by Eloisa James
Lady Grace spoke before he could continue. “Mr. Barry has received His Majesty’s highest commendations for bravery. But now the time has come when he need not defend our shores. Finally, I have him home with me.”
There was nothing Dobson could say to that. She’d voided his argument. And honestly, even in the midst of a wretched cold, he no longer cared to refuse their request. The eyes of these two made him remember why he became a priest in the first place.
He rose without another word, and escorted them into the church.
After he donned his tippet and cross, he called them to the altar, summoning his churchwarden and housekeeper to act as witnesses. The couple came before him still holding hands.
For a reason he hardly understood, he chose a different Bible verse from that which he generally read in the performance of the sacrament.
“And Ruth said, ‘Entreat me not to leave thee, or to return from following after thee: for whither thou goest, I will go; and where thou lodgest, I will lodge: thy people shall be my people, and thy God my God: Where thou diest, will I die, and there will I be buried.’ ”
Reverend Dobson never forgot this particular wedding. It restored some deep part of his soul that had grown hungry, and small, and come near to being cynical.
When he finally pronounced the words, “I declare thee man and wife,” the joy in Mr. and Mrs. Barry’s faces was enough to bring tears to his eyes.
He kept the memory of that marriage in his mind. It wasn’t often that he saw two people whom he considered to be blessed by their love for each other. It was a salutary reminder of God’s gifts on earth. In his more fanciful moments, he even thought that the name of the bride was a message in itself.
“God resisteth the proud,” he would tell himself, thinking of the soldier’s dark, haunted eyes, “but giveth grace unto the humble.”
Five
Arbor House was completely empty, since the Barrys were still abroad, and the servants had been sent home for a holiday. Colin told his coachman to put the horses snug in the stables and then find lodging in the village and be back in the morning.
They woke in the big, silent house and ate porridge for breakfast—ably cooked by Colin, who had learned such things at sea—after which Grace retreated to the summerhouse to paint, and Colin walked to the village to find help.
Winkle was small, with only a few streets, graced by names such as Dew Street and the unforgettable Cockermouth Lane. Colin strolled down High Street, enjoying the sunshine warm on his shoulders. This was what he missed by being at sea… that sense of lasting peace one found in an English village, where life moved slowly and at a—
“Dang blast it!” a voice screeched from a narrow street that ran to the left of the baker’s shop. “If you ain’t the nastiest beast I ever saw, then I’m not fit to be a— You blasted whoreson, don’t you kick me again, or I’ll slice off your berries with a rusty knife!”
At the first harsh syllable, Colin’s entire body slammed into alert and he flung himself into the shelter of a wall. His heart was pounding and he was flooded with a feeling of rage and fear.
Bloody hell.
The street remained quiet, but a stream of vitriol continued to pour from the darkish alley. Slowly Colin forced himself to relax, toe by toe and then finger by finger. He wasn’t at sea. There was no danger here, merely a foul mouthed, abusive Englishman.
Finally he took a deep breath. He felt nauseated, and his forehead was covered with beads of sweat. Still, the man raged on.
When his heartbeat was more or less back to normal, Colin straightened and moved away toward the street. He felt like a damned fool, but thankfully, no one had seen him hurtling himself against the wall like a five-year-old frightened by a clap of thunder.
He made himself walk toward the shouting. He could hear the sound of blows now, along with curses. He pulled himself together: he didn’t care what sort of man or beast was being visited with this abuse, he wouldn’t stand for it.
It was a horse, a huge, gaunt chestnut.
As Colin entered the alley, the horse tried to wheel and kick the man holding his reins, undaunted by the blows landing on his back. With utter disgust, Colin realized that the man was wielding a thick wooden club, striking the horse on the shoulders when he could, dragging the reins back to the ground by hanging on them, so he could hit the animal again.
In a moment, Colin had skirted the horse and jerked the reins away while he simultaneously leveled a kick at the man’s crotch.
