Move Heaven and Earth (4 page)

“Yes,” Sylvan agreed. “She is.”

“That’s nothing to be ashamed of,” Lady Emmie said firmly. “Better good common English stock than some foreign material.”

“It’s the common stock which put the taint in Malkin blood.” Lady Adela gestured at the horizon where the smudge of factory smoke hovered. “And you see the results.”

“My son is not tainted,” Lady Emmie snapped.

“His ideas are a disgrace.”

“Enough!” Garth’s cultured drawl could sharpen with anger, and anger edged it now. “We’ve gone over this before, and I hardly think we need discuss it in front of Miss Sylvan.”

The ladies quieted at once, red staining both their faces as they stared stiffly out across the yard.

James broke the uncomfortable moment of silence. “Miss Sylvan, did you suggest we’ve spoiled Rand?”

Sylvan wanted to ask if the entire family listened at doors, but manners interfered. “I did.”

“So we’ve spoiled him,” James said. “Deserved it. Came back from Waterloo a hero.”

Pride strengthened Lady Adela’s spine. “So did you, my dear.”

“Oh, yes,” Garth said, sarcasm in his tone. “One of our national icons.”

Lady Adela sounded shocked at Garth’s cavalier comment. “James was very brave.”

James shrugged as if he could brush off Garth’s asperity. “Garth’s right, Mama. Nothing but one of the lesser players. M’ wound was slight.”

“Slight!” Lady Adela leaned forward and touched Sylvan’s knee. “He lost two of his fingers.”

“An amputation?” she asked him.

“Easier than that.” He wiggled the remaining digits on his right hand. “Shot off. Clean. No infection.”

“Did I see you in hospital?”

“Yes.” He grinned with diffident charm. “Glad to see I always make an impression on a lovely woman.”

“Be glad you didn’t.” She looked down at her own ten fingers, twining and retwining in her lap. “You don’t want to be one of the patients I remember.”

“Rest assured, ma’am, that no patient you helped will ever forget.” His fervent protestation brought her attention back to him, and he touched his brow in a salute.

His charming gesture warmed her, empty though she knew it to be.

“James is more guilty than any of us for spoiling Rand,” Lady Emmie said triumphantly. “He always worshiped Rand.”

“That doesn’t mean he spoiled him.”

“James always dressed like Rand. He took an interest in politics because of Rand. He even joined the army because of Rand.”

James sighed in embarrassment, and Sylvan bit back a smile.

Lady Adela harumphed and said, “Well, James is eleven years younger than Rand. I suppose there might have been some hero worship.”

“James wants to go back to London.”

“He can go back to London any time he pleases,” Lady Adela snapped. “Our fortune is ample to keep—”

“James can’t be important if he goes without—”

James’s stylish facade began to crumple beneath the vexation of their prolonged quarrel, and Sylvan interrupted in desperation. “No one has told me the nature of Lord Rand’s wound.” A silence followed, and she looked sharply at the ring of guilty, dismayed faces. She turned to Garth. “Lord Clairmont?”

He wiped his hand across his face, then looked toward the west. “I don’t see him yet.”

“Nor I,” Sylvan agreed. “Therefore this is the perfect time to describe the wound which resulted in his paralysis.”

“Did you say you wanted to wait for Rand alone?” Garth persisted.

“Yes, but—”

“We’ll leave you, then, and have tea sent out. Come, ladies.” Lady Adela and Lady Emmie jumped up with an obedience Sylvan found suspect, and when James would have remained, Garth said, “
Come
, James.”

For a brief moment, James seemed possessed of an ugly mood. Then with a gesture of resignation, he entered the house on his mother’s heels.

Garth lingered for a moment to promise, “You’ll get the cooperation you require, I vow.”

Then he whisked inside after them all, leaving Sylvan to wonder what they were hiding. She
had
seen most of Rand this day, and he’d looked whole and unscarred. Yet something had placed Rand in the wheelchair. What was it, and where had it occurred?

“Miss?” Sylvan turned to find the broad-beamed maid at her side. “I brought your tea. You have here a hearty supply of biscuits and cakes, made by our Italian confectioner.”

