Move Heaven and Earth (2 page)

Another roar of animosity blasted down the hallway, and Lady Adela flinched. “If he doesn’t gain control, he’ll have to be put away.”

“Put away! Oh, Adela, how could you?” The second woman—Rand’s mother, Sylvan surmised—lost the battle for composure as two large tears rolled down her face.

“Is that really likely?” Sylvan asked James, rather than the two ladies.

“Not at all,” James said stoutly. “But I have to agree with m’mother. We’ve all tried kindness and he just gets angrier. Perhaps a bit of a jolt would help.”

A bit of a jolt. She thought about that and started walking again. Jasper’s boots clomped on the polished floors, leading her to the corridor that turned to the left, then to a door that looked as if it belonged to a study—a study that had been converted into a downstairs bedroom. Taking an audible breath, he opened it and held it wide.

The door. When she entered, she would be committed. As she hesitated, a candle hit the edge of the door, followed by a barrage of six more that bounced off the opposite wall. Jasper dodged while counting, then pronounced, “That’s all on
that
candelabra, miss. Ye’re safe for the moment.”

So Sylvan sailed in.

She ignored the books on the floor and the shelves that showed broken-tooth gaps. She ignored the overturned furniture and the remnants of every ornament that had formerly decorated the shattered room. She ignored the red-faced duke of Clairmont, who held a cane clutched in his fist and muttered apologies. She looked only at the occupant of the chair with wheels.

Rand’s eyes gleamed with demonic intensity as he examined her. His black hair stood in clumps over his skull, as if he’d been tearing at it. The wheeled cane chair must have been built especially to fit his wiry frame and long legs.

She knew they were long, because he wore a black silk robe. A robe hemmed so it wouldn’t drag on the floor as he wheeled himself around. A robe that tied at the middle and revealed, only too clearly, that he wore trousers and nothing else.

He flaunted himself. One side of the robe had slipped over his shoulder, showing the development of a man forced to use his arms constantly. His chest was similarly muscular, and when she jerked her gaze back to his face, she found him maliciously laughing at her.

Did he think she’d never seen a half-naked man before?

“By Jove, Rand, cover up.” Garth rushed forward and tried to adjust Rand’s robe over his chest.

Rand shoved him away, still challenging Sylvan with his gaze. Only his hands betrayed his true agitation, for they gripped the two large hardwood chair wheels with white-knuckled dedication.

She had no attention to spare for Garth. She had no attention to spare for anyone but the man who rejected himself by rejecting her. Handing him the prickly
stemmed rose with a flourish, she said, “For a cripple, you’re not a bad-looking fellow.”

He accepted it, then flung it away. “For a nurse, you look almost normal.”

She grinned.

He grinned back.

She wondered which of them bared their teeth with more challenge. “What obnoxious behavior,” she marveled. “Have you been practicing it long?”

His smile dipped a little. “No doubt I shall perfect it in the short interval of your
visit
.”

“This is not a visit,” she said crisply. “If I wished to
visit
, I would stay with someone of breeding and good manners. Instead, I am an employee, and as such must earn my wages.”

His nostrils flared, his mouth compressed. “I dismiss you.”

“You cannot. You did not hire me.”

In one violent motion, he picked up a book and sent it flying out of an upper window. It crashed. She flinched, and he chortled. The sound irritated her and confirmed her tentative evaluation. Adela was right. This man needed something. Something different. Something besides tender care and gentle handling, and if he didn’t behave, she was the woman to give it to him.

In blatant challenge, Rand threw another book out an upper window, and this time part of the pane exploded into the room. Garth cursed and jumped backward. Rand shook it off like a dog shaking off water. Shards rained into Sylvan’s hair, and when she brushed it with her fingers, one came away bloody.

“Oh, Miss Sylvan.” Garth stepped forward, his boots crunching the glass into bits, his expression a mixture of
mortification and disappointment. “Let me have Betty look at that.”

“No!” By Rand’s smirking face, she knew Garth was giving up already. “I just didn’t realize what Lord Rand desired. Now I do, and I will never forget.” She had the satisfaction of seeing Rand’s smile slip. “Lord Rand, if you wanted fresh air, you had only to ask. Breaking out the windows seems excessive, but it makes my duties easier when you express yourself so eloquently.” Determined, she walked toward him.

