To Have and to Hold (33 page)

Then she was gone, and Rachel found herself shivering with nerves and triumph. But her shaky elation didn't last long. Only until she remembered that Violet's unpleasant last words to her were exactly the same as Claude Sully's had been to Sebastian.

16

Between Dandy's wild barking and the clatter of carriage wheels in the flagstone courtyard, Sebastian didn't see how Rachel could miss his arrival. He jumped down from his rented coach, Preest behind him, and glanced toward her open window. Impossible to see inside, but he imagined her springing up from her desk, patting at her hair, shaking her skirts. The thought made him smile. But after five minutes, while he paid the driver and told Preest to take him down to the kitchen for a bite and a nip before he started the trip back to Plymouth, only a couple of lads had appeared in the courtyard, to carry his luggage into the house. Where was she?

Holyoake came through the archway from the direction of the stables. "How was your journey, m'lord?" he asked, shaking hands.

"Tedious, William. And hot."

"And your father?"

"Ah, well. I'm not an earl yet."

Holyoake's jaws clamped shut and his heavy brows came down: his disapproving look.

Sebastian bowed his head contritely. "My father's gravely ill. I don't think he can live much longer."

"I'm that sorry, m'lord."

"Thank you. Well, what's the news?"

"Not so much. We've had fine, dry days, and 'tis been quietlike, all in all. The harvest's set to begin next week. Been gathering the teams o' hands and readying the machines and wagons and such. All's in order there, I b'lieve."

"I'm sure of it."

"There's a thing or two we might discuss about corn market prices, strategies and what-not. But I expect you'll be tired from yer trip just now; mayhap we can talk later."

"Right you are, William. Tonight, perhaps, or better yet, first thing in the morning. Where's Mrs. Wade?" he asked casually.

"Why, she walked to the village, m'lord. Said she were going fer tea wi' the vicar's wife;"

"Did she?" They exchanged tactful looks of surprise and, Sebastian thought, satisfaction. "I'll see her later, then," he said in the nonchalant tone, and Holyoake nodded blandly.

Just as well, thought Sebastian as he took the stairs two at a time to his room. He was hot from his trip, and not all that clean. He'd have a chance now to smarten himself up for her.

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Judelet even made good lemonade. Sebastian sipped from a tall, cool glass while he surveyed what the workmen had accomplished on Rachel's greenhouse in his absence. There wasn't much to see yet, just a hole in the ground for the stone foundation and a lot of piled-up equipment. The conservatory would have painted wood framing on the outside, brass on the inside, the rest glass, with a brick floor and a drain, running water from a hidden cistern, adjustable shades for regulating the light. She would nice it. He imagined coming upon her here in the late afternoons, watching her putter about with soil and watering cans, maybe humming a.song to herself as she tended her flowers. They could sit in chairs and tell each other what their days had been like, sipping tea, watching the sun go down. He could hardly wait.

Four-thirty now; she'd be home soon. He gazed past the river bridge to the lane that disappeared in the trees at the top of the rise. No sign of her yet. He decided to stretch his legs, take a walk around his house.

Calling Lynton Hall eccentric was a generous-hearted indulgence; the place was downright odd. But he liked its peculiarities and appreciated its amusing architectural flaws. He was fond of it, in a way he could never be fond of Steyne Court. Strolling through the terraced gardens at the back, he spoke briefly to McCurdy, his gardener. Besides a rake and a hoe under his arm, the taciturn Scotsman carried two small pails of strawberries. "Give me one of those, will you?" Sebastian asked, and McCurdy grunted and obliged. "Thanks." He hadn't had time to buy Rachel anything; he'd give her strawberries.

Wandering farther, he went down the steep gravel path to the edge of the park. The woods were filling with shadows as the sun began its slow decline, but lazy bees still droned in the shrubbery. The smell of acacia blossoms sweetened the air, and McCurdy's perennial garden blazed with color in a long slant of afternoon light. Leggy, a little overgrown, the garden looked neglected; McCurdy put his energies into the one above it, this one being remote from the house and seldom seen, probably hard to water. Beside it, a peeling wood gazebo was decaying—like so many other things on the estate. Sebastian sat down on the splintery bench to contemplate his domain.

Silence; peace. What a pleasant spot. He wanted Rachel to enjoy it with him. Where was she?

There—topping the rise, hurrying, skirts bunched in her hands. She stopped when she saw him, and her face lit up in a smile so genuine and unrestrained, he felt a twist in his heart. Then she was running down the hill and he was striding out to meet her. By the time he swept her up in his arms, they were both laughing.

Laughing.
He swung her around in a circle, euphoric. Half the goal had been realized.

When they stopped kissing, they stood back to look at each other. "What's happened?" he demanded. "Do you
thrive
when I'm away?" She looked different—confident, womanly, radiant.

"No," she denied. "I pine."

"No, you
blossom.
Has something happened?"

"Yes—but I'll tell you later. How was your trip? How is your father?"

"Alive, but only barely."

She took his hand. "Are
you
all right?"

"I'm fine. My trip—it's not important." He could hardly remember it. He turned with her, and they walked slowly back to the shady gazebo. "I want to know what's happened to you, Rachel. Tell me now."

They sat in the dappled shadows with their arms around each other, ignoring the glorious sunset. He'd never seen her so lovely. Her hair had lengthened in the months since she'd come here; it curled at the tops of her shoulders now, dark and mysterious, and he'd grown to love the silver strands that brightened it, like stars winking in a black sky. They were unique; they were Rachel.

"Sebastian," she said in a reverent voice, "my ticket of leave has been canceled. All the conditions of my release were dismissed, withdrawn. It was in a letter that came from the Home Secretary four days ago."

