The housekeeper took Glynis to a retiring room to answer nature’s demands, and to freshen herself. When she came back to the snug, book-lined parlor, it seemed to her that St. Albans had made himself fastest of friends with the vicar.
Ah, but that man could charm. He would be a wonder at a horse fair.
“Bless, me, but do you mean to say you were up at Cambridge with Terrance Hale?” the vicar asked beaming. “Why his Botanical Gardens sits upon my very shelf here. Have you actually been to his home, to see his gardens I mean? I have promised myself to make that pilgrimage, but have yet to tear myself from my own tidy plot here.”
“Yes, I have been many times,” St. Albans said, a slight drawl in his tone. “Shall I ask Tuffy to send you some rose cuttings? They are some of the most glorious in the country.”
Glynis sat down and listened to the Earl of St. Albans talk roses. He actually seemed to know of what he spoke, for he and the vicar were soon off into talk of cuttings and mulch, and colors and pruning, and things that seemed in another language.
She tried to picture St. Albans in a rose garden, perhaps with his coat off, and his shirt cuffed. The image had her smiling, but she thought it more likely that he had an army of gardeners and commanded them like a general.
A shadow fell over her and she looked up into his handsome face. “Have we managed to bore you utterly?”
She glanced around and saw they were alone.
“Mr. Cook has gone to fetch the rectory keys to take us into the church vaults,” St. Albans said, offering her his hand. Do remember that it is a cousin’s wedding you wish to find.”
She nodded and rose. And glanced sideways at him. “Do you really grow roses?”
“A sensualist ought to indulge his senses—all of them,” he said, and his eyes lighting with some secret mischief. He lifted her bare hand to his lips, for she had taken off her gloves in the retiring room. “Sight we take for granted. But that is just the starting point.”
His lips brushed the back of her hand. “There is touch.”
His tongue teased her skin with a soft feathering. He lifted his mouth and said, the word almost a caress, “Taste.”
She stiffened and tried to glare at him. “Do you not recall that Mr. Cook is supposed to think me the respectable Miss Dawes tonight?”
His eyes gleamed wicked. “That certainly covers hearing, although those were not quite dulcet tones. But we cannot overlook scent—it is a woman’s scent that lingers most in a man’s mind.”
Still holding her hand he lifted it and then breathed deeply, as if taking snuff from her wrist. “A clean smell of soap and rosewater. A pragmatic aroma for Miss Dawes. But you ought to have your own scent, my Gypsy. Something unique. Exotic.”
Despite the cooling evening, her neck warmed. “You are trying to flatter me.”
“And I am succeeding. Shall I mix you a scent? It is a hobby of mine to do so.”
She started to answer him that she wanted no such thing, but Mr. Cook came back into the room, huffing, a sheen on his round face from his search for his keys. He urged Glynis to bring a shawl, warning her that he would not want her to take a chill from the night air.
Ah, if he only knew how many nights I slept in the open. She caught a glimpse of wry amusement in St. Albans’s eyes, and she had to look away for she knew he held same thought as her.
St. Albans offered her his arm for the walk, and the vicar chatted about the history of the village—its establishment as a Norman holding near the Welsh border—and the illustrious Dawes family.
“How long have you been vicar here about?” St. Albans asked, drawling the question with casual boredom.
Glynis tensed. Could this man have actually married her parents? His answer disappointed.
“Nearly two decades. Yes, a goodly time. Lord Nevin gave me the living after Mr. Allnut—the previous vicar, bless him—left for India. Missionary work, I think it was.”
“You never asked him?” St. Albans said, stopping outside the church.
Mr. Cook lifted the lantern he carried and paused, the iron ring of keys jangling softly in his hand. “Never met the man. He left just after the fire that took the old Rectory. No one died, bless us. But I have heard that it broke the man to have had his personal papers burnt. All of them—diaries, letters, books. Thankfully, the parish records have always been kept in the vault. Do go in. The church is always open, and it is only the vault that is kept under key.”
