Light of My Heart

by Elizabeth St. Michel

  “And why not?”

  Her idea was not going to be as easy as she thought. “I have callers visiting tomorrow and I have accepted an invitation with the Duke of Banfield and Humphrey.” No need to tell him it was an open invitation.

  “You also promised Thomas Banks and the rest of the world something I cannot possibly deliver without a lab assistant. And now you are accepting a company of fools, and cavorting around the countryside.” His voice was cold, flat, furious and heard across the room. Revelers craned their necks. If only she could fade into the background.

  Anthony proved difficult. “You’re invited, too,” she proposed in way of a peace offering. “You need to get out more, engage with others.”

  “You have Aunt Margaret for that.” The muscles in his neck corded and his callous tone set the hairs on the back of her neck on end, plain refusing to entertain that her opinion might be valid. “How you like to agree to challenges without thinking them through, and then masking your inhibitions with social seeking. Is this your backward Colonial upbringing?”

  Don’t cry. Don’t cry. Don’t cry. “You are stubborn, dogmatic, simple-minded and unable to seeI won’t be available the next day, the day after that, and the week after that.”

  Aunt Margaret sidled up in a whoosh of her skirts, her ear horn bobbing. “I need to go home before I get a headache.”

  Rachel took Aunt Margaret’s arm. Her mother had suffered terrible megrims for hours at a time. “We need to get her home as soon as possible,” she commanded Anthony.

  Anthony ordered their wraps and coats, bid regrets to their host that they would not be able to attend the soiree. Rachel settled Anthony’s aunt into the burgundy velvet squabs of the Rutland coach. Beneath the lantern light, Aunt Margaret appeared hale and healthy, her grey eyes twinkling.

  Rachel spoke into the wide end of the ear horn. “I will have Cook make you a special concoction.”

  “I am saved a headache from Imogene Brougham’s singing. The girl has the brain of a toad.” Aunt Margaret snorted, her grey eyes shot through with shrewd bright lights of amusement. “Don’t let Imogene deter you.”

  Rachel’s jaw dropped. Had Aunt Margaret given her leave on her feelings toward Anthony or was she imagining things? Right now, he was at the top of her lunatic list. The insensitive, hypercritical, tyrant. He was worse than Imogene Brougham and had insulted Rachel to the first degree. Before she could form a reply, Anthony climbed in, slammed the door and stared at her in sullen silence. Aunt Margaret slumped on her shoulder, asleep.

  Chapter Nine

  Regardless of the fire roaring in the fireplace of one of the luxurious salons of Belvoir Castle, Rachel pulled her silk shawl about her shoulders to ward off a chill. She turned a dazzling smile to the two gentlemen who had come to call. Despite her bright smile, her mood dipped as she looked through the doorway and out into the hall, hoping Anthony would walk by, even though she knew he’d be in his laboratory. Rachel shivered, wishing she didn’t need to separate herself from Anthony. Not only was it for the best, but it was required.

  So, why was she so close to tears?

  Aunt Margaret chatted with the two gentlemen while Rachel tried to convince herself that her aching disappointment was merely because of Anthony’s disagreeable and insulting outburst, but her lonely dejection sprang from something much deeper. She missed him. To see his smile, to be able to work with him again in his laboratory… No. His rudeness was an affront to her New England upbringing and he needed a lesson.

  “Miss Thorne, has the unhappy and deluded multitude against His Majesty’s forces in the Colonies become sensible of their error?”

  She ground her teeth. Sir Alford referred to King George and his cohorts attempt to dismember the Colonies.

  Sir Alford thumped his tea cup down on the saucer. “For if all Colonial women are as beautiful as you, we need to conquer the rabble posthaste?”

  “The King must make those cloddish rebels suffer the inevitable of England’s formidable army,” laughed Sir Pembroke.

  Rachel’s hands clenched over the arms of her chair when Anthony chose to enter the room. She ignored him, incensed by these aristocrats, far removed from what sufferings her countrymen had gone through in the name of freedom. Should she remind them that the rebels were winning? Did she tell them her brother Ethan and formerly, her cousin Jacob robbed the merchant ships along the coasts of England while they slept snug in their beds?

