The Perfect Kiss (26 page)

“It’s so beautiful here,” she murmured.

He was silent. She turned and looked at him. “You don’t really mean to sell all this, do you?” Grace asked.

He shrugged. “Why not?”

“I thought you’d changed your mind since . . . since you discovered how the people here remember your mother.”

He shrugged again. “You were right, all that’s in the past. All I want is to secure ownership and then I’ll sell the damned place off—to a dozen different buyers if necessary! Then we can travel, you and I, to all the places you have dreamed of.”

“Break up the estate?” Grace said with all the horror of one whose ancestors had one main purpose in life—to acquire and hold as much land as possible in perpetuity.

“Why not?”

“But if you break it up, it will destroy Wolfestone. It will be the end, the end of six hundred years of tradition.”

“Exactly,” he said with satisfaction.

“But why? Why would you want to destroy something when you could make something wonderful of it instead? If you break the estate up and sell it, the people here will end up worse than the way your father left them. I couldn’t possibly enjoy our foreign travels, knowing that the people here were suffering.”

He stared at her. “That’s ridiculous. You can’t possibly mean that.”

“I do. Wolfestone isn’t just land, it’s a living, breathing community. The people here depend on each other and they depend on you.”

“Then it’s time they stopped and learned to stand on their own feet. They are ignorant and superstitious and backward and—”

“And if they are, whose fault is that?”

He stared at her.

She continued. “Your ancestors! And though you can deny the responsibility all you like—”

“I do. I had nothing to do with—”

“You cannot and should not take responsibility for their past, but the responsibility for their future lies squarely on your shoulders, particularly if you intend to sell their homes and their farms from under them!”

He said nothing for the longest time and Grace wondered whether she’d upset him. After all, it was wonderful of him to be planning to take her on foreign adventures, but he had to see that he had a place here. He belonged here. He could go on foreign adventures, but he also needed a home to come home to.

“Would you really want to live here?” he asked.

“Yes. It’s beautiful. And I’ve never had a home, not a real one of my own.”

“You’d live here with me? And help me rebuild the state?”

She nodded. “We could make it something really special, Dominic.”

“You’re sure about this?” His eyes bored into her.

She smiled. “I’m sure.”

He took a deep breath. “Then that’s what we’ll do.”

“And what about Sir John?”

“I can deal with him,” Dominic said. “As long as you’re mine, I can do anything.” He looked at her and his eyes gleamed possessively. “And you are mine, aren’t you, love?”

The look and his words thrilled her. “Yes, and you’re mine.”

They rode back to Wolfestone hand in hand. Grace didn’t think she’d ever been happier in her life.

She was in love. At long last.

Chapter Fifteen

Gather ye rosebuds while ye may, old Time is still a-flying.
And this same flower that smiles today, tomorrow will be
dying.

ROBERT HERRICK

 
 
 
AS THEY ENTERED THE FRONT DOOR, MELLY CAME FLYING DOWN the stairs, wild-eyed and frantic. “He’s killing Papa! He’s bled him again and Papa has collapsed, insensible! Help me! Oh, please help me!” She turned and raced back up.

Grace and Dominic followed.

In Sir John’s bedroom, they found the doctor fending off Melly, who was nearly hysterical. Beside him was a basin containing a quantity of fresh, bright blood.

Sir John lay back, unmoving, his skin almost as pale as the pillows on which he rested. As Grace watched, his thin chest rose and fell very slightly. “He’s alive!” she said. “Melly, calm yourself. He is alive and we will keep him that way!”

Melly burst into tears.

Dominic, having ascertained that Sir John was indeed still breathing, turned on the doctor. The doctor, seeing his face, took an involuntary step backward. “I told you to desist from that practice!” Dominic said in a quiet, chilling voice.

“I—I—it was necessary,” the doctor blustered. “He has a swelling—see?” He pulled back the bedclothes and revealed an angry red swelling on the upper right-hand part of Sir John’s abdomen.

“But he has already lost so much blood! And he hasn’t eaten in days,” Melly interrupted passionately. “He’s too weak to be bled. I think you just enjoy bleeding him. You’re nothing but a butcher!”

Grace tried to calm things down. “Isn’t there any other way to treat that?” She gestured at the swelling. “Without bleeding him, I mean?”

But the doctor was incensed at Melly’s accusations. Huffily, he tossed his things into his bag. “I’m leaving! I’m not staying here to be insulted any longer!”

