Move Heaven and Earth (29 page)

“Are you feeling well?” he asked. “You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”

He mocked, and fury shook her. He would not be sneering when she got done with him. She kept her gaze on him as she opened the door to Garth’s office. “Gail, if you’re in your father’s office, come out right now.” She hoped that if Gail were within, she would come out, and if she hid close enough to hear, she’d understand and stay in seclusion.

With his gaze on the opening, James said, “Are you sure she’s in there?”

Taking a chance, Sylvan stuck her head inside and looked. She couldn’t see Gail, and her heart leaped in relief. As if she were speaking to the girl, she said, “Gail, come on! Stop playing games.”

“She
is
in there?” James sounded surprised. “Why won’t she come out?”

“I don’t know.” Sylvan worked on looking and sounding disgusted. “Maybe you could talk to her.”

“I?” James put his hand on his chest. “What would I say that would persuade her?”

Now Sylvan acted with the flair of Drury Lane’s finest. “Young Gail misses her father, and while I cannot command her, I think perhaps your persuasions would bring her forth.” Sylvan pushed him toward the office. “She’s hiding under the desk. Just go in and call to her as if she were a babe, without seeking her. She’ll come out for you, I know.”

“Where are you going to be, while I’m making a fool of myself?” he asked in exasperation.

“Right here, cousin, waiting for you.”

He believed her. The fool believed her, because he was a man and she was a woman, and women were stupid creatures who fell off of cliffs when they imagined unearthly groans—unearthly groans that were only an animal mating.

She hadn’t realized how much she resented his patronizing her on the night he’d rescued her, but now, she wanted the blackguard to be James so she could absolve herself from the charge of simplemindedness.

Stepping into the room, James started talking, and Sylvan got a grip on one of the heavy metal machines. Taking a breath, she heaved. It moved a foot. She heaved again, and heard James say, “What in the—”

In a panic, she shoved it as hard as she could. It blocked the office door just as it swung out toward her, and James squawked when he smashed against the wood. “Sylvan?”

She leaned around the machine and looked, and saw James’s three fingers grasp the doorframe. “No!” she said, and pushed again, and the machine skidded as if it rolled on wheels.

His fingers were trapped between door and frame. James howled in agony. Horrified, she tried to pull the machine back, but a man’s voice said, “Don’t!”

She gave a scream and spun around. The Reverend Donald leaned against the metal beside her; he had provided the grease to move the machine. Catching at her heart before it beat out of her chest, she said, “I’ve got him!”

“I know you do.”

His stern face swam before her eyes, and she thought
she’d never been so glad to see another human being in her life. “James is guilty.”

“Yes.” The vicar nodded sadly. “He is.”

“Sylvan,” James yelled. “No, please, listen to me.” With his free hand, he pounded on the door. “Please, Sylvan.” Then she heard him mutter, “My fingers.”

Sylvan didn’t want to feel compassion, but she was never free of it. Gesturing wildly, she said, “His fingers are caught. We’ve got to—”

“No, we don’t.”

“He’s hurt.” She shoved at the machine, trying to pry it away from the door, but the vicar grabbed her shoulder and swung her away.

“No!” he shouted.

Hitting the spinning mechanism, she tripped on one of the legs to land sprawled on the floor like a dockside floozy. He loomed over her before she could catch her breath, and her overactive imagination made him appear dread and sinister. “Reverend?” she croaked.

“Leave her alone!” James battered the door with his body. “Don’t you understand? If you touch her, you have to kill me, too.”

James’s words began to make sense to her, and she scooted backward. “Reverend?”

She was looking for reassurance in a suddenly skewed world, but the clergyman picked up a length of metal pipe. “I’m glad you shut him in there. It would have been much more difficult if I’d had to take care of you both.”

Take care of. What did he mean? He couldn’t mean…

Her skirts caught under her heels as she tried to scramble to her feet, and he kicked her foot out from underneath her. “No use trying to get up. You’ll just fall down again.”

Her ankle ached beneath the impact of his boot, and she grabbed it and rolled backward on her spine. “Dear God.”

“I always bring them back to God.” He smiled at her with the kindly insight he displayed at such moments. “They’re always praying when I finish with them.”

James was still shouting. “Run, Sylvan!”

Sylvan scarcely heard him. All her energy was concentrated on the Reverend Donald.

“You shouldn’t have given succor to those who went counter to God’s will.” He chided her in a compassionate tone, but he held the pipe so tightly his knuckles and fingernails turned white.

“I didn’t!” She groped for a weapon, but this part of the mill had been swept clean for machinery storage.

“How could you imagine that the hammer of the Lord would fail to find you and fell you?”