  She leaned forward, pretended alarm laced in her voice. “What do you think will happen with the alliance of France and the Colonies, prompted by the British surrender of Saratoga? The French make no secret of providing weapons, munitions and supplies to the patriots. New England is lost to the rebels, including my hometown of Boston. General Clinton’s forces have withdrawn from Philadelphia to New York. Is it a matter of time before the British remove from New York? Are the Colonies to be lost?” She held her wrist to her forehead, striking a dramatic pose, and sneaking a glance at her rapt audience. The fools.

  Anthony leaned on the mantle and smirked. Aunt Margaret smiled. The other two men sat aghast.

  “You must not return to that rabble. The sufferings of those loyal to the Crown, I can only imagine. The King will stop this rebellion.” Sir Alford protested, and then turned and frowned at Anthony. “Lord Anthony, so nice of you to join us. Miss Thorne was diverting us with her fears of the rebels.”

  “She should know firsthand.” He smiled a cheerful, self-satisfied smile that put her teeth on edge. “Did she tell you how many ships are produced in Boston?”

  Rachel choked on her tea. How dare he reveal her allegiance. “Did I mention that on the ship over here, I observed how cannons were loaded through gun ports and fired with exact precision?”

  He inclined his head in acknowledgment and grinned, his eyes lit with intellectual challenge. “In truthful reflections, a promise broken can weigh heavy on avenging inclinations.”

  She widened her eyes. The wretched man lived to intimidate her. She would have none of it. “The nature of one’s thoughts could be considered menacing.”

  “One should not fail in being obtuse,” he said carelessly. “Like an arrow released from its bow, your message has met its target, yet your pledge is incomplete.”

  How she itched to dump her tea on him. Neither life nor death, neither angels nor demons, neither present nor future, nor anything else would make her go back to his labuntil she was ready.

  Aunt Margaret harrumphed. Rachel darted a glance to Sir Alford and Pembroke. She let out a breath. The conversation had flown over their heads.

  “I will bid you adieu, Aunt Margaret…Miss Thorne.” Anthony offered an abrupt bow to her. A barely controlled hostility simmered beneath his formality, if released, would roll her over with the force of a tidal wave. He did not acknowledge the two knights. He turned on his heel and left.

  Watching him go, she leaned shakily against the cushions and released a long, shuddering breath. Anthony. A sharp, sweet pain throbbed in her chest. If he knew the truth, he would loathe her.

  Chapter Ten

  Anthony slammed the door to the carriage. Rachel had taken their argument seriously and he had to do everything himself. At this speed, he wouldn’t make a single discovery until the next millennium.

  Fiery acid boiled through his gut. Was she off meeting more potential husbands, buffoons like Pembroke and Alford? What had made him interrupt her visit with those two barnacles? Why did he care who she entertained and why did he possess the juvenile urge to reveal her staunch patriotism? Jealousy? Never.

  He raked his fingers through his hair, seeking and explanation for his behavior. Because the ramifications of the argument that divided them now threatened to unravel everything he had built. A second later, he realized that was it. The argument.

  Not only had his temper brought the miscalculations, but also a tempest of unforeseen challenges forcing him to start over. He had made the mistake of letting his frustration get the best of
him and that mistake had dire consequences. To keep his listing ship from capsizing, he would seek her out and apologize. Yes, he would express regret.

  He strode past several shops in the village to Harold the Blacksmith’s shop. A horse dunked its head into a trough to draw water. He recognized the mare from his father’s stables. When the head groom had informed him Rachel had ridden to town on an errand, refusing escort, his blood boiled.

  “I’ve come to pick up my order.” He looked around for the infuriating woman. Running a shipyard. Clearly, she had enjoyed too much freedom for too long.

  Harold lifted his hammer and banged several times on red-hot metal. “It ain’t done.”

  “I need it now.” Anthony’s stomach muscles hardened, the toothless blacksmith must have taken leave of his senses. To not have finished his order on time?

