Move Heaven and Earth (5 page)

When Sylvan smiled and nodded, Betty continued, “We need to know if we should make arrangements for your abigail. Is she following later?”

“No. No, my father refused to let me take anything more than my clothes.” Betty set to work removing Sylvan’s dress with an efficiency that proved her experience, and she sighed when Sylvan said, “My father claimed if I wanted to be a servant for some upstart noble, I could do it on my own.”

Betty clucked over her like a hen with a chick. “Aren’t men fools? But I’ll take care of you personally, and if I’m running off to my other duties, I’ll send Bernadette. She’s a bright little thing, and she can sleep in your room with you.”

“No!”

Betty gave her a surprised glance, and Sylvan tried to temper her rejection. “Please. I don’t even allow my own abigail to remain in my room. I’m a restless sleeper.”

“As you wish, Miss Sylvan.” Although puzzled, Betty
clearly made no attempt to comprehend the minds of the gentry. “Go in and take your bath, and when you come out, I’ll brush your hair and ready you for bed.”

Sylvan glanced out the window. “But it’s barely sundown.”

“Aye, but it’s spring, and the light stays late. You’ve had a hard day of traveling, followed by one unpleasantry after another. I’ll bring you dinner on a tray, and you can go on to bed. You just trust Betty, miss.”

Surprisingly, Sylvan did. She hadn’t allowed herself to be so cosseted for years, nor had she placed faith in another’s judgment since her return from Waterloo. She had a bath and then found dinner awaiting her.

Surveying the beautifully laid tray, Sylvan said, “There must be a French chef, as well as an Italian confectioner.”

“Aye, miss.” Betty pulled out the chair and Sylvan sat. Betty swathed Sylvan in the linen napkin, picked up the fork, and put it in her hand. “Eat, now. You look like you’ve missed too many meals.”

Sylvan didn’t answer.

Shrewdly, Betty said, “Your clothes weren’t made to hang on you, I don’t think. Seems like you and Mr. Rand suffer from the same malady.”

“And what’s that?” Sylvan tasted the oxtail soup.

“Memories.”

Sylvan put down her fork. “You are a very intelligent woman.”

Betty picked it up and put it back in Sylvan’s hand. “I am. Try the pasties.”

As instructed, Sylvan tried the pasties. They were an exceptional combination of beef, pork, onions, and turnips, with a hint of marjoram, wrapped in flaky pastry. Like everything else, they tasted exceptional, but
Sylvan thought perhaps the company influenced the flavor of the food.

After all, how often did a woman of her reputation get treated with respect, even by a servant? And especially by a servant of such discernment. Of course Sylvan realized that her opinion of Betty related directly to Betty’s opinion of her.

Idly, Sylvan asked, “What do you know about the ghost?”

“The ghost?” Betty turned away, and in an elaborately casual voice asked, “What ghost?”

“The ghost Jasper told me about.”

Betty grimaced. “That Jasper! He has ever had a flapping lip.”

“So there is a ghost!” Sylvan leaned on her elbow, cupped her chin in her hand, and stared at Betty. “Have you seen it?”

“Me?” Betty laughed with false airiness. “Seen a ghost? Try the lamb.”

Sylvan speared one tender slice. “You have, haven’t you?”

Hunching her shoulders, Betty muttered, “Once.”

“Once?”

“It’s good lamb, isn’t it?” Betty asked. Sylvan still stared, and Betty admitted, “All right, twice. Once in the house.” Shivering, Betty went to the windows where night pressed in. “Once I saw it looking in the glass at me.” She shut the drapes.

The room seemed cozier with the drapes closed, Sylvan decided. “
I
don’t believe in ghosts.” Then she thought of the specters which nightly disturbed her rest. “Or I didn’t used to.”

“I never believed in ghosts before either, and in the daylight, I still don’t. There has to be another explanation,
His Grace says, and I know it’s true.” Rubbing her arms with her hands, Betty took a breath. “But at night when the wind howls and the moon drifts in and out of the fog…well, then I remember the stories my granny used to tell about the first duke and how he always walks when there’s trouble afoot at Clairmont Court, and I hide my head under the covers.”

Sylvan shivered, too. Betty had a way of speaking that raised the hair on the back of Sylvan’s neck. “Has any of the family seen the ghost? Has His Grace?”

“No. The night it looked in the window, he…” Betty faltered, and Sylvan could have sworn a blush swept Betty’s fair skin. But Betty leaned to the fire and built it up, then lit more of the candles around the room. “No, His Grace hasn’t, but I think Lord Rand has.”

