Honour's Redemption

by Joan Vincent

  “If I know the enemy I can thwart—stop him. Or have a better chance of doing it,” he admitted ruefully.

  “Ye were a soldier?”

  “Cavalry.”

  “Those as helps the preventive men?”

  The rise in her voice and the added colour in her cheeks told Lucian much. “I prefer French brandy myself,” he told her. “I have no care to know anything about, much less harm free traders—smugglers—whatever they are called in this area. But,” he strode toward the old woman very much the cavalry man. “I need to know who wants the Claytons out of this house.”

  “I’m stayin’ and helpin’ ‘em ta save me soul but not to lose me life,” Sairy Jane said giving no ground. “Mightn’ be owlers. Mightn’ not.”

  “The men who attacked me?”

  “Strangers so as those who saw ‘em take ye from the Wise Owl say,” she said.

  “The Wise Owl?”

  Sairy Jane wiped her hands on her apron as if wiping responsibility for what might happen off her soul. “The pub near the River Esk’n the harbour.”

  “Who might I speak with there?”

  “Missus Jenkinson handles it since her husband were kill’t.”

  “Murdered?”

  “There’s some as—” she shrugged.

  “Say so,” Lucian finished for her. He saw Jemmy jerk to a halt just inside the kitchen door. Lucian took one of the old woman’s work worn hands in his. “Thank you for a fine breakfast, Miss Sairy Jane,” he said and raised it to his lips. He contained a smile at her bemused look and turned to the boy.

  “Master Jemmy, lead on.” Lucian followed, relieved that he had not yet had to face his Hecate.

  * * *

  Whitby

  Half way back to the tavern, Geary saw a small gig pulled by a tidy mare. It did not take a second look to know that Peace was holding the reins. He drew his gelding to a halt and waited for her.

  When she came abreast Geary swept off his hat with a flourish. “Good day, Mistress Jenkinson. May I join you?”

  “It would not be very comfortable,” Peace said with a gesture to the parcels beside her. “You must have more important matters to attend.”

  “No one is as important to me as you are,” Geary purred. The colour that flooded Peace’s cheeks filled him with a rare pleasure. How lovely the fragile rose; no thorn doth mar her splendour. But thorns must be concealed beneath that beauty or else she would not have survived. What does she hide from me? The thought straightened Geary in the saddle.

  “I hear the Claytons are staying at St. Cedds,” he said. “Including the stranger they picked up along the roadway. Merristorm by name.”

  “How do you know—” Peace stopped speaking abruptly.

  “I jestingly told the men his death would make the third. Who better than a stranger to complete the superstition that death comes in threes.”

  “You know him.”

  Beneath Peace’s certainty Geary did not bother to deny it. “Of him. I must learn his purpose in coming to Whitby. He has been known to deal with . . . undesirable factions.”

  “He is a traitor?”

  “That is what I wish to learn. If he is, we must tread carefully not to arouse his suspicion or that of those who sent him.”

  “Yes, I see.” Peace stared straight ahead.

  He sidled his horse close and held his hand down, palm up. When Peace laid her own in it, Geary turned it and raised it to his lips. He let his lips linger on the soft warm underside of her wrist, flicked his tongue lightly against it. Her pulse leaped. His groin tightened on the instant.

  With extreme difficulty, Geary released Peace’s hand with exquisite care. He feared his eyes would give him away, so strong was the surge of desire. Pulling his brim low in a feigned salute, he rode away.

  Peace tucked her wrist, moist from his kiss, against her pounding heart. She wet her lips and swallowed. If he had not ridden on she feared she would have leapt into his arms.

  Chapter Fourteen

  St. Cedds Vicarage October 19th Evening

  Certain someone watched him, Lucian did not move while he assessed where he was. He listened intently. A creak of a chair gave him no clue where he was. Another creak. Close. As if someone shifted in a chair. Then he realized he was in a bed.