Direct hit.
The man dropped in mid-curse, his eyes rolling into his head as he clutched his genitals and curled into a ball.
Then Colin looked up the horse, which had taken advantage of the situation to rear again, his hooves flailing the air as he tried to escape.
But Colin’s arm was pure muscle after years at sea. He gave the reins a hard jerk and the horse landed back on the cobblestones with a jarring thump. Then he gave the animal one stern look. “No.”
The horse’s face was wet with sweat and froth; his eyes were filled with terror and rage. The idiot at his feet had managed some solid blows to the shoulder, because Colin saw a streak of blood along with wood chips and dark sweat.
Colin wound the reins around his hand, keeping the horse’s head close to him. “No more,” he said quietly. The beast made a huffing noise and tried to back away, shaking his head violently.
Just then the fool on the ground managed to stagger to his feet, hand still cupped over his privates. “Who the devil are you?” he screamed, his voice rising higher into the air.
Colin noticed that some villagers had finally noticed the noise; a baker in a white apron was walking from the far end of the alley, followed by a few others. He ignored the man’s question. “What in the devil were you doing to this animal.” He made it a statement, not a question; they both knew the answer.
“Beating what is mine,” the man cried, staggering forward and trying to snatch the reins. “That limb of Satan is mine, and if I want to strike it dead in front of the church, I’ll do it. You give me back my horse!”
The baker stopped, hands on his hips. “Joshua Bunbutt, you are no more than a drunken rogue, beating that horse in such an unprincipled manner. You ought to be ashamed of yourself.”
“Well, I ain’t,” Bunbutt said, with a snarl that raised his top lip in a remarkably unattractive fashion. “You can throw me in the jug when you decide I’ve drunk a bit more than you fools consider necessary, but you can’t stop me from dealing with a problem that I own. So just take your sanctimonious arse back into the bakery, Wadd.”
He swung back to Colin. “Give me back my reins, you son of a—”
“I wouldn’t,” Colin said softly.
Bunbutt obviously caught the likelihood of violent engagement in Colin’s eyes; he fell back a step. “Look here,” he said with a bit of a whine, “just give me the damned horse and I’ll take him home with me.”
“Home!” the baker snorted. “You haven’t got a home, you old scoundrel. Your missus told everyone in the church the other day that she’s kicked you out. She’s a decent woman, and you’ve worn her to a nub.”
“My wife is none of your business!” Bunbutt said, his voice rising again. “She’s another limb of Satan. I’ve got nothing but betrayal on all sides.”
“How much?” Colin asked.
He could hear the horse breathing harshly behind him but he had settled, and was merely moving from hoof to hoof. It sounded as if he wore only three shoes.
“I ain’t selling him,” Bunbutt shouted. His cheeks were turning red again. “I know your game! You’re trying to take away my livelihood, and then you’ll let me starve by the side of the road. An’ my Christian wife will walk by and spit on my head. I’ll take my horse!”
He charged forward again, so Colin gave him a stiff uppercut to the jaw.
“I’ll have the parish constable on you!” Bunbutt cried, reeling backward, a dribble of blood coming from his mouth.
Bunbutt’s eyes followed the flash of gold to where it lay on the cobblestones. “Yer trying to buy me horse for a measly—”
Another followed.
“That animal isn’t worth more than two,” the baker said, stepping forward. “The poor thing has been abused by this fool here for the past three years.” He turned and poked Bunbutt in the chest. “And no saying where you got him from. He’s too fine an animal for you to own, and we all said so from the first. You stole him!”
“I did not!” Bunbutt screamed.
Colin threw a third sovereign.
“That’s too much,” the baker said.
“I’ll take another!” Bunbutt said greedily. “You want this horse, you have to pay for him. And pay good. He’s a fine animal, of a championship pedigree.”
Colin didn’t give a damn what pedigree the horse had. What he saw was a dumb beast, beaten and abused by a drunken, uncaring bastard. In fact, the world would be a better place without Bunbutt.
