My Dearest Enemy

by Connie Brockway

  “And how did that change?” Avery asked quietly, relieved when he realized that Bernard was speaking in the past tense.

  “I just got tired about worrying about whether I’d live through the night or not. You know what the funny thing is?”

  “What?”

  “The less I cared about dying, the easier time I’ve had of it. I mean, I used to stew a bit.” He looked away, coloring slightly. “You know. Lie abed and worry whether I’d be around to wake up the next morning.”

  Avery’s heart ached for the boy.

  “Then I’d remember how Aunt Francesca said you’d had the same thing when you were my age,” Bernard continued, “and think about how you are now, and I’d swear I’d get strong, too. And then I’d feel better. Not just in here.” He tapped his head. “But in here.” He thumped his chest. “At least that’s the way it seems. Tell me, did you … did you really have this thing, too?”

  “Yes.” The relief the boy felt was palpable. “And it stopped?”

  “Not entirely,” Avery said, picking his way carefully. “There are still situations and places I eschew. Things I won’t attempt. I avoid them like the plague.”

  “You?” Bernard said incredulously. “Like what?”

  “Horses. A few minutes anywhere near them and it feels as though I’ve a steel band tightening around my chest.”

  The boy took a few strokes closer. “Really?”

  “Really. And I think you should avoid whatever things bring on your attacks.”

  The boy snorted. “There’s no reason for my attacks.”

  “I disagree. You just told me the reasons. Upset. Worry. Fear. I know it sounds preposterous to think that one’s thoughts can so profoundly affect one’s body, but I’ve seen things that not only suggest this to be true, Bernard, but offer categorical proof of it.”

  The boy didn’t look too convinced and Avery knew better than to press the issue. Bernard, like all Thornes, must come to his own conclusions. “Tell me about your swimming lessons.”

  It was the right tack to take. “It was the second summer Miss Bede was at Mill House. Mother and Francesca had gone to have tea with someone and left me in Lil—Miss Bede’s care. It was hot and Miss Bede had spent the morning in the stables—”

  “Is she really so devoted to those nags?”

  “Oh, yes.” Bernard flipped over on his back and let the water buoy him up. “She quite dotes on them. Anyway, she was hot and I was, too, and we sort of ended up here at the pond and she asked if I knew how to swim and I said ‘no’ and she said I ought to and one thing led to another….” The lad’s gaze grew dreamy. “She was so beautiful,” he whispered.

  Yes. She was, Avery thought.

  “When she’s wet her hair gleams and her eyes shine. She’d have me float on my back and then hold me up and I’d feel …” Bernard’s voice trailed off as his eyes glazed over.

  Avery felt a bit glazed himself. No wonder the boy was so entranced by the black-haired termagant. Lily Bede, wet. It made his mouth go dry and the icy water seem tepid.

  He turned over and plunged beneath the surface of the water, pushing down toward the bottom and through the ropy tangle of waterlily roots. The cool silky water filled his eyes and ears, muting sound and blurring shape. Shimmering bands of sunlight pierced the greenish gloom with golden corridors. Minnows darted past, losing themselves in the forest of weeds. He gave himself over to the calm, cool, reasonable beauty of it—in direct contrast to another heated, dangerous beauty. A few minutes later, he swam back to the surface.

  “Where were you?” Bernard’s frightened voice demanded. Avery turned. The boy stood waist deep in water. “You were down so long. I thought—”

  The boy had worried about him. When was the last time someone had fretted over him?

  “I’m sorry, old chap,” Avery said mildly. “I learned to swim here, but I refined my skills on a Polynesian island. I never could hold my breath for as long as the pearl fishers, but I could match any European there. My comrades used to make wagers on that talent.” For drinks mostly, but the boy didn’t need to know that.

  “You were in the French islands?” Bernard asked. “I don’t remember you writing about them.”

  Avery shrugged. “Only there for a month or so. A stopping off point to Australia.”

  “You haven’t talked about your adventures hardly at all since you’ve come here.”

  “Hmm.” Avery swam lazily toward him. Above the sky was clotted with thick ivory-colored clouds. A robin sang from a nearby hawthorn. It was so beautiful here. So familiar and healing. He wanted it. The beauty, the calm, the very Englishness of it, more than he’d ever wanted anything in his life.