Still incredulous, she stammered, “Y-you’re the hammer of the Lord?”

“Who better?”

His eyes also appeared deep and hollow in the dimness of the inner mill, but his blond hair glimmered. “You can’t be the ghost. The ghost had black hair. He looked like Rand and Garth and”—she glanced at the office where James still hollered—“James.”

“Oh, woman, thou art so foolish. You see only what you expect to see. Boot black does well to change a hair color.”

“You’re not related to them.” She glanced longingly through the twisted metal and dangling wood to the still-sunny exterior. The sun was bidding farewell to the land with long streaking rays. “You don’t look like them.”

“Don’t I?”

He chuckled with such gentle humor, she looked again at the length of pipe in his hand. She couldn’t have made such an appalling mistake. She couldn’t.

He continued in his soft, reproving voice. “But the first duke of Clairmont spread his seed liberally throughout the district, including a long-dead and easily seduced great-great-great-grandmother of mine. Others have told me I have the look of the family, and I think I pass for the duke quite well in the dark.” He planted one large booted foot on her skirt as she tried to scoot into the open, and she looked up, up to his hands. He held the pipe firmly, with both hands on one end like a bat, and he smiled with gentle reproof. “The other women thought I was the first duke of Clairmont, but you know better, so I’m afraid I’ll have to make the ultimate example of you.”

No one in the village had seen Gail
, no one had seen Sylvan, and Rand was tired and disgruntled. No wonder monks in early England took vows of celibacy. It most likely saved them years of suffering.

Grimacing, he limped toward the vicarage.

Of course, the monks probably suffered in other ways.

A fence encircled the neat cottage, and the yard inside was still fragrant with the scent of herbs and late-blooming flowers. Clover Donald, it would seem, was a gardener. Rand tapped on the door and waited irritably to have it opened. The vicar, with his everlasting nosiness, might know the location of Rand’s niece and wife, although he’d also give Rand a lecture on maintaining control of his family.

The Reverend Donald had strong views on the proper roles of man, woman, and child. He hadn’t yet come into the nineteenth century; Rand doubted he ever would, and that made the vicar uncomfortable to be around.
That was why Rand had exhausted all other sources before seeking his assistance.

Impatient, he rapped again, and Clover’s quavering voice called, “Who is it?”

Surprised, Rand stepped back from the door. Country folk never demanded to know the identity of their visitors, but this was Clover Donald, the woman who feared not only her husband’s judgment, but everything else in the world. “It’s Rand Malkin,” he said.

Nothing happened; she didn’t open the door.

He sighed. “It’s the duke of Clairmont,” he said clearly and slowly. “May I come in?”

The door opened a crack, and her eye examined him. Cautiously, she swung the door wide. “Welcome, Your Grace.”

It would seem his title gained him entrance where his name did not. As it should, he supposed. The clergyman for Malkinhampsted was in a position appointed and paid for by the duke of Clairmont since time everlasting. Clover Donald damn well should understand she owed her livelihood to Rand.

Then he took another look at the bashful woman who backed away from him as if he would take a stick to her, and began explaining before he stepped across the threshold. “I need to consult with the vicar about a matter of importance. Would you get him for me?”

“He isn’t here right now, but I expect him soon.” She didn’t look at Rand when she invited, “Would you like to come in and wait?”

Obviously, she didn’t want him, but he was weary and in need. “Thank you. I will.”

The room he stepped into was the kitchen, bright with the westering sun and the smell of bread toasting by the fire.

“In here, Your Grace.”

She indicated the door to a smaller, darker room, a parlor to impress the parishioners, most likely, and on impulse, he refused. “I’ll sit here and you can make me a cup of tea, if you don’t mind.”

She gaped at him as he lowered himself into a chair by the table, then she whispered, “I don’t mind.”

Of course, what else could she say?

She put the kettle on to boil and stood watching it in such acute discomfort, he wondered how they’d ever get through this time together. “Won’t you sit with me?” he asked, knowing she might be in too much awe of him to take a seat in her own kitchen.

“No!” She shook her head vigorously. “The vicar my husband wouldn’t like it.”

“Ah.” He exhaled soundlessly, then suggested, “Maybe if we didn’t tell him?”

She gasped audibly, her eyes opening so wide he could see the whites all the way around the iris.

He held up a hand. “Forget I suggested it.”

She gulped and said, “I have to tell him everything. He says women lead men into temptation always.”

If she hadn’t been so pitiable, he would have laughed at the thought of being tempted by this limp, apathetic creature. “I think I’m strong enough to resist,” he assured her.

