Victoria looked up from where she was shoveling loam from the herbal garden into the row of half barrels against the wall. Sir Henry stood just outside the lantern light, his hip hitched against the workbench where she’d finished labeling the last jars of herbs.
“How do you know?” She wearily brushed soil from her knees.
“I know, because that’s how long you’ve been in here.” His mouth crooked at one corner. “I wasn’t asleep when you knocked.”
Outside, a beam of sunlight broke through the overcast skies. Victoria looked up at the narrow cellar window, as the room grew brighter. She returned to the workbench and began the process of cleaning. “You have a supply of peppermint. But we need—”
“Victoria.” Sir Henry touched her forearm and her hands stilled their task. “Stop.”
She wrapped her palms around an empty jar and set it on the shelf before turning to face him. “I didn’t know it would be this hard. My son needs his father. I understand…”
“Think how he must be feeling.”
“Nathanial?”
“Chadwick.”
Victoria opened her mouth to correct Sir Henry’s use of Chadwick as David’s name, but she could not. Instead, she picked up a hand broom. “Nathanial’s very relationship to David excludes me.”
“As Chadwick is excluded by yours to Nathanial. You’re doing the right thing, Victoria.”
From an angle, she could see the palsy in Sir Henry’s hand as he gripped the cane, and she set down the broom, her own problems no longer important. “How are you feeling?”
“Daniel Gibson and his son Robbie were here,” Sir Henry said, leaning both hands on the cane as if it pained him to stand. “He said Lord Chadwick asked to see him. I’ve sent Mr. Gibson to the manor house with a message to bring him here. We need to talk.”
“Would you like your coffee with cream, mum?” Esma asked.
Victoria looked up from the documents in her hand. She was sitting at the kitchen table. A fire crackled in the hearth and mixed with the tangy aroma of a baking pie, all familiar smells of warmth and comfort she’d grown accustomed to in this cottage. Esma stood beside her, a small creamer in her hand.
“When did Sir Henry do this?” She set down the documents.
“His solicitor returned with the papers this morning, mum.”
The sound of an approaching horse drew Victoria to the window. She pulled aside the yellow curtains. David cantered Old Boy into the yard. He wore his coat, gloves, and hat, and she almost didn’t see Nathanial riding in front of him on the saddle.
Mr. Rockwell came out of the stable to take the reins. David eased Nathanial from the saddle when he saw Robbie exit from the stable. Her son ran across the yard. Even from behind the glass, she heard him talk about everything he’d done all morning, and say that when he grew up, he was going to be a knight.
As if sensing her presence at the window, David looked at the cottage—at her. She did not hear what Mr. Rockwell said as David threw his leg over the saddle and slipped to the ground. She dropped the edge of the curtain and, leaning her head against the sill, closed her eyes.
This morning he’d solved the apprehension in her heart in regard to the welfare of their son. Nathanial idolized him. Yet, somehow, she’d thought it would take longer for the two to form a bond, that she would hold more importance in her son’s life.
The back door shut. David ducked through the archway into the kitchen. Pulling off his hat, his eyes touching hers, he looked around as if expecting to see that something terrible had befallen her. “Is everything all right?” he asked, handing his coat and gloves to Esma as she bustled forward.
Behind him, Mr. Rockwell and Bethany entered. Sir Henry appeared in the kitchen. “Lord Chadwick,” he said, and asked David to sit at the table, while directing Bethany to another chair.
Esma brought tea. Knowing what Sir Henry was about to ask David, Victoria looked at her hands as she took her place across from him.
Sir Henry was ill. No one knew better than Victoria did from the first time she’d recognized his symptoms a year ago. Two days ago, he’d decided to put his affairs in order. He didn’t want the responsibility of Rose Briar. Even if he could talk David out of the deed, which at this point she suspected he easily could, Sir Henry would never be able to raise the funds needed to make the land productive again. But today was about something closer to his heart, and she sat at the end of the table half afraid to listen.