Melly looked shocked. “But what about Papa? You can’t leave him like this!”

The doctor sniffed. “There’s nothing I can do for him anyway. He’s dying!”

There was a stunned silence.

“Dying?” Melly whispered. Grace put her arms around her.

The doctor jerked his chin at Sir John’s swollen abdomen. “His liver’s hugely swollen. My guess is it’s cancer of the liver. That or consumption. If he coughs blood, you’ll know which. Either way, there is absolutely nothing anyone can do.”

“But we can’t do nothing,” Grace said.

He shrugged. “Give him laudanum for the pain. In increasing doses as the pain worsens.”

“If there is
absolutely nothing anyone can do
, then why were you bleeding him?” Dominic asked in a cold voice.

The doctor looked uncomfortable.

“You did enjoy it, didn’t you?” Grace accused him.

“I’m leaving now,” he blustered.

“Yes, you are,” Dominic agreed. “You’re leaving Wolfestone.”

The doctor gave him an uncertain look.

“Leaving the entire district,” Dominic clarified. “I don’t think you’re any sort of doctor at all. And I won’t have a man who enjoys the drawing of copious quantities of blood treating my people.”

Grace noticed the word if no one else did.
My
people.

The doctor’s eyes bulged with shock. “You can’t do that!”

Dominic fixed him with a cold golden stare. “I am Lord D’Acre and I won’t have a bloodsucking leech on my land, mistreating my people. You have two weeks.”

“How dare you—”

“One week, then. And if you’re still there after that I’ll send my men around to remove you and your charming wife!” He paused. The man was staring at him in shock. Dominic added, “And if you’re not gone by the time I count to three, I’ll give in to my overwhelming desire to throw you bodily down the stairs. One, two—”

Abdul loomed up behind the doctor, crooning in a sinister voice, “Give the bloodsucker to me, I beg of you, sir. In my land we know what to do with such as these.” He gave the doctor a terrible grin. “It will be my pleasure to—”

The doctor gave a frightened screech and scuttled from the room.

Abdul winked at Grace. “That got rid of him.” He turned to Melly and said in a solicitous voice, “Now, who shall we bring in to look after your father, Miss Pettifer? Do you have any preference?”

Melly’s blank look showed she hadn’t thought about it.

From the door, one of the Tickel girls piped up, “Granny Wigmore’s the best healer in these parts.”

Abdul nodded without turning. “Thank you, Tansy. What do you think, Miss Pettifer? Shall I send for this Granny Wigmore person?”

Melly looked at Grace for guidance.

“She can’t be worse than that doctor,” Grace told her. “And she’s clean and knows more about herbs than anyone I know. Plus I like her, Melly. She’ll be very comforting to have around.”

Abdul bowed. “Then Tansy will run like the wind to fetch this herbal granny for you,
sitt
.” And Tansy did.

 
 
GRANNY WIGMORE TOOK ONE LOOK AT SIR JOHN AND MUTTERED, “The consumption he said it was, did he? Or cancer? Well it might be, and it might not be.”

She lifted an eyelid and peered into Sir John’s eye. “’E looks proper liverish to me.” She looked at the inflamed swelling on his stomach and wrinkled her nose. “That ’un be the source o’ the problem, I reckon. It might be a boil, or it might be sommat worse. We must wait and see. I’ll poultice it and we’ll see if aught comes out.”

“What might come out?” Melly asked nervously.

The old lady wrinkled her face up. “Whatever’s ailing yer pa, young miss. Whatever’s ailing yer pa. I hope.”

Sir John opened his eyes and said in a weary voice. “Then get on with it, woman.”

Everyone heaved a sigh of relief. Sir John was back in the land of the living, for now, at least.

 
 
UNDER ABDUL’S EAGLE EYE, MRS. STOKES, ON HER METTLE, PUT ON an even more excellent dinner that evening and the next, but still Melly just picked at her meal. Grace watched her, concerned. It was not like Melly. Her father had grown no worse under Granny Wigmore’s treatment and he at least was taking liquids.

At the end of the meal, Mrs. Stokes’s niece, Enid, knocked on the dining room door and entered looking worried. “Excuse me, m’lord, Reverend, ladies, but I’ve just now come from Sir John’s chamber, collecting his dinner tray—”

Melly jumped up. “Is something the matter—”

“Oh no, miss, he’s—he’s the same as ever. Didn’t eat nothing, but Granny’s been makin’ him drink herbal tea all day, and he has kept that down, which is a change. Apart from that, he’s just as he was this morning. Only . . .”