  A melange of odours filled Lucian’s senses. Dust and polishing wax, fresh linen and stale sweat. Amidst the layers he thought there was a gentle sweetness, a hint of lily of the valley. With it came the memory of a face flicked with freckles, a riot of lush autumn curls and green eyes that bore into his soul.

  His body recalled the fit of her soft curves against his lean angles. Whitby. He was in a house outside Whitby. Lucian opened his eyes, blinked in surprise to find the room lit by candlelight. The window pane on the opposite wall glinted against the dark night.

  Lucian focused on the vicar seated beside the bed. Oddly the old man gazed at him but did not appear to see him.

  “Vicar?” Lucian started to turn on to his side. He mutely grunted at the protest of sore and stiff muscles. They reminded him of the beating about which the boy had told him, the one he didn’t even remember.

  The old man, he realized, stared with empty eyes. Slowly sitting up, Lucian swung his feet over the side of the bed and faced him. “Mr. Clayton?”

  A thousand questions hammered at Lucian but something told him it would be fruitless to ask even one. The scene of their first meeting flashed through his mind. He leaned his forearms on his knees. “Filia,” he said softly.

  Something stirred in the depths of Sampson’s eyes.

  Lucian continued in Greek, “For without friends no one would choose to live, though he had all other goods.”

  Sampson stirred, looked downward.

  After some difficulty Lucian sorted out the words he wanted from a past he thought forgotten and asked in Greek, “Were you friends with my father at university?”

  After a very long time the white-thatched head rose. The vicar’s eyes glimmered with sympathy.

  “But I say unto you, Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you; That ye may be the children of your Father which is in heaven: for he maketh his sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust.”

  This from the man who had broached the past Lucian took for insult. He sat upright as if struck. His mind whirled at which of the many possible interpretations Clayton intended with the quote. Then anger billowed back but something in the old man’s eyes restrained the urge to strike out both physically and verbally.

  “Who is my enemy?” he asked instead

  “You,” Sampson said sadly. A faint smile gentled his mouth. “It is the same for everyone.”

  “You knew my father?”

  Certainty wavered; confusion surged.

  “Stranton Merristorm,” Lucian supplied.

  The vicar looked at him with doubt that changed to confusion. “You are . . . the son . . . not the father?”

  Lucian nodded.

  “Ahh,” Sampson sighed, looked upwards, and after a slight shake of his head met the young man’s intense gaze. “Such waste. Both of you. Ask him what happened.”

  With an inward wince Lucian clamped his teeth to hold back the refutation champing for voice.

  “Did you never ask him?” Sampson asked softly.

  Lucian knew at once what he meant. “I saw it,” he ground out bitterly.

  “‘Seeing’ cured Thomas’ doubts but we mortal men have no divine sight. We oft see only what we want.”

  “Why I should forgive my . . . enemy—my father?” spat Lucian.

  Sampson shook his head. “You cannot. Not unless you forgive yourself.”

  “What do you know of it?” Lucian held his gaze on the old man’s, watched the eye’s narrow. Behind them he could almost see frantic fingers searching through the vicar’s mind.

  “Gilchrist,” Sampson b
egan and stopped. “No, you are Gilchrist,” he said as if to himself. “Halstrom,” the vicar corrected, “came to see Blanchard when I happened to be visiting the college. How greatly altered he was.” The vicar shook his head, his thoughts in the past.

  Lucian interrupted impatiently. “When was this?”

  “I do not recall—many years ago I think. He said he searched for you. Desperate indeed, he was to come to Blanchard to seek a clue where to look.

  “There was great antagonism there, you see. I believe it was greatly deepened by Halstrom’s belief that Blanchard had stolen the love his son owed to him.”

  Lucian barely managed to stay sitting at that. He refused to consider it. “What else do you believe?” he sneered.

  “Why did you flee?”

  “I could not kill my father,” Lucian whispered.

  “You must ask him what happened,” the vicar said reaching out to him.

  Lucian shrugged away from Sampson’s hand, from the compassion in the man’s eyes. His throat constricted. Tears welled despite the anger he tried to muster. Surging upright he paced to the door, stared at it for he knew not how long and then turned.

