The Spare (9 page)

She walked toward the churchyard and unlocked the gate. "Behind is the graveyard and though 'tis a sad place, the view is worth admiring, for beyond that one sees nothing but snow-covered fields and in the distance, Pennhyll. In the spring there's green that breaks your heart." She walked through the gate. "The church, as it happens, stands on the only ground not owned by the earls." A smile played around her mouth. "Just as we Far Caisterians cannot forget Who made us, neither can we forget to whom we must pay the rents."

"Don't be impertinent," Sebastian said as he passed her.

"Was I?" she murmured. "My apologies. My Lord." Diana had her arm wrapped around his as they walked, too near his wound so that he must breathe quietly against the ache in his side. They'd kept a moderate pace so far, but he wasn't used to so much activity. He disengaged enough that Diana's hand didn't constantly brush his tender ribs. James and Miss Willow pulled ahead. With Diana clinging to him and waiting, he was sure, for conversation in the form of compliments leading to a declaration, he could think of little except he would be glad when he was married, if only to be done with this nonsense of romance and courting. He would marry, do his duty by his title and return to the sea, and Diana would adjust to his neglect. But whenever he tried to imagine his wedding night he couldn't think of anything to do with pleasure.

He faced her. "You have lovely eyes, Miss Royce." He despised himself for saying so and came close to despising Diana for her pleasure when every woman on earth had eyes in her head. One pair of eyes was much like any other. What a ridiculous business this was. He looked at Diana. A lovely girl, and that was the trouble. Diana was still a girl. "Miss Royce?"

"My Lord?" She seemed to be waiting for him to continue in a similar vein, but he could not utter even one more insipid word. Let the woman earn her compliments, by God. He thought about going down on one knee, but the snow made him think the better of that.

"Miss Royce."
Will you marry me
? Four simple words, stuck in his throat. She tilted her head. "Miss Royce. You are a lovely girl."

"Thank you." Her lips parted, and she smiled so that he almost thought he wasn't making a mistake.

"I think we'll get on. Don't you?"

"Oh, yes. You aren't half as strict as James is with me. He's constantly scolding me. You never do."

"Splendid."

She smiled. He ought to kiss her. What if he couldn't kiss her? Damned if he could do it. While the silence continued, the first flakes of snow fell to the ground. "Come, Miss Royce." He took her arm, using care to arrange her against his uninjured side. "Shall we return?"

"Yes, do let's." She glanced to where her brother and Miss Willow stood about fifty paces north of the churchyard gate, near a row of headstones darkening in the melting snowfall. Surprisingly, James had backed away, leaving the object of his lust alone. "James, do come along. Miss Willow." She waved to catch Olivia's attention. James left off staring at Miss Willow and walked to Diana. Miss Willow, however, remained before a gravestone less gray than most. After the serene brunette of Diana, that flame hair was a jarring sight.

"Miss Willow," Sebastian said. When she did not move, he took several steps toward her and called again with more than a flash of irritation. "Come along."

"Leave her be," James said.

"I don't mean to stand here in the snow whilst she dawdles and your sister catches her death."

She brushed the gathering snow from the top of the marker, and that was the last straw. He left James with his sister and closed the distance to her. Instead of feeling relieved that he and Diana had arrived at an understanding, he felt tense. "All the reflection in the world cannot bring back the occupant, no matter how poignant the epitaph or deeply felt your sympathy."

She traced the engraved letters on the stone. His eye followed,
ROGER CATHCART WILLOW
and
TOBIAS KINGSLEY WILLOW
. Her father and brother. "I miss them," she said, twisting a bit to look at him. Her eyes were an unusual color, pale brown, like honey raised to the sunlight. He had never, ever, seen a woman look like that, as if she'd lost everything that mattered. He understood the desolation far too well. "Sometimes," she said, "I wish I had died, too."

"That," he said, "is foolish."

"Who would have taken care of Mama?"

He held out a hand to help her back to the walk. His fingers tightened around her hand as she stepped over the now icy ground. He pulled too hard, because she ended up just inches from him, stumbling and then losing her balance. He caught her around the waist. Their eyes met.