“Lord Rand?” Sylvan thought of Rand’s cynical, angry face, and shook her head. “Surely not.”

“Aye, miss, I think so.” Coming close, Betty squatted by Sylvan’s chair and lowered her voice. “When Lord Rand came back all crippled, he was angry at the world, of course, and dejected a whole lot, but Mr. Garth—His Grace—he talked to Lord Rand about the estate and made him help with the planning of the mill, just like old times, and Lord Rand was getting better. He was adjusting to that wheelchair, and even joked about his useless legs. There for a while he knew he wasn’t the only one his accident had hurt.”

Sylvan straightened. This was interesting. This was
fascinating
.

“Then the night I saw the face at the window, I told Mr. Garth, and when he told Lord Rand—laughing at me, he was—Lord Rand just exploded with rage. We’d never seen him like that, throwing things and cursing. And it’s been the same ever since. He’ll get a little better,
then he gets worse again. Like today.” Betty rose. “What else am I to think, but Lord Rand saw that ghost and knows what it portends?”

“Trouble.”

“Aye.” Betty rubbed her palms up and down her ample hips as if to dry the sweat off of them. “Trouble.”

The knock on the door took them by surprise, and they both jumped. Then, sheepish at her alarm, Betty answered it. Sylvan couldn’t see who stood without, for Betty blocked her view, but she heard a man’s rumble.

“What is it, Betty?” she called.

Reluctantly, Betty answered, “’Tis Jasper. He wants a favor, but I’ve told him it’s after ten o’the clock, and you’re not to be disturbed.”

“A favor?” Sylvan stood. “Is someone ill?”

“’Tis Lord Rand,” Jasper called. “He needs you.”

Sylvan’s heart thumped in her throat. Had he done too much today? Had she pushed him too hard? Knotting her dressing gown, Sylvan strode to the door and pulled it away from Betty. “What’s wrong with Lord Rand?” She walked down the hall and the stairway, never looking to see if the servants followed. The candles burned brightly in the entry as she passed through. “Is he having spasms? Coughing blood? Unable to speak?”

“No, miss.”

Jasper trotted beside her and Betty trailed them both, muttering imprecations.

“He has a sliver.”

Sylvan stopped so quickly Betty walked into her.

“A sliver.”

“Aye, miss.”

“Is this a joke?”

“Nay, miss.” Jasper shuffled his feet but still looked her straight in the eye. “He pulled slivers off his wheel
when he tried to stop himself today, and one’s fair deep. I could have got it, but he just up and says he wants ye to do it.”

That
was interesting. “I wonder why.”

“Could have knocked me over with a owl-wing feather, miss, but I don’t know why.”

“Let’s go back to your room,” Betty urged. “There’s no need—”

“I think perhaps there is.”

“At least get dressed!” Betty set her jaw. “Your reputation—”

“Can’t be hurt.” Sylvan smiled and turned back to her room. “But I will dress.”

When she stepped out again, looking neat in a simple muslin gown, Betty still clung to her heels, protesting, “Miss, I don’t like this.”

Trying to surmise Rand’s motive, Sylvan answered, “Perhaps he’s testing me. Perhaps he’s truly in pain, but won’t admit it. Men are like that, you know.”

“Aye, they are. Fools all,” Betty grumbled, but she started down the hall to Rand’s room. “And whether you worry about your reputation or not, I’ll be there to protect it.”

Jasper opened the door and half ducked. Apparently Rand routinely threw things at those who dared beard his den. When nothing came out, Jasper called, “I brought her, master.”

“Send her in.” Rand’s voice sounded rough, as if he’d been crying.

But when Sylvan stepped through the door, she knew he had not. He probably hadn’t cried since he was a child, and he needed to. As Betty said, men were fools all.

He sat propped up in his bed, frowning at his palm. He wore more than he had that afternoon—a white bed
gown covered his shoulders, arms, and chest. “Did Jasper tell you?”

“That you have a splinter?” she asked calmly. “He did.”

“I didn’t think you’d really come.”

“Of course. I’m your nurse. When you call, I come running.”

His blue eyes glowed in the light of the candles, his ebony hair stood on end, and she saw the flash of his white teeth when he grinned. “I doubt that.”

“Within reason,” she temporized. Holding out her hand, she said, “Let me see.”

