An Eternity of You

by Sophia Garrett

  He rose, gave her a cordial bow, and ambled beyond the tapestry. Rebecca followed. Ducking her head outside, she called, “Oscar, I will see you now.”

  Chapter Four

  “A list of instructions?” Andrew’s voice boomed down the hall. In the bed, Alice cringed away. “She sent a list of instructions?” If that didn’t mark the epitome of rudeness! What was the matter with that woman?

  “Daddy, don’t be mad,” Alice coaxed.

  “I’m sorry, Alice. But you need to see the surgeon. How does she know what to give you, if she hasn’t seen you directly?”

  Fortescue shuffled back into the open doorway. “Your Grace, she had many patients.”

  “I respect that.” Andrew crumpled Rebecca’s handwritten note in a fist. “It does not explain why she did not set a proper appointment for this afternoon.”

  “Perhaps she anticipates more to come,” Fortescue offered apologetically. “Before I left, the men in her entry were speaking of the mill wheel collapsing. The women escaped harm, but the men who tended the wheel suffered injuries.”

  The mill wheel. Andrew stilled. All anger toward Rebecca drained away, replaced by a greater fury. Landess should have repaired the damned wheel! Andrew squinted at Fortescue. “You mean to tell me the patients she was tending are my responsibility?”

  Fortescue didn’t answer, but the way his gaze shifted to the ground answered all Andrew needed to hear. He flung the crumpled note across the room with all the strength he could muster. “Damnation! I do not need this now. It is Christmastime. Pray tell I do not have women who are now widows?”

  “I do not know, Your Grace.”

  Very well—that sealed it. He would take Alice to Rebecca, and while she was being examined, he would learn the details from Rebecca’s patients. For once, he did not want to be the last to know about the state of his properties. Nor did he trust what physical damage he might bring to Mr. Landess, should he be the one to supply the facts.

  He refused to acknowledge the small voice that accused him of merely wanting to see Rebecca.

  Andrew bent over the bed and scooped his daughter into his arms.

  “Where are we going, Daddy?”

  “To Miss Rebecca’s. I want her to look you over.”

  She wrapped her little arms around his neck. “Is it very far?”

  “Just down the lane.”

  He tucked her securely against his chest and stepped around Fortescue.

  “Wait for me in the entry, Your Grace,” the old man instructed. “I will bring the carriage around. It would appear Reginald is otherwise engaged.”

  Wonderful. Four days in their new home and his driver was already making rounds through the town. He could not pick a worse time to cavort and indulge.

  Sighing, Andrew shook his head. “No, you will not. You’ve done enough lately. I can’t have you falling ill as well. I’ll drive Alice myself.”

  “But, Your Grace, it isn’t seemly—”

  Marching toward the stairs, Andrew replied, “We are no longer in Sussex or London, Fortescue. We are home. If I wish to drive my carriage to my village then I shall. Besides, I have no one else to ask. The footman isn’t old enough to handle the coach.”

  If driving Alice down the lane afforded him a bit of time in Rebecca’s company, so be it. Perhaps he could discover what caused her father’s demise and where her brother was living now. Stephen had always possessed keen sense about manufacturing, and he wanted to hear Stephen’s thoughts on expanding the mill. Or perhaps building a new one. In addition, Stephen would not hesitate to share the true state of affairs throughout the village. His assessment could be trusted, unlike Mr. Landess’s.

  Mulling over the possibilities, discounting the acceleration of his heart at the prospect of seeing Rebecca—as he had been doing for so many uncountable years—he deposited Alice in the front parlor and slipped outdoors to the small stable.

  When he had fastened the harnesses on the horse and hitched it to the carriage, he drove to the front of the house and returned inside for Alice. Andrew helped her into her coat, leaving her bound arm out and affixing the heavy wool about her neck with a brooch of her mother’s. He smoothed her curls best as he could, fastened a fur-lined bonnet over them, then carried her outdoors and gently set her inside the carriage.