She didn’t seem to hear. “He says when a woman behaves in an unseemly manner, a man thinks she’s a harlot, and whatever happens to her is a woman’s fault.”

A duke couldn’t remove his vicar for being a pompous ass. If that were the case, there would be few vicars in all of England. But looking at Clover’s tear-filled eyes, Rand was very tempted. “I can’t say that I agree with that.”

“Don’t you?” She glanced around guiltily. “I have
occasionally thought it harsh, but only when I’m at fault, I’m sure. The sin of rebellion will surely send me to hell, the vicar my husband says.”

Rebellion? Rand struggled to answer without vilifying her husband. “Your little sins could never drag your soul down. You’ll reach heaven before any of us.”

“Do you really think so?” Her lips parted, and she appeared to be thinking, then she said slowly, “The vicar says that when a woman doesn’t stay at home and mind her hearth as the holy writ instructs, she lays herself open to all manner of discipline and castigation.”

Studying Clover, Rand was inclined to say,
Madam, your husband is not worthy to sit in judgment of half the human race
. When he thought about Sylvan, and the anguish she’d found when she stepped out of the traditional role of women, he wanted to horsewhip the self-righteous ignoramus who called himself a clergyman. Reining in his fury, he said, “I think some things are better left for God to judge.”

“I think”—she hesitated as if those words were radical—“you’re right.”

He might be right, but that wouldn’t save her if she repeated this conversation to her husband. “When did you say you expected him?”

“Oh, a long time ago, but sometimes he doesn’t come when he should.” She jumped as if the shade of her husband stood over her. “I mean no disrespect. He ministers to many people, and sometimes he has to stay out all night to, um, minister to so many.”

“I understand.” The silence fell again, hard and dense as lead, and he tried to think of something, anything to chat about, that didn’t involve sin or unpure women or punishment. Rubbing his aching calves, he said, “It amazes me that after three full months on my feet, I still
suffer cramps in my muscles. The ones in my hip make it difficult to walk.”

“When the pregnant women suffer leg cramps, we make them drink milk.” Clover sounded sure of herself for the first time today. Maybe for the first time in her life. “Are you drinking milk?”

“I hate milk.”

The kettle was about to boil, and Rand had been watching it longingly, but Clover whisked it off the fire. As he stared in astonishment, she took a mug from the cupboard, went to the bucket in the corner, and drew off the cloth that protected it. Brightly, she said, “I know what to serve you. Anne just delivered the milk, fresh from the cow, still warm and with the cream scarcely risen. Of course, there’ll not be as much cream for my husband if I disturb it now, but—”

“Don’t destroy your day’s cream for me,” he said feebly, but she dipped the mug into the bucket and drew it up dripping with foamy white.

She placed it on the table in front of him. “’Tis an honor to do it for the lord.”

He wanted to gag. He really did hate milk, especially milk so thick it clotted in his throat before he could swallow it. But what was he supposed to do? Knock that hopeful smile off Clover Donald’s face? She’d had too many smiles knocked off in her life. Grinning feebly, he lifted the mug, saluted her with it, and drank.

It was just as bad as he remembered, and he was containing a shudder when she said, “I’m surprised at Betty. Why hasn’t she been serving you warm milk with honey and pot herbs mixed with your breakfast and before bed?”

“I haven’t exactly told anyone about these cramps,” he admitted. “They bother me less and less. I think it’s just that I’ve walked so far today.”

“Why?” She darted a frightened look at him. “If I may be so bold?”

“I’ve spent most of the afternoon searching for my niece, who has taken it into her head to explore the estate without her mother’s permission, and my wife, who…well, I’m looking for my wife, too.”

“Oh.”

She was frowning as if uncertain of him, and he could almost hear the grinding as the conversation halted again. Unwilling to face the silence, he said, “I wouldn’t be so worried, or so fatigued, either, but Sylvan and I walked to the mill this morning.”

Clover Donald lifted her gaze full into his face. “Why?”

Smiling at her reassuringly, he said, “I’m surprised you haven’t heard the rumors. Everyone in the village knows. We’re going to reopen the mill.”

Clover staggered backward as if she’d been struck by lightning.

“Clover?” He stood up, thinking she was ill. She certainly looked ill. “Clover?”

Her mouth worked, then the quiet, pitiful little woman shrieked, “You can’t!”

“What do you…?”

“You can’t. He’ll kill you. He’ll kill you all. Don’t you know you can’t stand against his power?”

Confused and horrified, Rand asked, “
God’s
power?”

“No, you fool. The vicar’s. Merciful heavens, what have you done?”

