Honour's Redemption Read online

  “Have ye opened it yet?” Sairy Jane called from below stairs.

  Ruth walked quickly to the vicar’s door and opened it. This room, like the dining room had not been touched. Tracks across the dusty floor spoke of mice. Ruth strode inside and set the lantern on the floor in front of the window. It took a bit of work but she finally raised it a few inches. “My pleasure, Mr. Kenton,” she breathed. Snatching up her lantern she hurried back to the landing. There she looked behind all of the doors but the one to the front of the house and found clean bedchambers with freshly made beds for all.

  Raising her gaze upward, Ruth heaved a relieved sigh. “Thank you Lord. Pardon my doubt.” In a trice she rushed back down the stairs. The first thing she noticed was the lit candles in the sconce on the wall, secondly the old woman’s fearful yet expectant gaze.

  “Vicar Kenton’s soul is free Mrs. —” she smiled faintly. “How am I to address you?”

  “Sairy Jane were all the vicar e’er called me. It’ll do. “Now ye’d best see to gettin’ yer folks inside. ‘T’will only grow colder.”

  Ruth strode toward the door and then halted. She turned back and went into the sitting room. An ancient large Queen Anne sofa stood about six feet in front of the fireplace. Without a second glance she strode out and through the front door.

  Two figures stealthily scampered down the stairs and into the sitting room.

  * * *

  The wonders of warmth and a substantial warm meal, thought Ruth as she poured the hot water into the tea pot and set the kettle back on the banked stove. She glanced at the bucket of water in the sink and for a brief moment was almost tempted to look in it.

  Sairy Jane. The old woman was full to the brim and then some with Yorkshire superstitions. Not only did she believe a soul could not leave a house if a window was not open at the time of death but also that if a young unwed woman looked in a pail of water after rising she would see the husband.

  A bridegroom in a bucket? Well, I did not think we’d have water in a bucket this eve and look what we have.

  Ruth slowly ran her gaze over the time-marked table and chairs, the old stove, the worn curtains and the begrimed window she intended to clean on the morrow. Old but serviceable like Sairy Jane. God bless the woman. Ruth grimaced. She would have to tell the old woman they could not afford to feed another mouth. But not tonight.

  Sairy Jane walked into the kitchen, her shoulders bowed with age and the day’s work. “They’re abed ‘cept fer the vicar and thet young man.”

  “I shall take tea to my father and then see him to his bed. You should take to yours now.”

  “I put a blanket in the chair jest in case ye mean ta sit wit thet young fella.”

  “Thank you. You have been very kind.”

  “Savin’ me soul,” Sairy Jane said on a yawn and took up her night candle. She paused. “When I got near the back door this afternoon I heard an owl hoot. Worse, I saw it.”

  Though she thought the old woman half mad Sairy Jane’s words sent a chill up Ruth’s spine. It sounded like a warning. “Do you know why the people of Whitby don’t want us here?”

  Sairy Jane shrugged and went to the door of the small room off the kitchen that contained a small bed and roughly hewn dresser. “Don’t pay heed ta the noises. There’s alwus been strange noises. They ne’er harmed a soul,” she said and with a nod at Ruth went into her chamber and closed the door.

  With an attentive ear Ruth listened intently for a moment. Nothing but the wind at the door. “Ghosts and noises,” Ruth said softly as she poured the tea into two cups. “If only that were all I had on my plate.” She picked up the cups and saucers and headed to the sitting room.

  The candles in the hall sconces had long been blown out but a comfortable glow from the sitting room’s open doors lit the way for Ruth. Hearing her father’s voice, low and earnest she halted outside the doorway and listened.

  “‘Now character determines men's qualities, but it is by their actions that they are happy or the reverse,’” Sampson Clayton told Merristorm’s still form. “That is from Aristotle’s Poetic’s and Rhetoric as you well know.”

  Ruth closed her eyes against a surge of memories but still saw her father tutoring the squire’s sons. The picture wavered then cleared. Now they were in a comfortable room ornate by vicarage standards. She saw herself embroidering by the fireplace. Nearby on a settee her father and Lucian debated an arcane Aristotelian point in Greek.

