“I am not acting out. I am eating my dinner.”
But she had engaged him. Triumph made her smile. He saw that smile and deepened his own frown. He pushed away from the table. “You are the most frivolous woman I’ve ever met.”
“Yes? Well, with your present grumpiness, I can’t imagine you’ve met many women. Or interested one of them.”
His head snapped around in her direction.
“You must be careful, Will,” she chided, deliberately using his given name. “You are in danger of being dudly.”
His brows crossed. “Dudly? That’s not even a word.”
“It is. I just used it in conversation. That makes it a word. It’s worse than being dull. Dudly is more boring than being dull, a state to be avoided at all costs.”
“Your using it doesn’t make it a word. A word has to be one everyone knows.” He rose from the table, carried his plate to the dry sink, and put it in a bucket of water on the floor. “You may think you have control of the world, Lady Corinne, but you don’t have control of the English language.”
“Corinne,” she said softly, pleased that she’d breached his wall of silence. “You must call me Corinne.” In fact, she wanted to hear him say her name.
“No,” he said, a considering look in his eye. “I’m too dudly to do that.” He walked out of the room.
Corinne was on her feet in a flash. She picked up her own plate, went to the back door and tossed the scraps outside, not knowing what else to do with them, then dropped her silver and plate in the bucket and hurried to join him in the next room.
Will was lighting a lamp. He sat in the chair beside it and reached for the book on his reading table. It was a heavy one about theology.
“I believe I shall read as well,” Corinne announced, wondering if she could pull him out of his shell once again.
“I don’t have any books that would interest you,” he muttered, settling his heels on a footstool and crossing his booted feet at the ankles.
Corinne couldn’t remember ever having to work so hard to attract the attention of a man.
She came over to his chair and, pushing his feet off the footstool, took their place on its needlepointed cushion. “What sort of books do you mean?” she challenged. “Poetry? Romance?” He had both those books by his bed upstairs.
“One with made-up words in it,” he replied, not bothering to look at her—but that was all right. She was charmed.
No one ever teased her. She was always treated as different and set apart because of her father’s rank.
“You don’t dislike me,” she said.
He turned the page of his book, raising it a touch higher as if to shut her out. “Lady Corinne, I’m not an admirer.”
“You were once. And you didn’t even know me.”
“Now I’m starting to know you.” He kept his voice flat, too flat. He was trying too hard.
“How do you do it?” she asked softly. “How can you be two men? One is staid and disciplined. The other has an adventurer’s heart. Are you both one and the same, or is one trying to overcome the other?”
A tension vibrated from him. She’d found a chink in his armor—
Will slammed his book shut. His hand came down on her wrist, his eyes alive with anger. “Lady Corinne, I am not your lady’s companion, your confidant, your cousin, or a toothless dog for you to badger at will. I’m a man, Corinne. And you’d be wise to remember that and stop being so naive.”
“Naive?”
“Yes,” he said drawing out the word. “Grow up, my lady.”
Infatuation evaporated. Corinne twisted her wrist, and he let her free.
He sat back and reopened his book. His attention returned to his reading; supposedly, she had been dismissed.
Corinne rose to her feet. “You can growl at me all you wish, sir, but I like being mistress of my own fate. You have always been free to decide what you wish to do, where you want to go. I never have been. So, if my satisfaction with the turn of events isn’t to your liking, Cousin Will, then so be it.”
She walked over to the stairs and started up the first step, but then she turned. He sat in the lamp’s pool of light surrounded by darkness, a man alone.
“And I don’t need to grow up. I’m not the one throwing tantrums. I’m a woman full grown. You’d best remember that, Will.”
Corinne went upstairs, not looking back. She undressed and climbed into her bed . . . but it took her a long time to fall asleep.
She listened for him.
Will waited a decent amount of time before stealing out of the rectory. Riding Roman, he headed back to the reiver’s hut. Using the lamp he’d brought with him, he removed the chest from its hiding place.
When he’d stolen it, he’d been surprised at the size. So small, and yet Bossley had gone to great pains to keep it safe—even to the point of hosting a dinner party in honor of his son’s future marriage. He’d wanted to be in Ferris—because it was so close to Scotland and those who sympathized with the French?
Will opened the chest and was so stunned by its contents that he almost dropped it. Gold coins, the size of halfpennies, tumbled out into his hand. One side was engraved with Napoleon the Emperor’s head. On the other were the words “Empire Française,” along with the amount of each coin—40 francs—surrounded by a laurel wreath.
There were close to a hundred coins. Four thousand francs in gold. Such an amount could buy much goodwill.
Ashcroft obviously hadn’t known what he’d been carrying, because he’d left the chest sitting in the coach seat, where Will hadn’t had to strain to look for it.
Will closed the chest, his hands shaking. Of all the things he’d thought of Bossley, traitor had not been one of them. And it truly had been by chance that Will had come by this bounty. He’d thought Bossley had been making the usual shipment of British coin unfairly taken from the crofters. This was something quite different. Deadly different.
What would Bossley do to have this returned? Or to keep his secret dealings with the French quiet?
Will feared the answer.
