To Have and to Hold (26 page)

"Thank you for this dog," she told him, coloring prettily. "He's lovely. I don't know how you knew that I would want him so much. He makes me smile just to look at him."

"I was hoping for that," he said softly. "He'll be a handful, though. What do you think of telling Jerny or one of the other lads to feed him and take him out and so forth for
me,
because he's
my
dog? He wouldn't be, but only you and I would know it."

When her face filled with relief, it came to him that the logistics of dog ownership, at least in her special circumstances, had been keeping her from fully enjoying his gift. He'd just solved several problems at once, including the awkward one of how to give his mistress a present without embarrassing her.

"That would be fine," she said. "I love him, Sebastian. Truly. Thank you, for him—and for remembering. About the yellow dog."

Nothing but the fact that they could be seen by anyone looking out a window kept him from kissing her. It had taken him an unconscionably long time to figure out that it was gentleness that devastated Rachel, not ruthlessness. Now he wondered if there was an ancillary lesson to be learned as well: that gentleness could disarm the seducer as thoroughly as the seduced.

"Come to my room tonight," he murmured, bending close but not touching her. "Just come, Rachel. Not to thank me. Because you want to."

He loved her lack of hesitation almost as much as her answer. "Yes," she said. "I'll come."

13

Rachel had never been to the post office before. It was located in the first-floor sitting room of Mr. and Mrs. Brakey Pitt's thatched-roof cottage at the top of the High Street, directly across from the church. Mrs. Pitt was the postmistress. Today was Wednesday, Rachel's day for visiting the constable; when Susan mentioned she had to go to the village this afternoon to post Lord D' Aubrey's letters, Rachel had offered to do it for her. It wasn't like her; in the past she'd limited her business in Wyckerley to matters that couldn't possibly be avoided. A trip to the post office was fraught with uncertainties and potential disaster. But she was feeling brave these days, actually fearless sometimes, and she wanted to test the mettle of this interesting but embryonic self-confidence.

Mrs. Pitt was cross-eyed. Rachel handed her Sebastian's letters and gave her money for stamps, all the while wondering if the postmistress's natural expression was irritation, or if Rachel had done something to annoy her. Waiting for her change, she tried to think of a way to tell Sebastian a joke about Mrs. Pitt; something like, "You know, I'm so sensitive, I fell apart when she looked at me cross-eyed." No, that didn't quite work—but it felt good to be thinking up jokes at all, even bad ones.

"You're Mrs. Wade, aren't you?" Mrs. Pitt said unexpectedly, counting four pennies into her hand.

Rachel admitted it. "You've got a package. Came this morning. Want it here or delivered up to the Hall?"

"
I
have a package," she repeated, certain she'd misheard.

The postmistress reached under her counter and produced a small, paper-wrapped bundle. " 'Mrs. R. Wade,' " she read, " 'in care of Lynton Great Hall, Wyckerley.' Want it now?"

"I—yes, I'll take it. Thank you. Thank you very much." She was so rattled, she didn't even look at the package, just shoved it into her reticule and hurried out of the post office. It wasn't until she looked at it again, under an alder tree at the edge of the green, that she realized her agitation was unwarranted—the package had a Tavistock postal return but no sender's address. Of course it must be from Sebastian—who else?—but thank goodness he'd been discreet enough not to put his name on it.

Her appointment with Constable Burdy was ten minutes away. Plenty of time to open her present. Should she? Probably not; she should take it home and open it in private. Or with Sebastian—that would be even better.

Impossible. Her curiosity might be childish, but it was also irresistible. Pressing down a smile, she walked out to a bench in the full sun and sat down.

Under the brown paper and string, the small paper-board box weighed almost nothing. With a little thrill of excitement, she pried open the lid. Tissue paper covered something soft. A scarf? Handkerchief? She peeled the tissue away and uncovered her gift.

She sat frozen on her bench for a full minute, staring at a cheap square of gray towcloth. The figure coarsely sewn on it in black thread looked like a crow's foot— that's what they had called it in prison. But it wasn't. It was the Broad Arrow.