His insides reacted like a ship teetering on an ocean swell, poised for the wrenching drop to the trough. When she didn't look away, the thrill of descent ripped through him, pure and primal. Even if he could have, he didn't want to look anywhere but at her. Her eyes went right through him, grabbed his soul in both hands and shook it hard. Straight nose quite narrow at the bridge, a chin just short of pointed, round cheeks curved like satin over a woman's hips. Red hair thick with curls framed her face. A corkscrew tendril fell over her forehead. Extravagant hair. Unseemly in color and appearance. Jesus, but a man wanted to bury his fingers in that hair just to see if it would burn.

Whether she understood the reaction behind his scrutiny or for some other reason, her cheeks flushed pink. She looked away. "All these years, and I miss them still."

"Come," he said. "We'll be frozen if you don't come out of the weather." He turned and walked toward the gate without waiting to see if she followed. Diana drew her hood over her head when he reached her. She pointed to the walkway and waved.

"There are Miss Cage and her father. Miss Cage and I are planning the
seance. You can't imagine how much we have to do before St. Agnes' Eve. Do let's go, my Lord. My coat and muff will be ruined, and James will refuse to buy me another one. He never lets me buy anything."

Miss Willow walked past, and James tried to take her arm, but she had her hands deep in the pockets of her cloak and appeared not to notice his attempted gallantry. She stopped at the gate, waiting for them. Sebastian wanted to laugh at James's disgruntlement. He had the look of a fellow turned down flat, he did.

Diana held out her arm to her brother. "Come along, James. Miss Cage and I are in the most dire need of your expertise. Planning a party is ever so much work." Her eyes sparkled. "I simply adore parties. Dear James, please. My boots will be ruined. Absolutely ruined, I'm sure."

James gave him a look and shrugged. Diana waved to Miss Cage again. "Miss Cage. Miss Cage. Have you got…"

He hoped Diana was enjoying herself, because his wife-to-be wasn't going to have many opportunities to plan parties after they were married. Diana and James, unaware for the moment that he and Miss Willow weren't right behind them, turned the corner for the safety of the walkway, and Sebastian found himself alone with Olivia Willow.

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He was alone with Olivia Willow exactly as James had hoped to find himself. Her eyes, fixed on him like pools of warm honey, lent an already pretty face deeper interest. When she didn't pretend to be unintelligent, her eyes fascinated. He wondered how she'd look with her hair spilling over a pillow and him staring into her face from just a few inches above. The image had a predictable result that made him glad for the length of his greatcoat as much as for the fact that he'd buttoned it against the cold.

Despite his private thoughts, at this precise moment, the mood was decidedly different from what James had intended, and he meant to make well sure it stayed that way. Miss Willow's intentions were similar because she nodded before heading past him. She made a surprised sound when he grabbed her arm and halted her midstep. Though he was mainly in control of himself, he felt a spark of arousal the moment he touched her. With an irritating poise, she faced him.

Red hair tumbled down her forehead and along one side of her cheek. Curls twisted in the breeze and sparkled with flakes of snow. Her chin was level with his chest. She made him feel brutish, clumsy and outsized. Though a large man, he was none of those things and certainly able to make love to a small woman without injuring her.

"You are far too self-possessed," he told her. He forced his voice flat and dry as dust so there could be no question of his complete dispassion toward her.

She stared to one side, hiding her eyes from him. "A great fault, I am sure."

"It is." Damn her for agreeing with him. Damn her for having herself so firmly in hand that he wanted to shake her out of her control.

"My former employer," she said, staring now at his cravat, "Admiral Bunker, often said that the man who commands a ship of the line must be straightforward and brook no nonsense. That he must be quick to think and to say what is on his mind." She looked into his eyes. "You, sir, have all those qualities and more. I have nothing but admiration for your record of success. The
Achilles
, the
Resplendent
, the
Courageous
. You've served your country ably and made all who know you and know of you proud to be English." A light flickered behind her eyes and he, who had never cared to hear his praises sung, wanted more. He wanted to hear more of that admiration in her voice. "But I hope you will permit me to tell you that when a man finds himself in gentle society, among young ladies such as Miss Royce who have been brought up with immense delicacy and consideration, he must temper his words and his manner, however sorely it goes against his nature."