  It was so real Ruth’s eyes snapped open. She was still outside the sitting room at St. Cedds. Nothing had changed.

  “Your actions of late have certainly not made you happy. But your character was not shaped to such. That I know.”

  Her father’s words startled Ruth. She entered and met her father’s gaze. Lucian’s effect on him filled her with a sudden guarded optimism. “How do you know his character?”

  “He was a student of Dr. Robinson. A rather promising one until some untoward incident.” He frowned and looked at the man on the sofa.

  Ruth looked sharply at her father as she handed him his teach cup. “Dr. Robinson—the gentleman you used to visit at University?”

  “The same.” Sampson sipped his tea and watched Ruth set her cup down and go to the sofa. “He has neither opened his eyes nor said a word.”

  “I thought I heard you conversing with him,” Ruth said quietly. She brushed back the black hair from Merristorm’s forehead and gently rested her hand there a moment. Drawing it back quickly at the light frisson at the contact she went to her cup and sat in the chair at the other end of the sofa.

  “Memories of my school days,” murmured Sampson. He gazed at Lucian’s face and sighed. “He taketh away the heart . . . and causeth him to wander in a wilderness where there is no way. He gropes in the dark without light, and He maketh him to stagger like a drunken man.”

  “Job, is it not, Father?”

  Sampson gave a nod, and then drained his cup and rose from the chair. “I am very tired, my dear. No, stay where you are. I can find my way. Do not fret too much over the young man. He sleeps now.”

  Ruth cherished his momentary clarity of mind. “The door to your bedchamber is open. I left a night candle on the table at the foot of the stairs.” She raised her head when he came to her. The brush of his lips on her forehead, an action so long absent, brought the threat of tears to Ruth’s eyes.

  When she heard her father’s tread on the stairs Ruth drew a shuddering breath and lightly touched her forehead. Did St. Cedds harbour some strange wonderful magic? She wiped a tear from the corner of her eye and dismissed the heretical thought. She sipped her tea and looked at the dark stranger on the sofa.

  “A student of Dr. Robinson,” she murmured. “Why does my father remember you?”

  Will you ever forget him?

  Ruth shied from the question. Her thoughts and feelings about this man were ambivalent at best. At worst, too vivid.

  If she could have, she would have left him there by the side of the road. The thought tightened her throat, repelled her even as her hand itched to brush back again that thick black lock that had fallen back over his brow.

  After a tepid struggle Ruth set down her cup and went on her knees in front of the sofa. She fingered his hair, thick but not coarse. Is the hair on his chest as black? What would it feel like to run my fingers through it?

  Suddenly aware of the errant thoughts Ruth jerked her hand back. What power is this that you wield over my senses? My desires? She sat back on her heels and studied the saturnine features somewhat softened by sleep.

  The longer Ruth looked the more troubled she grew. That he was deeply disturbed she saw every time she met his gaze. Even more so the time he had jerked awake and thought he was in Spain. Did what marks him happen there? Ruth wondered. How could she help him? How could she get him to open his heart and mind to the Lord?

  “Help him? What am I thinking?” Ruth conjured up the litany of why she should not. Could not. But the longing to do so remained
.

  Dutiful daughter Father said. Her attraction to this man could make a shambles of her duty to keep him and Marietta safe. She could not let that happen.

  Ruth closed her eyes and summoned memories from Tadcaster. There she had dared to ask Lucian not to purchase more spirits. He had staggered to the bar, purchased a bottle and angrily raised it in a taunting salute. His eyes had appeared to burn with hellfire. It scorched charitable intentions and fired an anger greater than any she had ever known.

  “There you have it,” Ruth said aloud and stood up. “You are a danger to everything I hope for. A devil’s spawn—” She put a hand to her mouth.

  No. Never that, her heart decreed.

  I hate this. I abhor what you do to me.

  Lucian moaned in his sleep, pushed the blanket away. “I won’t come too late. I won’t,” he muttered.