  Harold shoved the flattened metal into a bucket of water. Steam whooshed upward, clouding his blackened face. “Everything is on hold. Have to polish off an order for that Colonial lady.”

  Colonial lady? Rachel? What was she up to? “Cancel it.”

  “I can’t. I couldn’t disappoint her.”

  So now she had charmed the blacksmith. Miss Thorne possessed the aptitude to manipulate fools to genius. “I order you to cancel it.”

  “She wouldn’t like it.”

  “The devil she will.” Anthony was in the mood to take on the blacksmith, had licked him before, but with a hammer the size of Thor’s, and biceps the size of trussed full grown turkeys straining his shirtsleeves, he thought better of it. To continue a conversation with Harold was an exercise in idiocy, the blacksmith’s mental gears turned only so far.

  Anthony stalked off, his heels digging half-moon furrows in the mud. His quarry rested on a porch step, wreathed in a crown of sunlight, sucking on a candy cane and surrounded by several of the village children, also sucking candy canes. Leaning against her was a filthy mutt, dining on fresh meat while she regaled her young audience with stories about Indians in the Colonies. For dramatic effect, she pulled the string of an imaginary bow and sighted down her prey. Pling. He could almost hear the whistle of the arrow.

  His shadow covered her. Horror written on their faces, the children inched away. Good. The mutt barked and the hair on its back ruffled up. She pulled the candy cane out of her mouth and pointed it at him. “Why do you have to be so forbidding?”

  “This is my normal face.”

  “That is your formidable face and would scare the hair off a wooly mammoth.” She rummaged through a brown bag and produced six candy canes. “Horehound, peppermint, licorice, lemon…would you like one?”

  He bared his teeth. “No. And would you mind telling me what you have the blacksmith engaged in so that he cannot fill my order.”

  She shrugged a dainty shoulder, daring to dismiss him. “A secret. I gave him my design and told him he had to have it completed immediately. He can shape the copper curvatures that I need.”

  Damn her conniving heart. He stared her down. “Cancel it.”

  She scratched the mutt behind the ears and it howled in pleasure. “I like this dog. The blacksmith says he’s a stray. Starved you know.” She smoothed open the brown paper package so the dog could lick the remnants of his meal.

  Anthony grimaced at the two pounds of meat the canine consumed. Not hungry now. “We have to talk.”

  She pasted on the most angelic expression Anthony had ever seen. “About what? She’s a very nice companion. The blacksmith said I could have the dog. It’s beginning to rain and my horse is in the stables.”

  “I knowunescorted.” He ground out his words. The dog stopped eating and whined.

  “Most American women go out unescorted.”

  “We are not longhouses and savages in England.”

  “You are behaving like a savage, Lord Anthony. And where is your guard?”

  “I left without one in a hurry to find you.”

  “Here take a candy cane.”

  “I don’t want one,” he shouted. The dog lifted its head, looked at Anthony and ran.

  “Now look what you’ve done. You’ve scared off my dog.”

  “Good…why have you ordered the blacksmith to—”

  “I didn’t.”

  “He said you did.”

  “The Duke ordered it.”

  “My father?”

  “He’s the Duke, isn’t he?”

  He’d bite off his tongue before he’d admit to her deliberate attempt to run circles around him. “Get in my carriage before you get wet.” He handed her up, followed, and then, clapped the door shut.

  “Who is the driver? He looks kind of rough,” said Rachel.

  Anthony pounded a fist on the carriage to signal the driver. The sooner he got this dispute over with and Rachel back in his lab the better. “The devil I know. Thompson must be out sick. He’s the replacement. Quit changing the subject. I have to get my project done and that stubborn blacksmith won’t do mine until yours is done.”

  “There was a strange man in the village. He had that coal dust in the lung kind of cough, the same kind we heard before the flower pot fell on us. He asked questions about your family. Are you sure you don’t want a candy cane?”

  She wasn’t paying attention to one word he said, her head out the window, the mangy dog racing alongside, snapping at the wheels. He rubbed the back of his neck. “I don’t want a candy cane. I want—”

  “Stop the carriage,” she hailed the driver.