  “You were a very young man,” Sampson said tiredly.

  “I know what I was,” Lucian half shouted. “I know what he was. What he is.” Anger blazing he stalked to the old man and jerked him up and out of the chair. Even as he gazed into the Sampson’s eyes fear welled. They went blank, lifeless.

  Self-disgust filled Lucian. He carefully lowered the sagging body into the chair and released him just as Ruth burst into the chamber.

  “He is unharmed,” Lucian said before she could speak. He stepped back from the vicar; watched as she hurried to him and knelt before her father.

  Jealousy streaked through Lucian, then took a breathtakingly unexpected turn. This is how a child should love a father. How he must have treated her as she grew. My father always seemed to expect the opposite, saw dislike where it was not. Startled, he swallowed, swerved away from this new insight.

  “May I help you take him to his chamber?”

  Ruth neither answered nor looked at him as she stroked her father’s cheek.

  “Is this his chamber?”

  She shook her head and slowly stood. “You may help him if he is not frightened by you.”

  “I did not—” Lucian began and then pressed his lips into a tight thin impenetrable line.

  They stared at one another; neither gave ground.

  “Ruth?” Sampson asked shakily. He looked from his stiff daughter to the taut young man.

  “Sir, my legs appear not to want to support me. If you would give me a hand?”

  Lucian sprang forward and helped the vicar to his feet.

  The gentleness of his actions soothed Ruth as did the calm in her father’s eyes. “Follow me,” she said.

  Lucian slowed his steps to match the old man’s shuffling. By the time they reached the vicar’s bedchamber Lucian had mentally sifted through everything he could remember. The strange shifts in comprehension from past to present, to none at all were from no disease he knew. “May I help you to bed, sir?” he asked, and was surprised when the old man agreed.

  He glanced at Ruth and puzzled at the displeasure that appeared in her eyes. Surely she would be pleased to be free of the task for once? The full realization of what she faced chilled Lucian.

  “I will see to your father,” he told her peremptorily and turned to his task. At her murmur of protest he thought of his Hecate and tensed for battle. But the door clicked shut and she was gone. Lucian sighed.

  Battle delayed. Bringing forward the twenty pounders no doubt, he thought. A grin teased at his lips.

  * * *

  Lucian walked out the door and halted short, just in time to avoid a collision with Ruth.

  “Is he asleep?” she asked.

  “I doubt if he is just yet,” Lucian replied quizzically. He watched her carry a chair to the door.

  “There is one inside if you wish to sit with him. I can do so if you think it necessary,” he offered.

  Colour rose across the cheek he could see. Lucian also noted that she clenched her jaw as she expertly tilted the chair and hitched it beneath the doorknob.

  “What—?”

  Ruth grabbed his arm and tugged him away from the door. “This is none of your concern. You need to open your heart and mind to the truth of what happened to you. God will direct you to the answers you need,” she said without looking at him. “I’ll say no more.”

  The tension in her jolted Lucian. What had wound her so tight?

  At the top of the stairs Ruth released him and snatched up the candle atop the flat rail post. With a finger to her lips she gestured sharply for him to follow her and then slipped quietly down the stairs.

  After a glance at his arm which still tingled from her touch, Lucian followed. Only then did he notice the chill that filled the house and that his boots had once again been removed. He halted in mid-stair.

  I shaved and bathed. Helped unload the cart. Lucian grimaced. Boxes carried to one room and then found wrongly placed and carried to another. It was almost as if Ruth had incorrectly directed him on purpose.

  Then what? We ate. I tried to eat, Lucian corrected. The shaking had gotten worse by then. Jemmy saved me. Tucked me in like a lamb.

  “Damme.” He redirected the anger that rose at his present circumstance and his incomplete understanding of it at Ruth Clayton. Fuming he strode down the stairs and into the kitchen.