Anger and despair coiled in her stomach, and a sick dread that made no sense. She'd served her sentence, they couldn't send her back to gaol—but just the sight of the hated emblem filled her with superstitious fear, the waking counterpart of her worst nightmare: that she was back in her prison cell, and the horror was beginning all over again.

She stood up, clutching the wretched cloth in her hand. Her heart was pounding. Could her enemy be watching her right now? She scanned the peaceful street, distrusting its ordinariness, the innocent look of the people strolling in the noonday sun. She wanted to run away, she wanted to weep with fury and humiliation—

"Rachel? I thought that was you!" Anne Morrell was coming down the walk from the vicarage, smiling a greeting already. "I saw you from the window," she called, and kept talking all the way across the green. "How are you? I haven't seen you in ages. To speak to, I mean. I've seen you in church, but Christy's got me singing in the choir now, if you can believe that, so I'm among the last getting out after the service. How are you?" she asked again, finally stopping in front of her, slightly breathless.

"Fine." The fluttery smile she attempted was a pathetic failure.

She could tell that Anne was trying to decide whether or not to pretend she didn't notice anything amiss. In the end, she didn't. "What's wrong?" she asked, as all the gaiety in her manner changed to concern.

"Nothing, really. Someone has played a little joke on me," she said lightly, determined to minimize it. She looked down at her fisted hand and opened it.

"What's that?"

"It's the Broad Arrow." She pointed to the embroidered emblem. "The crow's foot, we called it. It's stamped or sewn on everything in prison."

"I recognize it," Anne said slowly. "I've seen it on military ordnance. It means it's the property of Her Majesty."

She nodded. "It was everywhere at Dartmoor, on the blankets, the towels, every piece of clothing, even the tinware. It's—a symbol one grows to despise."

"Oh, Rachel." Compassion and anger mingled in Anne's face; her reaction, like Rachel's, was to search the street with her eyes, as if the sender might be standing somewhere nearby, watching them.
"Damn it,"
she swore, shaking her head in hopeless sympathy. "Come home with me. Come inside and we'll talk."

"I can't. But thank you."

"You can. We'll have tea—no, we'll have a
drink,
that's what—and we'll talk, and after a while it won't all seem so beastly. Come—"

"No, really I can't. I wish I could, but I'm late now." She steeled herself. "Once a week, I must pay a visit to the constable. It's one of the conditions of my release." She could feel her cheeks heating, and she waited in dread, half-expecting Anne to recoil from her now, because her life was so irredeemably sordid.

"I'll walk with you to Mr. Burdy's office, then. For the company."

For a minute, Rachel was too moved to speak. "Thank you," she whispered.

"Throw that away," Anne advised, nodding at the cloth Rachel was still squeezing between her lingers.

She considered it, then changed her mind. "No," she said slowly, "I think I'll keep it." And she put it in her pocket.

The short walk to Constable Burdy's office in the moot hall was one of those brief, unremarkable, but utterly indelible moments in time she knew, even as it was happening, that she would never forget. She wanted it to go on forever. There weren't many people on the street today—she wished there were more. The few passersby looked at the two women curiously, interested but apparently not horrified to see them together. When they greeted the minister's wife, they had no choice but to greet Rachel, too. Unquestionably, Anne's company lent her existence legitimacy, rendered her automatically respectable. And even though she knew full well the condition wasn't permanent, she reveled in it.

That was a bit of a revelation. She liked her temporary respectability so much, she was forced to acknowledge how much she'd secretly yearned for it. But she'd kept the wish unexamined because the likelihood of it coming true had seemed so pathetically remote.

Anne made small talk as they went, idle chatter about parish events, her husband's comings and goings, village gossip. Rachel listened in fascination, wondering if the vicar's wife had any idea how blessed her quiet, ordinary life was. Much too soon, they arrived at the courthouse.

"Thank you for—" Rachel started to say, but Anne waved her hands and wouldn't let her finish.