St. Albans opened the door, and Glynis stepped into the church, a little nervous to walk where once her parents had given their vows. She waited a moment for the vicar to enter with his lantern, and for some sense of recognition of the place. But it was simply a church, not unlike others she had seen.
Stone walls were hung with tapestry, and wooden pews lined the floor. It seemed quite sparse, but she liked the sense of peace that lay within the silence.
Leading the way, the vicar took them to a wooden door that lay to the side. It took him two tries to find the right key, and a good twist to unlock the door, which squeaked on its hinges, proclaiming how rarely anyone entered. A twisted stair of stone steps, worn by footfalls in the middle, led down one flight. Even Glynis had to hunch under the low ceiling.
The vault seemed more storeroom than anything else, lined as it was with wine racks and dusty bookshelves, with a rough hewn wooden table in the center.
“Bless me now, which year would you care to see?” the Vicar asked, setting down his lantern and turning up the wick.
Glynis silently counted back her own age, plus the year in addition that would set the date. “Seventeen-ninety-two. June, please.”
Mr. Cook began to search the shelves and Glynis edged closer to St. Albans to whisper, “You heard him—a convenient fire, the old vicar gone. We always knew there would be nothing here to find.”
St. Albans lifted a skeptical eyebrow and gave her a cool stare. “Ah, but the right nothing can be as revealing as something.”
Glynis frowned at him. She realized he was referring to the fact that if they did find the parish register, but did not find her parents signatures in it, it would prove that no marriage had taken place.
She pulled her shawl a little tighter around her shoulders.
“Ah, here we have it,” the vicar said, pulling out a dusty, leather-bound book that was almost too large for him to manage. He laid the register upon the worktable, opened it, and stepped back. “What name did you say you were searching for?”
“Edward Dawes,” Glynis said.
Mr. Cook frowned. “What? Not the late baron’s eldest? Oh, no. You must be mistaken. He never married. Died young, bless him. Tragic accident, I heard.”
St. Albans stepped forward. “Quite. But Miss Dawes is recalling a cousin, I believe. Miss Dawes?”
With a nervous glance at St. Albans, Glynis came forward, and began to scan the parish register as the vicar began to chatter about the various members of the Dawes family whom he personally knew.
She did not listen, but looked at the names, so carefully inscribed by each couple who had married here. Christian names, middle names, given names. Men and women who had pledged their lives to each other. Were some of them now dead? Some with grown children, and grandchildren even? Some perhaps still living in this area, and who had known her father.
She turned the page, and the date jumped suddenly to October. Her hands chilled. She turned the page back, and then forward and back again, searching for her parents’ names. Dear God, had St. Albans been right after all? Was the inheritance she had dreamed of nothing more, really, than her mother’s desire for revenge against the Dawes?
Ah, but that could not be. It must not be.
Not knowing what else to do, she glanced toward St. Albans.
He stepped closer, and put a palm on each side of the book, pressing it flat.
There, in the center, she saw it. A sharp edge of vellum that stood up. She ran her fingers down the center of the book, along the edge. And then sh
e looked at the dates that jumped so quickly from June to October.
St. Albans closed the book and turned to the vicar. “It is as we thought—not here.”
“I am sorry. Would you care to look at another year? No? Well, then, come back to the Rectory and we shall have some tea before you must leave. And if there is any light, you must let me walk you through my gardens. They are quite modest, but I would be interested in your opinion of my Comte de Chambord, which has just begun to bud.”
The vicar spoke as he put away the book and led them up the curved, stone stairs again. Glynis allowed St. Albans to walk ahead with Mr. Cook, and she held back from them, her thoughts dark and her mood even darker.
Someone had cut a page from the register. Someone who had, no doubt, burned the previous vicar’s papers, just in case he had a letter or had made a journal entry. But it was negative proof—and nothing to take before the law.
And she could almost growl from the frustration of it.
