Swept Away By a Kiss (28 page)

A sigh rose in her throat. She clamped her lips together. Dragging her attention to Vicar Oakley’s sermon, she tugged her cloak more closely around her shoulders.

She did not relish the idea of another restless night. Steven obviously wanted her. But after an entire day pondering it, she could not think of a single reason he would deny himself what she offered. He clearly thought she intended to marry Timothy, but that hadn’t dampened his desire. His business with Alistair Flemming and the Marquess of Hannsley still loomed mysteriously, of course. But that had nothing to do with her.

She needed a new plan. The one she had devised to gain his confidence had failed miserably.
She
had failed. He’d been her captive audience and instead of forcing him to tell her the truth, she forced herself on him, albeit with remarkably gratifying results.

A smile quivered across her lips and her gaze slipped back to the Marches’ front pew. He was gone. Beside his empty place, Mr. Flemming sat stiffly, his chin tucked tight to his chest. She looked over at Lord Hannsley’s place a few rows back. The marquess had disappeared.

Valerie’s heartbeat tripped. Then it raced.

When the service ended, she hurried from the church ahead of Valentine and Anna. The marquess’s carriage still waited in the yard with the others, the horses stomping in their traces, blowing plumes of smoke into the air.

Valerie looked around. Neither Steven nor Hannsley stood among the clusters of guests and villagers mingling in the snowy churchyard. Mr. Flemming climbed into a carriage, scanning the dark edge of the copse of trees that flanked the cemetery. His brow creased.

Valerie followed his gaze. The Marquess of Hannsley strode into the circle of torchlight alongside the graveyard’s low stone wall, toward the carriages.

Valerie pivoted back to Anna.

“Darling, I left my reticule in the church,” she said, tucking her tiny bag into her cloak sleeve. “I will go fetch it and return in a trice.”

Valerie wanted to bolt for the copse, but she took her time walking toward the church. When she reached the shadowy edge of the pool of yellow illumination, she dipped into the darkness and stole around the graveyard wall toward the trees.

Within, lamplight flickered at a distance through the brittle dark. Snow sank into her kid boots as she hurried forward, heart pounding. She neared the light, and her breath caught. Steven crouched above a dark shape stretched upon the ground. Crimson stained the snow. The light of the lantern wavered, casting shadows over Steven’s hand pressed hard against the bloodied man’s chest. He lifted his head and his darkened gaze met hers.

“He is badly injured, Valerie,” he said in a voice she had longed to hear for six months. “I cannot leave him, but I need help to carry him back to the vicarage. You must bring Oakley here, but do not alert any of the others.” He regarded her for a silent moment, his face taut. “Will you do this?”

She nodded, turned, and ran back toward the graveyard. Stepping into the torchlight, she found the others much as she left them, as though the night weren’t bristling with cold and they did not have a fire and mulled wine waiting for them back at the castle. She went to the vicar standing amid a group of guests and villagers, and touched his sleeve. His face crinkled into a smile.

“Mr. Oakley, could you explain to me an architectural curiosity I noticed in your church earlier? It’s such a delightful building.” She placed her gloved hand firmly upon his arm and smiled.

“It will be my pleasure.” Conversation continued without him, and he went with her toward the church. She spoke in a quiet rush.

“A man is injured in the woods just beyond the cemetery. Lord Ashford is with him now, and he asked me to bring you, but to tell no one else of the trouble.”

The vicar’s face creased. “Who is it?”

“I don’t know him.”

His shrewd eyes studied her with sudden interest. He took her hand.

“Tell the others you are remaining with me to help me in a task, and that I will shortly convey both of us to the castle in my gig,” he said with a calm certainty that amazed Valerie. “Then go to the vicarage, wake my housekeeper, Mrs. Hodge, and tell her what you know.”

Valerie stood, dumbstruck.

“Go on now,” the vicar said. “And keep your wits about you, my girl.” He hurried toward the cemetery.

By the time Valerie reached Anna and Valentine, most of the carriages had already begun to depart.

“Darlings,” she said with forced brightness, “Mr. Oakley has promised to explain to me a lovely architectural feature of the church I noticed the other day. He will return me to the castle so that you don’t need to wait. The poor horses must be miserably cold.”

“The grooms walked them during the service,” Valentine said, cocking a curious brow. Valerie ignored his silent question as he handed his wife up into his curricle.

“I will see you back at the castle,” she said, fearing her tone sounded too breathy and trying not to cast anxious glances at the marquess climbing into his carriage.

“All right, dear. Do hurry, though,” Anna said, pulling a rug over her lap and making room for Valentine beside her. “It’s positively frigid.”

Valerie breathed a silent sigh of relief and gave her brother a smile. He frowned, but he climbed into the curricle and snapped the reins.

As soon as the remaining vehicles faded into the darkness beyond the churchyard gate, she dashed to the vicarage. She let herself into the cottage and searched for the housekeeper’s bedchamber, then gently roused the widow from sleep. Mrs. Hodge didn’t seem at all surprised to be wakened in the dead of night, drawing on her boots, dress, and apron, as though this sort of thing happened frequently.

The vicar and Steven returned minutes later. The viscount carried the body into the parlor and laid it upon a sofa Mrs. Hodge prepared with thick blankets. Wordlessly, he stripped off the injured man’s bloodied coat and shirt as the vicar piled coal onto the fire, releasing a flurry of sparks and smoke. Mrs. Hodge carried in a basin of water, bottles of iodine and another of clear liquid, and bandages. Valerie stood at the edge of the firelight, shivering as she watched the eerily silent goings-on.