  The bitter agony in the words pierced Ruth’s heart. When he stilled she carefully drew the blanket back in place. Before she could stop herself she caressed his stubbled cheek. The same odd tingle any contact with the man aroused coursed through her. Ruth jerked her hand back.

  ‘Tis only the growth of beard. She flexed her hand and straightened her shoulders as if to gird for battle.

  What might have been in another time and place did not matter. This was here. This was now. Her duty to her father bound her more surely than any physical binding ever could.

  Depart on the morrow, Mr. Merristorm, Ruth silently bid him. She turned down the lamp and left.

  Lucian opened his eyes as the wick simpered away the last of the red glow like a devil’s wink in the darkness. “Devil’s spawn,” he muttered. “Hecate,” he named Ruth, “has it aright. I’ll shake the dust of this cursed place from my boots before she collects my soul.”

  * * *

  The Wise Owl

  After a soft knock on the exterior door, Geary entered.

  The cold sharpness of his gaze did not encourage Peace to think he would understand why she had given the Claytons directions to St. Cedds. As he gracefully sat across from her Peace breathed in that combination of scents. There was a wine she could not name, an earthy musk, and the man. His lithe movement brought to mind French courtiers.

  He has you imagining the past—with just a few words of French. Stupid woman.

  Angered, Peace’s features hardened. “Why not just come through the tavern? They believe you share my bed.”

  “But I do not. Yet.” The words were hard, clipped.

  Peace wished again that she understood this man. Was he angry that she had not welcomed him into her arms or simply upset that others thought it of him.

  After a pause, Geary said, “I will not bring shame down on you. What they think is no concern. It is what we know to be true that is important.”

  “But—” Peace drew in a sharp breath as the Riding Officer rose and sank on one knee before her.

  “Vianne—”

  “You must not use that name,” she whispered.

  “Vianne,” Geary repeated, each syllable caressed. He cupped her hands. “You are the only issue of your parents—thus Comtesse Bettencourt.”

  Peace struggled to free her hands but his grip was steel. “You must not,” she said, anguish and anger intermingled. “My present deeds have forfeited the right to the past.”

  “What you did to survive is as nothing. It is far less than what I have done. Our lives began when we met,” he said in a rare lapse of the wisdom that kept his enemies at bay.

  The ardour in his eyes, though gone as quickly as it appeared, frightened Peace, as did his words. That one glimpse destroyed any hope that her heart would be safe. Peace sprang upright.

  Geary rose with her, his hands moved to her shoulders. He held her fast. “I know it is impossible that you return my feelings. I shall speak no more.”

  His hands fell from Peace’s shoulders as her heart trembled. She looked down to hide a fragile hope that was far too weak to reveal in the light of day. “Thank you,” Peace said and strode past him, his closeness too great a strain.

  Geary returned to his chair. “Why have you endangered my plan?” As Peace turned, her vulnerability struck the Frenchman like a blow. His control wavered against the assault of strong emotion. He blinked and that fragile woman was gone; the proud capable woman returned. “Why?” he repeated.

  “You would not understand,” Peace said coldly.

  “I know that you have endangered the Claytons.”

  His words struck her like stones. “Endangered the Claytons? Non.”

  “There are shipments which have not yet arrived. When they do, the goods must be stored beneath the rectory.”

  ”The Claytons will not remain there. When they discover what a ruin it is, they shall flee. I wished only to give them shelter for the night.”

  “Then you should have offered them chambers.”

  “They would have found St. Cedds sooner or later.”

  Their gazes met, clashed, held.

  “You could tell Miss Clayton there would be money. They must be desperate to have accepted St. Cedds,” Peace began.

  “It is too great a risk,” Geary cut her off with cold calm. “Perhaps you should order them eliminated.”

  He watched revulsion wash over Peace. So she is not a natural killer, he thought dispassionately. “Come, Peace, let us no longer play games. You give an order and it is followed.”

  “I have taken care of the matter,” she clipped. “They will leave in the middle of the night, in the morn at the latest.”

  He rose and gave a stiff bow from the waist. “We must trust you are correct, for the Claytons sake.”