"Come to see me sometime," she invited. "Christy's away so much, I get lonely."

What a generous-hearted lie. Rachel murmured thanks.

"And be sure to give my regards to Mr. Burdy. Tell him . . ." She thought for a second. "Tell him not to forget the vestry meeting next Thursday."

She was lending Rachel her good name again— protecting her with her most valuable possession: association with her own impeccable social standing. "I don't know why you're so kind to me," Rachel told her softly. "You won't let me thank you. But you must let me tell you that whatever becomes of me, I'll never forget you."

They squeezed each other's hands tightly. For once Anne, always so glib, was speechless. Rachel smiled and told her good-bye, and went inside to make her report to the constable.

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Afterward, she hurried home, anxious to see Sebastian and tell him about her unpleasant surprise package. She looked for him in his study first. Wrapped up in her own thoughts, she knocked only once on the closed door and opened it without waiting for an answer.

"Oh—I beg your pardon—I didn't realize you had a guest, my lord. I'll come—"

"No, come in," Sebastian called to her, getting up from behind his desk. Reverend Morrell, who was with him, rose, too. "Christy, you've met my housekeeper, Mrs. Wade, haven't you?"

"Yes, I've had the pleasure," said the vicar, smiling at her.

"Good afternoon," she said, distracted. "I've—I saw your wife today. Anne. We—she was very—" She mentally shook herself. "I met her in the village. We spoke."

"Did you? Aha." Meaningless words; something in the way he spoke them, his voice or his manner, the compassion in his eyes, made them seem uncannily sympathetic.

Sebastian was watching her closely. "Is anything the matter?"

"Oh, no," she assured him, crushing the piece of towcloth between her hands. "Only a question, and it can easily wait. I'll come back later."

"No, sit down with us," Sebastian urged, and Reverend Morrell gestured for her to take his chair. "I've sent for Holyoake, and I'd like you to hear this, too. The vicar's been telling me about a situation with one of my tenants, and I want—ah, here's William."

Holyoake, dressed in his work clothes, looked surprised to find Reverend Morrell—not to mention Rachel—waiting for him in his lordship's study. He shook hands with the minister, whom he seemed to know well, and they all sat down.

"William, you know Marcus Timms, don't you?" the vicar began.

"Aye, o' course. Farms corn on a hundred acres over to Wyckham Cleave for the Hall Farm. Been a tenant all's life, and 'is father before him."

"Have you ever known him to be a violent man?"

"Marcus?" Holyoake squinted his eyes and rubbed the bridge of his nose with his index finger. "No, not as I can recollect. I'd say he were a quiet man in general. Lost his wife a few years ago; 'tis only him and 'is daughter now, and one hired boy who works for 'em at haying. Has Marcus done something wicked, Vicar?"

"I'm afraid that he has. His daughter limped into the village yesterday, beaten and lame, and fainted on Dr. Hesselius's porch step."

"Merciful Jesus," breathed Holyoake, his cheeks reddening. "And it truly were Timms who beat 'er?"

"Yes. And she says it wasn't the first time. Her name is Sidony," the reverend said for Rachel's benefit. "She's seventeen, shy and a bit awkward, but a very sweet child. Hesselius says she'll be all right, although she may never walk normally again. She stayed with us at the vicarage last night, and my wife got out of her that Timms knocked her down more than a year ago. That's when she injured her hip."

Rachel jumped when Holyoake suddenly banged one huge fist down on the arm of his chair and exclaimed, "Damnation!" without apology. "I should've knowed it, I should ought to've figured it out. I recollect now a time I seen her and she were hurt. Last autumn, around Michaelmas time. I went out to speak to Marcus about sommat or other, and Sidony had a bad bruise on 'er face. 'What happened to you?' I asked 'er. 'Oh,' she said, 'I were haulin' the bucket up from the well and it whacked me on the jaw.' And damn me for a fool, I believed her!"

"It's not your fault, William. You couldn't have known."