A Pirate for Christmas: A Regency Novella (7 page)

“Good God,” he breathed, taking in the transformation of the formerly barren space. This last month, he and Ned had camped in the house. Now he surveyed the vast room lit through mullioned—clean—windows. For the first time, he thought of Penton Abbey as a home and not just a house. “You’ve performed miracles.”

When he advanced further into the room, the maids curtsied and left. The first step in Simpson’s matchmaking?

“Thank you. I hoped you’d be pleased.” The sincerity in Bess’s voice warmed his heart almost as much as holding her hand had. “Your brother would be so happy to see the Abbey coming back to life.”

The brother who had proposed to her. The brother with whom he had more in common than he’d suspected, if they’d both been in thrall to the same woman.

Heavy oak chests and chairs and tables ranged around the walls. Some must date from the days when the house had been an actual abbey. “This is exactly right.”

Her smile was approving as she stepped forward to run her hand over the lovely carving on the mantel. The gesture’s inherent sensuality made him long to feel her touch on his naked skin.

“I’m sure you’ll want something cozier for the family rooms, but at least the Abbey is no longer an empty shell.”

He could feel the difference. It was nothing to do with furniture and everything to do with Bess’s vivid presence. “Thanks to you.”

“I hated seeing the place so rundown,” she said. “This house has always been the center of village life.”

“The longer I stay…” The longer he talked to Bess. “..the more I feel I know George. That’s another thing I have to thank you for. At this rate, you’ll earn rights to Daisy into the next century.”

The pink in her cheeks deepened. “I…I prefer kisses to housework.”

Shock and pleasure vied in his mind. “Are you asking me to kiss you again?”

Her eyes flickered down, and she suddenly looked touchingly young. “Would I be so brazen?”

Which wasn’t, he noted with satisfaction, a no. “I’ll see what I can do,” he said mildly, wanton heat swirling through his blood in a way that wasn’t mild at all.

“Not here,” she said quickly, subjecting him to a flash of blue eyes before looking down again. Then she straightened and became the woman who had commandeered his house. “And not now. We need to collect Daisy and head for the village. We’ll be late as it is.”

Not here meant somewhere else. And not now surely meant later.

Rory could hardly wait.

Rory’s questions about the vicar found answers on the way to the rehearsal. Penton Wyck included a neat high street with several well-stocked shops, a fine market cross, and rows of attractive half-timbered houses. For a man unused to much fuss for Christmas, a lovely touch was the greenery adorning the houses.

The snow-covered thoroughfare led straight from the gates of his estate through the village to a complex of stone buildings: a Tudor church, he guessed built after the Abbey was requisitioned from the Benedictine monks; a neat rectory dating from last century; various outbuildings; and an impressive and ancient structure with towering doors several stories high.

“It’s a tithe barn,” Bess said. “That’s where we hold our rehearsals.”

“Magnificent,” Rory said, meaning it. The architecture was simple, but the sheer size of the barn took his breath away. He hauled a recalcitrant Daisy forward. The donkey had been playing up all the way from the Abbey. Only a couple of choruses of “Greensleeves” had kept her moving at all. “The monks must have been rich in their day.”

She glanced at him. “They were. That’s why those rapacious Beatons were so determined to claim Penton Abbey when the monasteries were dissolved. That must be where you came by your piratical tendencies.”

“It’s unfair to blame a man for his ancestors,” Rory protested, as a stooped, ramshackle figure in a faded black cassock emerged between the open doors. Only when he came nearer did Rory realize that the man was above average height. The barn’s monumental scale had dwarfed him.

“Good afternoon, my dear. Out for a stroll?” Familiar blue eyes drifted over Rory with no hint of curiosity. Rory guessed the man’s identity before Bess spoke.

“Good afternoon, Papa,” she said. “We’re practicing for the nativity play.”

“Very good, very good.” He smiled vaguely and lifted a thin hand to scratch Daisy behind the ears.