“I’m exhausted,” Sir Henry said to David and Bethany, finally turning to her. “I’ve finished all the treatment I’m going to take, and we both know that no herbs or miracle potions exist to cure what ails me. I could live another year or die tomorrow, I don’t know. But then who understands God’s plan for us all.”
“Peepaw—”
“Bethany, for once I need you to listen. I need both of you to understand,” he said, looking between Victoria and Bethany before turning his attention to David. “I am willing everything I own to the Rose Briar Estate, and ask that you remain,” he said. “That you not sell, if only because this is Nathanial’s home. You have the means to put life back into this land and give something to this town I failed to do.”
Victoria found she could not watch as Sir Henry pleaded his case. David might be her husband and Nathanial’s father, but he worked for the British government, and in that capacity, he had made it clear he would soon be gone—and she with him.
“Under the current circumstances, Nellis will attempt to find some way to contest your claim to Rose Briar,” Sir Henry continued to speak to David. “No doubt, he will make it a long and painful process. But though he may contest the legitimacy of your claim, he cannot successfully contest my will. I only ask that you think about my petition. I ask this because Bethany needs a guardian.”
David looked directly at Victoria as if she clearly belonged in Bedlam for agreeing to this—a look everyone else intercepted. “She knew nothing about my decision,” Sir Henry said.
Bethany was the first to react. “I don’t want to be your family, either, Lord Chadwick.” Her blue eyes glistening in the firelight, she stood. “Why are you doing this, Peepaw? You speak as if you are in the grave when you are as well as an ox. I’ll not allow you to talk as if you are already dead.”
“Sit down, Bethany,” Sir Henry ordered.
“I will not.”
Sir Henry came to his feet, the resulting uproar every bit as unpleasant as it usually was when he grew cross and accused his seventeen-year-old headstrong granddaughter of not only needing her bottom smacked but also needing a strong hand capable of finding her a husband.
“A husband?” Teary eyed, Bethany gasped. “I will pick my own husband, Peepaw.”
“And this is what comes from spoiling you, Bethany Ann Munro.” He shook his grizzled head regretfully. “Is it your desire that Nellis become your guardian, then?”
“You should have asked what I wanted, Peepaw.”
Victoria stood. “What is it you want, Bethany?”
“I certainly have no desire to go where I am not wanted. Nathanial belongs to Lord Chadwick, but I am not his family…why should he want me?” She looked from Sir Henry to Victoria. “I am nearly eighteen…surely if you do not stay, then neither do I—”
David scraped back the chair and, though he was the last to stand, his movement silenced the room. He started to speak, thought better of saying anything at all, and, turning on his heel, walked out of the kitchen.
David was outside, half sitting against a hitching rail when he heard gravel crunch behind him. Watching through a pale streamer of blue smoke, he inhaled from the cheroot as Meg stepped in front of him. Behind her, Nathanial, Robbie, and the Shelbys’ older son were playing pirates in the stable. David had come out here to get away from the cottage—from his own thoughts. He had been angry earlier, though he didn’t know why.
Or maybe he did.
“I would have warned you of Sir Henry’s plan if I could have,” Meg sa
id. “But despite anything you might think about his motives, this is Nathanial and Bethany’s home. I agree with his intent.”
“Did you maneuver Sir Henry into making his decision?”
“I did not. Clearly Sir Henry believes you are some guardian angel,” she said. “Everything happens for a reason and all that. Sir Henry is a firm believer your presence here is kismet.”
“What do you believe?”
“That kismet doesn’t necessarily equate to good fortune for all.”
His arms folded one over the other, David tapped ash from the cheroot, acutely aware of her and wishing he was not. Clad in trousers and boots beneath her cloak, she presented an anomalous, striking figure, looking like something he wanted to strip naked and go at against some private, shady wall somewhere. The image, completely incongruous with the reality of their circumstances, turned his attention to the hills.
