Mariel (12 page)

Mariel did not look at him as she pointed out various ancestors and told a tale about each. There seemed to be gaps in the family history, but she either did not know of those times or did not reveal the stories.

He listened to tales of violations of every tenet he taught in the church. Not always against the Wythes, for the family fought for what they believed was right. That Mariel had made her battleground the relatively sedate school board did not lessen her determination to continue in that tradition.

As he viewed each painting, he thought of the many lives spent within this house. All of these who had come before depended on this young woman to be what they had been. Dozens of Wythes had lived and died here. Only Mariel and her uncle remained. Ian knew she did not intend for the sunset to fall on the glory of this house.

“Here is the same woman as down in the front parlor,” he said with surprise. No other figure had been repeated. A single portrait had been painted of each Lord and Lady Foxbridge. Knowing Mariel, he doubted if any of them would have had the patience to pose longer than that.

Mariel shook her head and smiled. “Everyone thinks that, but the two women lived nearly two hundred years apart. That is my great-great-grandmother, Rebecca Wythe. She came from America.”

“The one who started the village school?”

“Yes, that one. The woman in the painting downstairs lived during the time of Queen Elizabeth.”

“Amazing!” He leaned closer until his nose nearly touched the one in the painting. The poor light in the gallery protected the artwork, but made it difficult to view the faces easily. “Perhaps this is where you inherited your blue eyes. Most have the darkest brown eyes I have ever seen.”

“Like my uncle's. They are nearly black. Are you finished?”

Although he would have enjoyed spending more time studying the different styles of painting, he nodded. He could tell Rosie was determined to be on her way. The child paced from the doorway to Mariel and back in a clear signal to go on to the next adventure. He guessed the viewing of paintings was too sedentary for a five-year-old.

“Which ones are your parents?” he asked as Rosie ran to turn down the lights.

“Can't I show you some other day?”

He turned to see her watching the little girl. Slowly he nodded. “Of course. Are you sure you can handle this, Mariel? I am here to help you in any way I can.”

“Ian, don't become the minister with me today,” she teased. “I need to know how to entertain a child, not to hear a sermon.”

“I can't help it!” He chuckled. “It becomes habitual.”

She placed her fingers on his dark coat. “Just be my friend. I need a friend far more than I need anything else.”

Her honest supplication surprised him. His hand stroked her upper arm, visible through the fine material of her wide sleeves. “You know I am your friend, Mariel. I did dread coming to this small parish, although it offered the challenges I wanted. Meeting you has told me my time here will be infinitely more enjoyable and infinitely more challenging than I planned.”

“I don't know if that is a compliment.” Her eyes twinkled as she watched his moving along her figure with candid admiration.

Slowly his fingers tightened to bring her closer. His voice was subdued as he put them under her chin. While he spoke, his mouth descended toward hers. “Rest assured, my dear, it is a compliment.”

Mariel's eyes widened. With a gasp, she stepped backward to leave him awkwardly hovering over a nonexistent woman. She whirled, so her back was to him. In a breathless voice, which displayed the reaction he could not see, she called, “Rosie, I think we should return to the solarium. Phipps will be wondering where we are.”

The child ran to take her outstretched hand. At the same time, Rosie shot him a triumphant smile. She had the attentions of Mariel, which both of them wanted. Chattering, she tried to monopolize the woman, but Mariel turned to ask, “Are you coming, Ian?”

Before he could answer, she had opened the door at the end of the gallery. He shared a joking grimace with her long line of ancestors before following. Now he had two females to win over if he wanted to gain the chance to taste Mariel's inviting lips. A challenge was what he had called her. It was one he would not hesitate to accept.

Chapter Six

Mr. Knowles smiled with superiority as he motioned for Mariel to sit in the chair she normally used during the board meetings. “It was good of you to come so quickly in response to my note, Lady Mariel. Your devotion to that orphan reflects upon your gracious and open heart.”

“That orphan,” she stated curtly, “I consider my daughter. I trust you will remember that, Mr. Knowles.”

