Thorne nodded, tamping out the cigar. “Gwynneth. I owe her the greatest debt after you. God’s blood, Arthur, if I’d only listened to you when you warned me that her religion would come between us…although ‘twas I who came between Gwynneth and her religion…as did Radleigh. Who, by the by, fares poorly. His love for rich food and spirits is taking a toll, gout and jaundice. At least Lord Whittingham no longer backs his wagering, and no one else has taken the reins from the bloody bastard, thank Providence.”
Arthur nodded, aware of past dealings with the unsavory earl.
“Radleigh grieves for his daughter,” Thorne allowed, “but then he was well into his cups most of the time he was here, too, and Gwynneth was quite alive.”
“A pleasant man, though, Lord Radleigh.”
“Aye, and a good one as well. And he’ll never go hungry, cold, or unkempt as long as I’m living. His estate will pass to me in lieu of his debt, but with no living heir, he claims he’d be inclined to leave it to me at any rate, as homage to my father. Still, I see no way to pay my debt to Gwynneth.”
Silently puffing away, Arthur soon felt Thorne watching him through the blue haze between them.
“What is it?”
“What do you mean?”
“I can see you’ve something on your mind, Pennington. Say it, then.”
“Very well, I shall. Do you not think that, with the hell your wife put you through, she owed you a debt as well?”
“Surely not her life!”
“No, God no. Lay that at Hobbs’ door. I meant before that.”
“Perhaps. But my debt is the larger by far. And at any rate, ‘tis hard to compensate a ghost.” Thorne’s face suddenly and inexplicably paled.
“Not necessarily,” Arthur countered, startled by his odd pallor but determined to pull him out of this quagmire. “I once heard her tell Lord Radleigh she would have liked to confer her dowry on the Sisters of Saint Mary in Leicester.”
For a long moment Thorne only stared at him; then he grinned almost idiotically. “Capital! A splendid idea!”
“You catch my drift, then,” Arthur said, pleased and relieved.
“I most certainly do, my friend, and an inspired drift it is! I hope Radleigh will see it as such…I think out of respect for Gwynneth, he’ll agree. The prioress and the priest will be overjoyed, and the endowment will stand in Gwynneth’s name…by God, Arthur, you are the very best of stewards! My father knew bloody well what he was about when he advanced you.” Arthur’s face had grown warm, and Thorne chuckled. “I don’t mean to embarrass you,” he said apologetically, “but I feel as if I’ve just been given a good dose of tonic. On, then, to other matters that weigh on my conscience, and perhaps you’ll offer still more inspiration.”
“I’ll try.” Arthur couldn’t help but smile; it was gratifying to see his young master in good humor. But the mood changed swiftly.
“I know I said we’d spoken enough about Hobbs, but there is one matter unresolved. His babe—my nephew or niece—is in this world somewhere, whether inside or out of its mother. I want them found, Arthur.”
“M’lord?”
“I want Elaine Combs and her child found. And whatever you or anyone else can accomplish toward that end will be rewarded.”
“Rewarded,” Arthur echoed dully.
“Aye, and generously so. I’ll offer a thousand pounds to the person who can direct me to their whereabouts. In gold, if that increases the allure.”
This time Arthur held his tongue, but he could hardly help looking shocked. “Very well, I’ll put word out.”
“Good.” Thorne smiled wryly. “You needn’t worry, I’ve no intention of hounding the mother. I only want to assure myself that she and the child are properly lodged and amply fed, and of course I’ll see to it that the child is educated and its future provided for. After all, he or she is of my blood. No, don’t go just yet, there is something else.”
“M’lord?”
“I want both entrances to the tower sealed. Permanently.” As Arthur only stared at him, Thorne lifted an eyebrow. “What, have I grown horns?”
Arthur shook his head in bewilderment. “May I ask why?”
“Only if you’ve no intention of arguing the point,” was the somewhat impatient reply. “I might remind you that, for some ungodly reason, two inhabitants of the Hall have felt inclined to take flight from the battlements. As I can think of no good reason to keep the tower accessible, I shall here and now end all further temptation for any other misguided souls.”
