Heirs of Acadia - 03 - The Noble Fugitive (28 page)

He dried her right hand and gave it a careful inspection. Then he rose and carried the clay basin over to the doorway and poured out the dirty water. Everyone in the kitchen was casting glances her way. Serafina dropped her eyes to her hands. The blisters looked raw and angry.

“No, don’t touch.” The man walked over and reseated himself. The bowl was refilled with clean water. “All right, put them both in. Aye, the water’s hot. But it’ll do you good.”

She forced her hands into the almost scalding liquid. The blisters felt like they were being stabbed with tiny needles.

“Nothing better than brine and vinegar. It’s what we used for the young middies when the hemp burned their hands. I don’t suppose you know what a middy is, though, do you.”

Serafina shook her head. Then she realized he could not see her, for his attention remained upon her hands. “No, sir.”

“I’m not a sir, lass. Do you remember my name?” He kept his voice low.

“John Falconer.”

“That’s it. Most folks call me by my second name alone. Falconer.” He kneaded the palms with gentle stroking motions. “There’s ash in the skin, which troubles me. But you’re young enough, maybe you won’t scar overmuch. A middy, lass, is a young midshipman. They join the crew as young boys and get their learning before the mast. That’s how I learned the sea. I stood my first watch at twelve years of age, high on the mizzen, in every weather the sea could throw at me.”

His voice was as soothing as his touch. He kneaded one hand after the other, halting just as the flaking scabs drew such pain she almost cried out. He seemed to know how much she could take, which was when he released one hand
and started on the other. He directed his voice to her hands as he asked, “How did you let them get this bad?”

What was she supposed to say? That the pain, like her fatigue, had helped her escape from looking inside? She felt a hot tear course down her cheek. “You are too kind.”

Falconer looked into her face for the first time since seating himself. His eyes tracked the tear. She could see him clearly now. The scar coursing up his cheekbone only accented the gentle light to his eyes. She blinked and released another tear.

“Who hurt you, lass?” he murmured.

“Nobody. I did it all to myself. And to others.” Serafina had to stop then, for to say more would have meant releasing the sobs that clenched her up tight.

But her remark only deepened the gaze. As though he understood what she meant. Which of course was impossible.

Falconer kept his voice so low the kitchen clatter rendered his words only for her. “Do you trust me, lass?”

“Oh, yes.” She did not need to think that one through.

He turned to the cook and called, “I don’t suppose you have any goose fat I could use.”

“That I do, sir. That I do.” The cook passed over a covered bowl, glanced at Serafina’s hands, tut-tuted once, and retreated to the stove.

He withdrew Serafina’s hands from the pinkish water. Falconer dried them carefully, then coated the palms with the fat. He tore a clean cloth into strips and bound her hands. “You can’t leave Harrow Hall, is that right?”

“I have nowhere else to go.”

“What about family?”

Her answer was very broken. “They are lost to me.”

He cast her another glance, full of meaning. There and gone in a dark flash of comprehension. “Then we must find you a place where you’ll be protected from the young lord. I have friends here. People I think you should trust. I do.”

He looked up once more and saw she did not understand. “There is a young girl. Hannah. She has been very ill. She
needs a companion.” He waited. When Serafina did not respond, he went on, “Will you meet with her parents?”

Again she did not need to think this through. “I will do whatever you say.”

Chapter 20

Falconer tossed and turned on the narrow creaking bed. This early morning had not been marred by his habitual nightmare. He had been awake for hours. He lay on his back and stared at the ceiling. The predawn light was a pale wash upon the world, a perfect canvas for the mind’s images. He could study her as though she were there before him now.

Serafina was a singular beauty. But there was far more than loveliness at work here. He sensed a kindred spirit, one who had been torched by her own mistakes. It left him hoping for the impossible. Yet his years of facing deadly risks had taught him to measure the odds. And the odds here were all against him. She was young, she was lovely, she was highborn. He still felt the soft flesh of her hands in his. He saw the way she held herself, heard the manner of her speech, and knew this was no servant maid. Which meant that whatever her transgressions, her beauty would draw her back into the front parlors of some man far richer than himself. Someone who knew the proper ways of highborn life. Someone other than John Falconer.

He finally rolled from his bed and dressed and lit a candle. His glance fell upon the two pamphlets. They too had given him much to feed upon. Falconer found his place in the Bible and began his readings. But this day, divine communion did not arrive. Her face was there upon the page, the shattered gaze staring up at him.

Falconer rose, wrenched open the door, and made his way down the passage. The previous afternoon he had shifted his berth from the servants’ corridor to a chamber set in the rafters above Gareth and Erica’s apartment. Daniel snored away in the next room. Softly he started down the stairs, boots in hand.

But on the next level he was greeted by a small voice saying, “Serafina has nightmares too.”

“Lass, you should be resting abed.”

“I slept almost all yesterday afternoon. Where are you going? Can I come?”

“Not out into the dawn chill.” Before Hannah could protest further, he added, “I was just going for tea. I’ll bring you back a cup.”

When Falconer arrived in the kitchen, the cook was already bustling about. “You’re up early,” he greeted her.

“His lordship likes his early matins, he does.” She was busy setting out a breakfast upon a silver tray.

Falconer realized it was Sunday. The week’s onward rush had stolen away his sense of time. “Is there a church nearby?”

“You’re a churchgoing man, are you?”

“I am.”

“Wouldn’t have thought that myself, you with the manner of a battler and a bruiser about you.”

He decided there was nothing to be said to that. He turned at the sound of footsteps and found himself facing the chief butler. Cuthbert was dressed as always in long coat and starched white shirt. “Good morning, sir.”

“How’s the young lady?” Cuthbert asked.

