Patricia Rice (6 page)

He grabbed the remainder of the package and shoved
it into her arms. “You’ll wear it and not be ashamed of the source, or
you’ll leave. I’ll not waste my time on a creature so self-righteous
she’d freeze before accepting what’s offered her. Those kind weren’t
meant to live in this world, but the next.”

He walked out, slamming the door after him. He
hadn’t even taken his cloak. He would freeze. Setting aside the gift and
the decision until the morning, she took the tongs to the heated bricks
in the fire, and wrapping them in towels, carried them to Jack’s bed.

He had tried to do the Christian thing. Shouldn’t that count for something?

When the lamplight caught on the silver of a papist
crucifix nailed in the high corner of his bed cupboard, Faith nearly
dropped the bricks. Then, turning to glance in the direction of the door
through which Jack had left, she wondered if she had not underestimated
the highwayman. Perhaps he had some code by which he lived, and she had
not yet understood it. She would very much like to know his story.

“It’s been three bloody weeks, bigawd! Why the deuce
did no one come to me before this? I know you for zealous idiots, but I
did not think you to be inhumane! Where the hell is she?”

The man screaming his curses as he paced the elegant
library was very much a creature of this time and place. His ramillies
wig was powdered, his brocade waistcoat came to his knee and glittered
with gold buttons and embroidery, and his buckram-stiffened scarlet
frock coat had the sheen of silk.

He wasn’t wearing powder on his face, but it would
have been useless against his current choleric coloring. Lord Mountjoy’s
lined features still bore the harsh angles of his youth, and with
temper, his visage was formidable indeed.

The soberly garbed man in broadcloth long coat and
round uncocked hat, held respectfully in his hand, maintained his
silence until he was certain he could be heard without shouting.

“I personally traveled to Cornwall to determine the
true events of what I read in the paper,” the sober man replied into a
break in the ranting. “If you have any familiarity with that area at
all, you know it is cut off from the rest of the world by centuries of
suspicion and distrust. They took it into their own hands to handle
matters. That goes against my methods, as surely you must know, but your
son could not change centuries of behavior in a few short months.”

“I know nothing of your methods, nor do I care to
hear your heresy!” Mountjoy shouted. “You are a scandal to the name of
your parents, a revolutionary, a destroyer of the church and society! I
want to know what happened to my son, and I want to know the whereabouts
of my granddaughter!”

The man in black very much feared the older man
would suffer an apoplexy, and he tried to ignore his own anger at the
ignorance of his lordship. This was not the time to explain that his
teachings were within the framework of the Anglican church, meant to
strengthen and not to destroy.

That he chose to preach to the poor and encourage
them to rise from the mire invoked the wrath of the upper classes more
than any damage to the church. Or perhaps it was the spontaneous emotion
evoked by their meetings which revolted the blasé
ton
, but he suspected fear was behind it all.

Satisfied the nobleman was prepared to listen, he
replied, “Your son behaved with exemplary fortitude. He had developed a
goodly sized following in those few short months, not an easy task in
the face of the odds. He preached to the miners before they went to work
in the early hours of the morning. He was a good speaker, and they
listened.”

The man in scarlet silk lifted a crystal paperweight
from the table and heaved it at the cold stone hearth. The glass
cracked and shattered, and his shoulders slumped. “What happened?” he
demanded without emotion.

“The usual fear of anyone or anything different. My
methods and those of my followers are not generally accepted by the
local clergy. They are offended and revolted by the emotion generated by
our speakings. They preach their disapproval in their churches, and it
falls on ears eager to hear it. Forgive me, but the landed gentry are
none too pleased to see their servants and tenants band together. It
breeds fear and distrust. The riots are nothing new. You have read of
them before. It’s just in Cornwall... Well, the level of emotion rose
higher than elsewhere. It was foreseeable, perhaps, but your son
insisted that he could deal with it. He was a strong man, a fighter. He
could not foresee that they would attack him with more than fists.”

Lord Mountjoy turned a shade grayer, and his fists
clamped the library table as if he would tear it in two. “Do they know
who did it? Have they been caught yet?”

