Sleepless in Staffordshire

by Celeste Bradley

  "Your horse," he said with an admiring tone, "is fast."

  "He is also somewhat temperamental," Matthias informed the boy.

  Simon nodded wisely. "That's what everyone says when they fall off their horses."

  “I didn’t fall.“

  An alarming peeping sound began to emanate from the young woman. Matthias frowned at her. She looked nearly terrified, Or possibly confused. Was she afraid of him?

  Her entire body started to quiver. Then her wide green eyes clenched shut and tears began to squeeze from between her lids. Matthias drew in a breath to reassure her that his lordly dignity was not permanently damaged.

  She gave up the fight and dropped her hands away from a husky, chortling laugh that seemed to take over her entire being. He looked at the boy, but young Simon simply grinned up at him.

  The two feral creatures were entirely unashamed of the results of their errant missile. Matthias was considering stalking away in a proper huff when he realized that he wanted to stay to hear more of that infectious laughter. The young woman laughed as unselfconsciously as a child, sitting up and wrapping her arms about her bent knees as she doubled up in spasms of it.

  So Matthias stood like a chunk of obsidian in a bubbling stream, letting the sound of it wash over his stolid black-coated presence, the same presence that had left poor Cranston aquiver with unease.

  The flow finally began to trickle off. The young woman inhaled a steadying breath and pressed her gloved palms against her midriff, as if she meant to push back the last rising giggle. The gloves were knitted of the same stuff as the boy's flopping mittens. Even from where he stood, he could see flaws in the pattern. She'd knit them for herself and her brother, he would wager. Did she not mind the imperfections? Or was she simply too impatient to rip it out and do it up right?

  Matthias would guess the latter. There was something liberated and self-assured about her, despite her plain coat and felted wool bonnet that reminded him of something his mother had worn when working in her precious roses.

  He waited as she finished composing herself. She lifted a hand to smooth away the tears coating her cheeks. They were smooth cheeks, young. Yet he had the feeling she was no schoolgirl.

  "I do apologize, sir. I am told I am inclined to humor at the most inappropriate times." She took Matthias’s hand then and allowed him to pull her to her feet. The girl from the square was not as bulky as she appeared to be, for she came up lightly with a sideways smile.

  There was no demure dropping of her eyes, no timidity at all in her frank green gaze. Instead, he saw something that startled him to his core.

  Sympathy. And shadows.

  He ought to recognize them, having seen them in his own mirror for so many years. This young woman had seen terrible loss, just like he had.

  And yet still she laughed.

  Matthias felt overcome by a sudden thirst, a yearning for this secret, this arcane knowledge that shone from the open, half-smiling face of this girl like a beacon on a stormy coastline.

  Tell me. Show me.

  Teach me how to live again.

  His legs had already began to flex in preparation for taking a step toward her when she spoke.

  "I do hope your horse will be all right."

  Matthias caught himself before he did something strange and inappropriate. He'd been working on that, he truly had. He no longer wore his raw pain on the outside, like a skinned beast. He didn't roar at his staff, he didn't smash his possessions and he didn't fall at the feet of strange women and beg to know their deepest secrets.

  "And you, too, of course," she continued with belated concern. "I hope you didn't hurt your, ah," her lips twitched again. "Your person."

  From her expression of barely suppressed laughter and young Simon's open grin, Matthias surmised that his fall from Perseus had been somehow spectacular. "I must have put on quite a show."

  Simon pointed out toward the road. "You flew up!" His mitten-clad hand lifted in illustration, exposing a bony little wrist. "And then you stayed up!" The fingers spread and Matthias pictured himself hanging in the air. "And then you dropped!" The floating hand thumped firmly down onto the palm of the other hand. "Right on your ar -- "

  A sisterly boot kicked him in one skinny shin. "Ow." Simon balanced on one leg and rubbed at his offended shinbone as he glared at his sister. "Bernie, I was only going to say 'ar -- "

  Matthias shouldn't think of her as Bernie, for they'd not been properly introduced and he didn't wish to bungle his newly regained manners by calling her by her given name, even in his mind, for then he'd only forget and let it fall from his lips.