Chapter Nine
Shortly before noon the next day, Will burst through the kitchen door to announce, “The whole village knows my cousin has come to visit.” He was hatless, as if he’d left the church in a hurry. “Everyone. I’ve had three people ask after you.”
Corinne sat reading at the table. She looked up in a show of mild surprise. “Oh, are you speaking to me now?” This morning, when she’d come downstairs, he’d kept his nose buried in a book and had refused to look at her, let alone say a good morning.
He stabbed his fingers through his hair in frustration. “This is what I feared. Gossip will spread through the village faster than a fire. Before supper this evening, everyone will know my cousin is here. Mrs. Gowan promised to keep your presence secret. I can’t imagine she’d break such a promise—” His eyes narrowed on the bucket by the dry sink. “What is this? Fresh water?” He picked up the bucket and gave it a sniff. “Did you pump this?” He didn’t wait for her response but launched into the diatribe she knew he wanted to deliver. “I told you to stay inside. You assured me no one would see you if I let you stay here. And you were wrong. If you had stayed at the reiver’s hut, no one would have known you were here because you wouldn’t be here. Now everyone is speculating and asking questions. It’s the questions they don’t ask to my face I need to worry over.”
“Mrs. Gowan told me this morning no one will say anything to Lord Bossley or Major Ashcroft.”
“Oh, yes? The two of you are cozying it up, aren’t you? Well, let me inform the two of you that gossip doesn’t work that way. And Bossley aside, what if the bishop hears word of this? That I’m keeping a woman who pretends to be my cousin in the rectory. Then he will say something to Bossley. Or to Freddie.”
That last sobered Corinne immediatel
y. “I didn’t go out. Mrs. Gowan pumped the water for me. And she said she told her husband but no one else.”
“Then how does anyone know you are here?” he said to himself, pacing from one end of the small kitchen to the other.
Corinne immediately knew the answer. “Her daughter. Mandy is a chatterbox.”
“Yes, but who would listen to her?”
Men never understood the workings of society.
“Anyone. Everyone,” Corinne replied. “You are an important person in the village.”
“I’m just the rector.”
“You are the rector, the only one in the whole parish with that title,” Corinne said, then began ticking off other important points on her fingers. “You are also single, handsome, related to Bossley.” She shrugged. “It’s a wonder the gossips aren’t camped out in your garden.”
He pulled a frown, shook his head, half-turning from her . . . but then he said, “Would they really pay that close attention?”
“Is there something else to take their minds off of their own lives? Father always said gossip is for the bored, but I’ve noticed that in London it runs rampant even with people whom I think should know better.”
Will stood very still, and Corinne realized he was actually upset.
“What is it?” she asked. When he didn’t respond, she said, “They won’t betray you, Will. I can tell that just in my morning’s conversation with Mrs. Gowan. They consider you as close as family.”
His eyes brightened with a fury that caught her off guard. “So now you are telling me you know my own parishioners better than I do myself?”
Corinne sat back in her chair. His anger was out of proportion. She didn’t sense fear from him, but a fierce protectiveness. “Is something wrong?” she asked.
Her simple question only made him retreat further. “I have to prepare my sermon,” he said and went into the sitting room. She heard him pull books from his shelf. A moment later, he went out the front door.
For a long moment, Corinne sat, going over the scene in her mind. She understood his concern. Keeping her presence quiet was important and, yes, he did live a double life. But there was more at work here.
Will Norwich had demons.
He was also the most complicated, fascinating man she’d ever met.
Only four days ago, she’d been confused about life, about her purpose, about what she wanted. Running away had made perfect sense. It had felt right.
Being here, with him, made sense as well. She didn’t understand why, but for whatever reason, life’s twisting course had brought her here. And this, too, for whatever unfathomable reason, also felt right.
She returned to her reading.
She was not what he had expected.
Will knew he was hiding in the church. True, he always practiced his sermon from the pulpit . . . but today he took longer than usual.
He had to avoid her. It wasn’t just that she attracted him, that his infatuation for her had never died—oh, no, it seemed stronger than ever the more he was around her—but she had a way of seeing right to the heart of a matter. He sensed it.
Their earlier conversation had seemed innocuous, and yet she seemed to have divined his troubled spirit.
Perhaps he felt this way because he was not accustomed to having anyone around. His was a solitary life. He’d discovered it was easier that way.
He’d grown up with the knowledge that he was “different.” He didn’t know his parentage, he was a charity case, he had no family.
The Church was the perfect calling for one such as himself. It gave him purpose—and an excuse for being “apart” from the rest of humanity. The preaching bands around his neck were his identity. God was his family.
When he’d arrived in Ferris, his ties to Bossley had kept him separate from the community. He’d understood their distrust. He’d accepted it, even had anticipated it. Wasn’t distrust the motive behind Freddie’s and his companions’ teasing? Behind those hostesses over the years who had felt they’d had to invite him but hadn’t been able to welcome him?
Then he’d created the Thorn. With the Thorn, he’d set himself apart even more. This secret of his was dangerous to know.
He hadn’t yet come to terms with Mrs. Gowan’s claim that there were those in the parish who knew. It was not wise to trust.
And why should he have trusted? He’d never been able to trust anyone in his life.
