by Lara Archer
Though she could hardly let him leave without acknowledging what he’d done for Thomas.
Stiffly, she walked over to him, stopping a more than respectable distance away. “Thank you, Lord Parkhurst. I’m so grateful for all your help today.”
The look in his eye only become darker and more unreadable. “I do have my skills,” he answered in a soft, sardonic tone. “Believe it or not, I’m not always the useless prat you think me.”
Now that was puzzling. “I’ve never thought that. I’ve never thought any such thing.”
“No?”
“No, of course not.” What on earth was he talking about?
Some further gesture seemed required, but she had no idea what would be appropriate, or what would suffice. Embracing him would be wrong, surely. A dreadful mistake in every way. So she reached out her hand instead and clasped his. Something more than a polite handshake, but not a gesture of romantic love. A gesture of...respect. Of gratitude. It would have to be enough.
The muscles of his face relaxed, not quite into a smile, but into something less distant than before. But all he said was, “Good evening, Miss Wilkins. I can show the other gentlemen out for you.” And then he released her hand, and headed down the hall towards the staircase.
A pang went through Mary as he went, and she clenched her fists to ward it off.
Dr. Ausland followed the viscount, but Sam paused before leaving and leaned in close. “Don’t you worry, Mary Wilkins,” he whispered low. “All will be right as rain before morning, I feel it in my bones.” And he winked.
Now him she did embrace. “Thank you, Sam. For everything, these past few days. You’ve been so much more generous than anyone could ask.”
He squeezed her hard against him, then set her back on her feet. “You can count on me. Whatever you need. Whatever you choose. And if anyone in this town breathes a word against you, they’ll take it back, or meet with my fists, I swear it. Man or woman.”
She hadn’t expected to laugh anytime soon, but she laughed now, with a rush of tenderness for Sam’s kindness. “I don’t deserve you. You’re the very best of friends.”
“I’d gladly be more, and you know it,” he said, and for a moment he brushed the edge of his thumb along her collarbone, where her seed pearl necklace had hung. “But I see which way the wind blows.”
“What wind?”
“You’re a lovely girl, Mary Wilkins, and you deserve every happiness,” he said, and gave her a wistful smile. “Whatever happens, I thank you for the memory of May Day night.” With one last wink, he too turned and disappeared down the stairs.
Mary felt herself flush.
If only she returned Sam’s feelings, her life would be so much simpler. But her heart didn’t bend that way. She sighed, listening to the men’s footsteps as they went downstairs, to their deep voices in the foyer, to the front door as it slammed shut.
John was gone.
She had no idea when she would see him again, or what on earth they would ever manage to say to one another. It was more than her mind could take in just now.
She was rather grateful for the interruption when Rosamund came up behind her and said, “About that dress you offered, Miss Wilkins? This one’s became rather...stiff. I should be glad to be out of it.”
So she busied herself helping the Lawton girl, fetching more water to warm in the pot on the hob and taking it to her in Mary’s own bedroom, so she could take off her dress and scrub her skin where the sticky blood had soaked through. Mary found fresh clothing for them both, though it shamed her a bit to see how awkwardly her drab frock fit Rosamund’s far more fashionable form, squashing her fine bosom and erasing the elegant curve of her waist.
“Let me get that tea,” Mary said. “I’m sure we both could use it.”
“Don’t worry about me,” said the girl. “I don’t think I could manage to drink or eat just now, anyway. I’ll just sit with him. You should take some supper, if you can, Miss Wilkins, and then try to sleep. I’ll wake you in the night if I find myself nodding off.” At the moment, Rosamund hardly looked or sounded like the heiress she was. In truth, she looked quite sweet and innocent in the simple, borrowed gown.
Impulsively as she’d hugged Sam Brickley, Mary threw her arms around Rosamund and kissed her cheek. “Thank you, Rosamund. Dr. Ausland was right—you are a ministering angel.”