  However, she stuck out her hand like man. "I'm sorry, sir. I'm Bernadette Goodrich and this is my brother, Simon. Our family is visiting Havensbeck's vicar for the holiday." She leaned closer. "Tell me, is the Christmas dinner at the manor as generous as we've heard? I hope so, for I fully intend to make a pig of myself."

  "Me, too!" Simon looked for all the world like a starving orphan, with his wide green eyes and pinched features. Matthias could well believe the boy could put away a plate or three come Christmas Day.

  Matthias wondered if they had any idea who he was. To all appearances he was just a gentleman in a black coat on a fast horse, not a lord in a glossy carriage with a golden crest emblazoned on the door.

  Strangers were a novelty for him. It seemed everywhere he went, people knew him or knew of him, and had heard the tragic tale. He was an object of pity, or alarm, as if loss was contagious, and the rumors of his raging, pain-filled first years of mourning preceded him.

  So he simply nodded. "I have not attended for some time, but I have heard the manor staff is exerting themselves immensely."

  Simon goggled. "Staff? Like servants? Serving us?"

  Miss Goodrich wrapped an affectionate hand around the back of her brother's neck and shook him gently, sisterly and maternal at once. "No, idiot. They are going to toss our dinner into the trough and let us fight for it."

  Simon snickered at that. "Snort-snort. You said you'd make a pig of yourself."

  Then he turned to Matthias. "I found a badger burrow. Do you want to see?" He pointed back over the wall.

  Matthias raised his brows. "Really?" Teaksmith, his gamekeeper, was meticulous about eliminating pests, although he might have let a badger family burrow this in this particular field because alfalfa was not something they were known to eat. Instead, they would likely prey on rabbits and insects, which would benefit the crop.

  However, badgers did not interest him nearly as much as did this unusual young woman and her Simon.

  His heart flipped sideways at the radiance in her eyes. Light, among the shadows? This young woman had discovered a secret. She'd found the hidden path to the place beyond the pain, a world where the lost were remembered but no longer mourned.

  He wanted that, suddenly, so abruptly that he could hardly breathe.

  Disloyal. Selfish. He shouldn't want to laugh in the sunlight with this strange young woman while Marianna and Simon could not.

  Confused and shaken, he was about to make his goodbyes when a male voice hailed them from down the lane.

  John Barton, the new young vicar that Matthias had selected for Haven, strode toward them. His open face was smiling but there was a crease of concern between his brows nonetheless.

  Matthias wondered if it was such a strange sight for him to be seen talking to actual people, and decided that it likely was. John bowed slightly. “Lord Matthias! I see you have met Haven’s latest visitor, Miss Goodrich.”

  “And me!” Simon informed the man. “I pulled him out of the snow!”

  Miss Goodrich gave her brother a little shove that rocked him sideways a step. “After you smacked his mount in the face with a snowball!”

  “That was an accident!” Simon protested weakly. Then he manfully turned to face Matthias. “But it was me, your lordship. I’m awful sorry. I was aiming for Bernie, but she ducked and then there you were behind her.“

&nb
sp; The boy's narrow face was tight with anxiety. Matthias realized that it was because he was frowning down at the child like an angry tyrant. I am not used to talking to children. I am not used to talking to anyone.

  All the more reason to try.

  So he knelt with one knee in the snow to bring himself to Simon’s eye level. “Is it customary for you to throw snowballs at ladies, young Simon Goodrich?”

  Simon writhed in place. “Nnoooo. But it was just Bernie!”

  Matthias continued to gaze at the boy. “Hitting Perseus was an accident. Accidents are easily forgiven. Throwing a snowball at a lady was not an accident. It is not I you should apologize to.”

  Simon slid an astonished look at his sister. “I’m sorry, Bernie. I forgot you were a lady.”

  She reached out to ruffle his hair. “I'm afraid I forgot as well, beastie. But Lord Matthias is quite right. ’Tis a poor practice, to be sure. I imagine John can find someone your age to bombard with snowballs. Is that not so, John?”

