Rand admitted to himself that the woman obviously loved her children and that the boy’s broken arm alone gave her reason enough to take her children away. He couldn’t dismiss the thought that there must have been more, much more, abuse.
Chapter 9
Meggy managed to avoid him well enough given the size of the house and Rand’s own contrary nature. He might have avoided her completely—he had plenty to do outside—but having her in his house drew him inside more than he liked.
“She’s still feverish,” he announced after the third time he went in to check on Lena. He had found her brother at her side telling stories.
“A bear and a rabbit? Not likely friends,” Rand told them.
“It’s a story, Mr. Wheatly. Mama says we can make up anything we like in stories,” the girl replied with a faint smile. Purple splotches under her eyes, stark against pale skin, testified to the hold the illness had on her.
“Hmm. I don’t suppose there’s any reason why not,” he agreed. “I wonder what the world would be like if a big old bear could be gentle with a rabbit.”
“A better one for certain,” Drew said.
Rand laughed at that, ruffled the boy’s hair, and went down to the kitchen to inform their mother how he left the girl. He found her stepping up on a stool to reach a crockery bowl.
“She’s still too warm,” he said without preamble. The interruption made Meggy stumble down from her perch. His hand shot out to her waist. He steadied her, but his hand stayed at the curve above her hip a moment longer than it needed to.
“She’s better though,” Meggy said, going stiff at his touch.
He yanked his hand back. “Yes, quite. She enjoys her brother’s stories.” He reached above her head and pulled down the crock. When he brushed against her back, she blushed scarlet.
He held the bowl between them. “Is this what you wanted?”
She took it from him and set it on the table. She didn’t meet his eyes. “I thought to bake a bigger batch of bread today. You eat it faster than I’m making it.”
He bristled but didn’t say what he thought: I won’t be chastised for eating my own food!
“I came to talk to you about Drew,” he said.
She glanced up at that, a hint of fear in her stance. “What has he done?”
“Nothing. I need his help, that’s all. Can Lena be left alone if you’re down here baking?”
She nodded. “She is, as I said, better. I can check on her.”
“Good. I’ll go tell him.”
He hitched his horse to a weathered farm wagon and left with Drew by his side. The only words the boy had spoken to him since he came to his mother’s defense the night before had been his cryptic comment about the bear and rabbit story. He sat as far from Rand as he could in stiff silence. The boy’s obvious fear fed Rand’s guilt, but he didn’t know what to say to the child any more than he knew what to say to his mother.
“Where are we going?” Drew asked an hour later. If he were honest, Rand would have admitted the interruption relieved him. He had chewed on the intrusion into his house, the woman who perpetrated it, and regret over the impact of his behavior on his current companion. The realization of his own irrational anger set poorly with him, and the boy’s silence had begun to feed his guilt.
“You just now wondering?” he asked.
“No. Just now asking,” Drew replied with no sign of belligerence.
Rand ignored the question for several yards. “We’re fetching my animals.” He turned to see a leap of joy in the boy’s face.
“What animals?” Drew breathed.
“You’ll see. A farmer up the way keeps them for me when I’m gone.”
Drew gestured to the horse. “What’s his name?”
“Algernon,” Rand told him.
The boy wrinkled up his face. “Funny name for a horse.”
“He isn’t a war horse. He’s slow but dependable.” Rand remembered the old gatekeeper at Cambridge, whose name he borrowed, with a smile. Slow but dependable.
It seemed to satisfy. They went on without further conversation. Usually the road, rutted though it was and muddy though it could be, gave Rand pleasure from the trees that lined it and the birds he could see flitting among them. Today he had only his unhappy thoughts until the farm came into view.
Once they reached their destination, the chaotic process of loading his livestock in the wagon scattered his disordered feelings.
Rand watched Drew tie an unpredictable goat to the wagon and coax three sluggish sheep up to mill next to the pregnant mother sow. I didn’t mistake it. This one likes animals, even the stinky sheep.
Drew held the sheep back in the wagon bed while Rand closed the tailgate and secured it. The boy didn’t shirk when Rand handed up six boxes of chickens, two to a box. Rand tied his milk cow next to the goat and climbed up to help Drew arrange the boxes among the nervous animals.
His helper stayed in the wagon bed while Rand paid the farmer and promised him two piglets in the spring, three if she had more than eight. He climbed up to the wagon seat and reached a hand back to Drew.
“It’s all right, sir. I can stay back here. I can keep them calm.”
“How about if you sit up here with me, but face back?” Drew did as Rand suggested. The wagon had a board seat with no back, and Drew dangled his legs between the pig and the largest sheep, his feet on a box of chickens. They pulled onto the road home, the man facing forward and the boy facing back, and bumped along in silence. Eventually Rand felt him scoot over gradually until he almost rested against Rand’s side. Rand smiled but kept his eyes forward.
He enjoyed the warmth of the little body next to his until a particularly sharp bump knocked them together and Drew’s broken left arm jarred against his knee. Drew pulled it forward and cradled it in his right. One of Rand’s puzzles surfaced to harry him.
“Hurts?”