Rosamund pulled back shyly, and pink color stole over her cheeks once more. “Don’t say so, Miss Wilkins. I—I owe you an apology, really. For...for everything with Annabel. What she implied about you and Lord Parkhurst…. I know she didn’t say it to hurt you.”
“You shouldn’t apologize. All this must have caused her a great deal of—”
“No, Miss Wilkins,” the girl insisted. Her mouth twisted, and she seemed to be rallying herself to say something difficult. “I must confess something to you now. Just so you know the exact truth. So you can throw me out of your house if you wish. I’m the one who told Annabel to keep an eye on you and the viscount. That’s why she saw you go into the woods together, with the viscount. That’s why she was watching out for his return.”
“Oh,” said Mary. She wasn’t really sure what to think about that.
“I didn’t tell her out of malice, I swear that to you. I never meant to hurt you. Or—or anyone in your family.” Her blush deepened. “I just wanted Annie to know the viscount wasn’t in love with her. Before she waltzed herself blithely into a marriage that would have been a misery for her.” Rosamund’s bright blue eyes pleaded for understanding. “I just wanted to protect my sister.”
Mary nodded quietly. “I do understand,” she said, but her heart felt strange and aching and hollow. Had Rosamund not intervened, would Annabel and John be planning their wedding now? Whatever John’s feelings for Annabel, or lack thereof, would he ever have stopped that wedding on his own?
Rosamund seemed to sense Mary’s distress, and said, “I’ll just go sit with Thomas now—with Mr. Wilkins, I mean. If you don’t mind.”
Rosamund turned and left the room, leaving Mary standing dully in place, staring out the window at the sun setting in the darkening sky. She knew she ought to move, ought to find something to eat, ought to at least try to sleep, but all those options seemed impossibly hard at the moment.
But she couldn’t let her whole life stop.
She couldn’t let this defeat her.
She squared her shoulders. Perhaps she could at least manage making a pot of tea.
Finding her way downstairs in the last faint streaks of daylight, she went to the kitchen. The shadows of the house seemed far less comforting than they usually did. Would it even be her house much longer, if the town folk chose to believe the innuendo Annabel had voiced in the church?
Innuendo that was, of course, accurate in every detail.
Even if her neighbors simply wondered if the story might be true, even if Thomas managed to hold on to his position as vicar, how could she carry on her life here in Birchford, facing sidelong looks each day?
How could she be the upright, trustworthy Mary Wilkins everyone had always known?
Lost in that thought, she reached absently for the box of rush candles by the kitchen door, and was just preparing to light one when she nearly screamed.
A figure lurked in the shadows by the hearth, where only the low embers of the kitchen fire still glowed.
John.
Chapter Eighteen
“Dear Lord!” she exclaimed, waving the flaming lucifer at him as though it were a fiery brand. A strange mix of fear and joy flowed through her, making her heart thump madly. “I thought you left with the doctor and Sam.”
“I did,” John said, shrugging. “Just far enough for Dr. Ausland to think I’d really left. I’ve put him up at the White Horse Inn for the night, by the way, so he’ll be nearby if you need him.”
She couldn’t seem to get her breathing under control. John was here. He hadn’t left her.
But he couldn’t be here.
“Why did you come back?” She touched the flame to the rush candle and held it before her as if the little halo of light would somehow reveal his thoughts to her. All it did was throw flickers of orange light and shadow across the handsome angles of his face, making him seem more a mystery than ever.
He ignored her question. “I meant to give Sam the slip too once we’d crossed the lane to the Brickley farm, and then double back here,” he said, “but Sam caught me by the arm the moment the doctor was gone and told me I’d better haul my arse back to talk with you.” John’s mouth pursed ruefully. “His precise words, not mine. He also told me he’d break both my legs, and quite possibly my neck, if I didn’t treat you honorably.” He gestured towards her candle. “Now blow that flame out, will you? If anyone walks past the house, they’ll see us, and then they’ll feel sure Annabel spoke the truth.”