  She smiled at the vicar. When John Barton smiled back at Miss Goodrich, there was something in his gaze that made Matthias look away. So, the girl who carried laughter and shadows in her green eyes had caught the interest of Haven’s most eligible bachelor.

  Matthias backed away a step. “If you will all excuse me, I must head home.” He looked up the lane toward Havensbeck. “At least Perseus ran in the right direction.”

  The young vicar, who was not actually so very much younger than Matthias, didn’t take his eyes from the pretty girl who had suddenly made Matthias notice pretty girls again. “Very well, my lord. I should be getting these two back to the inn.”

  As always in England, the goodbyes took too long. Matthias abruptly wanted to get away from the three of them and the confusing tangle of curiosity, alarm, envy and longing they caused within him.

  When they turned away to head toward Haven, Matthias saw the girl look back over her shoulder at him. Was it his imagination, or did he see a sort of message there? Perhaps a certain absolution of his brusqueness and his poor abilities in society? Understanding, at least. But no pity. Not a bit of it.

  We don’t pity each other, he thought, we who have lost. We understand.

  It was fortunate for Bernie that Simon had lost all his shyness in John's presence. Her little brother chattered nonstop as he explained the fascinating encounter with the badger Borough and gave, at length, the details of his lordship's magnificent flight through the air from his horse. Allowing Simon to dominate the conversation left Bernie time to contemplate Lord Matthias in the privacy of her own mind.

  Yes, he was tall. Yes, he was dark-haired. But her brief glimpse at the inn, and even her years-long perusal of his letters, had not prepared her for the tilt of his head when he listened or his serious gaze when eye-to-eye with Simon or the way he continuously looked at her and then glanced away as if strangely uncertain about her.

  She'd tried to convey her very harmlessness, much as if coaxing a wild thing to her hand to accept a bit of winter corn. Not that his lordship was anything like a squirrel or a deer. He was most definitely powerful and masculine. He was also strangely reticent and, she suspected, a bit broken.

  It was decidedly odd to encounter someone who had so much and yet so little. For all his wealth and fine house and even his highly populated staff and village, he seemed very alone. How could that be? All Bernie had in the world where her aunt, her uncle and her little brother, yet she rarely felt lonely. In fact, she felt as if she could scarcely find a second to herself.

  Were his people so frightened of his shadow that they shied away from him? The people in the village spoke about the great house with pride and how prosperous and generous the estate was, but said little about the man himself.

  So who kept whom at a distance? If it was Lord Mathias himself who was too grand, she'd not seen it. In fact, she felt oddly as if he had almost reached out to her more than once.

  It wasn't as if she were terribly special, and she certainly had done nothing but give him the most disorderly impression of her. He no doubt thought Simon unruly and ill-behaved and herself plain and dumpy. Simon could behave perfectly well, at least when he not been confined in a carriage all day and then admittedly encouraged to run himself in giddy circles afterward. And perhaps she was no renowned beauty, but she was hardly dumpy at all! It was only this blasted coat!

  Anyway, his lordship had not looked at her that way. Or not quite. She couldn't put her finger on exactly how he had looked at her.

  She, on the other hand, had looked at him very much that way. Her breathless excitement at meeting him face-to-face had been passably well covered by her fit of giggles. She shuddered at the impression that must have made! But then she'd reached out and shaken his hand as if they were nothing but two farmers meeting on the lane!

  That was too bad of her. It wouldn't do to go thinking she actually knew him! Reading his letters the last several years, private, personal letters from him to his lost wife and child, did not make her his confidante! It made her a prying, sneaky busybody.

  Except she hadn't been intentionally sneaky. And the letters had practically arrived at her back doorstep! Had he never considered those bottles might wash up somewhere, and the letters taken out by perfectly innocent people, and read over and over again by the light of a candle in the middle of the night?

  She hid her blush from Simon and John by pretending a great interest in the naked branches of the trees merging overhead of the lane, lacing together like bony fingers, while she allowed her thoughts to linger on the feeling of Lord Matthias's large hand wrapping about hers.

  John noticed her interest. "They bloom. It's very nice in the spring."