"If you mean to criticize, say it outright."

"You will not win Miss Royce's heart if you persist in such brutal honesty as you have just shown to me."

"I cannot afford to make a mistake about you."

"And you can about your future wife?"

"My future wife is no concern of yours." He used the dry voice again because she'd scored a hit with that last remark.

"You are correct, my Lord."

He let go of her, but he did not change the distance between them. Despite his desires and James's belief that Miss Willow would prove no better than she ought to be, Sebastian failed to see in her anything but what she appeared to be: a spinster of irreproachable reputation and declining fortune. She stood before him, gloved hands clasped as prim and proper as any gentlewoman of unremarkable past. There was not now any attempt to pretend less intelligence than she in truth possessed.

"Why did you come back to Far Caister?" he said.

"My mother is not well." He liked the sound of her voice. A deliberate tone, an alto that settled on the ears like velvet over a bed.

"Tell me what you recall of my brother's death." All that he needed was in her head: how and why his brother had died and the identity of the man responsible.

She swallowed, drawing her cloak tighter about her. "You understand, my Lord, that I have no recollection of that night or of the days immediately before and after?"

He nodded.

"Andrew and Guenevere were giving a fete, and I was invited. I know that's so because I found the invitation which I gave in evidence at the inquest, though I have no recollection of going to Pennhyll that day. My first memory afterward is of waking up there." She inclined her head toward the mountain, meaning, so Sebastian understood, Pennhyll.

"The last you recall?"

"Teaching. The day before. I teach the children of Far Caister. That day, I drilled the students on irregular verbs."

"After you woke up at Pennhyll, what then?"

"I asked what happened, but no one would tell me." Her eyes flickered with the recollection, turning a darker shade of honey. "I didn't understand why until Dr. Richards told me. That Andrew and Guenevere were dead."

Snowflakes glittered on one of her curls, and he brushed them away. "Dr. Richards gave evidence at the inquest. According to him, you were severely injured that night."

She nodded, the color draining from her cheeks.

"I understand the subject must be painful for you."

"You want to know." She leaned forward, an earnest note in her voice. "You deserve to know. My shoulder was broken. A cut, here." She touched the back of her head.

"And the gunshot." What sort of villain beat and shot a woman and left her for dead? A desperate man, a man under no restraint from conscience.

"Yes." Tipping her head to one side, she parted curls of copper hair just above her temple to display an indented, jagged scar about the length of his first finger. He'd seen enough wounds to know she'd been fortunate, indeed. She let her hair fall back into place.

"You recovered. But for your memory, of course."

"I have headaches, and my shoulder sometimes hurts." She astonished him by giving a brilliant smile. Full of light, like the one he'd admired when he first saw her. "Perhaps we might trade stories of injury and recovery. My scar itched terribly."

"What about your dreams?"

For a moment, she froze. Then, without, Sebastian thought, awareness of what she was doing, she rocked, clutching herself around the waist, a slight flex at the hips and then back. "I used to wake in the night."

"Used to."

"Yes."

"Why?"

"I can't remember why. I can never remember."

"Try, Miss Willow." He brushed more snowflakes from her hair.

"I want to. I truly do. I came to Pennhyll again because I thought being there might help me remember."

"Has it?"

"No. Not yet." She continued to sway. Her face was composed, but the air felt full and heavy, as if it would vaporize if compressed even one more inch.

"You're afraid, aren't you? Afraid of remembering."

Her eyes shot to his. "Mama complained I woke her." He tipped his head, silent encouragement. "I screamed, that's what Mama told me. That I woke her with my screaming. But I don't think I ever did."

"You remember the feeling." If he continued to press her, would she fall from the thin edge of her control?