Lady Corinne knew that. He didn’t know how—but she knew. In the kitchen, there had been a moment when he’d felt as if she’d been able to see all the way to his soul, that she’d understood he was weak. Alone.
God help him.
He tried to concentrate on the words he’d written on the sheet of paper in front of him, but his mind kept returning to her.
A footfall in the back of the church warned Will he wasn’t alone. He looked up. She was standing there, her pale blonde hair a beacon in the church’s gloom.
For a second, Will couldn’t think. He reached out to the pulpit’s sides, gripping them tight. It took a moment and the out-of-place sound of a yowling cat before he realized she wasn’t alone.
Sarah Pearson, the miller’s wife, stood by Lady Corinne. In one arm she held the baby she’d given birth to two months ago. Her son Little Seth held onto her skirts. Her other arm rested on her oldest child’s shoulder. Maggie Pearson had always been a somber child. What had happened to her father, the violence against him and his withdrawal from the village society, could not have been easy for a child to understand, but they told Will that Maggie had never shed a tear or spoken a word after that horrible night. She now held a yellow tabby in her arm that, from his panting and plaintive yowls, appeared to be in distress.
“Will,” Lady Corinne said, her tone urgent as she came forward, bringing the family with her. “Mrs. Pearson and her children came knocking at the rectory’s door. They have a request that’s very important.” In her eyes, he could read the rest of her message. She was anxious that he would be angry with her for disobeying his order to stay out of sight. Her gaze pleaded for him to listen to what she had to say.
“What is it?” he asked, not moving from his place in the pulpit.
Mrs. Pearson took a step toward him. “Begging your pardon, Mr. Norwich. I need help. My daughter’s little cat is ill. Something is wrong.”
A cat? What did he know about cats?
“All she does is cry.” Maggie took a step forward as she spoke. The words had burst out of her, and now huge tears welled in her eyes. She blinked them back, her face pinched, as if she struggled to keep herself together.
He understood that feeling. How brave she felt she had to be.
Will’s worries about Lady Corinne being discovered vanished. He came down from the pulpit, his focus on Maggie. “I don’t know much about cats. What do you wish me to do?”
“Just look at her,” Maggie urged. “You can make her right. I know you can.”
Her mother spoke up. “Actually, I brought the children here thinking it might be good to have a blessing,” she suggested. “I know there isn’t much you can do, Mr. Norwich. I know that. But I couldn’t let the cat . . .” Her voice trailed off into a heavy sigh. “Not at the house,” she finished.
He understood. Too many bad things had happened to these children already.
“Well now, let me see,” he said. He sat down next to Maggie in the pew and offered his hands. The child placed the cat there with great and somber trust. She moved around so that she sat in the pew beside him, her manner one of complete confidence in him.
Had he really wasted prayers earlier on his lust for Lady Corinne? Had he been so selfish?
God forgive him.
He now placed his prayers where they should have been. Please don’t let me disappoint this child.
“I told them you would know what to do,” he
heard Lady Corinne say.
Not her too.
Gently Will probed the cat’s sides, trying to identify the problem. The animal was not fat, and it didn’t take a heavy touch for him to realize a rib was broken. He could feel it laid across the cat’s belly. The animal shifted in his hands, meowed in great distress, and growled a warning.
The loose rib caused discomfort, but if it was not removed, it could puncture the cat’s lung or another organ.
A calmness fell over Will. He did know what to do.
He pulled a small penknife from his pocket and opened the side of the cat where he felt the loose bone. The cut was only half an inch long. He pulled out the broken rib.
Though there was hardly any blood, Kitty did not thank him for his work. She hissed and lashed out with her claws before jumping to the ground. She dashed a few feet from them, then stopped, as if finally realizing the pain was gone. She shot a regal look in his direction, the blessing of cat, before she sat back on her haunches and began cleaning her wound. While they all watched in wonder, she moved on to cleaning her face, as natural as could be.
Will looked down at the tiny rib in his hand with disbelief.
“You did it,” Maggie said, hopping up from the pew. “I told Mother we must go see Mr. Norwich. I said we must.” She hurried to her pet, who let herself be gathered up into Maggie’s arms.
“Be careful, Maggie. Watch that wound,” Will said.
“Thank you, Mr. Norwich,” Sarah Pearson said. Tears were streaming down her face. “Thank you.”
“It wasn’t much, I assure you,” Will said.
“It was a miracle,” she answered.
“No, miracles are far stronger than realizing the cat had broken a rib,” he assured her, standing.
“Well, I didn’t know what to do,” Mrs. Pearson said. “But you did.” Little Seth had even come out from behind his mother’s skirts to join his sister in petting the cat.
“It really wasn’t anything of my doing,” Will repeated.
“I know, I know, God and all that,” Mrs. Pearson said. “But when God is not there, you have been the one to do His work. When I see a pouch of money left on the doorstep, I know who it is from—and I’m thankful for it, Mr. Norwich. Seth is angry and more than difficult. I needed a bit of blessing from God. Come along, children. Let Mr. Norwich finish preparing for his sermon.”
The Seduction of Scandal (Scandals and Seductions 5) Page 12