by Nicole Byrd
“You are not satisfied,” she finished for him. “It could happen, however.”
He walked around the edge of the cottage, finding the stranger’s prints again at the far side of the cottage, where he also noted the faint smell of sulphur, as in cheap matches. That comment made Maddie’s eyes widen.
“But that would be truly evil, to think someone might have deliberately started the fire that destroyed Felicity’s home!”
The viscount didn’t answer. He only turned and followed the footprints back into the trees. She trailed along after him, too, afraid that he might find the maker of the prints, if the gypsies still lingered near to the cottage.
If the band were indeed nearby, however, she and the viscount would be very much outnumbered.
They picked their way through the trees, following the trail until the footprints vanished entirely when the ground became too rocky to hold any impression of who had passed over it. At that point the viscount muttered a few words that Maddie pretended not to hear.
He leaned against a large rock, scanning the countryside. They appeared to be alone, but Maddie no longer trusted in appearances.
Who could be watching? The thought of unseen eyes and lurking evildoers made her shiver again.
The viscount saw the motion and held out an arm to pull her closer. Maddie made to step inside his embrace, then, remembering last night’s revelations, hesitated. Her new loss of trust was still an open wound, and she had not had time to find the way to allow this hurt to heal.
“What is it?” he asked, gazing down at her.
She wasn’t ready to share her somewhat unsavory family history—not all of it, at least. “I—I don’t like to think of someone watching us, when we least expect it,” she said. It was part of the truth, anyhow.
She reached for his hand and clasped it. It was a poor substitute for relishing the feel of his arms about her, but it was something. Adrian nodded and held her hand in both of his. If he thought her reluctance to be close came from the fear of someone watching, so be it. She could not bear to explain it all just yet.
They rested for a few minutes, then made their way back. When they reached the path, they made better time back to the Applegate residence. Inside, they parted, and Maddie went to check on Felicity.
She was not in her guest room. Alarmed, Maddie came back downstairs to seek out her friend. She was not sitting with Mr. Applegate. At last, Maddie found her in the kitchen, helping Bess complete preparations for their dinner.
“You must not feel you have to work all hours of the day, Felicity,” Maddie told her. “It is kind of you to assist us, but—”
“It is another person for Bess to attend to, and I know how hard she works,” Felicity told her. “I certainly want to do my part.”
Maddie could see that Bess approved of their new guest; the maidservant beamed at the widow. “A nice light hand she has with the sauces, too,” the maid said, approvingly. “But we’re almost ready now, Miss Madeline.”
Maddie ran back upstairs to wash the dust off her face and hands and push her hair back into place. At dinner she and Adrian explained what they had found.
Mr. Applegate looked grave. “I hate to think that the fire might have been deliberately set. Are you sure?”
They recounted the details, and John shook his head. Felicity had gone quite white.
“I apologize if I have alarmed you,” Adrian told her.
Maddie felt contrite. “It may be that we are mistaken,” she said, glancing at the viscount and hoping he would not contradict her.
Her friend shook her head. “No, it is better to know the truth and be prepared,” she said, a bit cryptically. She pressed her lips together and stared down at her plate, as if not liking what she saw, although she had just praised Bess’s excellent apple dumpling.
When the ladies withdrew from the table—a formality that normally Maddie didn’t bother with when only she and her father dined together—she and Felicity went back to the kitchen and helped Bess clear away and begin the washing up.
When the two men retired to the sitting room, they did, as well, with Bess shooing them out of the kitchen and pantry.
“I can finish up, Miss Madeline. Ye both get along, now, do.”
Maddie suspected the men had still been discussing the gypsies, but they changed the subject when the ladies rejoined them.
“Come, let’s make a game of cards and think of something more pleasant,” John said, smiling at Felicity.
She smiled back, although she pointed out, “We will have to play for imaginary points, I fear, as all my pennies went with the dastardly gypsies.”
While the viscount got out the cards, Maddie and Felicity agreed that they would go into the village on the morrow and look for some personal items that Felicity needed for herself. Maddie assured her friend that she should not worry about money for such small notions.
“I will repay you when my quarterly allowance comes in,” the widow promised. “And I do need to post a letter to my cousin.”
“Of course, you will need to let him know you are well, and where you are situated,” John told her. “Most understandable.”
Maddie thought that the viscount flashed her friend a keen look for just a moment, but Felicity looked away and didn’t meet anyone’s eye.
When they finished their card game—Maddie found her mind wandering and her choice of cards therefore somewhat erratic—Felicity went to the side table and, with her back turned to the rest of the room, composed her letter. John told them about other fires in the village and how the grain mill had once burned, while the villagers had made a bucket brigade and managed to put out the fire before total destruction was achieved.
By the time Felicity had rejoined them, Bess brought in a tea tray, with some of her good scones, and after the tea was drunk and the baked goods consumed, three of them were ready to climb the stairs for bed, while Mr. Applegate went down the hall to his room. Although she saw the gaze that Adrian sent her way, Maddie was not yet ready to attempt a tryst with another guest in the next room.