  “You’re not bringing that filthy mutt in the carriage.”

  With a mutinous glare, she popped open the door and the dog hopped in, yapping, tail-up and nose-dived straight into her lap.

  Anthony’s nostrils flared. Lavender and Lemon balm mixed with London sewer. “I can’t believe it. You allowed that mutt in here against my orders. Out with him.”

  “Never.” She clutched the mud-packed, black beast to her chest mindless of soiling her gown.

  He jabbed a finger midair, pointing at her. “My father will not allow him in the house. And I don’t want to see the mongrel anywhere near my lab.”

  “He’s hungry and I’m going to care for him.”

  “You’ll have to house him in the stables. I’m allergic to dogs.”

  She smirked with that sure you are look.

  Anthony twisted his mouth with derision. She had promised all of England he’d produce something brilliant. “You are wasting my time. Worthless, useless creature.” The dog licked her beautiful hand.

  “He’s very nice. Once he has a bath”

  The horses picked up speed as they left the cobbled road of the village and galloped through the rutted, rain-soaked road. Anthony seized the strap for balance. To think she had gone into town unescorted. Didn’t she have any regard for her safety? Disasters gripped his mind. She could have been attacked by highwaymen and been ravaged. Her body left for wild animals. “About the blacksmith…”

  “What about him?”

  “Stop it. I need him to make copper discs and strands.” She could have broken her neck. He wouldn’t have been there to save her.

  The crack of the driver’s whip snapped. The horses whickered. The harnesses clanged. The countryside blurred. What was happening to him?

  “I don’t like your tone and there’s nothing to do about it.”

  Something shattered inside him, driving him beyond rational thought. “You are as useless as that dog. No one would want you.”

  Her head jerked up. The color drained from her face. “I would not want them anyway.”

  You fool, he told himself savagely, but the past that tracked him like an ugly shadow came roaring down. He grabbed the sides of his head. No.

  “An accident,” the gamekeeper said quietly. “Unseated. When Celeste fell…broke—”

  “Get a doctor,” Anthony said gruffly.

  “Anthony, it’s no use,” his father said.

  “Damn you, get a doctor or I’ll—”

  “Her neck was broken by the f
all.”

  “No—”

  “Anthony, she’s dead…”

  Rachel burst out crying. The dog howled in chorus and she buried her beautiful face in her hands. “Everyone talks behind my back. Do you know how that feels?” Despair leapt from her so profound…she sobbed, her diatribe never ending, but becoming high-pitched, hysterical sputtering of all the wrongs incurred on her and none of which made any sense to Anthony.

  His mind clawed for logic. To escape the lunacy that controlled him. He took deep breaths. The fog cleared.

  What a brute he’d been. More than a brute. He’d been cruel.

  Rachel needed him. Now.

  With certainty, self-pity was an impulse, Rachel seldom tolerated, her New England upbringing forbidding it. Whatever her history was, it had a profound effect on her.

  Loud, soulful, hiccupping anguish. “I-I was nearly defiled.”

  Chapter Eleven

  Nearly defiled? He’d kill the bastard who had dared to touch her.

  What a selfish wretch he’d been, thinking of himself when Rachel grieved her own torment.

  “You don’t know how to love, Anthony,” Celeste taunted. “You only love your isolation.”

  The inside of the carriage grew small and suffocating. He rubbed the back of his neck, debating alternatives. Nothing had prepared him for a crying woman. Not just any crying woman, but Rachel. Postulates, theorems, hypotheses, all his old tools left him. He shifted to her side and took her in his arms, allowing a powerful inclination to comfort her as the most natural thing to do. She struggled to break free but he held her tight until she collapsed against him, still sobbing, her head bowed, her body slumped and wetting his shirt with her tears.

  How petrifying her secret must have been. How brave she was to tell him.

  The rest of the world disappeared with the horror of isolation that taunted him, that constant companion of emptiness. Why did he refuse to push away from Rachel like he had with Celeste?