Warily, he backed up.

She effortlessly circled him and grasped the handles of the chair.

“What do you think you’re doing?” he said with a snarl.

“Taking you out for air.”

“Madam, you are not!”

He clutched the wheels with determination, but she jerked backward, then forward.

“Ouch!” He looked at his palms.

She pushed him toward the door, bumping over the books and crunching pieces of glass to dust. “You’ll survive.”

Grasping the wheels again, Rand held tight. The chair slowed to a crawl, but the spokes stubbed his fingers and the friction warmed his lacerated palms.

He couldn’t believe that the woman would do this. He hadn’t been outside for months. The doctors had suggested he should go out. His mother had coaxed, Aunt Adela had nagged, Garth and James had teased. But no one had dared treat him with such impunity.

Now this wisp of a woman pushed him out into the hall where everyone could stare at him. He clutched the wheels again, and they almost stopped. He could hear
her panting behind him as she fought his strength. He could feel her warm breath in his hair and her chest against his back as she pressed her whole body against the chair, and he gloated.

She was failing. He would win, and the first battle counted most.

Then the chair jerked forward so hard it threw his hands into the air, and he slewed around.

Garth stepped away and dusted his fingers. “Go outside, Rand,” he said. “I wish I’d thought to do this myself.”

“Thank you, Your Grace.” The woman pushed him forward.

“But Your Grace, Lord Rand doesn’t want to go outside.”

Jasper sounded alarmed, and conversely, that made Rand more angry. His dedicated body servant, the man who’d accompanied him into battle, was nothing but an overprotective old woman who thought he could direct Rand’s life.

Everybody
thought they could direct Rand’s life, including his brother and this half-pint nurse. The pressure of her body had been removed from Rand’s back, but Rand knew she was still there, still pushing. Pushing, pushing. Pushing him around the corner and into the main hall. Servants watched, peeking with phony discretion from corners and cubbyholes. His family watched openly, crowding together in the hall.

“Garth, dear. Rand, dear. Oh, dear.” His mother babbled while smiling valiantly.

“Good to see you, cousin.” James used that hearty, encouraging voice he’d used since Rand returned from war, a useless cripple. This was the first time Rand had ever disappointed him, and he had disappointed him bitterly. James hadn’t looked Rand in the eye since the battle of Waterloo.

“Rand.” Aunt Adela’s proper, well-bred tones rang like a church bell pealing over his head. “Cover yourself. You’re indecent!”

These days, nothing amused him so much as offending his aunt Adela, and her horror restored a bit of his equilibrium. He smirked offensively.

“There’s no talking to you, I see,” she scolded. “But at least think of Clover Donald and her saintly ways. She’s shocked.”

Rand saw the vicar’s wife peeking at him from far inside the room. She was a mouse, too timid to do more than catch a glimpse as she stood behind his mother, Aunt Adela, James, and the Reverend Donald himself.

“She probably hasn’t had such a good time in years,” Rand retorted, and waved. “Greetings, sweetheart.”

Tall, blond, and dressed all in black, Bradley Donald took his ministry seriously, especially as it concerned his cowering wife. Whirling, he clapped his hand over Clover’s eyes. “Sinful,” he declared.

Rand relaxed as they wheeled past.

That
had been fun.

Then he saw Jasper, mouth puckered tight, holding the front door wide.

Dear God, he was really going outside.

He, who had loved to walk and ride, was going outside in a wheelchair. He was going out with a nurse, like some defenseless worm who needed protecting.

He, who had been the strongest of the brothers. He, who had been the fastest, the most energetic, the one on whom all familial hopes had been pinned. He was going outside, and everyone was going to see him. Laugh at him.

“Please,” he muttered, gripping the arms of the chair.

She wheeled him through the door and into the sunshine as if she hadn’t heard.

Maybe she hadn’t. Maybe her hearing had saved him from sounding as pathetic as he looked.

The wind struck him sharply, but the sunshine felt good on his face, not to mention his legs and chest. Two of the hounds rose and stretched, then came forward to snuffle at his hands. Petting them was a forgotten pleasure, for they weren’t allowed in the house.