  Bernie turned to him, startled. "What? Pardon me, I mean to say?" There she went, making a fool of herself in front of a man again! Not that John counted exactly, old family friend that he was. Young, handsome, undeniably appealing old family friend. Why didn't John's forthright friendly manner and symmetrical features linger in her thoughts the way Lord Matthias's did? Honestly, she'd almost forgotten John walked next to her at all.

  Aunt Sarah was right. She was, without a doubt, a master of inattention.

  She fixed her gaze on John's handsome, open face and gave him her best bright-eyed attention. "These trees bloom in the spring?"

  He laughed at her but not unkindly. "These trees, which are some sort of fruit, do indeed bloom in the spring. I've only been here one spring but when I called upon his lordship this lane was incredibly beautiful and the pink petals began to blow down as I passed and I felt quite poetic trying to think of a way to describe the snow fall of pink fragrance." He gave a self-deprecating laugh.

  He'd visited the manor? Well, of course he had. He was the vicar here now. In just a few days she would see it for herself, for the Christmas Ball.

  John continued to speak about the sights of Haven in the springtime. Their pace was sedate and the day very still around them.

  So why did the world seem to be shifting beneath her feet? Since the moment she'd looked into Lord Matthias's dark, shadowed eyes, she'd felt as though she dangled from a great height, clinging to the merest winter twig, where any moment something fragile might snap and she might fall so far she would not survive.

  Chapter 7

  The journey back to the manor was easily walked in summer. In midwinter, it was not near so pleasant a stroll. By the time Matthias had limped, slipped and slithered his way down the snowy lane in boots never made for walking in snow, his mood had descended to a place between exasperated and bitterly amused.

  It seemed there was nothing like a bit of physical discomfort to make a man feel alive. That had to be it. The girl with the true green gaze seemed destined for another man, a deserving man. It was naught but the embarrassing fall and the discomfiting walk home after the fleeing Perseus that had Matthias's blood running warm through his veins and his thoughts jittering from the satisfaction of horse roasting to the boyish thrill of a pretty girl's atten
tions.

  Jasper met him at the door. "My lord, are you well?" He helped Matthias out of his coat and scarf. "The groom just told me he found Perseus back into his own stall with his saddle still on!"

  Devious beast. The stallion's gall tripped Matthias's mood into full amusement. He let out a rusty noise, a husky gasp that might someday grow up into a laugh. The strange utterance made both himself and Jasper blink in surprise.

  To cover both his alarm and his strange mood, Matthias turned a glare on to his butler. "Jasper, I am informed that the Havensbeck Christmas Ball is much anticipated in the village. In fact, the entire county of Staffordshire seems to be in quite a twist over my upcoming fete."

  Jasper's expression became fixed, although his eyes widened. Matthias imagined that Perseus had felt much the same about that misbehaving snowball.

  Jasper swallowed hard. "Er, yes, my lord. The ah, wee village assembly, you mean? Did you not give permission?" Jasper had the decency to trail off before claiming any such thing.

  Matthias shook his head. "Give it up, Jasper. It's a full-blown ball by now, whether you intended so or not. I suggest you stock the larder and lay in a fresh supply of coal. And acquire gobs of greenery. That is the fashion now, is it not?"

  Jasper, usually inclined to minimal expression, smiled tightly. "Yes, my lord! Verily so, my lord!" He bobbed several enthused bows as he retreated, carrying Matthias's winter outerwear. "We'll do the manor up proper, you shall see!" he called over his shoulder, in an apparent hurry to do dubious things to innocent evergreens.

  "Tea, Jasper!" Matthias bellowed to his triumphant butler. "In my study!"

  Matthias eased gingerly into his chair in his study, then sighed in relief. Not so bad as he'd expected. Thank Haven for snow banks and fine furniture!

  The handsome green leather chair matched another one by the fire, set off nicely by the warm dark wood of the panels on the lower portion of the walls. A carpet of blue and green weave lay over nearly the entire floor, muffling sound and making the study warm. He used to like this room, he recalled, yet despite using it every day, he'd not truly looked at it in years.