Move Heaven and Earth (8 page)

James sniffed in disdain. “Next you’ll be pointing your finger at Garth or me because we look like the old duke.”

Sylvan stared at James, his declaration sinking into her mind. Of course! How foolish she had been. That wasn’t a ghost she’d seen, but a human being. Yet she’d immediately recognized the portrait of the duke this morning. So had her ghost been James…or Garth?

“Didn’t do it,” James said quickly.

Sylvan realized they were all staring at him.

Turning to Rand, James extended his hand appealingly. “Wouldn’t go outside in the dark to tramp around after a smelly village woman who’d been working at that blasted mill all day. You know.”

“No.” Rand laughed a little, suspicion clearing from his face. “You wouldn’t. The only thing you ever go out for is a London party or a tumble with your ladybird.”

The vicar had a thoughtful cast to his face. “I should question everyone in the manor. Perhaps someone saw the ghost—or whoever is imitating the ghost—walk last night.” He met Sylvan’s appalled gaze, and held it. He
seemed to be speaking to her alone when he said, “I hope to continue our discussion later.”

“Much later,” she said under her breath as he exited the room with James stalking after him. She didn’t want him interrogating her—she had no intention of telling anyone about that ghost. She didn’t want them thinking her crazy before she’d helped Rand…Rand. She glared at him as she remembered his earlier insults.

“He’s a jackass,” Rand declared, but his voice shook.

“So are you,” she snapped, preparing to walk out.

He grabbed her hand. “What’s wrong?”

“A camp follower?” she shouted. She shouldn’t shout; a lady never raised her voice. But this place, this post, this
man
made her lose all her manners and most of her good sense. “You called me a camp follower!”

“I was angry.” He excused himself as if she should understand.

“You were angry?” She gestured so hard, he ducked. “You were angry? And when you’re angry, you can say anything you wish and everyone has to forgive you? Because you’re crippled?” She backed away from him as if he were unclean. “There’s nothing wrong with you except that your legs don’t work.”

“There’s more to it than that!”

“What?”

But he couldn’t tell her. He wanted to, so badly. In one day, she’d managed to gain his trust, make him feel as if he were in command again. But he wasn’t. He didn’t know if what the vicar said was true, but Rand knew he had no right to drag Sylvan into his private nightmare.

She saw he wouldn’t speak, but clearly she didn’t think it a noble act. She thought he had nothing to say, and she tried to regain self-control. He saw her fight for
breath, then the question burst out of her. “Where did he hear the rumors about me?”

“The vicar hears everything. Every bit of gossip. He doesn’t sleep, I don’t think. Always visiting his sinners, and with the uncanny knack of coming at the worst times. Consequently, he’s the best informed man in the parish.”

“He wouldn’t know about the…kissing?”

“Not that,” he quickly assured her. “Only Jasper and Betty saw, and they’re totally reliable.”

“Yes.” She put her hand to her heart, and when she looked at him, he had the feeling he’d shrunk in her eyes. Softly, as if she were speaking to herself, she said, “There are veterans of Waterloo who are begging on the streets of London. I give them coins. Sometimes they recognize me. Sometimes they thank me for saving their lives. Most times they curse me. And you’re sitting here warm and fed, with a comfortable wheelchair under you and a loving family around you, and you feel sorry for yourself.” Whirling, she ran to the door, then turned. “I feel sorry for you, too. Your family wants you to get better, but even if you walked, you wouldn’t be better. You’d still be a craven coward, afraid to face all the nasty little incidents of living.”

She raced out and left him there, hand extended, explanation on his tongue. But his hand fell into his lap, and he looked at it as if he’d never seen it before. In the last eleven months, it had grown stronger than before. Veins rose beneath skin; each tendon and bone had broadened with exercise. His arms, chest, and stomach, too, showed the results of constant use. And his legs…he rubbed his hands up and down his thighs. His legs hadn’t shown much deterioration yet. Of course, Jasper exercised them, one at a time, morning and night. But
after the months of inactivity, one would think they’d be as spindly as a poorhouse boy’s.

It hadn’t happened yet. Nothing had happened as it should. He still dreamed of walking, working, tumbling a woman…. Last night it had been Sylvan, and this morning he’d sworn to entice her into his bed so he could find out what was dream and what was reality.