  In counterpoint to his glare Ruth plopped a cloth covered plate on the table. “Sairy Jane,” she emphasized to make clear she disagreed with the accommodation, “thought you would be hungry when you awoke.” With barely contained anger she flicked off the cloth, took hold of two corners, and snapped it before folding it. “A waste of good food.”

  The tantalizing odour of freshly baked bread and stewed chicken snaked through Lucian’s anger. He gazed at Ruth, stiff and primed like a cannon. “A last meal before execution?”

  “You would prefer a bottle of brandy,” she said, sarcasm thinly veiled. “Or two.”

  Lucian considered this; begrudged that his incoherence of the past days gave cause for the comment. He flinched. They had no more protection this eve than last except that he could actually stand on his own two feet and see to aim the blunderbuss. He looked around and saw it by the door.

  Following his gaze, Ruth put her arms akimbo. “Sairy Jane primed and loaded it.”

  He met her gaze. Something indefinable arced between them. It struck him like a thunderbolt that she was tinder to his flint. Lucian abruptly sat at the table. “Where’s the old woman?”

  “Eat,” Ruth said with a jerk of her hand. She grimaced and sighed. “She went to visit her granddaughter,” Ruth said and turned back to the stove.

  Lucian ate, hardly tasting the chicken stew. Too aware of Ruth’s quiet agitation he wolfed down the last. Thunking down the spoon he turned to her.

  Ruth halted.

  “Why—” both began.

  Lucian nodded for Ruth to speak first. He watched her anger waver, saw her worry her upper lip with her lower teeth, and went stone hard with desire. Then he noticed her quiver. He said gently, “I’m hardly likely to eat you.” But knew it was a lie.

  “Father can’t help it,” Ruth blurted, her eyes on the floor. “It will do you no good to get angry with him,” she looked up, a defiant she-cat. “It is not pretence that he does not remember things.”

  “I was not going to hurt him,” Lucian said quietly.

  “He was not always like this.” Ruth’s gaze went to the window.

  To the past, thought Lucian.

  “He is a good man.”

  “But his condition worsens,” he guessed.

  Ruth flexed her jaw. “He has good days.”

  “But you lock him in at night.”

  “To save him from harming himself.” A fierce protectiveness gleamed in Ruth’s eyes.

  That he e
nvied Sampson Clayton hit Lucian like a blow. “What do you want of me?” he snapped.

  Ruth looked at him, startled that he should broach it in such a manner. That she wanted more than she could ever admit only made it worse.

  “You must want something. After all, I was not put to bed in that shambles of a stable with that damnable excuse of a horse.”

  “It is your horse, Mr. Merristorm,” Ruth snapped.

  “Mine,” he scoffed.

  Ruth clasped her arms about her. “Purchased with your funds.”

  “Ahh, yes. My funds.”

  Ruth attempted to sneer. “Likely won gaming.”

  Lade and Thornley, a stack of notes on the table flashed before his eyes. Ruth’s swift lowering of arms and clenched fists jerked him back to the present. Lucian summoned a wicked grin. “But still mine, until I was relieved of it.”

  “A vicar’s daughter who breaks the eighth commandment. Hmm.” He rose. “What other sins have you taken to heart, I wonder,” Lucian purred strolling towards her.

  Ruth backed away hurriedly. “I did not steal. I only meant to keep your funds safe. You were in no condition to–”

  “Use it as you willed,” Lucian interrupt advancing relentlessly.

  Halted when her back thumped against the wall just short of the door, Ruth put out her hands.

  Lucian stopped when they lightly touched his chest. Desire surged through him. He leaned into them for better contact.

  Where’s a glowing creature when you need one? Ruth thought wildly.

  “What do you want of me?” breathed Lucian.

  His warm breath brushed Ruth’s cheek. She shrank back against the wall.

  Her eyes gave him answer but he waited, reluctant to unleash his lust.

  She drew her hands back and crossed them over her breasts. “Nothing,” she managed.

  “The freetraders may bloody well kill Jemmy next time,” he said, hardly aware her pose fed his anger.

  “Is that who—” Ruth gasped with understanding. “But how could they? It was so large. It glowed.”