“I want the light,” she said. “People will believe what they wish to believe, evidence or no.”
“Please, Mary. We can fix all this. You won’t be ruined if you marry me.”
She shook her head at him furiously. “I think we’ve had this conversation a few too many times already. I won’t discuss it again.”
“For pity’s sake, sweetheart,” he said, sighing. “Everything’s changed. The whole village has heard we’ve been together. In the carnal sense. And you can’t claim I have any obligation toward the Lawtons anymore—Annabel clearly wouldn’t have me even if I begged her. So you need not feel guilty marrying me. Not to mention that your life in Birchford will be nearly impossible now if I don’t make an honest woman of you. I can’t see what objection you could have to my proposal at this point.”
“Can’t see what objection?” she hissed at him. Buried anger surged out of her, and she wanted to kick him or bite him or throw a pot at him. “Can’t see what objection? You—you misled me! You—you used me! You may not have lied to me outright, but it was no better than lying! You thought you could marry Annabel for show and still have me as...as a sort of side dish. Like a...like a bowl of sugared carrots.”
“Sugared carrots?” he asked. “What on earth are you talking about? I haven’t changed my intentions towards you, sweetheart, not since that first morning when we got caught in those blackberry vines.”
“Haven’t changed your intentions?” She stamped her foot at him. “Well, I don’t understand your intentions, John Hollings! It seems you’ve done nothing but change them. You showed not the slightest interest in me for months and months after you came home. And...and then you—you made love to me in the woods, twice. And not ten minutes after the second time, you were announcing your marriage to the lovely Miss Lawton!”
He looked at her squarely, as if willing her to read his mind—which she was still entirely incapable of doing. “Is that what happened, Mary? Is that really how it happened? On May Day night?”
“Yes, of course that’s how it happened! I was there! I saw it all, I heard it all!” Hot tears burst forth despite her best efforts to keep them in, and streamed down her face. “I left the woods by the far path, meaning to go back home, but all the cheering drew me back to the Green, and I heard everything Lord Lawton said.”
“Indeed. You heard what Lawton said.”
“I saw the crowd lift you on their shoulders! I saw you take Miss Lawton’s hand!” She ran at him then, pounding her fists on his chest. “How could you do that, John? You let me think you...you let me think you cared for me.”
He did nothing to defend himself against the blows, just looked down at her quietly, his gaze so intense. “How could you doubt that I care about you, Mary? Don’t you know me better than that by now? ”
Her hands fell uselessly to her sides. “I thought I did. I don’t know what to think.” Under his gaze, all her defenses were crumbling, like a child’s sandcastle as a huge wave hit, crumbling and washing out to sea.
Frustration came over John’s features now. “You assumed the worst of me. You ran off that night before I could say a word to you. You didn’t trust me, Mary. Why didn’t you just trust me?”
Her mouth fell open in surprise. How was he was putting her on the defensive, when he was the one who’d wrong her? Wronged her quite spectacularly. When she’d always been so loyal to him.
He blew out a heavy breath. “I chased after you straight up to Scotland, do you know that? Barely ate or slept for days. And damn near broke my neck—twice—rushing back here to stop the banns this morning.”
A sort of shock ran through her. “What? You went to—Scotland?”
“God, Mary, I was so afraid,” he said, running a hand fitfully through his hair. “I thought you were going there to marry Sam Brickley. Or—or Mr. Chatsworth.”
“Mr. Chatsworth?” The world seemed to float around her suddenly, less substantial than before, and she wished to heaven she had more light than her one guttering rush candle. “Are you quite mad?”
“Sam’s willing to marry you now, Lord knows, if you say the word. And I don’t doubt Mr. Chatsworth would be willing, too, if he weren’t already happily wed.”
She shook her head in disbelief. “Why are we even discussing this? What difference should it make to you whom I was going to marry, if you were going to get married yourself? I certainly wasn’t going to accept being your mistress, whatever you might have assumed of me! And, anyway, for your information, I wasn’t going to marry Sam, no matter what. I told him no, quite clearly, several times. I at least would never marry where I don’t love.”