  And so did she.

  “No need to bore the females with my—what is it Miss Bede calls my stories? Oh yes, ‘tales from a superannuated childhood.’ ”

  “She’s wonderful, isn’t she?”

  “It’s not the word I would have used, but I’ll agree she’s a unique woman.”

  If Bernard noted a lack of respect, he ignored it. “I don’t think I’ve told you how smashing I think it is that you’ll let Miss Bede live here at Mill House if she fails to inherit it.”

  Live with Lily? Under the same roof? The idea transfixed him … hell, it scared him. “Now, Bernard, I don’t recall ever saying that she could actually live—”

  “Yes, you did,” Bernard insisted. “You said you would guarantee her welfare. I would never have taken you for a man who would shun his respon—”

  “Don’t say it,” Avery suggested, rising from the water like an irate Poseidon. He’d give the boy credit, he stood his ground. A little shakily, but he stood it. “I said I will see to her future and I will.”

  “Seeing to her future is not the same as seeing to her welfare. Welfare means happiness and her happiness is here, at Mill House. She loves it.”

  “I know that. And I have every intention to see Miss Bede is cared for and yes, that she is happy though I’d venture to say that if she inherits Mill House I doubt she’ll spend any time worrying after my happiness! I’m fond of the place myself in case you haven’t noticed.”

  “Well, then the answer to what you should do is simple.”

  “Oh?” Avery raised his brow sardonically. “Pray, enlighten me.”

  “You should marry her.”

  Lily had returned late after spending the afternoon in town arguing over the greengrocer’s bill. Pleading a headache, she retired to her room where she spent the evening once more desperately trying to muster an attitude of indifference regarding Avery Thorne.

  The next morning she forced her hair into a tight braid and marched resolutely into the breakfast room.

  Avery was not there. Good. She didn’t want to see him anyway.

  Francesca, too, was absent but Evelyn looked up from her place next to Polly Makepeace’s wheelchair and smiled as she finished pouring the invalid’s tea. Lily studied Polly closely. Polly definitely looked better … more relaxed. Even pleasant.

  “Good morning, Miss Bede.” Bernard scrambled to his feet and pulled out her chair.

  “Thank you, Bernard, but really such ceremony isn’t necessary,” Lily said, slipping into her seat.

  “Oh, but it is, Miss Bede,” Bernard said. “I mean I hate to disagree with you but as a gentleman—”

  “Just what is it with you and that cousin of yours?” Lily burst out. “It isn’t even as if he was very good at it, is it? He’s loud, dictatorial—without troubling about being the least diplomatic—and blunt. He’s not suave or charming or even very polite!”

  She looked up. Everyone was watching her in open bewilderment. “Well, he isn’t, is he?” she demanded.

  “Of whom are you speaking, Miss Bede?” Polly asked.

  Lily snapped open her napkin. “Avery Thorne! Who else?” She dumped several sugar lumps into her teacup and stirred.

  Evelyn and Polly exchanged glances. Bernard, if possible, looked even more confused.

 
; The door from the kitchen opened and Merry came puffing in behind a cart. Without ceremony she began unloading chafing dishes brimming with rashers of bacon and ham, scones and biscuits, coddled eggs, smoked fish, and steaming bowls of porridge.

  All this for Avery Thorne. Who wasn’t even here to appreciate it, the ungrateful wretch!

  “Remind me to speak to Mrs. Kettle about the amount of food she’s been cooking lately, Merry.”

  “There now, Miss Bede. Boys like Master Bernard here”—she gave the lad, who was staring at her bulging stomach in amazement, a saucy wink—“not to mention men like Mr. Avery—need plenty o’ good food to grow on.”

  “Bernard, perhaps, but Mr. Avery looks quite grown enough to me,” Lily said.

  “Don’t he just?” Merry enthused with a sigh and began spooning porridge into Bernard’s bowl. “Last night he carried Kathy up three flights of stairs to her room like she were a babe instead of carrying one.”

  “He carried her all the way to the attic?” Evelyn asked.