  The ride passed quickly, though every hoof beat closer to the Rycroft home made his pulse jump harder. He could no longer discount it; he ached to see Rebecca’s smile. A flash of his secret fantasy burst through his head. The vivid image of how it might feel to take her in his arms and claim her mouth with full freedom warmed him against the frigid air biting across his cheeks. He had never forgotten those amazing dreams during his bout with typhus. They evoked such genuine feeling he doubted he ever would.

  If only he had been brave enough to steal one kiss.

  No. He shook his head. Doing so would have damned him to an eternity of misery. She would have hated him for breaching their barrier of friendship. Never mind that the longing he knew now would be nothing compared to the yearning to know more than one sweet encounter with her heavenly mouth.

  He would have never been able to let her go. Precisely why he had fled, intending never to return, so he would never be tempted to take advantage of the affection that shone in her eyes and draw her into his bed. She was far too respectable to be anyone’s mistress, no matter how much he might want her.

  He halted the horses in her drive, shock rolling through his system. Her house waited at the end of the packed ground. But where his memory created a stately, if small, abode with neatly painted windowsills and two proud chimneys, the vision before him did not match. The building was the same, and yet so very different. What had been manicured bushes were now overgrown and unkempt. The cob and thatch roof sagged on the northernmost corner, telltale stains of accumulated water rolling down the masonry. The western chimney was as erect as the eastern, but its stovetop-like vent was missing.

  “Good God,” Andrew whispered under his breath. What had happened to Isaac Rycroft’s home?

  Slowly, he eased the horse toward the hitching post, entranced by the drastic difference in his surroundings. A handful of years had changed this quaint corner into something he wasn’t certain he would recognize if he hadn’t driven here himself. Isaac’s sign still hung over the front entry, but the grass he had been so proud of was now reduced to dried clumps of mud. No trace of his cherished flowers beneath each glistening window remained. The glass panes themselves were smeared with dirt.

  Why, oh why, had he refused to read Landess’s correspondence and trusted that man so blindly? He should have been paying attention. Perhaps he might have heard of Rebecca’s distress earlier. Done…something.

  She deserved far better than this. Stephen, as well. And Isaac must be turning in his grave.

  Andrew halted the horse and climbed down from the seat, his heart as heavy as a bucket of coal. Where was Isaac’s marble statue of a lion? For as long as Andrew could remember, it stood watch over the front door. He fanned the snowflakes off his cheeks and opened the door for Alice. “Come along, angel. I’ll carry you so your feet don’t get wet.” And her slippers wouldn’t be slathered in mud.

  Not that she would particularly mind.

  As he lifted his foot to mount the front step, a chicken scurried in front of him. He stopped and stared, stunned to the core of his being. Chickens at the Rycroft home—Isaac had considered it the epitome of poverty to keep chickens in one’s yard. Keeping them meant butchering them, as opposed to purchasing fresh meat at the market.

  This was one more impenetrable stain upon Andrew’s hands.

  Voices droned from within, the casual conversation of men gathered together. Andrew eased the unlatched door open with his elbow and ducked inside. Talk stopped abruptly. The three men seated in the front room stared, mouths hardened into unbending lines, as he entered. Hatred burned in their eyes.

  “Good day, good sirs,” Andrew murmured.

&
nbsp; Silence answered.

  This was the truth he had desired to hear from Stephen—his entire village hated him.

  Self-conscious, he tucked Alice protectively against his chest and lowered himself into a wooden chair. Her fever had lessened, and his worry for her health had eased. But with the men’s blatant hostility, he cradled her close, shielding her from the malevolent eyes across the narrow divide. Perhaps he had made the wrong decision in bringing her to Sharrington.

  No. He owed it to these people to fix the wrongs he had inadvertently committed by ignoring his father’s incapacities. For a while yet, their lives might be uncomfortable. But once he had proved himself to his tenants and brought Sharrington back to the prosperity it knew before his father’s health failed and Landess assumed full control, things would change. He refused to believe otherwise.

  He forced a smile to his face and tried for conversation again. “Was anyone grievously injured this morning?”

  The three men looked to each other, their expressions hard and unforgiving, then faced forward without a sound. Their stares locked on the wall behind him.