John’s eyes went wide. “And neither would I!”
“Oh, so you’re saying you did love Annabel?”
“Of course not.”
“Well,” she said, putting her fists on her hips, “one of those statements has to be a lie, because you were going to marry her. Can you deny I saw what I saw on the Green? Can you deny that Thomas was reading the banns for your wedding this very morning?”
John stepped back from her, spine stiff, shoulders squared, looking every bit the soldier he’d once been. His gaze turned suddenly fierce. “Do you know what the real problem is? Between us? Annabel’s supposed claim on me wasn’t really your main objection. You told me several times that we shouldn’t marry because our stations in life are so different, because a viscount must marry a grand lady, not someone of lower status than he.”
“And I was quite right to say it. Like it or not, that is the way of the world.”
“Ah, but my supposed superiority wasn’t quite the issue, either.” He pointed a scolding finger at her. “Because deep inside, you also believe the reverse.”
“What?”
“You think I’m the one who’s unworthy.”
“What?”
“You think I’m spoiled and thoughtless. More selfish than you, less honorable than you.”
A dizzy, disbelieving feeling swept through her. “That’s not true, John! That’s never, ever been true.”
“Then why did you underestimate me so completely? Why didn’t you trust that I meant what I said to you? Why didn’t you believe I’d never turn my back on you?”
“Because—because....” Oh, Lord, her head spun. And she wasn’t going to repeat it all again, about his engagement, about his hand grasping Annabel’s as they spun about on their neighbors’ shoulders on the Green. If John didn’t understand how wrong his behavior was, she couldn’t even bear to look at him.
“I—I want you to go, John,” she said. “Go and not come back.”
His eyes squeezed shut, and the breath rattled out of him. “Don’t say that.”
“I have to.” Her throat seemed to be closing up. “I don’t know what else to say.”
He stepped closer to her, then. He touched his hand to her bodice, against her ribcage. Her skin tingled, and an electric shock went through her belly. It was the very spot where he had marked her with his mouth just a few days before. The red spot he’d left on her flesh was still there. “That was the sign, Mary,” pressing his fi
ngers against the mark. “That was the only one you should have paid attention to. Of us being bound together. That was more marriage contract than anything Lord Lawton’s solicitors could dream up.”
Tears filled her eyes again. It was pleasure and pain to have him touch her, a delirious mix of anger and longing, and she had to turn away lest she throw herself against him and beg him to take her in his arms.
“That night on the Green,” he said, “you heard Lord Lawton announce my marriage to Annabel. But did you hear me say anything?”
“I....” She racked her memory for the details. She knew she’d heard his voice, but couldn’t for the life of her remember what he’d said. “I don’t know. But I didn’t hear you object. And—and I saw your hand in—”
“In Annabel’s, yes. When the dancers spun us, and she took hold of it. But did you see me looking at her? Did you see where I was looking? Did you see whom I ‘d been reaching towards?”
“I don’t know. I didn’t stay to study you.”
He nodded. “You ran. You ran and didn’t wait to hear from me.”
Why did he keep saying that? She pressed the heels of her hands against her eye sockets, trying to still the terrible wavering within her. She knew she shouldn’t let him keep talking, but the thought of letting him go was too awful to bear. “All right,” she said, half choking on the fresh tears she fought to hold back. “Tell me. What would you have said if I’d stayed?”
He set his hands to the sides of her arms, then, and turned her fully towards him. The frustration in his expression was mixed with such tenderness, he nearly broke her heart. “You are the most stubborn, willful creature, Mary,” he said.
“That’s what you would have said?”
“No. No, that’s not what I would have said.” He stroked his hands up her arms, sending waves of need through her. His fingers skimmed her shoulders gently, then her throat. At last, he cupped her jaw with his spread fingers, lifting her face to his. “I would have said, Look at me, Mary. Look in my eyes, and know the truth.”