He gave her his hand and she cradled it between her palms. The fingers were long and thick, with calluses on every pad. Lines crisscrossed his skin—some natural, some the result of wounds. Flecks of red covered the places where the other splinters had been removed, and she saw the reason for this visit at once. Large, black, and deep, the splinter had worked its way beneath the pad below his index finger. It had to be painful, and if not extracted, it would lead to infection.

Rand could reasonably have called for his nurse to remove it.

She didn’t believe that was why he’d called her.

“Do you have tweezers, needle, and basilicum?” she asked.

“Aye, miss.” Jasper showed her the instruments and the dark stoppered bottle.

She needed to hold the hand still, yet at the same time have both her hands free. If she rested his hand on the mattress, it sank among the feathers and out of the light. Yet…

“Sit on the bed,” Rand instructed, “and hold it in your lap.”

Betty gasped. “Lord Rand!”

“Betty, get out of here,” Rand commanded.

“I will not, sir.” Betty placed her fists on her hips. “’Tisn’t decent, Miss Sylvan being here in the night, and she needs a chaperone.”

“Jasper’s here.”

Betty was unconvinced.

“And Sylvan’s not afraid. Are you, Sylvan?”

Sylvan stared at Rand and saw challenge personified. “No. I’m not afraid of you.”

“Go on, Betty. Run away and play.” Rand pointed toward the door, but Betty just stood there, stubborn and unyielding, and to Sylvan’s surprise, he gave in. “Oh, for God’s sake, just go and get me some sliced cold meats and some biscuits. I didn’t eat dinner, and I’m hungry.”

Betty relaxed her stance and considered.

“Really, Betty, you can go,” Sylvan said. “If he tries any mischief, I’ll bash him.”

Rand looked Sylvan over from top to toe. It didn’t take long. “Ooh, I’m frightened.”

“You’d best be, Lord Rand, because if you give me reason for grief, I’ll see that you’re sorry.” With that startling pronouncement, Betty said to Jasper, “You watch them,” and left.

Rand looked after her. “I suppose I’d better do my mischief early so she doesn’t catch me.” Switching his concentration to Sylvan, he commanded softly, “Now get on the bed and remove this thing.”

Betty’s lack of respect left Sylvan feeling smug and a little superior. After all, if the housekeeper could speak to Rand that way and get away with it, what harm could it do to sit on his bed? The man was paralyzed, and she was his nurse. Calmly, she climbed onto the mattress.

“Miss Sylvan!”

Jasper sounded even more scandalized than Betty, but neither of the bed’s occupants paid attention. Sylvan sat on her feet, facing the headboard, and tucked her skirt around her so that no bit of flesh might tempt Rand—although why she should worry about such a thing, she didn’t know.

His hand rested on the sheets where she had put it, as limp as if it, too, were paralyzed. But when she picked it up to place it on her knee, vitality leaped from the flesh. Never had she touched a person so alive, so vibrant. It was as if life channeled itself through Rand to the rest of the world—and if Rand died, the world would end.

An odd notion, and one Sylvan dismissed as part of her weariness.

She pressed the flesh about the splinter, then picked up the needle. “This will hurt.”

“I know.”

The gravelly sound in his voice startled her; he seemed almost to relish the pain. Using the needle, she had to dig, and dig deep, but Rand bore it stoically, even when she spread basilicum over the laceration to prevent infection.

Had he found that pain proved superior to no sensation at all?

“There you are.” Wiping her hand on a towel, she asked, “Is there anything else?”

“No.” She started to slide off the bed, and he caught her arm with his undamaged hand. “Yes.”

She looked at him inquiringly.

“I want to apologize.”

“Sir?”

“For my brother.”

Amazement buffeted her, then fury, and she shook off his grip. “You’re apologizing for your brother? After all
you’ve
done today?”

He opened his mouth, shut it, then ran his hand over his face. “I never thought of it that way. But yes, I apologize for my brother.”

“You ought to be…”

He lifted one eyebrow and smiled. “Spanked?”

“Ashamed of yourself.”

“No. I’ve been insufferable, but I wasn’t the one who lured you here.”

“How did you—”

“Know?” He grinned. “I’m familiar with Garth’s methods, and I can imagine the tale he wove for you. ‘Poor Rand, confined to his bed and a wheelchair and languishing. He’s lost his will to live.’”

Since that was almost exactly what Garth had insinuated, Sylvan blushed furiously, and Rand laughed. “Garth’s a good man, but my father raised him to be the duke, and my father believed that the duke of Clairmont stood just below the apostles in importance and should always get his own way, regardless of the means.”