“What of the watch, if we need it?” asked Arthur.
Thorne snorted. “‘Twas only needed while Tom Barker was dusting my fields at Hobbs’ behest! I say we can do without the tower. Leave the damned thing to the bats, they make much better use of it.”
“Very well,” Arthur said slowly. “I’ll see to it, though ‘twill likely give some credence to the ‘haunting’ story.”
Thorne looked at him sharply. “What ‘haunting’ story? What do you mean?”
“Why, the man on watch at the top of the tower, the one who claims he was pushed from behind…surely you remember?”
“Aye.” Thorne looked oddly relieved. “Well, ‘tis of no matter. If people are wont to talk, they’ll talk. ‘Twill all die down after a few days, and at any rate, most folk will credit my decision to my wife’s death. Which is entirely correct.”
“You’re right, of course. Silly of me.” Arthur tamped out the tiny stub of his cheroot. “If we’ve finished here, I’ll get on with it.”
“And Arthur…” Thorne looked mildly exasperated.
“Aye, M’lord?”
“If I am truly like a son to you, will you please dispense with formality when we’re alone and call me by my name?”
“If you insist, Lord Neville.” Arthur tried not to smile.
“My Christian name, Arthur.”
“Ah, that one!” The steward grinned. “Aye, Thorne…I shall be honored to do so.”
*
The clock struck ten. Thorne silently counted the strokes despite his acute awareness of the time. It being his first evening home since he’d fled to London, he was determined to avoid windows, particularly on the south and west sides of the Hall.
Let her stand there ‘til the sun rises, he thought. If her specter is inclined to haunt the road, it will do so unobserved by me. He smiled grimly to himself.
Reading for a while, he was not even once drawn to the window, though the draperies were wide open. When at last he snuffed the candle and climbed into bed, he felt triumphant, untouchable. Nothing, he thought smugly, could haunt him in such a mood: not ghosts, not memories, not regrets.
He failed to consider dreams.
*
He thought he was alone in the dream, standing in the lower nave of the manor church; then he became aware of someone behind a wooden column. His first thought was that Elaine had come back, and his heart skipped a telltale beat.
And a woman did step out into the open, with the hood of her cloak pulled well up over her head, and her face in shadow. Thorne started forward, then stopped, his breath hitching as the hood fell back, just as it had on the Northampton road.
He stumbled backward, his heart racing, but slowed his retreat when Gwynneth tilted her head and looked perplexed at his reaction. Then came the gesture he’d learned to dread: she smiled.
To his surprise, the gesture wasn’t the least bit terrifying, but sweet, open and gentle. It was then that he knew he was dreaming—for shouldn’t she be blistering him with that sulfurous glow her eyes acquired when her rage was high? Punishing him for the hell she’d deemed his making in her last days on earth?
He tried to speak, but no sound passed his lips. He gestured impatiently, only to see her shake her head slowly and smile all the more, as if she were amused at such childish impetuosity.
So he waited; after all, she had appeared to him. The next move should be hers.
She turned suddenly toward the carved column, and nodded her head. Thorn
e clutched the side of the pew as yet another woman stepped from the shadows.
Katy.
Katy?
He was utterly confused. Even dreaming, he felt his mouth open and close as a question struggled to escape his throat. But then Katy smiled down at a bundle of cloth in her arms—something he hadn’t noticed until now.
He felt as if he were floating down the nave instead of walking. His heart hammered, although his conscious mind had yet to accept what his subconscious already knew.
Katy stepped forward, holding her burden out to him; rather awkwardly, he took it. Inside the lightweight bundle, something moved, giving off a sweet-smelling warmth, and Thorne brushed the edge of the blanket aside.
The babe was a wee thing, born no more than a month ago, from the looks of it. As it gurgled—the only sound in the dream—it opened its eyes.
Thorne’s heart lurched: he was looking into Robert Neville’s eyes. Vivid, of an arresting blue, they could even be his own.
He gazed inquiringly at Katy, vaguely aware that Gwynneth was no longer in the church but that somehow it didn’t matter. Katy reached to take the babe from him, and he was stunned by the bereft sensation he felt as it was lifted from his arms. He wanted to hold the wriggling creature a while longer, perhaps take it home with him.