Outside the church, Mr. Cook veered off the path, leading them to the gardens at the back of the Rectory. Glynis allowed the gentleman to outpace her. St. Albans glanced back at her, his eyebrows lifted in a silent question.
She waved him on. She needed a moment to herself. A moment to mourn the hopes she had not even realized had risen in her. A moment for a personal visit before they departed.
The vicar’s droning voice faded, and Glynis turned her steps toward the quiet of the cemetery.
She walked steadily, peering at the white granite headstones. The sun had set, but the last twilight lingered in the sky with the promise that soon the longest day would be here. The moon had risen full and lush, brighter even than the vicar’s lantern.
At the far end, near the woods, she glimpsed what she sought.
Edward Dawes.
Just his name upon a headstone. Nothing more. Not a mention that he had been only twenty-nine when he had died. Not a mention that he was a beloved father and husband.
Stooping beside the headstone, she brushed her fingers across the cold, hard lettering.
A deep voice startled her. “ ‘Some shape of beauty moves away the pall, from our dark spirits...’ “
Glynis spun on her heel, lost her balance and sat down in the grass. A shadow loomed over her, dark and broad shouldered, but the man offered his hand and an easy grin.
“I am terribly sorry. I did not mean to frighten you. My father swears I have a scholar’s mind and no manners to my life, but I may at least atone for startling you with poetry. Though Keats ought to startle.”
He lifted her to her feet. Brushing at her skirts, she looked up at him. “Keats?”
“A poet. A gifted fellow unlike your humble servant.” He swept her a bow. “But what is a lady such as you, ‘rich with a sprinkling of fair musk-rose blooms,’ doing in a graveyard by moonlight. I am quoting at you, and it is very rude of me to do that and not introduce myself. Forgive me, I’m Bryn Dawes. And you are...?”
She stiffened. A Dawes. What did she say to him? She peered closer at his face, but it was too dark to see more than that he was tall, and his voice flowed like a songbird that would not stop singing.
“I am just a visitor,” she said. “Now you must pardon me. My host will be wondering where I am.”
She started for the Rectory, but he fell into step with her, matching his longer stride to hers. She saw moonlight glance off riding boots.
“So you are visiting Mr. Cook. It’s terribly rude of me to pry, I know, but I must ask. Please tell me that you did not come with the Earl of St. Albans.”
She stopped and turned towards him. “How did you know?”
“A coach, a crest, they are easy things to see. And in a village this small, difficult to overlook.”
“Do you know the Earl?” she asked. His answer would tell much about him, she decided.
He paused a moment, as if weighing his words. “By reputation only. And now I shall be an utter knave and ask if you are safe in his company. Forgive me, if you are. I have this lamentable tendency to insert myself where I am not wanted, but a lady met by moonlight must be a forgiving sort.”
She stood there, twisting the ends of her shawl. Ah, what should she say to him? No, I do not want to be here with St. Albans. And what would he do? Rescue her? Take her with him? As if she would be safer with a Dawes than with that devil of a gaujo.
“There is nothing to forgive. But thank you for your concern.” She started to walk away from him again.
He hurried to keep pace with her. “Please, I have this sense that I know you from somewhere. Do I? Or is it my uncle whom you knew? That was his grave, was it not?”
Stopping, she turned towards him. “Your uncle? Your father is Francis Dawes?”
Even in the moonlight, she saw his mouth twist. “Yes, I am Lord Nevin’s son, and the way you say his name I take it that you not among his few admirers. Please tell me you are not yet another relative he has offended. Or someone he has wronged. ‘Of noble natures, of the gloomy days, of all the unhealthy and o’er-darkened ways...’ I am afraid that he does things from the certainty he knows best for all, and he is too often right for his own good. And for the rest of our own goods as well. And here I am babbling and not letting you speak—I do know you from somewhere.”
Head spinning, she could only frown at him. He was her cousin. Jek rat. Same blood. The tug of kinship lay between them, and he felt it as well to be so certain he knew her. Blood called to blood, and she saw in the shape of this man the shape of her brother.