Indeed, Sir Henry had cleverly pried open the passageway to his innermost secret desires. Only his sense of duty remained to be questioned. The sole source of his conflict.
And he was no longer sure even of that.
Only of his doubts.
“Why is Nellis so intent on having this estate?”
“I don’t know. Last year, we were at least on civil terms.”
“With the exception of you whacking off his sword.”
Her mouth crooked. “There was that,” she quipped.
Something in the silence that followed spoke to him of warmth and shared memories. “Do you still practice your gojushiho kata or kenjutsu?” he asked.
She shook her head, and a strange sense of loss caught him. How impossibly long ago it had been when he’d taught her kendo, the way of the sword. When her laughter had filled the empty courtyard of her father’s house.
Sounds of someone dying in a pirate battle drifted from the loft in the stables, and Meg looked up at the opened shutters. “I believe our son just killed Robbie,” she said.
When he made no reply, she turned and, catching his bold perusal, frowned, for David did not turn away this time or bother to hide the fact that he was staring at her with less than pure thoughts. She looked at him steadily and with something akin to growing wariness. Yet, strangely, he understood her guardedness, for he now fully understood his own and the source whence it came, even if she did not yet comprehend.
Silently laughing at his own weaknesses, he remembered that one of his brothers, Ryan, once told him he’d have to set his own affairs to right before judging another’s.
When had he stopped judging Meg?
“You are not the sort of woman I’d ever envisioned marrying,” he said. “Yet from the first time I saw you, somehow you got in my blood. I was never quite sure what to do about it then anymore than I am now.” He studied the glowing tip of the cheroot. “I’ve done a poor job at most everything I’ve ever tried to do, Meg. Certainly, I’m no angel.”
“You’re wrong about having done a poor job at everything.”
He arched a dubious brow. “A compliment?”
“You found me.”
David dropped the cheroot and ground it beneath his boot as he stood. “Maybe I was meant to find you. Meant to be here. And not in the divine sense of the word, either.”
Clearly, the thought had crossed her mind as well. “You are here when you should be in London,” she said. “Mr. Rockwell must have told you something new about the case, important enough for you to throw all caution aside.”
Her assertion that he could be here for any other reason but for her safekeeping brought a flicker of grim amusement to his mood. Then suddenly he was looking into her incredible eyes and wanted to do so much more than touch her. He wanted her to believe in him. To trust him. “Six months ago, your father disappeared,” he said. “I found out Kinley was in charge of his incarceration.”
“Six months? That is about the time Nellis took an interest in Rose Briar. But…if someone knew where I was, why bring you in?”
“Isn’t it obvious your father has revenge in mind?”
He thought she paled. “Do you think Nellis is involved? But why Rose Briar?”
“You tell me. Maybe he thinks something of great value is hidden on this massive estate.” There was neither anger nor accusation in his voice, merely a question that demanded an answer as he took her left hand and pressed her locket into her palm. “Would he be correct in that assumption?”
The expression on her face didn’t change, and if he hadn’t been holding her hand, wasn’t aware of her every breath, he would not have felt her response. But looking into her face, he realized the subtle reaction was not a response to his question, but to the locket itself. “Why did you bring this back?” she asked. “It’s only an old piece of jewelry.”
“You don’t need to barter your possessions. I have money.” He brought her fist to his lips and placed a tender kiss on the knuckles clutched over the locket. “I believe we can agree to disagree about everything else.”
“Yet we both agree what will happen when this is over.”
“What do you want to happen when this is over?” he quietly asked.
She eased away her hand. The locket had hit a nerve, or maybe only he had. He was confusing her. Probably had been confusing her since his return from town last night. He liked her confused. Vulnerability was more permeable, and he could touch more of her without wading through the mantle she wore around her like an invisible cloak. “Your mother’s image is inside. Why would you trade the locket, Meg?”