  Another duke would have taken offense by their rudeness, but Andrew refused to let their cold demeanors stir his ire. They faulted him for the disrepair of the mill wheel. Frankly, he could not blame them. He lapsed into silence. Now was not the time; the accident was still too fresh in their minds. He would find another way to express his regrets over their injuries.

  Time ticked by as if the entire house had been buried beneath heavy sands. Occasionally, he caught the sound of Rebecca’s voice drifting from behind the heavy violet tapestry—which had once been the front room’s deep burgundy rug—and his heart skipped. But otherwise, deafening silence filled his ears. Not even Alice dared to break it.

  A door opened to Andrew’s left. Immediately after, a red-painted wooden train rolled into the room. Serving as its caboose, a small boy, not much older than Alice judging by his size, dashed in. He skidded to an abrupt halt as his gaze fell on Andrew.

  Alice pushed off Andrew’s constricted chest to curiously study the boy.

  His chestnut hair identically matched Rebecca’s, and the sight of it shoved a fistful of regret into Andrew’s gut. She had a child. Another man had claimed what Andrew had so desperately wanted for himself. Unable to stop his gut reaction, he tightened his arms around Alice.

  “Daddy, you’re squashing me.” She shoved at his arms.

  Swallowing hard, he ordered himself to let go. No matter how he tried, he couldn’t work an apology through his throat.

  The boy sauntered over, no longer staring at Andrew, but at Alice. After a moment, he gave in to a broad grin. “Your curls are pretty. Do you like trains? Would you like to play with mine?”

  Suddenly sullen, Alice’s bottom lip protruded in a pout. As best she could manage with her bandaged arm, she folded her arms across her chest. “I can’t. I have cholera.”

  “Alice,” Andrew hurried to reprimand before the men could become concerned. “You do not have cholera.”

  She cast him a wary look. “Can I play then?”

  He intended to grant her request. But in that instant, the boy glanced at him expectantly, and his green eyes locked with Andrew’s. Gold-flecked, moss-green eyes that were remarkably like Andrew’s mother’s. Not to mention his own.

  No. It couldn’t be.

  Like a cannon blast, an image of the last night Rebecca had tended him ricocheted through his mind. He felt the satin of her skin against his lips. Her quiet moan of pleasure filled his head.

  But it had just been a dream. Not ten seconds later he had been hunting unicorns in King Arthur’s forest.

  “Daddy,” Alice demanded with growing impatience. “May I play?”

  He was spared from having to find his tongue by the lifting of the tapestry. Rebecca entered, her attention on a wad of clean rags in her hand. “Mr. Hemshaw, I’m ready—”

  She glanced up, right at Andrew. Her gaze skipped to the boy, then narrowed on Andrew. “Your Grace.” Frost filled her voice.

  “Miss Rycroft,” he managed to collect himself enough to answer. “I hoped you would see Alice.”

  If it were possible, her gaze narrowed even more. “And I suppose you expect me to see you now. Very well then. Bring her in.”

  “No.” Andrew indicated the men across the small room. “I will wait my turn. Spare these men nothing, Rebecca. I will cover their needs.”

  Brief surprise flitted across her expression, and her mouth rounded into a small o, as if his response had been the last one she expected. She gave him a courtesy nod and motioned to a man with a blood-stained rag wrapped around his forearm. “Mr. Hemshaw, this way, please.”

  Andrew’s focus shifted once more to the boy. He released Alice, and she slid from his lap. “Don’t jar your arm, Alice.”

  “I won’t, Daddy.” She didn’t even look at him as she dropped to her knees and caught the train the boy pushed in her direction.

  “Mother said you broke your arm,” he gushed excitedly. “You were climbing that tree, weren’t you? I did the same when I was four. Did you know there are tadpoles in the stream in the springtime?”

  Something deep inside Andrew shifted as the little boy tugged at his earlobe. His mother’s voice droned in his head, sharp and commanding. Andrew, stop that. It is monstrously distracting.

  It was a bit distracting, but it was also the most troubling habit Andrew had ever witnessed.