But she did not want to know him, or like him. Low, melodic voices, she had learned from St. Albans, could too easily beguile.
“I must go.”
She started forward, but he called out to her again, so she paused and turned to face him.
He came toward her, fishing in his pockets for something. “Here. Take this. No, no, it is nothing. Merely my card. I cannot rid myself of the feeling that if you travel with the Earl of St. Albans, you travel with trouble. It is the moonlight, I think. Or the graveyard. ‘A poor, weak, palsy-stricken, churchyard thing.’ But if you have my card, I will know at least that I have offered help.”
“Why should want to befriend me? A stranger.”
“ ‘Mortality weights heavily on me like unwilling sleep.’ I have a heavy soul, lady. And I know but one way to lighten it, and that is by aiding others. But it is easy to promise a stranger aid. They so rarely take it.”
He took her hand, pressed his card into it, and bowed low, the courtly gesture oddly touching. “I think you will remember a madman who quoted poetry at you and asked only your name. But I vow I do know you from somewhere. Perhaps someday you will tell me from whence. And I do hope you know St. Albans as well as you know my father—both men deserve a good deal of cautious respect.”
“What if we never meet again?”
“Oh, we shall meet. I can feel it. And the things I feel in my bones come true. My mother was Welsh, you see. It irritates my father no end that it was so, but she was very rich, and he could not refuse her family’s money. And here I am again, talking to you as if you were family.”
His grin flashed in the darkness.
She glanced down at his card, a white rectangle in the moonlight. Somehow it gave her reassurance to have it—as if he might be a friend to her. But he might as easily turn from her once he knew her identity. He might prove his father’s son.
“Thank you,” she said. She started toward the Rectory, but stopped, turned back to his dark silhouette, and called out, “Glynis. My name is Glynis.”
Turning away again, unsettled, she strode back to the Rectory.
She remained silent on the drive back to Owlpen Manor. Thankfully, St. Albans did not question her, nor did he try to flatter or flirt. He simply sat next to her in the carriage, his shoulder brushing hers as the coach rocked.
At Owlpen, he handed her from the coach. She felt his stare on her as he escorted her inside.
“I...I am tired. Do excuse m
e,” she said, and fled up the stairs.
She did not want to face him tonight. She could not. Disappointment lay hollow inside her. She wanted to be alone.
Ah, what she really wanted was this done and over. If not for Christo, she would flee back to the woods—that was where she wished to be again. But it was too late for that escape. She could feel already that her old life had slipped away from her, and this one was far, far from being manageable.
She thought back to her cousin, Bryn. He had what Christo wanted—position, wealth, a title that someday would be his if things were not made right. Yet he seemed no more content than was her brother. Was no one ever happy with their lives? And here was St. Albans, who wanted to make her life yet more complicated by taking her to his bed and tangling her life with his.
She could almost wish them all gone, and her life so much simpler.
But what would she do without Christo? Without her dej? She needed friend and family, just as she needed air and water.
She allowed the maid to take down her hair, but then dismissed her. When the maid left, Glynis carefully searched the room for any possible hidden panels. She did not want another surprise visit from St. Albans. Satisfied at last, she locked the door. Still in her evening gown, but now barefooted, she opened the window and curled up on a chair.
The night smelled of summer and the breeze touched her face with a mix of the day’s last warmth and cool darkness. Crickets chirped, and an owl called out its warning that it hunted by moonlight. It would be a good night to lay under the stars, the earth at her back. Ah, perhaps she felt unsettled because she had been too long in houses. Perhaps she needed dirt under her feet and wind in her hair.
With a sigh, she settled deeper in her chair, too tired to answer the night’s call. Perhaps tomorrow.
Tomorrow.
A scrabbling outside her window roused her. Someone was climbing the walls. For a moment, she could only fear that somehow she had betrayed herself with Bryn Dawes, and that, like his father, he had sent someone after her. An instant’s fear ran through her, cold as winter.
A Much Compromised Lady Page 14