“It was a riot, milord, an early-morning riot,
before dawn. Undoubtedly there are those who know the men responsible,
but they are a closemouthed lot. To keep their families safe, they will
say nothing. It is a great tragedy, but that is the way of the world.”
There was nothing he could say to the gentleman to ease his pain.
Mountjoy had cast his younger son aside years ago. It was too late to
mourn what might have been.

“And my granddaughter?”

This time, it was not the elegant man in scarlet who
spoke, but a frail woman in black sitting in the far corner, almost out
of sight. She was so pale and dainty and immobile as to be easily
mistaken for a valuable porcelain doll clothed in silk.

The man in broadcloth bowed in her direction. “The
villagers feared she would come to harm and smuggled her out of town.
She was given money and directions, but we are having some difficulty
locating her. She seems to have missed the road she was to have taken.”

“She could be no more than seventeen, sir.” There
was reproach in her soft voice, but her fingers remained still in her
lap, unlike those of the man who now stalked the floor again.

“Lettice, go home. Let me handle this. There is no
use in your making yourself ill.” Mountjoy stopped before her and held
out his hand.

She ignored it. “I want my granddaughter, Harry. She
is all I have left. You and my late husband drove our children away.
I’ll not be content until I have my granddaughter back. I hold you
responsible for this, Harry. You knew where they were, and you never
told me.”

Mountjoy rubbed his eyes and turned away. “I had no
idea where they were, Lettice. I never looked for them. I had thought it
better that way.”

She turned paler, if that were possible, and then
she rose with dignity. “I should hate you for this, Harry, but I can see
that it is my own fault for relying on you. I’ll not make that mistake
again. Mr. Wesley, if you’ll excuse me?” She nodded and walked out.

The stricken man in scarlet stared at the broken
crystal on the hearth and spoke almost as if Wesley were not there. “Her
daughter was just seventeen when she married my son. She was an only
child. We’ll have to find the girl.”

“She knows her daughter has been dead these last three years?”

Mountjoy bowed his head. “She knows. My son wrote to
her. I refused to acknowledge his letter or her pleas. I was not
thinking of the child at the time.”

Wesley frowned and returned his hat to his head. “We
will find her, but the young woman does not belong here. I will not
keep her from you, but I’ll see she has other alternatives.”

Mountjoy ignored him, and taking this as dismissal, Wesley departed.

***

Faith leapt down from her new sidesaddle, spread her
green skirts and starched petticoats in an elegant curtsy, then stood
up to offer a mischievous grin. “It is most ladylike, I’m certain, but I
was growing used to riding astride.”

Jack grinned. Her cheeks were twin spots of color in
the brisk winter breeze, and her unruly hair was already escaping her
prim braid to curl in wisps about her striking face. A child’s face
ought to be round with baby fat, but hers was all angles and hollows,
and only the wisps of curls softened it. He had the urge to cup her
cheek and stroke the velvety texture of her skin, but he had already
learned she shied away from even the most impersonal of touches.

“’Tis a lady you’ll be someday, my
cailin
. I’ll not let you forget it. I’ll rub the mare down. You go play with your pots and pans.” Jack took the bridle from her hand.

A shadow passed across Faith’s face. Not shying from
his proximity as usual, she glanced diffidently to his horse. “Why do
you not name the animals?”

Jack’s fingers clenched the harness, but he did not
allow his anger and hatred to spew over her innocence. He merely tugged
one of her curls. “They’re all the same to me, lass. One’s worth
slightly more than the other is all the difference. They go to market
when the time is right. Someone else can name them.”

Faith was slightly more perceptive than he gave her
credit for. Daringly, she touched his knotted fist on the bridle, bobbed
her head, and darted toward the cottage before he could misinterpret
the gesture.

In the month since she had been here, she had
learned Jack to be a man of many complexities. She had never come to
know another person so closely, and he fascinated her. It was a
dangerous fascination, she realized.