Sylvan gave a gurgle of laughter. “An Italian confectioner?”

A slip of a smile escaped the maid as she placed the tray on the narrow table and pushed it close to Sylvan. “Aye, miss. Isn’t that grand?”

“Grand enough.” Watching gratefully as the maid poured, she added, “I’m glad my father isn’t here, or we’d have to have an Italian confectioner working in our kitchen tomorrow.”

The maid’s quiet amusement died and she examined Sylvan with a keen eye. “You’re quality, then.”

“Oh, no.” Sylvan spread a snowy napkin in her lap. “I’m only rich. My father’s a merchant baron. By that I mean, he was a highly successful merchant, and he bought himself a barony.”

“Have you quarreled with him, that you’ve hired yourself out as a nurse?”

Her outspoken curiosity amazed Sylvan, and she examined the maid as thoroughly as the maid had examined her. She saw a tall woman of perhaps thirty-five, with strong, handsome features and a way of carrying herself that one seldom saw in a servant. Indeed, many a fine lady would have been pleased to have this woman’s bearing and dignity. “You must be Betty,” Sylvan said.

“That I am, miss. Mr. Garth told you about me?”

“Only that you boss them all, and that your hospitality is impeccable.”

Wrapping her hands in her apron, Betty smiled. Dimples creased her cheeks, and beneath the lace cap she wore an abundance of auburn curls that bobbed
when she nodded. “Mr. Garth is ever free with his compliments.”

Sylvan sugared the tea and drank with wholehearted enjoyment. “Why do you call him Mr. Garth?”

Now Betty blushed. “Forgive me, I should not, but we’re of an age and we grew up together.”

The Malkin family, Sylvan concluded, could rightly be termed eccentric. Their housekeeper treated the duke with familiarity; the dowager and her sister-in-law disagreed like two children; they had a cotton mill on their land and their own ghost.

But then, they were of an old, noble family of large fortune, and eccentricity was acceptable. Sylvan had no such cushion to fall back on, and she answered Betty’s earlier query. “My father didn’t want me to come as a nurse, but His Grace made me an irresistible offer. His Grace promised that no one would bemoan my lost reputation while I remained under his roof.”

“You lost your reputation, miss?”

“I don’t like to brag”—Sylvan leaned closer to Betty, and Betty leaned forward to hear—“but I’m one of the most infamous women in England.”

Betty stared at her, round-eyed, then burst into laughter. “Perhaps so, miss, perhaps so.”

Stupidly, Sylvan felt almost hurt by Betty’s incredulity. “You don’t believe me?”

“Ah, miss.” Betty wiped her hands on her apron. “A lot of noblemen visit Clairmont Court during the course of a year, and I’ve learned the difference between a lost reputation and a corrupted soul.” Betty nudged the plate of biscuits closer to Sylvan’s elbow. “You’ve got a fineness about you I never sensed with those corrupted ones.”

“Nevertheless, my reputation is gone. I’m no longer
invited to the parties of the ton, and any man who shows interest in me does so to sample the wares.”

Betty piled thin slices of plum cake and a variety of biscuits onto a china plate and pressed it into Sylvan’s hand. “So ’tis your father who mourns your reputation, miss?”

“Bitterly and often. He does everything bitterly and often.” Selecting a macaroon, Sylvan tasted it with approval. “Do you know the nature of Lord Rand’s wound?”

She thought she’d slipped in the query casually, but while Betty never changed expression, Sylvan felt the barrier go up. “He can’t walk.”

However eccentric the Malkins were, they obviously had the loyalty of their servants.

“But he can use that wheelchair,” Betty added, pointing across the lawn.

Sylvan looked, and she saw Rand, struggling to push himself up the path. “Thank God.” Her hand shook in a sudden palsy, and tea slopped onto the napkin in her lap.

Betty patted her shoulder, then she called, “Jasper!”

Jasper charged out the door so quickly, Sylvan knew he’d been waiting for their hail. She looked reproachfully at Betty, but Betty whispered, “He couldn’t hear us talking, miss.” Then, louder, she said, “The master’ll need help getting up the stairs. Best bring around your helpers.”