“Not usually so much. I bumped it. Sorry.”
“How did you break it?”
Drew sat up straight, eyes locked on the distance behind the wagon.
Don’t set the boy up to lie, you fool. Tell him what you know.
“Your mother told me some of it. I just wanted to hear from you how it happened.” He let the silence go on a beat. “And why.”
He looked down and met the boy’s troubled eyes. Suddenly he needed to know. Accidents happen. All boys need discipline, even one as well behaved as this one appears to be. Sometimes accidents do happen. A frisson of pain rose on a memory. And some men delight in causing pain. Some do it for sport.
“You don’t have to talk about it if your mother told you not to.” Rand swallowed hard. He couldn’t make himself force the boy. She’s a runaway wife. If you’re going to be noble, you need to figure out what the woman is up to and what kind of trouble you’ve taken on.
He left the little one to his silence, however, and a full hour passed before he heard the words, so soft he almost missed them.
“He hit her again.”
Again? Rand held his breath and kept his mouth shut.
“I just wanted him to stop. I didn’t want Lena to cry. I didn’t want Mama hurt.” The boy’s voice grew louder with every sentence. “I had to try to stop him. I had to!” he shouted at last.
“Easy, Drew. What happened next?”
“He grabbed my arm and pulled it behind me. I heard it snap, and Mama screamed. He said, ‘See what you made me do? I had to hurt the boy.’”
“She made him do what? Hurt you?” The boy had said it, but Rand found the words hard to comprehend.
Drew nodded solemnly. “But it wasn’t her fault. It wasn’t. I told her.” Rand could hear the tears in his voice. He kept his eyes forward to give the boy privacy. “I kicked him, so I deserved it.”
It took Rand several minutes to formulate a response. “You know, Drew, a gentleman protects those he loves.”
“My papa isn’t a gentleman, He’s a sergeant.”
He sounds like the worst sort of vermin who doesn’t even deserve “sergeant.” Rand chose his words with care. “Perhaps not, but you are. It may not have been a wise decision to take on someone so much bigger than you, but you meant to protect her.”
No answer came from Drew. Rand judged he still carried a burden of guilt for provoking his father and probably for causing his mother to run. The worst sort of bully leaves his victim sick with guilt and humiliation. Rand knew that deep in his bones. Old familiar fury rose in his gut. God help me. I hope I never meet the bastard. I’d hang for what I’d do to him.
Chapter 10
Meggy leaned against the doorway and watched her son carry two more logs to the pile by the barn. He held them in his good arm and laid his splinted arm over the top to hold them steady. Rand didn’t pause in his work. He split log after log, just as he had every day since he returned with her son and a wagonload of livestock.
His lean form bent to the work with grace and power. He had none of Fergus’s muscled bulk, yet he radiated strength. Meggy watched avidly. She told herself there was no sin in admiring something beautiful. But she knew she should make her presence known.
What happened to the monster that aimed a gun at me? she wondered. The man she watched fiercely protected what was his—his land, his animals, his house—with passion, yet he cradled a shaggy cat with tenderness every evening. He confused her. When she asked him over breakfast why he kept sheep, the forest being the least likely wool-producing country she could think of, he replied that when he saw them at an auction they looked downright pathetic so he took them in.
“They earn their keep by keeping the grass in the clearing down,” he had said. A wiser man would eat them, Meggy thought and shook her head.
As if he heard his name in her thoughts, he glanced over and saw her. Under his intense gaze, Meggy felt heat rise up her neck to warm her cheeks. She tried to shake off the feeling, but she couldn’t deny her growing attraction.
This won’t do, Meggy. Keep your distance.
“Dinner is ready,” she called.
He spoke quietly to Drew, and her son trooped over with a smile.
“Thanks, Mama.”
“Isn’t Mr. Wheatly coming?” she asked.
“He said he would be in later.”
Just as he did the past three nights, keeping his distance as well. He had come in late after Meggy and the children went upstairs, ate alone, and retired with Cat to his study. Not tonight. Tonight I have to talk with him.
She crossed the yard and stopped a safe distance from the swinging axe. She waited until he completed his downward arc and began to pull the axe loose.
“Mr. Wheatly, I need to speak with you.”
He watched her warily. “Go ahead.”
“Here?”
“Why not?”
Tension drained from her body. “As you wish,” she sighed. “My week is up the day after tomorrow.”
His frown didn’t soften, and he didn’t speak.
“We need to discuss terms of repayment.”
He waved her words aside with one hand, picked up the axe, and raised it above his head. It came down with force.
Meggy turned her back on the pointless conversation. She had gone three steps when she felt something cold on her cheek. The gray clouds that had oppressed them the past two days let loose their burden of snow at last. By the time she reached the house, it had begun to come down heavily.
When she turned back, the movement of his red plaid shirt appeared as a beacon through the fog. His features blurred and became as indistinct to her eyes as his character was to her heart and mind.
Rand fell into bed. For several restless moments, he fought sleep, but it claimed him. Work had exhausted him—work and three restless nights. The dream had come to disturb his sleep every night since his conversation with Drew. Julia had come to him. The monsters of Harrow had come. They did again.