  “Yup. He was walking by and the tart topples over like a pole-axed cow, so he hauled her to her room, her smiling all the while just like a drunk that’s got ’er ’ands on a jug,” Merry said in righteous disgust.

  “And,” Lily said in a voice she congratulated herself on keeping quite calm, “remind me to have a little discussion with you and Kathy and Teresa about this strange inability of yours to remain upright in the man’s presence!”

  “All right.” Merry nodded absently and then turned back to Evelyn. “And you know that big table in the kitchen? The one with the marble slab top what Mrs. Kettle is always banging into on account of it being set too close to the door?”

  “Yes?” Evelyn asked.

  “He moved it.” She leaned over Bernard’s shoulder and began pouring molasses over his porridge. “And that ain’t all. You know the huge, colored window up under the attic gable?”

  “I do,” Francesca said as she sailed in. “One of the only things of true architectural value in the place, I’m afraid.”

  Bernard leapt to his feet and pulled out Francesca’s chair. She sat.

  “It’s really valuable?” Bernard asked, returning to his seat.

  “I should think so,” Francesca replied. “But lest that avaricious look take up permanent residence on your face, remember that Mill House and its contents will either be Lily’s or Avery’s. You were never even in the running.”

  “I know that. I was just interested in why someone would put an expensive window in a farmhouse.”

  “Pretentiousness, I’d imagine.” Francesca smiled fondly at Bernard. “Anyway, what of the oriel window, Merry?”

  “Mr. Avery cleaned it.”

  “What?” Lily asked.

  Merry nodded, adding cream to the concoction in front of Bernard. “Swung himself out from top of the roof on a rope. Said he’d learned the trick in the Him-ee-lay-ahs. Go on, eat up, Master Bernard.” She gave him a friendly pat.

  “That’s dangerous!” Lily exclaimed angrily. “He could have been hurt. Killed. Of all the fool things to do.”

  “I’m sure Avery has survived far more perilous adventures than cleaning a window, Lily,” Francesca said.

  “Besides, who else could do it?” Evelyn took a pause from her conversation with Polly Makepeace to point out.

  Polly entered the fray. “If I weren’t stuck in this cast, I’d be more than happy to wash your windows for you. There’s no reason why a woman can’t hang from a rope just as well as a man.”

  “I’m sure you could do anything you set your mind to doing.” Evelyn patted Polly’s hand soothingly drawing Lily’s startled attention. She’d thought Evelyn detested Polly Makepeace and yet lately the two of them seemed as tight as ticks.

  “I agree with Miss Makepeace,” Lily said. “Anything that needs doing around here we, or the servants, are capable of doing. I suspect Avery Thorne is simply trying to show me how much better suited he is to run Mill House than I. Well”—her eyes narrowed—“let him.”

  Lily glanced up at the clock. It was getting late. Perhaps she could avoid Avery for another day. No. She straightened. Better get it over with. It was just a kiss. Certainly it had been very unsettling and, yes, she had spent too many hours reliving it—the feel of his mouth, the muscles hardening beneath her hands, the heat of his breath and—

  She cleared her throat. “One would think a gentleman would make care not to inconvenience the servants by being so late for meals.”

  “Are you asking where Mr. Thorne is?” Polly asked.

  “No,” Lily said. “I’m merely making an observation. I’m sure I couldn’t care less where Mr. Thorne is, except when he discommodes my household.”

  “He ain’t discommoding no one because he isn’t here,” Merry piped up. “He’s left.”

  “Oh?” She felt as though she’d stepped into a precipice she hadn’t known was there, plummeting into painful darkness. Had he been so disgusted with her that he’d felt himself unable to continue living under the same roof? “Is he gone,” the words came out in a whisper, “for good then?”

  “Oh, no,” Merry said, clearing away Bernard’s plate and moving on to collect Evelyn’s. “He’s just gone to London for a few days to visit a tailor. Lord knows he needs some new clothes. Me and Teresa taken the seams out of the ones what he’s got as far as they’ll go.”

  To a tailor. She had forgotten. She forced her breathing to an even pattern but there was no hiding from herself the relief that washed over her, the pleasure that surged through her at the thought that she’d not seen the last of him.

