The Night Angel (6 page)

“Even if he suspects, my life and that of my family are in grave danger. Very grave.”

“And Falconer? What of him on the road?”

“I can take care of myself,” Falconer said. “And move easier if I remain alone.”

Reginald started to argue, then thought better of it. He said to Alessandro, “You need people here with your family that you can trust. Especially once Falconer sets off on his mission.”

“Good sir, you have already done so much, I could not possibly ask anything more of you.”

Reginald gave no sign that he had heard. “Three men should be enough. One who can behave as a proper manservant. Two for the outside.”

“I have located one good man already,” Falconer offered. “A carriage driver and jack-of-all-trades. He’s the one you see there, carting in the crystalware.”

“Which means you require one man within the house and one outside.” Reginald nodded. “I’ll see to it this very day.”

Alessandro began, “I could not possibly repay—”

“A date,” Reginald responded firmly. “A date when Falconer will be done with this and ready to begin duties with our firm.”

Falconer listened to the exchange, knowing he was being offered not just new employment but a new life. One which by his own request would take him far away from Serafina.

If only the future might hold some shred of hope.

Falconer berthed in the small two-story cottage at the back of the long and narrow lot. His room was on the ground floor and faced the main residence. Gerald Rivens had taken the chamber across from his. The two men being sent over from the Langstons would reside upstairs. Mary lodged in the main house’s top floor, a long room that stretched beneath the eaves.

Falconer’s little table was situated by the window, from where he could scout the rather unkempt grounds and the house. There was a high stone wall to either side and a gated fence behind the servants’ cottage. The residence’s front windows all had stout oak shutters, which were now closed and locked. He had seen to that himself. The others had remained behind for the evening meal, but Falconer had carried back portions of bread and cheese and fruit, which now sat untouched beside his Bible. The Good Book remained untouched as well.

The sky was gunmetal gray, the air so cold he could see frost forming in the corners of the glass. Though the evening was just waning, he was very tired, and not merely from the day’s work. Falconer was not sleeping well. His bed had become a narrow prison of regret and recrimination, mostly at himself.

He picked up an apple and used his knife to carve off a slice. But he held it, untasted, in his hand. He lifted his gaze and stared at the shutters over Serafina’s window.

The only task he had ever been good for was facing danger. Guarding this family was child’s play compared to previous responsibilities. He yearned for action—anything to temper the aching hunger. Something to still his hopeless pain.

Falconer bit the apple but tasted only dust. So many of his actions over the past weeks had been wrong. And his attitude had been worse. He had bulled through situations that required silence and stealth. He was circled by people who cared for him and wished him only well. Yet all he could give in return was a severe remoteness.

He would prefer facing the enemy and holding fast. Taking aim at the goal and giving it his all. Anything but more days of staring at what would never be his.

He rose from his little table and walked out behind the cottage. The rainwater cistern was covered with a thin skim of ice. He cracked it with a knuckle, drank deep, then washed his face and hands. Gasping, he returned to his chamber. The light was dimming. He fumbled for the tinderbox, then set it back down. He would merely light the candle and watch it flicker, his gaze slipping over the Good Book, the words unread.

Falconer lowered himself to his knees. He bowed his head and crouched upon the floor in pain, all muscle and drive and blindness. And mute. All he could say was, “Father . . .”

He could not have said how long he knelt thus when a change came into his small chamber.

Falconer heaved himself to his feet and stood in the center of his darkened room, his chest pumping in and out. He strained to detect what was now gone.

For once his disappointment was vanquished. A fresh wind had blown through. One strong enough to clear away the smoke and the charred ashes from his heart.

Falconer tasted the air with all his senses on full alert. The air remained as highly charged as if a lightning bolt had blasted into the room.

He had heard a voice.

He was in no doubt whatsoever of this. A few words, spoken so clearly they might as well have been whispered into his physical ear.

Wait upon the Lord
.

Chapter 5

Serafina woke to a March dawn, the room dark and beyond her shuttered window only night. Still, she rose and washed her face, shivering as she dressed. Ever since her time in service at Harrow Hall, she found herself unable to sleep beyond the first hour before morning, which was very odd for a young lady who two years earlier could lie abed until almost noon.

She lit a candle and trod carefully along the upstairs hallway and down the home’s only staircase. Everything was of course very new. The windows did not have proper drapes yet, just the closed shutters. All the rooms had a rather unfinished look. The furniture seemed as artificial in their station as plants just settled into the garden. Serafina walked down the hallway separating the living and dining rooms from her father’s office. She entered the kitchen and gasped at the sight of a figure shrouded in shadows.

The form shifted and turned from the window. “It’s only me, lass.”

“F-Falconer?”

“I’m sorry to have startled you.”

She held up her candle, her heart slowing its pounding. “Why are you standing in the dark?”

“I was praying. Here. Let me make some more light.” He moved to the corner where a modern galvanized stove was situated. He used tongs hanging from the wall to open two lids. Instantly the room was bathed in a warm glow. “Would you take tea?”

“That would be nice. Thank you.”

She watched Falconer draw two mugs from a packing crate. He set a pot onto the stove lid that was still closed. While the water boiled, he opened a sack and put a heaping spoonful of tea into a mug, followed by a good dollop of honey. Serafina remarked, “Sailor’s tea.”

“You remember.”

“I’ll never forget.” She accepted the mug with a smile of thanks. “Will you join me?”

“Yes, if you wish.”

She studied him more carefully as he poured himself a cup. “Something is different. You’ve changed. What is it? You seem calmer, more at peace. Yes. That’s it.”

Falconer said nothing. He lowered himself into a chair at the end of the table and took a cautious sip.