“Lord Channing, may I present my father, John Farrar, vicar of St. Martin’s?”

“What’s that you say?” the old man asked. “Lord Channing? I thought I conducted a memorial service for him last summer. The choir sang the William Byrd anthem. Most touchingly, too. Dear me, I am becoming forgetful.”

“The new Lord Channing, Papa. I told you that the earl’s brother had inherited. He’s a seafaring man. It took them several months to locate him.”

“Oh, yes, yes,” the vicar said, and Rory would lay money that he paid no attention.

At least she hadn’t told her father he was a pirate.

“You have a lovely daughter, vicar,” Rory said, sweeping off his beaver hat and bowing, a complicated process when he had to make sure Daisy didn’t get away from him.

“Lovely, yes.” The vicar smiled with beatific approval that could mean anything. Rory only realized the vicar had heard and understood when he went on. “Just like her mamma. Her mother was the prettiest girl I ever saw. She could have married anyone. I’m frightfully glad she married me.”

“She always said you had the purest heart in the world, Papa,” Bess said, her voice warm with affection.

“My lord, welcome to Penton Wyck.” The vicar bowed in Rory’s general direction. “I don’t suppose you have an interest in Byzantium? If you have, I’m writing a paper on Anna Porphyrogenita and the negotiations for her marriage to Vladimir the Great. I flatter myself I’ve found a few interesting nuggets in the chronicles that haven’t been given their full due.”

“Not my area of expertise, sir, but I’ve been to Constantinople.”

The cloudiness faded from the vicar’s eyes and he settled an unexpectedly acute regard on Rory. “Have you indeed? I’d love to hear what you saw. I visited as a young man before I took holy orders.”

“I’d be pleased to tell you about my time there,” Rory said.

The vicar gestured to the door of the vicarage, only a few feet away . “No time like the present.”

“Papa, people are waiting for us. Perhaps his lordship could call another day.”

At the change of focus from Byzantium to Christmas celebrations, the vicar’s vagueness returned. “Another day. Yes, certainly. Look forward to that. Nativity play and all.” He shuffled off, muttering over his shoulder, “Do what you think best, Bess. You always make the right decision. Such a blessing to have you. Such a blessing.”

“Good day, sir,” Rory said to the retreating back, but the vicar didn’t respond.

Bess’s expression conveyed a tolerant fondness for her father’s eccentricity. “He only hears half of what you say. There’s nothing wrong with his mind—he was one of the cleverest graduates from his year at Oxford—but he has difficulty bending his attention to practical matters. He’s lost in his books most of the time.”

“I’d be happy to talk to him about my travels.”

“He’d like that. When he finds a subject interesting, he’s a good conversationalist.” She paused. “There just aren’t many subjects he finds interesting.”

Rory watched Bess’s father drift across the vicarage’s threshold and out of sight. So much became clear that had puzzled him. Dr. Simpson’s strange reaction when he’d asked about the vicar. Even more, Bess’s position of authority in the village. With the late earl an invalid and the vicar wandering among the ghosts of ancient empires, no wonder she’d found herself overseeing Penton Wyck’s welfare.

“Daisy!
Daisy!
”

Bess’s urgent shouts pierced his reflections. “Oh, hell.”

The donkey had taken advantage of Rory’s distraction to stretch out her neck and attack the pretty Christmas frippery decorating the vicarage’s porch. What had once been an elaborate arrangement of holly and red and silver ribbons was now a ragged circlet fit for the bonfire.

F
or Bess, the next four days rushed by in a flurry of activity—and a disappointing absence of kisses.

Apart from the bailiff, the butler and the housekeeper, the Abbey was now staffed inside and out. Through all the bustle, Lord Channing proved himself a man of easy manners and quick humor. He’d even turned up at church on Sunday and managed to stay awake through her father’s deadly dull sermon about some abstruse point of translation from the Greek New Testament. The villagers already referred to the pirate lord of the manor with pride instead of suspicion.