Instead, he’d insulted her. He couldn’t die until he’d satisfied his curiosity about her. In spite of his taunts, he knew he had to earn her respect before she’d allow him to touch her once more.

The Reverend Donald was wrong all the time, but now he was right about one thing. Rand hadn’t grown resigned to his fate. He had to take this one last chance.

Seated in his wheelchair
beside Sylvan as she lay in the grass, Rand saw the moment she slipped into slumber. Her clenched fists relaxed, the toes that were curled in her thin leather slippers straightened, and her knees fell apart just a little. The frown that had pressed a crease between her brows smoothed, and she released a ladylike snore from between her slightly open lips.

Not for the first time, he wondered why she needed to be in full sunshine, in the open air, before she could sleep. Every day for the last three weeks she had dragged him outside. She’d pushed his wheelchair up and down the hills, taking him to the wild places that, she said, would heal his soul. If anything, she seemed to need their solitude more than he.

Three weeks in her company, and he still didn’t know her at all—and he spent all his time thinking about her.

She directed Jasper in the manipulations of Rand’s legs. She watched what he ate and gave him vile tonics to drink. She discussed sending him to a therapeutic hot
springs, and when Rand furiously disputed her plan, she just smiled. She’d get her way eventually, because she’d conquered his family.

Worse, she’d conquered him. As though his body were a compass, she was magnetic north and his arrow always pointed in her direction. He’d been scheming to touch her again, and she treated him as if he were some kind of…cripple. Not as if his legs were crippled. As if his mind were diseased. Perhaps he shouldn’t have called her a camp follower and subjected her to scorn, but he’d thought she would forgive him. Everyone else forgave him every other despicable thing he did.

Her cottage straw bonnet remained where she had cast it. From frequent exposure to the Somerset sun, wisps of her brown hair had bleached to blond, and they framed her face in bits of curl. The breeze from the sea fluttered her skirt, and the sun warmed her skin to the gold of fine-grained oak. For her, he wanted to be the breeze and the sun, and pass along her skin with gentle fingers and slide under her skirt. Instead he pretended he stood guard over her like an ancient warrior over a sleeping princess, and scanned the countryside for menace.

Nothing moved among the windswept ridges except bracken, heather, and spring’s green grass, pressed down and released in rhythmic waves. He couldn’t see the surf, but he could hear it, and he could see the deep blue of the ocean and the haze that always obscured the line between water and sky.

Together Rand and Sylvan had explored the most remote spots on the estate, and Beechwood Hollow was now their favorite. It was not too far from the house, and it was easy to get to, but its seclusion drew them. The beeches grew, protected from the wind by stony boulders. Pinks bloomed in fragrant clumps, and a
rivulet trickled down the draw. The brook plunged off the cliff farther on, a silver arc that splattered on the rocks below and became one with the sea. It had made her happy to dangle off the rocks and see the waterfall.

It frightened him to death. He knew what he should do, if he weren’t such a coward. If he weren’t such a coward, he would start at the top of the smooth headland above him, set his wheelchair in motion, and careen down the hillside until he followed the brook in its plunge.

But not yet. First he wanted to—

Sylvan woke with a jerk. Her eyes, so similar in color to the grass beneath her head, stared in panic at some unseen peril. The muscles that he’d seen lax now tensed once more, and her legs twitched as if she longed to run.

No, he couldn’t kill himself just yet. Not until he’d unraveled the tangled threads of Sylvan’s terror.

Leaning over, he lifted her foot. She tried to jerk it away, but his grip tightened on her ankle. “Keep still,” he said. “I only want to massage you.”

She brushed at her face as if it were sheathed in cobwebs. “No.”

“You’ll like it.” Stripping off her shoe, he placed her foot on his knee.

“No.” She sounded fretful, and she must have realized it, for she tried now for cordiality. “I mean, yes, I’m sure I would, but I’m ticklish.”

Firmly, he began to rub her toes through her white silk stockings. “A friend of mine taught me the essentials.”

“You mean one of your mistresses!” she snapped.

“A dancer,” he admitted. “But it feels good, does it not?”

She struggled for another reason for him to desist, and at last wailed, “You’ll see my underthings.”

“Believe me, I’m not in the least interested in looking at your underthings.” He couldn’t have been more sincere,
and she must have sensed it, for after one last futile tug, she shut her eyes and let him have his way.