“Are things to be better between us now?”

Falconer seemed to taste his response with the tea. The stove’s glow reflected on his face, and she could see the pensive cast to his eyes. “Has God ever spoken to you?”

Serafina heard more than the question. For the first time in weeks she heard again the voice of one who had become her dearest friend. The man she had trusted with her honor and her life. The brother who had helped her to trust in God.

His dark eyes looked almost copper in the light. “Has He?”

“Of course.” She found herself recalling the first time they had spoken like this. How astonished she had been to meet a man who treated God as the unseen presence within every room, every moment. “He speaks to me through His Word. He speaks to me in church. He speaks to me through a sunrise. Through the lessons I have learned in my mistakes. Through my family. And through my friends.”

“No. I mean . . .” Falconer fumbled with the words. “Has God ever spoken to you in a voice that you could hear?”

“I don’t understand,” she said with a small shake of her head. “What difference is there between one voice and another? If I have indeed heard Him, it is all the same. Is that not so?”

He nodded slowly. “You have grown in wisdom, Serafina.”

A shiver went down her back. Not at the words, but the way he said her name. With ease. Again. Finally. At long last. “Have I?”

“Very much. Do you know, this is the first time I have asked your advice about faith.”

“All I can offer you, John Falconer . . .” She sipped from her mug to ease the restriction in her throat. “Whatever I have learned, it is because you were there when I most needed a friend.”

He had such a strong face. Fierce even in repose. Fierce and yet gentle. Equal amounts of strength and sorrow. She wanted to trace that scar with her fingers, but of course she would not. Yes, the sorrow was still there, and it wounded her to know that his unanswered love was the cause. Yet there was a new calm to the moment. A sense that God was there with them— a healing balm, even now. Falconer said, “Friends.”

“Oh yes,” she said and smiled. Though the man at the table’s other end was rimmed by tears that could be held back no longer.

That night Falconer slept a full eleven hours. He fell into bed at dusk and slept until the church bells woke him. He rose too swiftly and had to grab the wall for balance, he was so groggy. He stumbled while drawing on his pants, then stumbled again over the doorstep and would have sprawled flat had Gerald Rivens not caught him. “Steady on, friend.”

Falconer walked barefoot across the almost frozen ground. He dunked his entire head into the rain cistern. Bits of ice laced his skin before he came up blowing like a whale.

He walked back around and hurried inside, for he saw now that Gerald was seated on a narrow bench beneath the cottage window next to Mary, and both were dressed for the Sabbath. Falconer tugged on boots and donned a formal high-collared shirt. He combed his hair and tied it back, then returned outside and demanded, “Why did you not wake me for my watch?”

Gerald made wide eyes. “Was that you? I thought a bear had crawled inside your lair, eaten you whole, and suffered from indigestion.”

Mary hid a giggle behind one hand.

“I suppose I did need the rest,” Falconer allowed.

“Yes. I reckoned as much.”

As Falconer started for the kitchen, he said over his shoulder, “I will spell you tonight.”

“Don’t forget the new man is here to help share duties,” Gerald called after him. “What’s more, you don’t owe me a thing, John Falconer.”

The house held an empty silence. Falconer assumed the family had already left for church. But there were signs of early activity. Every surface in the kitchen was covered with dishes. A vast iron pot simmered on the stove, filling the air with fragrances of tomatoes and fresh herbs. Someone had thoughtfully left a jug of apple cider, along with bread and cheese on the windowsill. Falconer took his breakfast along as he wandered around the new house. Through the front windows he spotted a flock of dark-cloaked figures headed for the church at the square’s farthest corner. He recalled the young man and his invitation and went back to the cottage for his coat.

Saint John’s was a quiet place, one that embraced all believers in whitewashed wood and simple lines. Falconer arrived just as the last stragglers were being sent upstairs to the loft, as the downstairs was packed. Just as at the Langstons’ church in Georgetown, most of the congregants were dressed in dark colors. The men wore frock coats and stiff-collared shirts, the women gray or black cloaks and stiff little hats tied under their chins. Falconer slipped into a pew by the loft’s back wall just as the pastor began his welcome. The man’s first words caught him unaware.

“Some of us come in joy,” the minister told the gathering. “Others in sadness. In the Lord’s eyes, what matters most is that you have come at all. Is your heart troubled? Come. Is your world fraught with peril? Come. Are you filled with joy and triumph and a sense of accomplishment? Come. Have your prayers been answered? Come. Is there pain, anguish, an unraveling of the mortal coil? Come and find welcome in the name of our risen Savior.”

Falconer had been impacted by many Sabbath services. Never, however, had the words felt so keenly directed to him as this day. God was speaking through the pastor. To him. The force blew aside Falconer’s ability to question. He was struck by a divine cannonade that began with the opening welcome and continued to the benediction.

He listened to the pastor read a passage from the thirty-seventh chapter of Ezekiel. A valley of bones, the pastor intoned, a place of death and loss and mortal despair. Without hope or future, the man explained, without any sense of life. And God asked His prophet, can these bones ever walk with life and purpose again?

“Yes.” Falconer was astonished to find he had spoken aloud. Yet the power flooding through him would not be denied. “Yes!”

“Indeed so.” The pastor found nothing untoward with a response from the balcony. Nor, clearly, did the others. There were murmurs and nods throughout the congregation as the pastor went on. “The day of renewed hope that the Lord spoke about is certain to come. Those, my brethren, are His own words. Wait upon Him. He will call His divine winds to course through your dark valley and draw forth life. Will you remain heartsick, alone, even sad? Perhaps. Even the apostle Paul was commanded to bear his thorn. But God will knit together your bones and from your despair bring forth reason.”