The man must have seen that thought in his eyes because he suddenly dropped to his knees and scrabbled for the sovereigns.
“He’s yours, then!” he said shrilly, backing away so sharply that he struck the baker.
“Faugh, you smell!” the baker said, thrusting him aside.
“I hope that limb of Satan kicks you just as you kicked me. God will make sure of it.”
“God!” the baker scoffed. “As if he’d know the difference between you and a common stone on the ground.”
“Leave,” Colin stated. “You no longer belong in Winkle.”
Bunbutt leaned forward and spat. “That’s what I think of you.” Then he turned around and ran, with an odd stumbling gait, from the alley.
“You paid too much for that horse,” the baker said. “Though it was an earthly kindness of you to rescue it. I doubt it’s good for more than the rag-and-bones man.”
“We’ll see,” Colin said. He unwound the reins from his hand. “I’m Sir Griffin Barry’s son, and I just came to Arbor House last night with my wife. I need a woman to cook and clean, since there are no servants in residence at the moment.”
“Mrs. Busbee does for Sir Griffin,” the baker said immediately. “I’ll send a boy and she’ll be there in an hour or so.”
Colin walked the horse back to Arbor House. When he arrived, he took it around to the stables, discovering that Grimble had already come back from the village to care for the carriage horses.
“I’ll wash him down,” Grimble said, eyeing the animal with a dubious expression. “He does have nice flanks for all he’s too thin, and an excellent fetlock. It might be that you can sell him for a pretty penny once he’s cleaned up, and those wounds have healed.” He carefully felt the horse’s shoulder while Colin held the reins tight. “Nothing broken. He’s a lucky fellow.”
“I’ll groom him,” Colin said, backing the horse into a stall. “You deal with the other horses, Grimble.”
Then Colin leaned against the half door and waited. Long minutes passed before the horse looked up.
“You’re a mess,” Colin said conversationally, making no move to touch him. “You’re covered with sweat and dirt, there’s dried blood on your right shoulder, your mane looks as if a bird shat in it, and even your eyelashes are tangled.”
The horse lowered his head again, his head hanging so low that his nose touched the straw. Colin fetched a bucket of oats, but the moment he put an arm over the door to pour it in his trough, the horse’s head whipped up and he reared straight into the air.
Colin ignored him and poured the oats. “You look as if you’re trying to fly,” he told the animal. “I believe I’ll name you after my former ship, the Daedalus. The ship was named after a Greek man who flew too close to the sun for comfort, but made it back to earth.”
The horse ignored him. He had all four hooves on the floor again, his sides heaving, a fresh coating of dark sweat on his neck. After a good four minutes, Daedalus lowered his head and began to eat.
“Grimble!” Colin called. “I’ve given him a name: Daedalus.”
“That’s a fancy one, sir,” Grimble said, coming to stand at his side. “Foreign-like, isn’t it? Shall we tie him close and I’ll wash him down?”
Colin shook his head. “I don’t think there’s much chance of infection since the wound closed so quickly. We’ll leave him for the night, Grimble.”
“It don’t seat right with me,” the coachman said, staring at the horse. “Leaving a good horse in that condition.”
“He doesn’t care about dirt as much as he cares about not being struck again. Perhaps tomorrow. For now, let’s just let him get used to us. Bring him some hay and mash, will you?”
He stood at the door for a few more minutes before telling Daedalus that he had to find his wife. The horse’s ears twitched, although he didn’t look up. “I’ll be back tomorrow morning. And the morning after that. And no one will hit you ever again.”
The horse lipped his oats, weary with fear and pain.
Colin walked back to the house, thinking about parallels that were too obvious to be ignored.
Mrs. Busbee was already in the house. She had made tea and was scrubbing the kitchen. She was disturbed by Colin’s refusal to allow servants to stay in the house at night. But finally she laid out supper in the kitchen, and promised to return the following morning with some women to help her do a thorough cleaning.