"And this makes you happy." He touched her cheek. "I can see that it does."

"Yes. Oh, yes. It's exactly as if a weight's been lifted—I'm truly not the same person I was."

"Had you petitioned for this, written to the Home Office?"

"No, and I don't know why they've done it. It's unusual for a remittal to come this soon—I've only been observing my conditional release for five months. You didn't write to them, did you?"

"No, I didn't. Why didn't you ask me to? It never even occurred to me." Her happiness was contagious. He kissed her on the temple. "So you're through with visits to Tavistock and the constable in Wyckerley?"

"Yes, that's all finished. I'm free now, truly free."

She looked free. Fresh and youthful, full of hope. He was fascinated by this newest change in her.

"You'll never guess what I did yesterday."

He shook his head. "You went dancing on the village green?"

"Isacked Violet Cocker."

"Violet Cocker.

"She's a housemaid. If you had been here, of course I'd have asked you first—but you did say that all the hiring and firing would be my responsibility, you said that in the very beginning, and so I—"

"Quite right. Out with the wench."

"Sebastian, she was insufferable—rude, lazy, insulting—"

"Is she that black-haired girl with the ferret face?"

She laughed with guilty delight. "Yes! I gave her two weeks' pay out of the housekeeping money, and this morning she was gone. And I feel—
powerful."

"Do you?" He smiled, enchanted.

"What do you think it means? Do you think I'm vindictive?"

"Oh, come now."

"No, but what if it turns out I'm a mean sort of person once I've got any power at all, the kind who takes pleasure in besting the Violets of this world?"

"What's wrong with that?"

"WeU.it—"

"Nothing. The Violets of this world deserve besting, and a lot worse. But you're not like that and you know it. You got rid of a woman who's been a thorn in your side from the beginning. I'm proud of you.''

She looked down, smiling. "I am, too," she confessed. "Violet ought to have been let go. She really did deserve it."

"Absolutely."

"The point is, I couldn't have done it a week ago. I feel as if a new life is starting for me. This morning, another Broad Arrow came in the mail, and I didn't-—" He cut her off with an angry oath, and she put a calming hand on his sleeve. "It was exactly the same as the first one, no note, no sender's address. It didn't
prostrate
me the way the first one did, though— that's what I'm trying to tell you. I think it's starting: I think I'm finally beginning to put the past behind me."

"Darling. I'm very glad. That's the best news you could give me." He gave her shoulders a squeeze before he said seriously, "But I'll have to have another word with Mrs. Armstrong. This can't go on."

"I wish you wouldn't speak to her. She's very ill—Anne Morrell told me so this afternoon. There's no harm done. Honestly, it's nothing."

"Well, we won't argue about it now." To change the subject, he said, "So you're friends with Christy MorreU's wife, are you?"

"Not friends exactly," she said carefully. "Not yet, but I think we could be. I like her very much. And— she likes me."

"Of course she does. She's an intelligent woman."

"She makes the most irreverent jokes. And she's easy to talk to. So easy that today I screwed up my courage and asked her a question."

"What?"

"I asked why she's gone to the trouble and the risk of seeking out my acquaintance when, for all she knows, I might have killed a man."

He touched her cheek. "That took courage. What did she say?"

"She said she's never believed from the moment we met that I could have murdered anyone. And she said her husband told her all about the trial and conviction, and then she didn't much care if she was right or not, because Randolph was a beast and deserved what he got." She gave a laugh. "She's very outspoken for a minister's wife."

"How nice that you have such a wise friend."

"She told me something else—I almost forgot. Claude Sully is in the neighborhood, Sebastian. On some kind of business, she thought.''

"Is he?" He searched her face, which had suddenly grown tense. "You're not afraid, are you?"

"No, not for myself. It was you he threatened."

He felt the old antagonism stir inside. "I wish he would try something. By God, I do." The things Sully had done to her—the things Sebastian had let him do—they still had the power to sicken him.

"That's all over," she said quickly, reading his mind.

"Yes. It is over. In a way, you know, I owe Sully a debt. Thanks to him, I saw myself clearly for the first time in—I don't know how long. Years." He still had a long way to go to change that mirror image Sully had shown him, but he thought he'd made a good beginning. He laid his palm on the side of Rachel's face, stroking her cheek with his thumb. A very good beginning.

Her lashes fluttered closed; smiling, she pressed his fingers to her lips one by one. "I missed you. I thought you'd never come home."

They shared a soft kiss, slow and welcoming, and he thought about how lucky he was. Because this woman was his, and she had been waiting for him. He let his hand drift down the silky skin of her throat to the collar of her dress. "How does this unfasten?"

Her eyes flew open. They widened in surprise, then warmed with excitement, and her smile cast a spell over him. "It . . . hooks. In the back." And she bent her head to make it easy for him.

"Pretty dress," he murmured, undoing the little hooks at the nape of her neck. "Pretty lady." Truly he had come home.

"I thought of you all the time," she confided in a whisper. "Of this. Sometimes ... I feel as if my body doesn't belong to me anymore. It belongs to you."

"Then I must be careful to take very, very good care of it." It wasn't a sexual overture; he meant it literally, a kind of vow. His hands were almost reverent as he slipped the bodice of her gown over her shoulders and gently pulled her arms out of the tight sleeves. "Look at you," he breathed, beguiled by the smooth swell of her bosom under her dainty white chemise. He ran his fingers along the ribbon at the frilly top, listening to her slow breathing. A stray sunbeam gilded her shoulder. He put his lips there, and murmured, "How lovely to touch you like this. Do you like the way the sun feels on your skin?"

"Yes."

"And the breeze."

"Yes."

"And my mouth ..."