“It is not as hopeless as I thought,” Steven finally said, on his knees before the injured man. The clean cloths Mrs. Hodge furnished him with returned to the housekeeper’s hands red, and the water in the basin turned pink. “He lost less blood than he might have on a warmer night.”

“Bless the merciful Christ child for bringing us a bitter Christmas,” murmured Mrs. Hodge.

“He was not cut deeply?” The vicar’s voice, so strong from the pulpit earlier, now seemed aged and worried.

“In the muscle. He will lose easy use of the arm, I suspect. But he will live. His arm deflected the intended blow.”

“Your approach must have stopped his attacker from making a second attempt,” Mr. Oakley said.

“Praise be to our good Lord.” The housekeeper proffered a needle with a long tail of thread attached to it.

Steven sewed up the man’s wound, Valerie’s memory stirring as he worked. He had tended to the sick man on board the corsair. Later she realized that as master of the
Blackhawk,
that was his responsibility. But he had done it even while he was a prisoner aboard his vessel, acting as servant to his men.

Unbidden, images passed through Valerie’s mind, his thoughtful presence in the church earlier that night, his evident enjoyment in teaching the children to skate, the sincerity of affection when he spoke with his godparents, the silent grief in his eyes that day aboard ship when he told her he would have borne the dying sailor’s pain if he could. And in Bebain’s cabin, the blood streaking his face, his trophy for stealing laudanum to ease another man’s death.

With crystal clarity, Valerie understood the cryptic words he had uttered after he kissed her that horrible day in their cabin, about what made him a man. At the time she thought he meant to humiliate her. Now the words meant something entirely different. He believed that this— tending an injured man, caring for another as he had cared for Ezekiel aboard ship, acting with compassion—
this
made him a man.

He stood and backed away from his patient, wiping his stained hands upon a cloth. He spoke quietly with the vicar while Mrs. Hodge dressed and bandaged the wound. Valerie collected the soiled linens and water and took them to the kitchen. When she returned to the parlor, Mrs. Hodge was tucking the coverlet around the wounded man.

“Oh, dear, Lady Valerie,” Mr. Oakley said. “I must get you to the castle at once, or they will wonder where you are. Steven, will you come along now?”

The viscount turned from studying his patient and fixed Valerie with a measuring regard.

“Yes, indeed, sir. But first we should introduce the lady to our visitor.”

Valerie stepped toward the sofa.

“My lady,” Steven said, “this is Jeremiah Trap, late of His Majesty’s Royal Navy. Please do not be offended if Jerry fails to bow to you. No doubt he would in more favorable circumstances.”

Ignoring the comment, Valerie looked down at the blanket-wrapped form.

“Why, he is merely a boy.” She stroked the youth’s bandaged brow. His skin felt warm. By morning he would be in a fever. She smoothed back his hair and tucked the blanket more firmly about his neck.

“Most of them are only babes when they are impressed into service.” Steven picked up his greatcoat and hat. “But that is a story for another day. Mrs. Hodge will take good care of the lad tonight. We, however, had best be on our way before our absence is noted.”

“The groom is off with his family tonight,” Mr. Oakley said. “I’ll have to fit up the cart myself. Allow me a few minutes.” He rushed from the parlor as though relieved to be going.

Gesturing for her to precede him, Steven followed Valerie into the vicarage’s narrow entrance corridor. As he reached for the door, she put her hand against it to stay him. He did not move. She could shift only the barest inch and be in his arms.

“Who is that boy, really?” she asked.

Drawing his arm away, Steven leaned back against the wall. Even garbed in a greatcoat and drawn with weariness, his masculine beauty robbed Valerie of breath.

“A messenger sent to me from an associate.” His quiet voice filled the confines of the entranceway.

“From where?”

“Portsmouth. Before that, Martinique. He was a long way in coming here to be cut down like a common thief, wasn’t he?”

“Who attacked him?” She knew the answer, but she wanted him to tell her. At least one truth.

“Why did you come into the woods?” he asked instead.

It was not the right time to tell him about Hannsley and Flemming. He would certainly refuse her more answers if he thought she knew something she should not.

“I was looking for you. I saw the light.”

His gaze did not falter. “You were not afraid?”

“You know I was not. What good would that have done? Now tell me what business you are engaged in that your messenger risks assassination on Christmas Eve in the very shadow of a church.”

He regarded her silently. Then, pulling in a deep breath, he replied. “I apprehend illegal traders in the Atlantic and her environs.”

“Traders of what merchandise?”

“Human beings.”

Valerie nodded slowly, shivering at the truth finally from his lips. He was not a criminal. But she had known that in her heart all along. Still, it didn’t all make sense.

“It is illegal to enslave men out of freedom now, isn’t it?”

“That does not stop some. The trade is lucrative. Much more gold can be made selling newly imported men than reselling the children of slaves born in the Americas.”

“But the French and Dutch—”

“Still allow imports. It is not difficult for an Englishman without respect for the law to continue very successfully.”

“Maximin, and your crew . . . You work for the king?”

“Not quite.” His sculpted mouth looked as though he might smile. In the churchyard, a harness jangled and snow crunched under carriage wheels and the heavy hooves of the draft pulling it.

“Are you rogue abolitionists?” she persisted.

Steven cocked his head. “Not quite that either. We have powerful allies when we need them, and sufficient patronage when necessary.” He pulled the door open and stepped back to allow her to pass into the cold night.