Bess was less pleased with the way the earl had so swiftly become vitally important to her. Her day only started when he welcomed her to Penton Abbey, and the glow dimmed when they parted in the evening. Even more frightening, she then spent each night longing to bask in his presence again.

Nobody should become so…necessary so quickly. After all, what did she know of him?

Except the hours working together taught her quite a lot about Lord Channing. Her early attraction soon warmed to respect and admiration, and something that might ripen into friendship.

He wasn’t at all high in the instep. He was always ready to share a friendly word with the villagers. His brother had been a good man, but he’d lacked the earl’s ability to find common ground. Already Bess could tell that the new regime at Penton Abbey would be considerably more democratic than the previous one. If Channing carried his libertarian ideals down to London when he took his seat in the House of Lords, he’d horrify those reactionary old lizards in Parliament.

Not that she approved of all the changes. His lordship might be prepared to listen to advice, but she soon learned that he possessed strong opinions. On some issues she couldn’t sway him, the way, curse him, he’d accused her of swaying his brother. Luckily, he had the charm and intelligence to achieve his ends without creating undue resentment in the villagers—or in her.

Perhaps he wouldn’t be such a misfit maneuvering his way through Parliament after all.

He must have been a remarkable captain, all steely will cloaked in velvet persuasion. It was a lesson in leadership, watching him turn once wary villagers into allies. She had a nasty suspicion that he managed her just as skillfully.

He’d somehow made his interest in the vicar’s daughter generally known. Interest that apparently met the approval of everyone except, perhaps, the vicar’s daughter. Bess had soon noticed sidelong glances and sly smiles, not to mention the conspiracy to leave her alone with his lordship whenever possible.

She wasn’t sure whether to be grateful for her neighbors’ machinations, or resent them. She certainly didn’t mind being alone with Channing. If he kissed her again, she’d mind even less.

She and the earl were alone now. They were in the stables and she was grooming a fidgety Daisy for tomorrow’s play. His lordship watched them both from the corridor, arms folded on top of the stall gate. The grooms were notably absent, although in the middle of the day, they should be hard at work.

“
Adeste, fidelis
,” she sang when Daisy backed away from the bunch of bright ribbons she held.

Lord Channing snickered. “She objects to the historical inaccuracy of your titivating. I doubt the real donkey was done out like a wee harlequin.”

Bess cast him an unimpressed look. “You’re no help.”

“What if I sing, too?” His teasing smile had her silly heart dancing a gavotte, skipping about like it was spring instead of deepest winter.

“You could try.”

“I’d rather watch the battle royal between you and this troublesome beast. It’s great entertainment. Daisy’s the only creature in Penton Wyck who doesn’t jump to your bidding.”

Bess draped the ribbons over the edge of the manger and grabbed Daisy’s halter to hold her still. “She’s not the only troublesome beast I see.”

He laughed softly. “Have I not leaped to your merest command, Miss Farrar? I’ve employed half the village, and now I can’t open a door in my own house without tripping over some gormless yokel dusting the china. I’ve emptied every victualler within a hundred miles to feed your friends and neighbors on Christmas Day. I’ve stayed up past midnight learning lines for your blasted play—you’d think I was a damned schoolboy sitting his Latin translation exam.”

“Language,” she said, trying to make her fingers work with their usual deftness as she twined a red ribbon around the harness. She just couldn’t control her shivery reaction to Lord Channing. Never had she been so physically aware of anyone. Nor could she forget how wonderful she’d felt when he’d put his arms around her.

Damn him—and his deleterious influence on her language—since then he’d acted the perfect gentleman. Even if a gentleman quick to take her arm or touch her shoulder or hold her hand to step onto a ladder. Or catch her waist to lift her onto Daisy’s back when she played Mary.

But no more kisses. And while she waited in breathless suspense for him to kiss her again, those teasing little touches were driving her mad.