He sniffed. Even after nearly a month of having to deal with the child, he could see that she was not ready to admit this episode had been a grievous mistake. No one would ever accept that urchin as Lady Mariel's daughter. She was a fool even to attempt this grand exercise in futility.

His eyes noted the packet of information she had brought with her, and he scowled. This would be the propaganda on the textbooks she expected him to read and agree with. He refrained from glaring at the ceiling. Jones was correcting work upstairs. That the young idiot thought Lady Mariel's idea was as fabulous as if it had been his own continued to irritate Knowles. Heated words had been exchanged in the small house down the street on this very subject.

“Be that as it may, my lady, the child is out of place in this school.”

“Out of place?” Mariel asked. She glanced around at the bare walls. Mr. Knowles did nothing more than the basic necessities with the children. Until they graduated upstairs to Mr. Jones, they learned nothing of music or art.

At the Cloister, she tried to fill that void for Rosie by teaching her to play simple tunes on the piano and giving her bits of material and baubles to make imaginative creations of color. Phipps was helping her learn to do the needlework, which had always bored Mariel, and was discovering an eager student. Rosie enjoyed anything she could do to make a pretty picture.

“Your
daughter
,” he said with snide emphasis, “is creating havoc in my classroom.”

“Is she?” Mariel drew the pins from her hat and placed it on the table. She folded her arms in front of her and returned the man's glare. “That is a surprise, Mr. Knowles. Rosie acts fine at the Cloister.”

“Perhaps you have different standards of behavior there.”

She laughed shortly. “I might, but I can assure you that Miss Phipps demands a very high standard of behavior from all of us under that roof.”

“Is that why you behave as you do when you are not at the Cloister?”

Her blue eyes locked with his. Although she knew the man despised her, he had not made it so blatant in the past. She refused to retort with the comments rolling through her brain. “Mr. Knowles,” she said coldly, “I understood that you wanted me to come here to discuss Rosamunde Varney, not to throw childish insults at me.”

Knowing he had overstepped the bounds of polite society, he mumbled a hurried apology. Over and over, he had told himself before this meeting that he would not allow her to anger him so much that he forgot himself. Now barely five minutes into it, she had succeeded in doing just that.

He rose and put the width of his desk between them. In a strained voice, he stated, “The child is a problem, Lady Mariel. She and the Lyndell boy have been disrupting the class every day.”

“How?”

With eager delight, he listed the multiple crimes the two youngsters had committed. Mariel's eyes grew dark with anger as she listened to the pettiness of the teacher. A piece of broken chalk and a tipped water bucket were not more than accidents. If a book fell on the floor from another child's desk, it must be Rosie's fault.

“Is that all? Why not blame Rosie for the Original Sin? It is the only evil done in this world you have omitted. Are you sure you haven't missed something?” she demanded when he was finished. “May I say something, sir? You are far more guilty than the child. Not only have you wasted my time by asking me to come to this worthless conference, you have shown yourself as a bigot who should not be teaching our children.”

She placed her hat on her head and jabbed the pins into it with the furor she wished she could reserve for tormenting him as he had Rosie. Until now, she had not understood why the child hated coming to school every day. She had spoken to Mrs. Parnell about this. The orphanage director had been just as baffled about Rosie's reluctance, for the child had loved attending the school there.

Standing, she said, “I bid you good day, sir, unless you have something of value to say to me.”

“She deserves to be expelled!” he snapped.

“Because you cannot handle her high spirits? I thought one of your duties is to maintain decorum in the classroom. If you cannot handle a five-year-old—”

He slammed his ruler on the desk. Mariel started at the sharp crack. Her lips tightened to a straight line as she recalled the red welts on Rosie's hands. This must be Mr. Knowles's favorite method of punishing his students.

“That child does not belong here with decent children.”

Trying to restrain her temper, she answered, “I said I would be glad to listen if you had anything to say of value. As you wish only to discuss your prejudiced ideas, I can see no reason to continue this further, Mr. Knowles.”

“I will speak to the orphanage board about this!” he shouted at her back.