The ghost never appeared in the daylight, but here he loomed with his foot on her skirt, and he frightened her more than he ever had in the blackness of night. Yet some corner of her mind still grappled to comprehend
this—that the minister who had done so much good had also inflicted so much pain. That he waited to kill her with an anticipatory gleam in his eye. Sylvan whispered, “You can’t do this, Reverend. The Bible says—”

Drawing himself up, he thundered, “How dare you tell me what the Bible says. You have not been at university, nor have you memorized Scripture nightly, with the threat of my father’s stick over your head.” Infuriated, he lifted the pipe—and a large something fell in the mill behind him, shaking the floor. He whirled, his attention distracted.

Sylvan jerked her skirt out from under his foot. He stumbled. She sprang up and ran.

Holding her skirt high, she leaped over machinery, over boards and piles of shale. Heart pounding, she stretched out her neck like a horse trying to win the most important race of her life. She had to get out of doors. She had to free herself from the shadow of the mill. The sun struck her in the head as she neared her goal, and as she ran the sun embraced her more and more.

She was Mercury, she was Triumph, she was the living embodiment of a goddess. She jumped off the floor of the mill onto the dirt and gave a hoot of victory.

She made it! She made it, and even in a race outdoors through the gathering darkness, she had a chance of success, for she knew what he did not. Betty was coming with the villagers.

Taking a chance, she glanced behind her. He wasn’t following her.

He wasn’t behind her. He wasn’t anywhere near her. The mill stood as silent and dark as if it were empty, when she knew it was not. It held James, and the Reverend Donald…and Gail.

Gail, who had knocked something over to give her a
chance to flee. Was the vicar seeking the source of the noise in the mill?

Would he find Gail? Valiant Gail, the girl he called a child of sin?

Sylvan had to go back in. Her hands turned clammy at the thought, but she’d faced worse things than a murderous preacher in her day. She’d faced the wounded at Waterloo and watched them die.

Rage blew her fear away with the force of the ocean’s breeze. She had watched men die on the battlefield, for Mother and country, and now a minister who styled himself the hammer of God had killed Garth and Shirley and crippled Nanna, and was trying to hurt her and Gail in some maniacal desire to halt the march of time. She’d seen so much of death, and like a plague, this clergyman brought more.

Leaning over the monument Gail had built to her father, Sylvan scooped up two large stones and weighed them in her hands. She didn’t want both her hands full, yet she wanted to take all the stones with her and rain them on the Reverend Donald. He deserved it.

If only she knew where he was and what he intended.

Taking her shawl from her shoulders, she laid the rocks in the middle and tied them inside. Picking it up so the rocks dangled like shot in a sling, she started to creep back.

Then she straightened her back and lifted her chin. What use was creeping when the man either stood in the shadows and watched her come or paid her no heed and sought Gail?

“Reverend Donald,” she called, trying to sound as firm as Wellington himself. “I’m coming back in. I want you to put down the pipe.” She listened for laughter and heard nothing, not even a yell from James.

That was worse than laughter.

She kept her eyes wide as she stepped back onto the floor she’d so cheerfully abandoned just a few minutes ago, but the sun’s light had ruined her vision. She shuffled along, moving from the light to dark. A giant ridge beam, the main support of the roof, leaned from the cross ties in the still existing roof to the edge of the foundation, and she used it as a guide. With her hand on the smooth oak, she groped along. She stubbed her toe on a pile of heavy shale shingles. She was blundering into a trap, but she knew well what she sacrificed, and why. She would distract the minister from his quest for Gail.

“Reverend Donald,” she called. “I can’t believe that a man of the cloth could justify killing the duke of Clairmont.” The wind whistled through the tumbled lumber. She walked on until the dark enveloped her, and she wished she could once again see the real ghost. She needed his intervention now. “You did blow up the mill, didn’t you?”

“Not to kill His Grace!”

Although she expected him, she jumped. Quickly, she turned to face the vicar as he slipped in behind her, cutting off her escape route. Her elbow struck the beam. “Ouch!” She grabbed the tingling joint, and the rocks in the shawl banged the wood, making far too much noise and frightening her more than he ever could.

His body was in shadow, but the light formed a halo around his blond head, and he looked reprovingly at the lacy white thing she held. “What do you have in your hand, my child?”

She wanted to conceal her makeshift weapon like a boy caught with a frog in church. Instead she lifted her chin. “It’s defense.”

“What good will it do you? You can’t use it. You’re too compassionate.”

His certainty made her stagger, and she wondered—could she? Could she ever inflict pain? “I would in defense of a child.”

Lifting his head, he looked around at the pile of shingles behind him, at the oak beam. “So it
is
Gail who remains in the mill.”