Jasper hastened to obey, and Sylvan said, “If you would, Betty, tell the family to play some cards, settle with a book, and greet Rand casually. He’ll not like it if he’s treated like a conquering hero for such a measly feat.”

“Do you think he’ll fancy having the family treat it casually, after months of having them jump at his every wish?” Betty demanded.

“Perhaps not.” Sylvan smiled. “But I prefer he be angered by lack of attention, not more.”

Betty placed her hands on her hips and looked Sylvan up and down. “Is nursing anything more than just common sense, miss?”

“No, but common sense isn’t that common, is it?”

“We’re going to get along fine, miss.” Betty bustled toward the house. “Just fine.”

Jasper and his crew reached Rand before he had wheeled himself across the drive, but with violent gestures he ordered them back. Sweat glued the strands of his dark hair together and dripped off his heavy eyebrows. It ran in trickles along the grooves of his frown and shone off his chest.

He ignored his state with imposing determination as he pushed himself across the driveway and to the bottom of the stairs. There he stopped and let Jasper and the footmen lift him. They carried the chair up to the terrace, then on his order, set it down in front of Sylvan.

If anything, his bitterness of spirit seemed to have deepened, and she would have sworn he hated her when he said, “I hope you’re happy, woman. You’ve proved me to be a coward, too.”

Mortification burned like a live
coal in his soul.

He’d been too gutless to push himself off the edge of the cliff.

As if he had anything to live for! A helpless deranged cripple. What further proof did he require of his own uselessness, his own madness?

That prissy little woman sat on the terrace, eating cakes and sipping tea and examining him as if he were an oddity.

Carefully, Sylvan blotted her lips with her napkin and stood. “You’ve taken a remarkable amount of air. I’m sure it exhilarated you. We’ll do it again tomorrow.”

“Tomorrow?” Rand’s voice hit a high note he’d never reached before. “To—”

But his rage proved no match for his exhaustion. He was just too damned tired to throw another tantrum.

He removed her pelisse from his lap and viciously threw it in her face. Her teacup toppled when the sleeve
hit it, and he had the pleasure of watching her scramble out of her chair to avoid the stream of dark liquid. Then he pushed his chair toward the door of the manor. Toward sanctuary. He rolled over the threshold, into the entry, and looked around.

Where was his mother? His brother? James, even Aunt Adela? Where were the people who cared about him, protected him?

Hearing voices, he wheeled his way to the study—and saw them.

His wonderful family, always so concerned about him, were playing cards. Chips were strewn across the table. Aunt Adela sat on the edge of her chair, and Lady Emmie held her cards with haphazard care. Garth struggled to loosen his already rumpled cravat, and James rearranged his hand as if that would change the spots.

To judge by their disheveled appearance, they had been playing the whole time he was gone.

“What the hell are you doing?” Rand boomed.

Everyone jumped as if his arrival startled them.

“By Jove, Rand, why don’t you take over for this numskull?” James asked. “He’s as slow at cards as he is at marriage.”

Garth reached over and cuffed his cousin. “At least I understand trump.”

With a restrained smile, Aunt Adela said, “Such unsportsmanlike conduct just because the ladies are winning.”

“La! A pleasure to win,” Lady Emmie said, then everyone bent to the cards once more, concentrating on everything but Rand.

Resentment boiled inside him. While he was struggling up the cliff, they’d been playing cards. They’d probably had a celebration at their first chance to get rid
of him, cheered when that woman returned without him, and laid odds on his ability to return.

They pitched some cards on the table, then his mother chirped, “How was your walk, dear?”

His fury exploded. “Walk? Walk? I didn’t walk. Your legs have to work for you to walk.” He pointed at the useless limbs that used to carry him wherever he wanted to go. “I can’t walk.”

“I think your mother knows that,” said Sylvan’s voice behind him. “You don’t need to bludgeon her with the sorry facts of your life.”

Rand wheeled around, ready to attack, when Garth said, “It’s just a manner of speech, Rand. Mother meant—”

“I know what Mother meant.”

“Then don’t speak so rudely to the dowager duchess,” Aunt Adela said. “It’s not appropriate to her station, or yours.”