He hadn’t lied. He didn’t care about her underthings.

He only cared for what was inside them. “Why aren’t you sleeping at night?” he asked.

She answered too quickly. “I don’t need much sleep.”

“I thought maybe the ghost was disturbing you.” Her foot twitched in his hand, and he crowed, “Ah-ha! You have seen the ghost.”

“Only once.”

She sounded as grumpy as a fretful child, and he picked up her other foot, too.

She tried to wrestle it away, saying, “Quit!”

“It doesn’t tickle, does it?”

“No,” she said sulkily.

“That’s because I’m an expert. If you like, I can massage your shoulders and your back.”
And your front and your legs
. But he didn’t say that.

“I really don’t think so, Lord Rand.”

She sounded insufferably prim, but her skirt slipped up to expose her leg and he looked hungrily at the flesh between her garter and her pantalettes. For one awful moment, he couldn’t move, and she stirred as if she would open her eyes. Hastily, he began his massage again. “When did you see the ghost?”

“Um.” She seemed to struggle before deciding to answer. “The first night I came.”

“The night Pert was attacked.”

“Yes, but that was nonsense, wasn’t it? Ghosts don’t hit people with rocks.”

“Then perhaps your ghost was a person.” He leaned over her. “Listen to me, Sylvan. Bar and lock your door tonight and sleep. There’s no ghost, and a man can’t break through that barrier.”

She murmured, “It’s not the ghost of Clairmont Court that keeps me awake.”

So something did keep her awake. Was it desire for him? He wanted to ask, but she appeared to be so relaxed. Her chest barely rose and fell with her breaths, and she seemed unaware when her skirt fluttered higher. And higher.

He shouldn’t look. It would only make him want more what he couldn’t have. But he could no more have turned away from the view than he could have turned away from the gate of heaven.

For him, Sylvan was the gate of heaven.

What torture! He loved giving her the gift of repose, and wanted to take it from her at the same time. She moaned when he pressed his thumb into the arch of her foot, and it sounded like ecstasy.

He wanted her so badly he could almost taste her. He wanted to taste her so badly, he suffered starvation.

Briefly, he rubbed her ankle, then pressed the long muscles of her calf. Wetting his lips, he asked, “Do you stay awake thinking of me?”

Her eyes opened, not in panic, as they had before, but in a kind of sleepy curiosity.

He touched her like a healer, but his gaze was that of a lover. She froze, and he glanced at the place he longed to kiss. The slumber in her gaze cleared away like clouds before a noontime sun, and she jerked her foot out of his grasp and rolled away. Sitting up, she grasped the hem of her skirt and held it down as if he could lift it with his thoughts. Then with one-handed haste, she crammed her bonnet back on her head. “You are a wicked man.”

“I am a hungry man,” he corrected. “Is that why you can’t sleep?”

“No! No.” She turned her face away, giving herself
privacy in the depths of her hat. “May I please have my shoe?”

He prepared to hand it to her, but she stuck out her hand so stiffly and kept her head turned away so resolutely, he hesitated. After all, she already considered him wicked. Why not add to his sins? Placing it back in his lap, he said, “Come and get it.”

He cured her embarrassment with one swift stroke. Coming to her feet, she stalked over and towered above him. He grinned up at her and when she grabbed for her shoes, he snatched her by her wrists and tumbled her into his lap. She tumbled right out again, but he kept hold of her wrists, and as she wrestled with him, she railed, “You are a blackguard, sir, a criminal of the first water and I shall—”

“Kiss me?”

“Why? As a reward for deplorable behavior?”

“No, as payment for your shoe.”

Jerking her hands free, she reached for the slipper once more and he let her grab it before trapping her hand. Color flooded her cheeks once more when she realized his condition. “Your juvenile actions, sir, do not impress me.”

“Your touch impresses me.” He leaned toward her. “One kiss.”

“No.” She tried to twist away.

He held her. “Two kisses, then.”

He should have seen it coming, but he didn’t. She smacked him so hard with her free hand that his ears rang. Wrapping his arm around the back of her head in a wrestler’s hold, he brought her face close to his and laughed into her eyes. “You’ve got a punishing right, my lady, and you owe me three kisses for the gratification you got in using it.”