Nor, if the truth were known, was she in the mood, as yet, to once more trust him totally. The memory of her mother, left alone and friendless, in dire straits after the death of her sweetheart, still haunted her.
So, without pausing at his door, she went straight on to her own room and prepared to retire. Her bed had never seemed so lonely, it was true, now that she knew the joys of a pallet shared with a man that you loved, a man who could pull you close and tempt your body into joys hitherto unknown but delightfully glorious. No use thinking of it now, Maddie told herself, pushing her pillow into a better shape as she tried to find a warm and comfortable spot in a cold and lonely bed.
It was impossible. She was here, and he was there, and there was no crossing the gulf between them. While she might blame their separation on the new guest in their house, on the rigors of propriety and her need to be circumspect, the truth was that she was afraid, afraid of being left alone. She was being ruled by fear, just as Adrian was—he was afraid of the madman who stalked him and could hurt innocent people in his insane quest to destroy him. She was afraid of being left alone and unprotected. Both of them lay in lonely beds because they allowed fear to rule their hearts.
She cradled her cheek on her pillow and wept.
The next morning, everyone seemed subdued when they met at the breakfast table. Felicity at least had an obvious reason. Adrian looked somber, but made no attempt to explain, and Maddie herself—well, did she need to explain? She poured tea for her guests and brought her father hot toast when Bess brought a new plate from the kitchen.
When conversation languished, Maddie looked from Felicity’s wan face to her father’s pensive expression.
“I’m taking Felicity into the village to look for a few items she needs for herself,” she told her father. “Is there anything you wish?”
He looked up from the toast he had been buttering.
“A new bottle of ink,
perhaps. And be sure to take Thomas with you, my dear. I don’t wish either of you to be out alone just now.”
“No need to take Thomas away from his chores,” Adrian said easily. “I will accompany the ladies.”
“I wasn’t sure,” Maddie began, glancing over at the viscount. For some reason she felt less at ease with him than she had, and perhaps he sensed it. He regarded her with a slight crease between his brows.
“It will be my pleasure,” he assured her, his tone formal, as if he had felt her withdrawal.
She inclined her head and gave him a smile that she tried to make as natural and welcoming as it would have been a week ago. Inside she wanted to weep, that she had to go to the effort—why did all this have to come between them?
After the breakfast dishes had been cleared away, the three of them set off for the village.
It was a beautiful autumn’s day, and Thomas was harvesting a field of grain with the Applegate’s one horse, and the viscount’s beast would not carry three, so they had agreed that a walk into the village would be a fine jaunt and just what they needed to brighten their spirits after the shock of the cottage’s destruction.
Felicity was trying hard to be her normal, sunny self, and if her friend could make such an effort, when she had suffered such an overwhelming blow, Maddie thought she herself must try harder. So they talked and laughed and on the surface, all seemed well. But Maddie wasn’t sure that the viscount was completely fooled.
When they reached the village, Felicity saw her letter into the post and Maddie took care of her father’s request. Then Felicity went into the draper’s shop to look for some personal items.
Maddie hung back a little in the doorway, while the viscount stood just outside.
“What’s wrong, Madeline?” he asked, his voice quiet.
For a moment she considered pretending not to hear, but she couldn’t be such a coward. How could she explain? She gazed up at him from beneath her straw bonnet, and the look of concern on his face pierced her to her heart.
“Oh, Adrian,” she said very low. “If only—”
Then she heard Felicity calling her name. Looking around, she saw her friend signaling her from inside the shop. Excusing herself, she went inside and found that the other woman had a serious question about a matter of undergarments.
“You have bought these before, I imagine,” Felicity whispered. “Which do you think is likely to hold up longer?”
She helped Felicity pick out bloomers and chemises, and when the parcel was made up, they both returned to the street and she and Adrian could not continue their private conversation.
“Perhaps we should have some tea and refreshments at the bake shop at the end of the lane,” the viscount suggested, “before we start our walk home?”
“That sounds pleasant,” Maddie agreed.
By this time it was past noon, and the street was more crowded than usual. On a Saturday, the local farmers were in town to visit the few shops that lined the one main street, and they had to dodge around men leading heifers brought in to sell or barrows piled high with cages of clucking hens.
They walked single file for convenience, the viscount going first to make room for them through the crowd, with Maddie behind him and Felicity last, carrying her parcels—she had refused Adrian’s polite offer to take them from her. She had fallen a step or two behind when Maddie heard her exclaim.
Fearing she had stepped into a puddle, Maddie turned to see what had vexed her friend when she heard a note of real fear in her next words.
“No, no!”
“What is it?” Maddie cried, trying to find the widow as a group of young lads separated them momentarily. “Adrian!”
He turned and came back at once to see what had alarmed her. “What’s wrong?”
“I don’t know—where is Felicity?”
They both plunged through the crowd, pushing their way through a group of slightly drunken apprentices making good use of their half day of freedom.
Her heart beating fast, Maddie saw a brown paperwrapped parcel lying in the street and recognized it as one of Felicity’s. She stooped to pick it up, and hurried in that direction. “Here, over here.”