Julia lies hunched over a bench, weeping, her gown torn. The hem—no, the sleeve has been yanked off and hangs down her arm. I see bruises. I see blood. No! That can’t be; there is none. I try to leave her, but she calls out piteously.
“Randy, Randy, please. No one else will help me. He beat me. He raped me.”
“Who? Who? Who?”
“All of them—Matthews, Clarke, Irving. All of them!” She throws herself into my arms, clutching and clutching. “Save me from them. Save me from them all!”
“No,” I shout, “that can’t be. You weren’t there. Not when Matthews and the others did— Never that, not to Julia. It was me. They attacked me. I pull back in confusion, and Matthews is there, laughing and laughing.
Rand started awake. Sweat soaked his nightshirt. He hobbled over to the bath stand and poured a glass of water. Moonlight fell across the floor, something in the quality of it drawing him to the window. Snow continued to fall, and it had begun to form drifts along the fencerow. His world lay peaceful in the silver light, just the same as it always did.
But nothing is the same, not one damned thing. That Campeau woman cut up my peace, and now she cuts up my nights.
He had put Julia out of his mind for six years. Matthews was harder, but he had pushed the filthy muckworm and his cronies from his dreams, too. He thought of Julia now, smug and happy as the Duchess of Murnane, queening it over the neighbors. He swallowed his rising bile. Lying jade!
Sleep won out again when he returned to bed, pulling him deep into darkness but then tossing him back into troubled dreams.
Julia hunches over on a bench again and weeps, her gown torn. Is it torn? I can't see. I try to look, but she throws herself into my arms, rubbing against my crotch, driving me mad while she whispers, “Only you, Randy,” over and over. Julia melts in my arms. Her face, soft and sweet, sad and hurt, feeds my growing desire.
She pushes against me, and I reach to pull her close, but she slips away, a wisp of smoke disappearing into darkness. I call out and give chase, but her faint image eludes me. I run until she turns and takes shape in the mist.
No! This isn't my Julia. This Julia’s cruel face twists in disdainful laughter. Behind her, I see Charles, my cousin, the duke, the betrayer, who simply shrugs. “Don’t be a fool, Randy,” he says, taking Julia’s arm. “Don’t be a fool.”
Rand groaned. He pulled a chair to the window, sat, and stared out. There would be no more sleep that night. He spent the remaining hours before dawn alternately considering duplicitous women and the betrayal of friends. The earlier evil, Matthews and his bullyboys and the agony of public school, lodged in his heart, but Julia’s betrayal had finished him.
When the sun came up, he heard the woman leave her daughter’s room and go down the stairs. Only one thing stood out clearly in his churning thoughts. Her week was up in one more day, and he could no longer avoid talking to her. He glanced at his dirty laundry piled in the corner, went to the wardrobe, and pulled out clean linen and a clean shirt.
He took out a razor to remove two days’ growth of beard. Last winter he had let it grow. He shook his head. A woman in the house changed everything. By the time he finished shaving, the smell of coffee wafted up to fill his house with its inviting aroma, and he could avoid it no longer. He picked up his boots and went down.
She jumped when he dropped his boots by the door and turned from the pot she had been stirring, a wooden spoon in one hand, a handful of apron in the other. That dress must be as far from fashion as the Tay is from the Thames. The homespun dress that hugged her body had a beauty all its own, and the cotton cloth she wrapped around her waist emphasized every enticing curve. A surge of desire threatened to upend him.
He said, “Good morning,” and went directly to the coffeepot. She shifted a few inches away when he approached the stove. He poured a mug and sipped it so that the liquid, strong, dark, and hot, warmed him. He looked over the stove.
“Porridge again?” he asked.
“Would you prefer an egg and toasted bread?”
Would I? His question had been rude, but now that he thought about it, an egg sounded wonderful.
She gave the bubbling porridge a stir, pulled it off the heat, and made herself busy fixing his eggs and toasted bread. Rand sat and watched her work. He had no idea the sight of a woman cooking could be quite so attractive. Grateful that the table hid his arousal, he leaned one elbow on it and forced his eyes to his coffee until Drew stumbled in, eyelids sleepy and hair tousled. Rand gave him a half-hearted smile.
When Meggy put a plate of food in front of him, he mumbled his thanks and watched her give the boy a bowl of steaming porridge.
“He can have eggs. He earned them,” Rand growled.
Drew smiled then. “Thank you, sir, but I hate eggs.”
There seemed nothing else to say. Rand ate steadily until Drew had finished his breakfast.
“Why don’t you go check on your sister,” he said. “She probably needs a story?”
“She needs her porridge,” Drew said. “I’ll take it.”
Meggy dipped out a bowl and handed it to him with a spoon wrapped in a napkin. She watched her son skip away and filled a bowl for herself. After she poured some coffee, she hesitated. For a moment, Rand thought she hoped to find somewhere to sit other than at the table, but in the end, she sat directly across from him. Before she ate more than a few bites, she put down her spoon.
The Renegade Wife Page 6