  Chapter Ten

  St. Cedds Vicarage October 19th The hour before dawn

  Lucian staggered toward a cliff’s edge. Ruth was certain it was a cliff even though she could not see clearly through the dense wisps of fog that separated them. On either side of Lucian ranged an assortment of odd figures. Some of them beat on pots, some hit wood clubs together in a peculiar tempo, others huffed and groaned to the thump of crates stacked and restacked.

  The cacophony hurried Lucian’s steps and slowed Ruth’s. She screamed for him to stop. To her relief he turned, doffed his hat, but then Lucian turned back and dove off the cliff.

  Ruth awoke with a start. She lay trembling in the bed. The vivid scene remained clear in her mind’s eye. Slowly she began to grasp that it was a dream only to realize the cacophony remained. It was the noise of her dream.

  Lying very still Ruth turned her head to one side and then the other. The noise seemed to come from in and outside of the house. But as she tried to sort out what it could be it faded away. Ruth looked in the direction of the window. Pitch black darkness shrouded everything from view.

  Turning over Ruth pulled the blankets more tightly about her. She had not heard Marietta stir so her sister must not have awakened. The house was silent but for the usual odd creak found in any old house.

  Count sheep, she admonished when thoughts of Lucian pressed to the fore. Count anything. Something. Despite Ruth’s self-reproach she began to visualize the various men along the road that had kept Lucian well supplied with spirits. She thought first of those who put him on the coach. Four. Well dressed. Gentlemen of sorts.

  What about the man that hovered near father and Lucian at Huntingdon? Not a gentleman. Ruth burrowed deeper into the blankets and counted men not sheep. Norman Cross—the one who gave him a pint of ale. Wansford—that one just watched him. Stamford? There were two there. And another pair at Newark.

  Ruth stilled. The same pair had been at Doncaster and Tadcaster. And what about the two toughs who argued forcibly with Lucian in York and then took him away only to toss him onto the coach moments before the driver released the horses?

  I thought him drunk but was he? How odd it all is?

  Does Lucian realize it? Ruth heaved a sigh. He had been too foxed or too drugged to do so. He would have died or caught a deathly chill if I had not taken him up. Is that
what “they” planned? For him to die? Ruth shivered at the thought of someone plotting to kill Lucian. She tried to throw it aside as implausible but part of her would not let go.

  Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap.

  The beat of the sticks had returned.

  Bang, bing, bang. The pots joined in.

  Ruth pulled a pillow over her head but could not shut out the tap, bang, tap, bing. Indeed it grew louder.

  “Ruth, what is that?” Marietta whispered from her bed a few feet from her sister’s. “Is it the ghosts?”

  The tremor in her sister’s voice and her words spurred Ruth’s anger. She sat up and threw back the covers. She felt about the cold floor and finding her slippers, scuffed into them. Then she fingered across the small table until she found the flint. Three strikes later her night candle flared.

  “Stay in bed,” Ruth told Marietta. She wrapped the heavy shawl that had lain across the foot of the bed around her shoulders.

  “Do you hear the groans and moans?” whispered Marietta in startled tones. “It must be the ghosts. Do stay with me, Ruth.”

  “I must check on Father and Jemmy,” Ruth said. “It is not ghosts—just the people who want to scare us into leaving Whitby.” She picked up her candle and brushed a kiss across Marietta’s forehead. “They will stop this nonsense as soon as they see we are not afraid.”

  The cacophony faded as Ruth shut the door of her bedchamber behind her. Half way down the stairs all was quiet but for the creak of the aged boards beneath her tread.

  But three steps from the bottom Ruth halted. The sudden appearance of Sairy Jane at the foot of the stairs startled her. Before she could move the old woman grabbed her free hand.

  “Flee! Take yer kin and run fer yer lives,” the old woman hissed. “Hobbleday and his lantern I seen on the moor. Comin’ this way he be. ‘Tis death he means fer this house.”

  Ruth walked down the last steps drawing the shivering old woman with her. “Hush before you wake everyone,” Ruth told her.

  “Ye don’t understand,” Sairy Jane protested.