fast-moving clouds. His hair had ruffled in the breeze. He wished he had known these would be his last images. He wished he had looked about and noticed a tree or a flower or something beautiful. But the last thing he remembered was staring down the length of his rifle. And then an explosion.
The troop’s leader, Neil Wraxall, had told Nash that a French sniper had fired at him. He’d told Nash he was fortunate because the shot had missed Nash and hit the stone of the building he was leaning against instead. Still, Nash had been unlucky in that the pieces of the stone had flown against his left eye, damaging it so badly that he’d lost his sight.
Ironically, his right eye had not been damaged. The doctors couldn’t really explain why Nash couldn’t see out of that eye. Something about an injury to the brain that damaged the part of the brain responsible for vision. Over time, a bit of sight had come back to his right eye. Nash had hoped the shadowy shapes would lighten and become clearer. He had hoped he might see color again. But as the days and weeks and months and years wore on, it became obvious that he would be forever relegated to this shadow world. Some days it seemed pointless to even use his vision. It was like looking down into a murky pond and trying to see the bottom. There were only vague outlines of things dark and indistinct.
The doctors had told him his other senses would sharpen to compensate. Nash couldn’t say whether they had or not. He’d wanted his vision back, goddamn it. At times he wondered if his limited vision in his right eye had improved as he could recognize differences in size and shape now. But then he thought he had simply become more used to the shadow world. And, of course, a hulking figure like Rowden was easily distinguished from a thin one like Miss Howard or a squat one like Mrs. Brown.
The despair that dragged at him constantly, trying to pull him into the shadow world and under the murky water permanently, tugged hard n
ow. As The Cloud descended, Nash reached for his pistol reflexively. He stroked the filigree and took slow breaths. He realized now that he hadn’t thought about the pistol once when Miss Howard had been at Wentmore. Surely it had been in his pocket, as it always was, but he hadn’t reached for it, hadn’t remembered it was even there.
Was that why he wanted it to be afternoon again? Why he couldn’t seem to wait for her to return? Because she kept The Cloud from swallowing him whole? She’d said he was still angry, and he hadn’t corrected her. He would rather she think he was angry than know the truth—he was standing on the edge of a black, cavernous hole and very little kept him from tumbling down, down, down.
“GOOD MORNING, SIR,” said a man’s voice. Nash rolled over and ignored it. Just one of his father’s servants...
Bloody damn hell!
Nash bolted upright and felt for his pistol.
“I set the pistol on the nightstand, sir,” came the voice again. What the devil? He was not at his father’s town house. He was at Wentmore, and there was a strange man in his bedchamber.
“Who the hell are you?”
“Clopdon, sir. Would you like your dressing gown? I can lay it at the foot of your bed or assist you with it.”
He had a dressing gown? Nash scooted to the edge of the bed, reached for the nightstand, and grasped the pistol. He didn’t point it at the stranger. A man with a dressing gown was not too much of a threat, but Nash felt better having the weapon in his hands.
“What are you doing in my bedchamber? Did my father send you? Are you from the asylum?”
“I am from Bath, sir. Mr. Payne hired me.” He made a tsking sound. “And not a moment too soon.”
Nash tried to imagine the state of his room. Clothes were probably strewn about, left wherever he had dropped them. Mrs. Brown made certain his sheets were clean, but he chased her out of his chamber if she tried to dust or do much more than gather his clothing for the laundry.
“Why would Mr. Payne hire you?”
“Mr. Payne was detained in Blunley. He hired me to serve as your valet.”
“Well, you can go back to Bath. I don’t need a valet.”
“I beg to differ, sir. I will leave the dressing gown on the foot of the bed. I asked a woman I found bustling about to heat water for your bath. I suppose there are no other servants in residence.” The valet sounded rather put out by this fact.
“I don’t need any servants. Tell Mr. Payne I sent you on your way.”
“I will not be leaving, sir, though I must admit it is beneath my station to carry water, but I will make the sacrifice today. I can see this is an emergency.”
“Get out.”
“Yes, sir.”
Nash let out a breath.
“I will be back with tea and your bath, sir.”
“No, you won’t.” Bloody, bloody damn hell! “If you come back, I’ll shoot you.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Did you hear me, Clapton—”
“It’s Clopdon, sir.”
“I don’t care what your name is. You’ll be dead.”
“Of course, sir. Do you take sugar in your tea?
“No!” Why the hell would this man not leave?
“Very good, sir. I never take sugar either—slave labor, you know. I can see I will have to find soap and towels and the bathing tub. I may not return as quickly as I would hope.”
“Do you know who I am, Clopdon? Do you know I shot a man—a friend of mine—only a few months ago?”
“I did not know that, sir. If you give me his name, I will be sure he is not admitted again.”
This was ridiculous. “I want you to leave, Mr. Clopdon.”
“It’s just Clopdon, sir, and no.”
Nash raised the pistol. “Then I have no choice but to shoot you.”
Clopdon sighed. “Very well then.”
“You don’t care if I shoot you?”
“Of course, I care, sir. But you won’t shoot me.” His voice grew fainter as, presumably, he began to move toward the door.
“And how do you know that?”
“I took your pistol balls and gunpowder, sir.”