There, at last she saw Felicity, cowering inside the slight depression of a shop window as if to efface herself from notice.
“Felicity, what’s amiss?”
The widow’s face was white and her eyes wide. “I saw—I saw a man I thought—I thought might be the man I had seen at my window.”
“The man you saw before the fire?” Maddie demanded. “Which way did he go?”
“I’m not sure; I just wanted to get away.”
“Tell me what he looks like,” Adrian charged the widow.
“Black shaggy hair, a scarf obscuring much of his face, blackened teeth.” Felicity shuddered.
“Stay with her, better yet, go inside this shop and wait for me. I will be back,” the viscount told them, then he disappeared into the crowd.
Maddie put one arm about Felicity’s shoulders; she could feel her friend still shaking. “Come,” she said. “We will get out of this crush and out of sight of anyone on the street.”
They went into the greengrocer’s shop, which smelled musty with scents of earth and farmers’ wares. There was nowhere to sit, but if they had to spend some time pretending to weigh the merits of bins of cabbages and turnips, so be it.
Meanwhile, Adrian slipped around the groups of farmers and farmwives that seemed to increasingly take up space on the cobblestoned pavement. He wished he had his horse. If the other man had a steed nearby, Adrian would lose him in the end, but he could but try.
He half walked, half ran along the edge of the street, pushing his way past more and more groups and singles, men and beasts alike. He saw more men and women who had been tasting the grape and the brew on their half day away from field and workbench. The level of noise in the open air rose as well as the earthy fragrance of the human and animal traffic, which often made him wrinkle his nose.
He paused long enough to look into the local pub, which was as dark and smoky as he remembered from his first trip through the village, but he saw no one similar to the widow’s description. On his way out, he was halted a few feet from the door.
“Have a pint with me, friend!” a jovial farmer with graying locks said, trying to put one stout arm around Adrian’s shoulders.
“Ah, no thanks, friend, my errand is an urgent one,” Adrian told him.
“What, ye’ve no appetite for me ale—or me comp–comp–comp’ny!” The man looked affronted.
“Indeed, I should much enjoy your company,” the viscount assured him. “But my urgent business calls me away, I’m sad to say. But let me buy you a round—no, two rounds more to show my regret.” He pulled a half crown out of his pocket and tossed it to the bartender, and his new friend brightened at once.
“Well, then,” he said, “thou’s more friendly like.” And he sloshed his way back toward the smoke-stained bar.
Adrian made good his escape. As he pushed open the door, he heard something whip past his head. He ducked instinctively.
He jumped toward the street, taking shelter behind a large man who led a fat cow behind him.
Neither of them seemed in the least perturbed.
Had someone taken a shot at him, or was he dreaming in the daytime, too? Adrian looked about him and felt a little foolish.
The street was full of people coming and going, and no one seemed to notice that he had bent double to avoid an imaginary assault.
When nothing unusual followed, he at last straightened and heard nothing but the blare of talk and animals bleating and mooing, feet stamping, wheels turning.
Shaking his head, he headed back toward where he had left the ladies.
When Adrian returned, they finished their shopping. Felicity looked often over her shoulder, and the viscount also seemed on edge.
Maddie had picked up their nervousness, so she thought they were all more than ready to set o
ut for home.
The very last chore was a stop to see the vicar. Tomorrow would be the third reading of the banns. They found the churchman not at home, but his housekeeper offered to take a message.
It gave Maddie a strange feeling inside to think that soon there would be no further impediment to their marriage. How could the weeks have flown by so quickly? The stranger she had awakened to see embracing her naked body in the gazebo was now the man she could not consider allowing out of her life.
When she looked up at the viscount, he met her gaze as if he were reading her thoughts.
“When would you like to schedule the wedding, my dear?” he asked, his tone still formal. “Did the dressmaker in Ripon deliver your wedding gown as promised?”
She wished she could have claimed that the modiste had been slow, or the skirt had been improperly sewn, or her shoes did not fit. But in fact, the packages had come yesterday, and only the commotion over the fire had kept her from enjoying them thoroughly. She had merely had time to glance at her wonderful new possessions.
“They have arrived,” she said, biting her lip and not quite meeting his eye.
“Are you pleased with the result?”
“I have not yet had time to examine them closely, but I’m sure I will be,” she said honestly.
He nodded as if in understanding. “Then what morning shall we tell the good vicar to plan for the ceremony?”
Not yet, she thought, not yet, if marriage means that you shall feel no longer compelled to stay.
Feeling helpless to hold him here, she met his gaze without knowing how to answer.
“Wednesday, perhaps?” he prompted, when she didn’t answer.
Her expression curious, the plump housekeeper looked from one to the other.
Maddie nodded.
“I’ll tell ’im, me lord,” the servant said. “Anything else ’e needs to know, ye just send a note over.”
“Thank you,” the viscount said.
They turned to head at last for home, but Maddie heard a whining noise, and something buzzed by her head and stung her skin. She jumped and slapped at her neck.