Falconer supposed he was speaking of Serafina but could not be certain. “I hope she’s resting, sir.”

The butler nodded acceptance and said to the cook, “His lordship is asking after his breakfast.”

“Which is ready and piping hot.” When the butler had departed, she asked Falconer, “You’re after tea, I suppose.”

“For myself and the Powers lass.”

“She’s a pretty one for such a little waif.”

“Careful,” Falconer said. “She’ll steal your heart clean away.”

“I believe I noticed another lass doing that to you yesterday.” She clattered about, giving him no chance to object. “I’ll make up a breakfast tray for the family, shall I?”

Falconer felt the warmth in his face as he accepted the tray. The cook gave him a knowing smile and said, “The church in Harrow village is attended by all the servants who have a mind. It makes for a nice walk through the forest, there and back. A mile down to the side gates. You’ll see the steeple from there. Makes for as fine a courting spot as any I’ve seen.”

He trod back across the rear walk, arguing with himself more than with the smiling cook. He climbed the stairs to discover Serafina standing in the hallway. For a moment he let himself believe she awaited him. She wore the dark servants’ garb, her hair bound and hidden beneath the head scarf. She curtsied and said, “Good morning, sir.”

“I asked you not to address me so. How are you today, lass?”

“My hands are better, thank you.” She kept her eyes downcast. “Hannah decided to go back to bed.”

“Probably for the best,” he acknowledged, though Falconer wondered if she had done so to let them be alone. “Will you take tea?”

Serafina followed him into the apartment’s front room. “I am instructed to go to the kitchen for my breakfast.”

Her voice and accent made a song of the simplest of words. “From now on, you shall eat with the Powers family.”

She fumbled with her apron. “And the fireplaces?”

“Those are someone else’s responsibility now. Sit yourself down there.”

Falconer made rather a mess of pouring the tea, but she did not seem to notice. Serafina avoided his gaze as she whispered thanks and accepted the cup. “You say your hands are healing?” he asked.

“They don’t hurt as much.”

“A good sign. I’ll have a look at them later.” The thought of holding those soft palms once more gave him pause. He drank his tea, then said, “There’s a church service this morning. I thought I might perhaps go. Would you—”

“No. I can’t. I mustn’t.” The words were a tumbling rush.

“Do you not believe in God?”

“Oh yes. But . . .”

Falconer inspected her carefully over the rim of his mug. “Drink your tea, lass.” When she had taken a tentative sip, he asked, “You are a Christian?”

“I was. Before . . .”

Her voice had returned to the shaky whisper of the previous day. It reminded him of distant birdsong. “Before what?”

She set down her cup. And shook her head.

Falconer sighed. His gut churned, but his mind felt crystal clear. Which was a remarkable feat. On the one hand, this young maiden ignited a hunger in him as fierce as any blaze. Yet there was something else at work here. He knew this with a visceral certainty. He sighed again, trying with all his might to push away his own selfish longings. “Look at me, Serafina.”

Meeting her gaze made it even harder to think beyond what he wanted. He felt awash in human desire. His voice grated in his own ears. “You said you trusted me.”

“I do.”

“Then tell me what it is that keeps you from church.”

“I have sinned.” The words ended in a soft moan.

“Go on.”

“I loved a man who was very, very bad. All knew it but me. I have lied and stolen and deceived. I ran away. I . . .” She dropped her chin once more. Back and forth she shook her head.

Falconer shut his eyes. His prayer was a desperate plea.
I am so weak, I am so frail, I am so human. Help me to do right here, Lord. Because without thy direction and strength, I will only wreak havoc on this gift of trust.

He opened his eyes and rose to his feet to go and stand by the window. “How old are you?”

“Seventeen,” she told her bandaged hands. “Eighteen in three months.”

“There are worse things,” he said quietly, “than being seventeen and having loved the wrong man.”

Her head still bent, she confessed, “I have betrayed every person who ever loved me.”

Falconer responded with a voice coppery hard, as beaten and hot as tempered metal. “When I was seventeen I
killed
my first man.”

Serafina looked up, obviously struggling to make sense of his words.

“You think you carry guilt? You think you are too far removed from salvation for the Savior to care over your soul?” He struck his own chest with a fist shaped as though it held a dagger. “I am living testimony to how wrong a life can go. And how far the Savior’s reach extends.”

The shame of confessing left him hunched over. But he forced himself to continue. “God has found a way to reach me. What good I am to Him, I cannot say. I feel as though my tread shames the stones of every church I enter. But Christ died for me. Of that I am utterly certain. Whatever you have done, He holds out his arms for you as well.”

He could not stay with her longer. Falconer crossed the room and opened the door. “I shall leave for church in one hour.”

Falconer dressed with as much care as he could manage, given that everything he possessed was travel weary and salt stained. He wiped his boots with a hunk of the breakfast bread in an attempt to bring out what shine was left. He chose the cleanest of his shirts and the only pair of trousers still holding a crease. He went out to the stables and borrowed a wire brush from the stable lad and did what he could for the state of his coat.

Harry, the young man who worked the woodpile, was seated by the stables greasing down a pair of shotguns. “I’ve curried horses who looked better after a day’s ride over open country,” he commented wryly.

Falconer tossed the coat over a nearby rail. “I don’t know why I bother.”

“It’s a bonny enough day,” Harry agreed, misunderstanding. “You won’t be needing such cover.”

“That coat was given to me by a fine American gent. But a month’s travel on the open seas has near about done it in.”

“There’s a slop chest we can all draw from.” Harry propped his gun against the stable wall. “That’s what the sailors call it, right?”

“How are you knowing I’m a sailor?”

“What you said to Serafina.”

Hearing her name upon the lips of another brought a flush to his features. He scowled. “You were listening?”