And really, how many strangers could see him as he sat on the terrace?

“Please, bring me my outer garments,” the woman instructed the hovering servants. “Then pick up the chair and, if you would be so kind, carry it down the stairs.”

He looked around and realized she was referring to
his
chair.

“What the hell are you planning?” he said in a snarling tone.

“I thought we’d go for a walk.” That woman took her bonnet from the maid and tied it under her chin. “I fancy a look at the Atlantic.”

Garth didn’t blink. He acted as if Rand regularly wheeled himself around the countryside, flaunting his helplessness so everyone could point and laugh. Rand’s beloved brother betrayed him with a gesture to Jasper. “Take him down the stairs.”

Rand waited for Jasper to object again, but he had the proper respect for the duke of Clairmont.

Gesturing to two of the footmen, Jasper said, “Each of ye take a wheel.” He leaned forward. “I’ll lift the footrest.”

Rand knocked him with his fist.

Jasper landed on his rear on the stone. Rand shot backward from the impact. When he regained control, he saw Jasper clutching his mouth and the two footmen cowering.

Lowering his hand, Jasper examined his palm and
saw blood, then wiggled his two front teeth. “Haven’t lost that punishing right, Lord Rand.”

“Try to pick me up again, and you’ll see my left.”

Jasper spoke reproachfully through swelling lips. “Now, Lord Rand, I’m just doing me duty.”

Rand could scarcely see through the red mist before his eyes. “Your duty is to obey
me
.”

Sylvan pulled on her gloves. “You’re acting like a slavering dog.”

“And you’re acting like a bitch.”

The wind sang with its elemental voice, the dogs licked themselves, but everything else fell silent.

At the door, Garth groaned. “Oh, Rand.”

Rand loved his brother. He really did. He knew that Garth had only his best interests at heart, but Garth didn’t—couldn’t—comprehend the despair and mortification that trapped Rand.

No one understood, but Rand hated to humiliate Garth with such a breach of manners. In truth, he had humiliated himself. Yet he wouldn’t admit it. Not and see that woman simper. “Well, she is,” Rand snapped.

“I’ve been called worse.” Apparently unperturbed, that woman donned her pelisse. “And by better men.”

Did nothing rattle her?

Jasper reached out and touched the footrest of the wheelchair, and when Rand did no more than glare, he nodded to the footmen. Silent, they carried Rand off the terrace, across the driveway, and onto the path that wound to the sea.

“Just go that direction, miss.” Stiff with disapproval, Jasper pointed toward the patch of blue that shone beyond the trees. “’Tis a fairly good path, so ye’ll have little trouble, but don’t drop too far down toward the beach or ye’ll have a time hoisting Lord Rand back up.”

She moved to her place at the back of the wheelchair. “Thank you, Jasper.”

“You’ve charmed my brother, have you?” Rand asked sharply. “You’ll not charm me.”

“I doubt the effort would be worth the results.” She shoved the chair forward with one violent push, then, despite her diminutive stature, kept it rolling along the track.

Through the generations, the dukes of Clairmont and their families had ridden along this path, their horses wearing a rut through the smooth lawn and around bright, blooming peonies. The wheels of the chair bounced along, straddling the groove, and Rand bounced with it, experiencing the discomfort with grim triumph.

Some nurse this woman was, treating her patient with such cavalier disinterest. She was probably nothing more than one of those hussies who drank their patients’ whiskey, administered medicine when they remembered, and whored with the patients who had money.

Too bad she couldn’t whore with him. He’d give a lot to get that smug little face on a pillow. He’d show her who was in command.

At least…he’d have shown her at one time.

They reached the top of the gentle cliff that led to the beach. He’d been climbing down it since he was a toddler. The first part of the path was nothing more than a dip, really, coming to a broad flat place where he had sat many a time. But after that the path descended rapidly, twitching to the left, then the right, in sharp curves that made the descent possible for those with the legs to walk.

He’d once loved this spot. Now he clutched the wheels and glanced fearfully around. The cliffs closed the beach off in both directions, baiting the trap for fools who ignored the tide. Boulders pocked the sand,
beckoning him as a bloody sacrifice. The ocean licked eagerly at the beach, sucking up the land.