As if reading his thoughts, Katy smiled, but stepped back and shook her head as if to say, “Not just now.”
A tapping sound began to invade his consciousness—the first sound he’d heard other than the cooing of the child. It escalated in rhythm and volume, finally waking him altogether.
He lay staring through the windows into utter blackness, until a bright flash of lightning informed his now cognizant mind that a pre-season thunderstorm was in progress, and that hail was bouncing off the windowpanes. He sprang from the bed, as determined now to look as he’d been earlier to stay away.
When the next streak of lightning illumined the landscape, his eyes were fixed on that specter-plagued stretch of road. Except for a few battered roses the gusty wind had dashed into the mud, the road was empty. Relief flooded his veins, and with it came a sense of gratitude. He lay back down on the bed to ponder his strange dream while it was still fresh in memory.
Katy and Gwynneth? What irony! Two such juxtaposed lives; yet, had they ever met, their reactions would most likely have been directly adverse to their aspirations: Gwynneth’s the least tolerant, Katy’s the most charitable. Understandable enough, Thorne had to admit, considering it would have been a meeting between wife and former lover. Why was it, he wondered, that so often in dreams things were illogical?
And what of the babe, with eyes that mirrored his own…how could it be Gwynneth’s unborn?
Of course! He felt a fierce sense of triumph at his intuitiveness. It wasn’t her actual unborn, the child of Hobbs, the babe that died with her; it was her abstract unborn—the child that he, Thorne, had denied her by refusing her amorous but belated advances.
So, despite her sweet smile, she wants only to torment me with visions of what might have been! How typical of her, he mused; then he frowned. Why in his dream had Katy, of all people, presented him with the child he had denied Gwynneth? Again his mind was ready with an answer. No doubt it was Gwynneth’s snide way of telling him that she was aware of his past relationship with the “harlot.”
It was a dream, and dreams seldom parallel reality, he reminded himself tiredly. His true antagonist was not Gwynneth, but that bitter and unwelcome acquaintance known as “guilt,” come calling in his sleep when he was most vulnerable and likely to receive it.
For the remainder of the pre-dawn hours he slept undisturbed, and for nearly a week more, nights at Wycliffe Hall passed without incident.
*
The second thunderstorm arrived in mid-March, at an hour when most residents of the Hall were preparing for bed. Still disenchanted with late evenings in the library, Thorne pored over accounts in his study while enjoying the disharmonic symphony outside. An hour later, after all within the Hall had settled for the night, an extended roll of thunder trailed off into a rather peculiar noise for a storm. Thorne decided it had come from inside, perhaps from the west wing. Peering up the east hall, he saw nothing, and had just turned back to his desk when the sound came again.
Swift and silent, he reached the great hall just as the noise commenced with a sudden flurry. He headed for the kitchen door and stood outside it to listen.
The larder! He might have suspected as much, though it had been some time since he’d heard any complaint of theft. Slowly he turned the handle and pushed the door inward, taking advantage of each clap of thunder to make bolder progress, then stood stock-still in the doorway.
In the corner on top of a wheat-flour barrel, a stub of candle had been stuck into a mound of its own wax. Scarcely a yard from its sputtering flame, a hand extending from a worn sleeve was hurriedly opening and closing one cupboard door after another.
For a few minutes Thorne only observed, curious to see what would finally catch the thief’s interest. But after several swift and futile searches, the intruder swore under his breath and scratched his head.
“Perhaps I can assist, William.”
The boy cried out in alarm as Thorne stepped into the room.
He went to the barrel and lifted the candle near William’s face. “What is it you seek?” he asked gently.
The youth’s fear waned to wariness; his mouth worked in mime as he tried to explain. “‘Tis for a friend,” he finally stammered, his pubescent voice cracking under tension.
“What is for a friend?”
“I’ve got to find the cam—chamo-” William broke off, worry creasing his young brow.
“Chamomile?”
“Aye!” The boy sighed in relief. “Some chamomile and some honey.”
“For whom, and why?”
William stared down at his wet shoes and shifted from one foot to the other.