“The hell you did!” But a quick check of his weapon showed this to be true. His balls and powder were missing. Clopdon must have come in while he was sleeping, taken the pistol, disarmed it, and set it on the nightstand.
Nash would kill the valet. Then he would kill Rowden.
Nash jumped out of bed, realized he was naked, and reached for the damn dressing robe. It was easily within reach. Damn Clopdon. Nash pulled the garment on and realized it was clean and starched. Clopdon, again. Damn him!
Nash would throw him out of the house. He would shove his boot—if he could find his boots—up Clopdon’s arse.
That’s when the hammering started.
Nash knew it was hammering. He knew the workmen were back, but he couldn’t stop his body’s response. He fell to the floor and took cover. And even though he told himself no one was firing upon him, no cannon balls or pistol balls were incoming, he could not seem to stop cowering at the edge of the bed.
He did not know how long he lay there, rigid with fear, but at some point Clopdon returned, and from the sound of it, he was hauling something heavy. It thudded on the floor, and Nash realized it must be the tub.
“Sir,” Clopdon said between ragged breaths. “If you must lie on the floor, I would prefer you not do so until I have it mopped and cleaned. I shall have to wash that dressing gown again.”
Nash let out an involuntary laugh that was somewhere between a chuckle and a sob. In that moment, it was clear Clopdon was not leaving.
“PRUDENCE.”
Pru stopped. She had been making her way silently down the stairs, avoiding all the steps that creaked. She was usually the last to rise, so she knew Mrs. Blimpkin and the vicar would already be up and about, but she hoped she’d tarried long enough that the vicar would be in his library hard at work at...whatever he did in there.
But the deep voice that spoke her name was unmistakably Mr. Higginbotham’s.
Pru let out the breath she’d been holding and straightened her shoulders. “Good morning, sir,” she said in her cheeriest voice. Not bothering to be quiet now, she scampered down the remaining steps and saw the vicar sitting at the breakfast table.
“Morning?” He took out his pocket watch and glanced at it. “Barely.”
“Yes, sir. I will start on my chores straightaway.” She started for the kitchen where the broom was kept.
“Wait a moment, young lady.”
Pru closed her eyes then pasted a smile on her face and turned back to the vicar. “Yes, sir?”
“Sit down and break your fast first.”
“I really should start sweeping. I—”
“Sit down.”
Pru had rarely heard this tone from the vicar, and she took a seat without arguing further. The teapot was beside the vicar, but he did not offer her any. She hadn’t expected she would actually eat anything at any rate.
“You were not here for dinner last night.”
Pru blinked. The vicar was often visiting parishioners or took dinner in his library, and she had not thought he would notice her absence.
“I was not, no.”
“And you did not return until after dark.”
Another surprise as the vicar went to bed with the sun, and she could often hear him snoring while it was still dusk outside.
“I was tutoring Mr. Pope at Wentmore, sir. You gave your permission.”
“I did not give you permission to stay out until all hours of the night.”
She had been in bed by nine, which was hardly all hours of the night.
“Yes, sir. The problem is I cannot begin the tutoring until after the workmen have stopped for the day, and that is not until four or five. I do not think it’s possible for me to return home before dark, especially with winter coming and the days growing shorter.” Pru took a breath, but she saw the look on the vicar’s face
and decided it might be better to keep speaking before he had a chance to say something she would rather he did not. “I know returning so late is not ideal, but I can’t help but think of your sermon two weeks ago on the importance of Christian charity. You said, and I believe this is a quote, ‘It is our solemn duty as followers of Christ to be of service to those less fortunate than we.’”
“Mr. Pope is the son of an earl. He is not one of the less fortunate.”
“But he has lost his sight, Mr. Higginbotham, and I have my sight.”
“And that has made him dangerous. I am coming to regret my decision to allow you to tutor him. The loss of sight has made him a danger to himself and others.”
“I completely agree,” Pru said.
Mr. Higginbotham’s mouth snapped shut. He had been prepared to counter her argument, so she did the only thing she could—she did not argue.
“You agree?” he asked, his eyes narrowing.
“Yes. Mr. Pope is dangerous because he is suffering from melancholia.”
“Melancholia?”
“At first, I thought he was angry, but now I think he is grieving the loss of his sight. It seems more important than ever that I show him all is not lost. Ecriture Nocturne may just be the cure that he needs.” Pru didn’t believe this at all. She thought Mr. Pope probably needed someone to kick him in the seat of his trousers, but as Mr. Payne seemed to have that task well in hand, Pru would do what she could on other fronts.
“And why are you the one who needs to teach him? I do not like the idea of a young girl like you alone with a man like Pope.”
“We are hardly alone, sir.” This was true, technically. “As to why I am the one to teach him, well, it reminds me of your sermon of the gifts of the spirit. Isn’t it incumbent upon me to use my gifts to bless Mr. Pope? I cannot help but think I was put in the path of Monsieur Barbier for just that reason. And I never would have realized this if not for your sermon on the matter.” Pru worried with this last statement she had gone too far, but Mr. Higginbotham looked thoughtful.
“Yes, other members of the congregation have told me how much that sermon impacted them as well.”