Mariel paused. Turning, she walked to the front of the room. He was so startled when she pulled the ruler from his hand, that he released it. She cracked it over her knee and dropped the two pieces onto the desk.

“Do not threaten me, Mr. Knowles,” she said with icy calm. “I realize you think of me as only a bothersome woman, but do not forget that the Wythe name has considerable influence. Touch my child with that stick or any other again, and you will find yourself looking for another position without a recommendation.”

“Lady Mariel, if you think you—”

She smiled at his reddened face. “No, Mr. Knowles, I don't think that I can have you removed. I
know
I can. Good day, sir.”

Feeling his glare in the center of her back, she regally crossed the room. She could not let him guess at the distress within her. That Mr. Knowles would use Rosie to rid himself of his frustration with Lady Mariel Wythe was something she had not considered. She did not want to pull the little girl out of the school, although it would not have been difficult to find a tutor for her. She wanted her to be with other children, instead of alone in the world of adults at the Cloister.

Suddenly, she felt overwhelmed. Bringing Rosie to the Cloister had not been as simple as she expected. Although the staff adored the little girl, and she returned that affection freely, she refused to lower her guard to Ian. It made his now more infrequent visits to the large house uncomfortable. Nothing Mariel did could convince the child to change her mind. Stubbornly she continued to call him “Reverend Beckwith-Carter.”

Ian had said nothing to Mariel about Rosie's coldness, but she knew it bothered him. As she wanted to have him come to the Cloister more often, she found herself desperate for a solution. The added problem of Mr. Knowles did not make this difficult time easier. Within a week, Mrs. Parnell would want her answer, if she wanted to keep Rosie permanently. Only Mariel's longing to do nothing to ruin the newborn relationship with Ian made her hesitate.

She strode across the green. As she knocked on the parsonage door, she glanced over her shoulder to see Mr. Knowles watching her with a frown on his face. That the man would judge her for the simple act of calling on a friend increased her rage until it blinded her to everything else. Without bothering to wait for an answer, she swung open the door.

Ian stepped back as Mariel burst into the foyer. When she spat a terse greeting to him without pausing in her march to the study, he sighed. He put his hat on the peg and unbuttoned his coat while he followed. Mariel broadcast her furor broadly.

When she turned to face him, tears of frustrated rage brightened her eyes. Without giving him a chance to speak, she exploded.

“How dare that pin-sized brain tell me that I am taking Rosie into my house only because I want to prove my charitable concerns! He says Rosie is incorrigible. He says she has no place with decent children. He blames her for every misdeed perpetrated in that school. He wants her expelled. Can you believe that? He says—” She paused to take a breath and looked at him curiously. In a sorrowful voice, she asked, “Are you going out, Ian?”

He laughed. Stripping off his coat, he dropped it over the back of the settee. He held out his hand. “I was, but I think I am needed here. Sit down, Mariel.”

Dropping to the sofa, she leaned against him and whispered, “Hold me.”

“Certainly.”

He masked his surprise at her amazing request. Until now, Mariel had been very careful to keep the barrier between them. As he drew her into his arms, he felt the quivering remnant of her rage draining away into grief. Gently, he stroked the delicate line of her shoulder.

Fiercely, he fought his smile. He would not want her to suspect how he was taking advantage of her sadness to enjoy feeling her so close. With his cheek against the top of her head, he savored the touch of her slender fingers.

Comfort eased Mariel's anger. With her face on his chest, she could hear the steady pumping of his heart. The sound welcomed her to nestle closer. She sighed softly as she moved closer to the sturdy strength of his body.

When Ian's fingers brought her chin up so he could look into her eyes, she smiled. “Thank you.”

“For what?”

“Helping me.”

A single finger moved along the silken texture of her face. “It was my pleasure, my dear Mariel.”

She drew back when she heard his husky tone and saw the glitter in his eyes. With a soft chuckle, he moved away from her. She pressed against the back of the settee as the disappearance of her fury left her empty. His left arm rested on the top of the settee while his right hand continued to caress her face.