Thorne chucked him under the chin. “For whom?” he said more sternly.
“The miss, sir,” came the grudging reply. “The miss what lives in the little shack off the Wycliffe road.”
Thorne frowned. “You mean the Gypsy, the person who has sheltered in the shack all winter? I thought he—or she—would have moved along before now. Why should she be needing these things at such an odd hour, and why the devil bid you to confiscate them?”
“She ain’t a Gypsy, M’lord.” William shook his head earnestly. “‘Tis the miss what once lived at the Hall and stitched. She’s having her babe, and ‘tis almost here!”
For a time Thorne forgot to breathe, and stared at William so intently that the boy retreated a step.
“Begging ye’re pardon, M’lord, I ain’t a thief, leastways not truly! I take only what she needs, and for a lady what’s carrying a babe, she done without most all but what I fetched for her, and even most of that she didn’t ask for-”
“‘The miss,’” Thorne interrupted in a choked voice, for it seemed his heart had caught in his throat and would suffocate him at any moment. “Is ‘the miss’ Elaine Combs?”
“Aye, M’lord, and she’s in sore need of this—this cam-”
“Chamomile,” Thorne said tersely, already turning toward the other cupboards. “Get a lantern in here.”
William ran to the kitchen, no longer concerned with stealth.
“Now,” Thorne said, all but grabbing the light from him, “go and wake Mistress MacBride.”
“But the miss says to wake no one, sir-”
“And I said wake Mistress MacBride, damn it!”
“Aye! Aye, M’lord!” William was already halfway across the kitchen.
“Where the deuce does she keep it?” Thorne railed, searching each shelf with frenetic energy and shoving tins, bottles and jars right and left in the process.
“Here now, M’lord!” Having come from the kitchen on a shuffling run, wrapper half closed and nightcap askew, Bridey practically shoved Thorne aside to open another cupboard door. �
��Here we are!” She grabbed a small crock and opened it to show him some dried yellow flowers. “Surely she has a kettle?” she asked breathlessly, turning to William.
“Aye, mistress. But she could do with more linens.”
“Och, of course she could, poor soul. We must hurry. Run and fetch clean ones from the big chest topstairs, William, and wake Janie while ye’re at it, but do it quiet-like, she’s in the bed nearest the door. Let’s see, I’ll need my cayenne, and some shepherd’s purse in case the bleeding don’t slow as it should…” She took a deep breath. “M’lord, ye might’s well send for Dobson to bring the coach ‘round, I can’t sit a horse, much less mount one.”
“The devil take this bloody weather!” Thorne fumed, starting toward the cloakroom. “The road may be too muddy for the coach.”
“Send for a cart, then,” Bridey said soothingly. “A bit of rain never hurt nobody. We’ll manage, ye needn’t fret.” Thorne gave her a grateful look.
William returned with the linens and was immediately dispatched for a cart. The dozen minutes it took for the horses to be harnessed and hitched and led through the gardens seemed a lifetime to Thorne, who had felt like running the whole considerable distance on foot from the moment William revealed his secret.
The cart, drawn by two horses to help prevent the wheels from sticking in the mire, made slow but steady progress. The devil must have seen fit to take the weather after all, for by the time everyone had boarded the cart, the downpour had abated to a fine mist.
According to Thorne’s pocket watch, checked every few seconds by lantern light, five-and-twenty long minutes had passed when they finally reached the shack. Slivers of dim light sliced through rag-stuffed chinks in the squared logs, and he fought a tide of helpless anger as he wondered if Elaine Combs had known a minute’s warmth over the winter.
William was first through the door. Thorne tried to be patient as he helped the women off the cart. With a low command to the horses and a few long strides, he was soon over the rotting threshold.
Immediately noticing that the room was too smoky, he forced himself to ignore the muffled moans of pain from the little cot, where Janie and Bridey were already busy. He rolled up his sleeves and poked a stick of kindling up the chimney, smelling the hair on his arms singeing as he cleared caked soot, rotted leaves and bird nest debris from the chimney. Satisfied once the fire was producing less smoke than heat, he wiped his hands on his breeches and went toward the cot.
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