She took a step backward as he straightened. “You were right. I also believe there is someone guiding our every movement. It’s not safe for you here. Let Mr. Rockwell finish the job and turn me over to the authorities when it is time. But take Bethany and Nathanial with you. Start your life somewhere else,” she added, clearly having spent some time considering that point as she rambled on about an annulment. “I’m sure any woman in England would jump at the chance to be with someone of your impeccable credentials.”
Leaning his palms against the rough plank wall at her back, he encased her between his arms. “My impeccable credentials?” There was a lightness to his eyes, self-effacing humor that made him less upright and somehow more vulnerable to her tender gaze. “A moment ago you thought I should accept Sir Henry’s proposal. Now you are you foisting me off on another woman?”
“It is not my desire to foist you off on anyone.”
She ducked beneath his arm, but he stepped into her space and gave her no place to retreat. “Why didn’t you tell me there was gossip about us in town?”
“You are the source of a lot of gossip,” she said offhandedly. “Isn’t that what you set out to accomplish? To make yourself as visible a target as possible? You’re a baron with a beautiful mistress, a big house on the bluff. You’ve started a war with Nellis. How could my father or anyone working with him not notice you and through you find me? It has worked. So go away and let Mr. Rockwell finish this job before you and I end up exactly where we were nine years ago.”
“What do you want to happen when this is over?” he asked her again. “You said that we both agree on what will happen when this is over. I want to know what you want to happen. Will we face each other as we once did before?” he forced himself to ask, forced her to look at him.
Shaking her head, she lowered her gaze. “I don’t want to hate you, David.”
“Then the future does not have to end the way someone else wants this to play out,” he said, his eyes a little more gentle, knowing she had every right not to trust him, yet knowing she should have learned ten years ago that when he set his mind to a task, he got what he wanted. “A road of a thousand miles begins with the first step, Meg.” She looked down as he closed his hand over hers. “You can take that step with me.”
“Then what?” She met his steady gaze and whispered, “Do you have a miracle up your sleeve that can save me from you?”
“I might. But not today, love.”
The last word said on an in
timate breath, he leaned into her because he couldn’t stop himself. When her back came up against the side of the stable, he straightened slightly, his eyes burning into hers. He saw only a wariness that he understood too well. He knew how badly he had once hurt her.
And there was a darkness inside her that worried him, that lay beneath the surface. A part of her that he seemed to recognize because it lived inside him as well.
He didn’t kiss her. Didn’t even try. Though his gaze remained a moment longer on her mouth before he stepped aside to let her pass. It was enough for now to see the desire in her eyes and know that she wanted him as much as he wanted her.
Chapter 17
As twilight settled over the hills, David reined in Old Boy atop the knoll overlooking the cottage. He watched as Meg and Nathanial stepped into the buggy that would take them back to Rose Briar. After Meg had left him at the stable, he had not remained to sup with them, preferring instead to run Old Boy.
David withdrew his field glasses from his pack and watched the buggy’s progress up the drive and onto the road until it disappeared in the woods. He could see other activity on the drive as Mr. Shelby raked hay into a trough. Bethany appeared from inside the stable, pulling the reins of a horse and, for a moment, heedless of his inner struggle, he watched her. Meg had been only a little older than Bethany when he had first met her.
What did he know of playing the role of anyone’s guardian anyway, or of the responsibilities that came with owning land and people’s lives? Or interpreting an old man’s reasons for believing David had a right to any of it? Or thinking that he had the power to change anything for the better?
It was a familiar thought, he realized, one that he battled within every arena of his life. He had never had the power to change anything or make a difference.
The black stallion pranced in sudden apprehension. Twisting in the saddle, he turned the glasses on the countryside. He could see the distant church steeple through the trees and paused as he reflected on Sir Henry’s belief in kismet or providence. David knew he would rather not attach his current fate to the workings of a capricious higher power. Yet his long association in Ireland left an indelible mark on him that he could not deny. For the very cause that brought him to Meg in India had brought him back to her now as if fate were offering him a second chance to do what he should have done the first time, and undo what he had destroyed. Fate was telling him to trust his heart.
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