She squirmed through the first kiss and stayed rigid during the second. But the third…ah, it hadn’t been the darkness and proximity of the bed that had freed her inhibitions last time. He proved it when he wrung a response from her here, in the sunshine and the wind. When he finally drew away, he caressed her cheek and whispered, “You’ve got to come to me some night, and let me show you what pleasure can be.”

Her lids fluttered down and her dark lashes cast shadows on her cheeks. She whispered, “Can
you
find pleasure?”

“I don’t know, but if I can’t, I can still promise it to you.”

He didn’t know if he’d embarrassed her again, or if she didn’t understand, but before he could ask he heard, “Uncle Rand, what are you doing?”

Sylvan and Rand’s heads swiveled, and he saw Gail standing off to the side, head tilted, observing them with furrowed brow. Sylvan gasped, and this time when she grabbed for her slipper, he let her take it.

“Wretched child,” Rand said. “How long have you been there?”

Primming her mouth in a masterly imitation of Aunt Adela, Gail replied, “Since you started wrestling.”

“Why didn’t you say something?” Sylvan sounded quite fierce as she hopped up and down, trying to pull the limp leather over her foot.

“I did, but you didn’t hear me.”

Sylvan glanced at Rand, then looked up at the sky as if solutions could be found within the wispy clouds. “I was probably yelling too loudly, huh?”

“Uncle Rand was laughing, too, and then he kissed you, but I don’t understand why.”

Rand thought of and discarded several replies before saying, “I was showing Miss Sylvan how much I like her.”

“What were you doing it like
that
for?”

Rand recognized distaste when he saw it, and he even remembered feeling the same way at her age. But it would take a stronger man than he to explain the attraction between man and woman to a ten-year-old. “What are you doing here, Windy Gail?” he asked.

“I wanted to go to the mill, and I’m not allowed to go alone.” Gail’s blue eyes, so like his own, widened in patent appeal.

Rand grinned. She reminded him so much of himself, with her quick mind and cunning tricks. He hoped life treated her well. He wished he could live long enough to see her grown. He prayed for a shield to protect her from the arrows of cruelty the world cast at a bastard. “So you want us to take you?”

“Oh, would you?” She gave a little hop. “What a wonderful idea.”

“I agree,” Sylvan said dryly. “What a wonderful idea.”

“Although I hate to leave our solitude.” Rand glanced slyly at Sylvan and ducked when she glared. “But I suppose we should leave before Miss Sylvan is once more overcome with desire.”

“The desire to slap your face,” Sylvan snapped.

“Again.” He rubbed his still-stinging face. “We’ll go.”

They turned away from their regular route to the manor and moved instead toward the path along the cliffs toward the mill. Sylvan pushed and he strained to keep the wheelchair moving through the clumps of grass. One steep rise offered them a challenge, but with Gail’s help they topped the hill and saw below them the mill.

The sea washed into a small harbor below it, and the hills ringed it, but the mill dominated its surroundings. A massive building of native stone with a slate roof, it rumbled with noise and belched black smoke from its
coal-powered steam engine. A villager stood atop a ladder, whitewashing the walls, but he fought a losing battle. Cinders filled the air and covered the grass around the building, although they seemed of no concern to the women taking their dinner outside.

Rand fought his instinct to cower. These were the women Lord Rand Malkin had greeted at church, the women he’d provided for in rough winters, the women he’d teased as he made the traditional visit to their homes at Christmastide. He’d been the beneficent lord, and now he was confined to a wheelchair.

He didn’t want to see their pity or know that they whispered behind his back.

Gail ran on ahead, shouting their names, but Sylvan touched his shoulder, giving him reassurance when there was no way she should know that he needed it.

When the women caught sight of him, they rose en masse and stared, and he closed his eyes for a moment, looking for courage inside himself. When he opened them, he saw a dozen beaming faces.

“Lord Rand, how good to see ye out.” Loretta rushed forward. Big-boned, big-bellied, she was the spokes-woman for the village and knew Rand well. “We’ve had you in our prayers this last year.”

While Loretta kissed his hand in hearty goodwill, Nanna from the farthest farm stood off to the side. Roz and Charity held Gail’s hands as she jumped up and down and babbled, and Rebecca, Shirley, Susan, and all the other women he’d known and cared for crowded around him. They smiled shyly or openly, depending on their natures, and tried to kiss his hands or touch his shoulder. He blushed beneath the sincerity of their welcome, and wondered why he’d avoided them.