She twisted her apron nervously. “Only I was chatterin’ on a bit, meaning no harm—he’s an easy old gentleman to chat to. But—” She glanced at Abdul and then Frey. “I was talking about Mr. Abdul here, and then I let slip that we had a vicar in the house as well as an ’eathen. And now he wants to see the vicar. Alone and at once.”

Melly gasped and Grace and Dominic exchanged glances.

Enid added, “I’m sorry, miss. I know I wasn’t s’posed to say.” Abdul waved her out.

Grace moved to sit beside Melly. She took her hand. “Melly, there is no reason to think the worst—”

Melly started to sob.

Frey set his napkin aside and rose from the table, saying in a calm voice, “Now, Miss Pettifer, there’s no point fretting when you don’t know what he wants. I’ll go up and speak to him—it was remiss of me not to have introduced myself when I first arrived. Just you sit there and have a nice cup of tea. I’ll talk to you when your father has finished with me.”

To Grace’s amazement, Melly valiantly gulped back her sobs and nodded. “Tea would be nice,” she managed, and Grace signaled to Enid to fetch a pot at once.

Frey went upstairs and introduced himself to Sir John. He’d never met the man before, but though he was shocked at how thin and fragile the elderly gentleman looked, he was also encouraged by the alertness of the old man’s eyes.

“Can I get you anything, sir?” he asked.

Sir John waved the offer away with a grimace of pain. “Pull up a chair, my boy. I’ll have some of that filthy stuff later.” He gestured to the little bottle of laudanum on his bedside table. “Addles my mind though, so I’ll wait till after I’ve said m’piece.”

Frey sat down, folded his hands, and waited. Sir John gave him a thorough inspection. “Netterton, eh? I knew a Humphrey Netterton slightly when I was young. Your father?”

Frey nodded. “Yes, sir. I am named after him.”

“Good fellow, your father. Sorry to hear how he died.” Sir John sniffed. “Knew your Uncle Cedric better in those days.” He shook his head. “Never would have believed it when he became a parson, of all things. Not Ceddie Netterton.”

“He’s a bishop now, sir.”

“Good God! What’s the world coming to?” He grinned at Frey. “Is he frightfully pompous?”

“Frightfully.” Frey grinned back.

“Still a parsimonious old lickpenny?”

“Indeed he is, sir.” Frey was starting to like this old gentleman very much.

“Ah well, he hasn’t changed as much as all that, then. Neither have I, more’s the pity. I can’t hang on to money, he can’t spend it. So, about this business with m’daughter.”

“Sir?”

“I want you to call the banns on Sunday. Her and D’Acre. It’s all arranged.”

Frey frowned. He hesitated, but he couldn’t not speak up. “Sir, please forgive me if this sounds impertinent, but—”

Sir John waved a thin hand. “You’re goin’ to tell me Melly doesn’t love D’Acre, and he doesn’t love her? I know all that.”

Frey opened his mouth to speak again and again, Sir John interrupted, “You’re going to tell me it’s not fair on my girl to arrange a marriage when she was a child to a fellow she doesn’t know, that she ought to be able to choose her own husband.”

“Well . . . yes, sir.”

“Well, don’t. I know all that but I have my reasons.” He gave Frey a candid look. “I’m all rolled up, my boy. Skint. Not a shillin’ to m’name and in debt to the eyebrows. If I’m to save Melly from the consequences of my folly I have to get her married. Prefer not to force the issue, but needs must . . .”

“I see.” Frey saw only too well. Poverty was a trap and he couldn’t blame Sir John from wanting to keep Melly out of it.

But Frey felt he had to persist, make a push to see if he could sort things out. It was—it was his duty as a minister. “Do you realize that Lord D’Acre has no intention of making a normal marriage? It’s to be a convenient marriage, he tells me. A white marriage.”

The old man shrugged. “Told me the same. He’ll come around. And if he doesn’t—” He broke off. “Can you see my Melly trying to scrape a livin’ as a governess or some such thing? Fending off the randy sons of the middle classes?”

Frey was horrified by the picture. “No, sir.”

“So even if it is a white marriage, could be worse. D’Acre is young, good-lookin’, and has a kind heart. Even if he doesn’t come to love her, he won’t mistreat my girl.”

Frey said heavily, “Yes, I know.”

Sir John’s eyed him shrewdly. “How d’ye know?”

“I was at school with him. We’re friends.”