“Though how you’ll get along by yourselves, I don’t know,” she told him. “It isn’t natural having Quality doing as such by themselves.”
Colin just smiled. Once she left, he brought a silver tray down to the lakeshore and served tea.
And then he seduced his wife under the shade of the willow.
Afterward, Grace lay on the grass, her head on Colin’s leg, and watched the late afternoon sun cast shadows of thin spears over his dark limbs and her pale ones. In her opinion, it wasn’t possible to be any happier than this.
That was before supper.
Colin put aside his plate after they finished Mrs. Busbee’s pie. Then he took out a sheaf of paper.
“What is that?” Grace asked, made tipsy by the combination of an excellent wine and too much sun.
“A letter,” he said. He looked up at her, his eyes glittering over the sheet. “Years ago, I received just such a letter.”
She took a closer look and burst into laughter. “That’s the one I sent you after Lily cut the fingers off my gloves.”
“Your very first,” he said, smoothing it on the table. “As you can probably see, it’s been read two or three hundred times, Grace.”
The laughter died in her throat.
“I never had the time or the courage to write you a proper response, though I might have jotted down a line or two. This afternoon I wrote you the letter I should have sent, had I been braver and you a bit older. God help me, I remember that week far too clearly.”
He began to read.
Dearest Grace,
I’m sorry about your gloves. I would love to buy you some more, but as a lowly midshipman, I’m not allowed to leave the ship when it docks. This last week was rather horrible for me, too, but for different reasons. We encountered a ship full of slavers. I think that we probably could have avoided an actual battle by boarding it in an orderly manner, but Captain Persticle is eager to sink ships. You see, the navy gives you a prize if you defeat an enemy ship. We did sink it, after a battle that seemed hours long, but turned out only to take forty minutes. Unfortunately, the quartermaster, Mr. Heath, who has two little boys at home, was caught by a bullet fired by one of our own sailors. And the slaves… the slavers threw them all overboard.
He took a drink of wine. Grace took a deep breath and held out her glass; he refilled it for her. She sipped wine that smelled like flowers, while Colin’s steady voice told the story of how Mr. Heath died, and what he had said about his childre
n the day before.
He paused, looked at her. “Are you all right?”
“Yes.” Grace was holding his left hand tightly. “I am so glad to know of Mr. Heath, Colin. And to hear of his children. And those poor African people. It is important.”
He didn’t say anything, just nodded, but his voice lost a bit of its impassiveness. Her letter had been one sheet; his was five sheets.
The next day he worked with Daedalus all morning and then, in the afternoon, he wrote a letter to Mr. Heath’s wife and children. After that, he found Grace’s next letter, and answered it. His was more than eight pages long, and much of it was difficult to hear. Grace cried, because Colin did not (but should, in her opinion).
The next night he did, though. Just a tear, but she thought it was a priceless tear. He told her, in that letter, what it was like to kill someone. The man had jerked upward as the bullet hit him, and then collapsed, falling to the ground, one leg twisted underneath him, staring at the sky. He had written about what it was like to know that someone—some mother’s son, no matter how despicable—was dead by your own hand.
And he wrote about the ordinary moments when he would think he saw the man walking across the deck, shoulders hunched, walking somewhere fast, as if he had a place to be. A person to meet.
That night Colin didn’t dream of blood.
A fortnight or so later, Grace woke in the night and propped herself on an elbow, looking at Colin’s face by moonlight. It was shadowed and hollowed by all that had happened to him.
As she watched, a smile shaped his lips. “Come here,” he murmured, pulling her down onto his chest.
The letters were helping, and so was she; she knew that truth deep in her bones. Death stood on one side, and she on the other. Every time they made love, every morning he spent taming Daedalus, every afternoon he spent writing, every evening when he read aloud another letter, every time he teased her or asked her a question about one of her paintings, she dragged him farther onto her side.