He rode abroad at night with sword and pistol at his
side. No man did that without the stain of blood upon his hands. She
never saw the coins or jewels he stole, but she knew that the food on
their table, the roof over their head, and the clothes on her back came
from his stolen bounty.

She was living in sin as surely as if she had taken
abode with the devil. She threw off her cloak and hung it on the peg and
reached for the apron Jack had bought for her. Come warmer weather, she
would have to leave. The memories of her icy tramp of a month ago were
too harsh to try it again soon.

The sun beaming through the window taunted her, but
Faith resisted responding to the mockery. It could turn wet and cold at
any minute, and she had no notion of how far away London might be, or
where she would go when she got there. Sometime she would have to ask
Jack.

He came in just as she removed the heavy iron kettle
from the fire. The first time he had seen her wielding those heavy
pots, Jack had been tempted to take them from her. But she had a
perverse pride in producing their meals without aid, and he was not one
to add insult to injury. The pain in her eyes had dimmed, but seldom did
he see the light of life either. He could only congratulate himself
that she seemed stronger, and her hands seemed to be healing.

Remembering his reasons for staying home, Jack grinned and threw off his gloves. “How would you like to go out tonight?”

Faith set the pot down and gave him a curious look. “Go where?”

He poured ale from the small keg he had brought home
the previous week. “Go out. You have seen naught but my miserable face
for this month or more. I thought you might wish to see others, although
I cannot promise you other than more ugly mugs.”

Faith stared at him in confusion. “Where would we
go? I thought you had no neighbors. I thought...” She stumbled over the
completion of that sentence.

Jack knew the rest of her sentence and ignored its
implications. “There’s an inn at the crossroads. Admittedly, it is not
the kind of place for a young lady to visit, but ’tis the holiday
season, and it seems a shame that you must spend it with just me.
Perhaps there will be a coachload of interesting people on their way to
London for the holiday. No one need know you. It will be harmless
amusement.”

Faith’s lips curved and she looked eager. “Is there
no church hereabouts? I should think Christmas would be better observed
in a place of worship.”

Jack kept a grip on his patience. She was but a
child. A tavern might appeal to the likes of him, but she knew naught of
such things. “There’s nothing so holy in these environs, lass,” he
admonished gently. “And I’m after thinking the church would not be
liking the presence of a man like me.”

“I should think if Jesus welcomed Mary Magdalen, he would welcome you. Have you ever been to a Wesleyan meeting?”

That caught him by surprise, and Jack had the grace
to grin. “Mary Magdalen, is it? I should turn you over my knee for such
impudence. Cut me some of that bread before I starve.” He pulled up the
barrel and sat down to fill his plate. “What do you know of Wesleyans? A
ragtag lot of wailers is all I see.”

“There is something wrong with expressing joy?” she
asked. “Wesley is only trying to teach what the established church fails
to make clear. It does little good to preach Oxford sermons to people
who cannot even read. They need to bring order into their lives, find
methods of salvation. They do not need the debates of John and Paul.”

The father’s words tripped easily from the
daughter’s tongue, Jack observed wryly, hiding his astonishment.
Vaguely, he had known many of Wesley’s disciples were among the educated
gentry, as was Wesley himself. He had just not associated this
obviously very well-bred child with her precise speech and disciplined
manners with the followers of that sect that were causing riots all
across England.

“You are very likely right, lass. I am not partial
to the Church of England myself, but riots don’t seem to be a godly
manifestation either.” Jack saw her face suddenly pale, and the knife of
her pain twisted in his gut too. What on earth had he said to the child
that could cause such anguish?

She picked up her fork and stared down at the plate.
“I think perhaps I should just stay here and pray. Do go without me,
Jack. I’d not be in your way.”

That was not at all what he wanted to hear. He
reached across the table and forced her chin up until her watery gaze
met his eyes. “I’d hear your reasons, Faith. I’ve not asked your story,
as you’ve not asked mine. In this place, it is better not to know. But
we have months of winter left to share, and I do not wish to watch you
wither into an old crone before your time. You must get out or you’ll
waste away. Why will you not go with me?”