  Dear God above, was this why Rebecca hated him so?

  He shook his head to clear his mind. No, he was only being wistful. Reading more into things than could possibly be true. Projecting what he wanted more than anything onto a boy he would so like to have been his.

  Chapter Five

  The more time required to see to her patients’ needs, the more Rebecca’s nerves frayed. Anger and resentment vied for control over the shameful hope that Andrew might recognize his child…and want him. Want them both. Yet she knew, deep within her soul, if that had been a possibility, Andrew would have never left for Sussex and the London season. He would have stayed, as he had promised that long ago night.

  He would have answered one of the letters she’d sent.

  He would have cared before now.

  She summoned a smile that trembled across her mouth as Mr. Wilkins collected his hat and fished a groat’s worth of coins from his pocket. He dropped them into her shaking hand. “I ain’t got but this, today, Rebecca. When me shoulder’s healed, though, I’ve some seeds I kin sow. Right fine corn. Nice an’ sweet. Kin’t put ‘em in the ground till spring, but I’ll come back then, too.”

  Rebecca’s smile faltered even more. The man had seven children, only one of whom was of working age. He needed these shillings far more than she. And yet, if she suggested such, she would offend him horribly. On the verge of tears, she nodded, her throat too tight to form a response. Mr. Wilkins always paid his debts.

  “I say, miss, if you don’t mind me doin’ so…” His face flushed red, and he hastily dropped his gaze to his worn and tattered boots. “That roof of yours ain’t so good. Me wife’s brother, he’s a right fine thatcher, he is. Lives just the far side of town. Might I talk to him on your behalf?”

  It was all she could do to choke down her tears before she turned into a weepy mess. She cleared her throat. “Yes.” Blinking, she nodded. “Thank you. Tell him I will pay.” Somehow. She would pay him somehow. She was not reduced to hand-outs yet.

  He crumpled the brim of his hat in his scarred hands and gave another awkward nod. “I’ll be seein’ you then. The Duke be waitin’.” He let out a soft snort, and as he ducked beneath the tapestry, he muttered, “Arrogant bastard.”

  His insult gave Rebecca a good dose of sense. Her emotions sorted themselves out, leaving her gaining strength from anger. No one wanted Andrew here. He could have shown concern long before his father passed. Now, his presence was like a slap in the face, and his offer to pay their debts only rankled their pride.
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  Before she could clean up her supplies and ready the room for Alice, a breeze stirred behind her. Goosebumps pricked her nape as the scent of rich, earthy amber teased her nose. Her heart seized painfully. Poised over her work shelf, she bowed her head to steel herself against unwanted yearning. She drew on her resolve until her heart stopped knocking and she felt like she could face Andrew without falling to pieces.

  She turned, deliberately avoiding looking at his handsome face and focusing on Alice, who stood at his side, her hand tucked into his much larger palm. “Not feeling so well today, Alice?”

  “I feel fine now.”

  Rebecca bent her knees to bring herself eye-level with the little girl and motioned her closer. She came hesitantly. When she stood before Rebecca, Rebecca felt her forehead. “Not too hot. How is your arm?”

  “Mostly fine.” She lifted the bulky bandage. “It only hurts if I forget and try to lean on it.”

  A faint smile pulled at Rebecca’s lips. “As it should. It’s quite normal to have a fever after you’ve broken a bone. If it’s not high, you’ll be fine.”

  Andrew took one step deeper into the small room. Only a foot or so, and yet he seemed to fill it, snatching up what remained of the breathable air. “She could not keep down water this morning.”

  Do not look at him. Do not cave.

  Her gaze lifted to the eyes that identically matched Thomas’s, anyway. “Too much wine will do that to a person. Especially a child.”

  His blink said he had not considered the obvious. “Oh.”

  It was a glorious feeling to render him speechless. Rebecca tucked away a self-satisfied grin and straightened. “Follow the instructions I sent along with Fortescue, and she will recover nicely.”

  He looked to his daughter, concern etched into the tight lines on his face. “She’s not suffering infection?”

  Lord, but his worry was touching.