  Good Lord. She had to fight this. He wanted to take Mill House from her—Mill House for which she’d fought and worked and struggled because it alone could guarantee her future, her security … her independence.

  “You sounded downright wistful for a moment there, m’dear,” Francesca said.

  “May I be excused?” Bernard asked.

  “Yes. That would be fine,” Evelyn said. Bernard tossed down his napkin, passing Teresa at the door. He had to stop as her bulk pretty well filled the door-frame.

  “Oh, miss!” wailed the distended maid. “Something awful happened. That Chinese vase, the one in the drawing room? Someone broke it! It’s shattered into a hundred little pieces. I swear I didn’t do it, miss. I swear I didn’t!”

  “I didn’t either!” Merry promptly added her wail to Teresa’s.

  “That will be enough,” Lily said. “I don’t care who broke the vase. It doesn’t matter in the least.”

  “Oh, Lily!” Tears welled up in Evelyn’s pale eyes. “The Sevres vase is worth hundreds and hundreds of pounds. The bank officials have a list of all Mill House’s assets. And they’ll demand that you replace it before they begin tallying up the pluses and minuses of your guardianship. How can you possibly afford to replace it?”

  Lily rose calmly. She’d better see about clearing up the mess in the drawing room and attending to whoever was responsible for its breaking. “It’s not the Sevres vase,” she said. “Years ago, when Bernard first visited Mill House, I arranged with a local craftsman to have a facsimile made. The real Sevres vase is in storage and has been for nearly five years.”

  She looked around at the quintet of bemused faces. “Considering Bernard’s earlier proclivity for toppling things over and shattering glassware—which he has thankfully outgrown—any other course would have been stupid. For all my faults, I am not stupid.”

  Except where Avery Thorne is concerned, a silent voice taunted.

  Chapter Sixteen

  Sheep stink. Not as much as, say, a sloth, Avery thought, but close to it. And wet sheep, like wet sloths, stink even more.

  Cold swims hadn’t done it, moving things around the house hadn’t done it, and his trip to London where he’d spent two nights immersing himself in a society that seemed unaccountably delighted to meet him—particularly the females, and in particular one Viscountess Childes—certainly hadn’t done it. But if he
just perservered, really exhausted himself out, then he would be able to get Lily Bede out of his thoughts.

  He grabbed the huge ewe around her middle and heaved her from her foothold at the edge of the mill pond into deeper water. She thrashed madly in protest. Burdocks and bits of bramble floated to the top of the churning brown water. Beside him another man released his captive and shoved her toward the far bank and the fenced pasture that waited as a reward.

  Drummond stood post, scrutinizing each sopping sheep as it emerged. Every now and again, alternately cursing and cackling, he would push some hapless victim back into the churning pond.

  “You, Ham!” Drummond shouted. “That sheep’s dirtier than your grandfather’s bunghole! Cob, you’re supposed to wash that sheep, not drown it! And, Master Thorne,” his voice dropped to a sickly, sycophantic whine, “begging your pardon, sir, but would you kindly consider moving yer blue-blooded arse? We’ve got five hundred sheep to wash!”

  Avery released the ewe and grabbed another startled-looking sheep that came hurtling down the mud slide. He shoved her into the water, burying his hands in her wool.

  Raddle. He was covered with the stuff; it coated his arms, his chest, and most of his face. His pants were shredded by sharp hooves; his shirt, which he’d carefully draped over a shrub, had been found by a lamb and partially eaten; and his boots—wonderful, custom-made Moroccan leather boots that had crossed from one hemisphere to another—might prove unequal to being soaked for five hours in raddle-poisoned water.

  The ewe bucked violently but Avery grimly held on. He ached with his exertions. His muscles burned with strain, his head swam with fatigue, and his body cramped up each night as he took his dinner in his room. And yet, damn it all, every night when he dropped exhausted onto his bed, still she danced before him, her dark, glossy hair a veil slipping through his trembling fingers, her mouth an erotic memory tormenting him.

  “Marry her!”

  Of course he’d immediately turned Bernard’s ears red for making such a suggestion but it hadn’t stopped his traitorous thoughts from replaying it time and again.