“Really, Adela, I don’t mind.” Lady Emmie smiled weakly, ever the peacemaker between Adela and her sons.

“I mind enough for both of us. If it weren’t for me, this family would fall into ramshackle practices and moral weaknesses.” Aunt Adela stared down her nose at Garth. “And even I am not bastion enough to stem the depravities of the current duke.”

“Oh, let’s not start that again.” Garth threw his cards on the table. “You know my reasons, Aunt Adela.”

“I’m going to bed,” Rand announced.

“That’s nice, dear.” Lady Emmie waved a feeble good-bye, all her attention concentrated on the developing quarrel.

Pointing at Rand as if he were an exhibit, Lady Adela said, “See, Garth, even your brother occasionally prevails over his demeaning infirmity.”

Rand heard Sylvan suck in a shocked breath, then she
cried, “Demeaning? What’s demeaning about an injury taken in the line of duty?”

“It’s not as if he were actually hurt.” Lady Adela dismissed Sylvan and turned back to Garth. “Surely you, as duke—”

“Not actually hurt?” Sylvan’s fists clenched at her sides.

“Shut up,” Rand muttered.

“He’s in a wheelchair!”

“Just shut up.”

Losing patience, Lady Adela said, “He wasn’t wounded!”

Silence hit the room with a thud.

“For God’s sake, Mother.” James leaped to his feet and paced toward the window.

Lady Adela shriveled under everyone’s concentrated fury. “Well, somebody had to tell her.”

Sylvan shifted position subtly, but Rand could read her impatience. “So, somebody tell me.”

“What should I say?” Rand asked. “I can’t walk, and there’s not a mark on me.”

“Not true!” James whirled in anguish. “I saw you when you stumbled into Wellington’s presence. Covered with blood and bruises.”

Rand sneered. “Minor wounds.”

“Led charge after charge. Had three horses shot out from underneath you. After you lost your regiment, you scrapped like a madman. I fought clear across the battlefield, and I heard about your valor. An inspiration!”

“But I can’t walk.” Rand pushed his way into the center of the room, and everyone moved back. “If I’m such an inspiration, why can’t I walk?”

“You could if you just tried,” James insisted. “I know if you just tried—”

“Do you think I haven’t tried? Don’t you know how much I want to walk?” Rand took deep breaths to combat the constriction of his chest. “I’ve seen doctor after doctor, let them prod me and pour their vile concoctions down me. I’ve taken their stupid herb baths, and for what? To be as useless as I was before!”

“Please, dear.” Lady Emmie clasped her hands before her, crumpling the cards in her fists. “Don’t say that.”

“Useless?” Rand took a twisted pleasure in her pain. “Useless. Useless, useless, useless.”

“Rand.” Garth and Rand locked gazes. “The afternoon proved to be congenial without you. Don’t tempt us to discover what further enjoyment your absence might bring.”

Rand couldn’t believe his brother—his brother!—would threaten him in such a manner.

He flashed a glance of hatred at Sylvan. It was her fault. This whole, horrible afternoon was her fault.

“Boys, let’s not quarrel.” Lady Emmie laid a hand on Garth’s arm and lowered her voice. “Garth, we have to make allowances.”

“We’ve made allowances,” Garth said. “It’s time for life to go on. He’s hurt, he’s my brother, and I love him, but I’m tired of having him turn this house upside down night and day. Can’t we have some peace? At least until I’ve finished the mill? Can’t we just have some peace?”

Garth’s despair struck at Rand, building guilt where there had been only rage.

Is that what his injury had done? Driven his placid brother to the edge of control? Rand knew the burdens that the duke of Clairmont must bear. In addition, he knew Garth’s ambitions for their people, their lands.

He knew because Garth used to talk to him, exchange ideas, dream dreams. How long had it been since he listened to Garth?

He looked at James, and James looked away. He looked at Aunt Adela, and her mouth was knit so tight he knew she wanted to agree. He looked at his mother, and she sat wiping her eyes.

The silence this time stifled all thought.

“Have none of you heard of wind death?” Sylvan’s voice sounded calm, as if she saw theatrics such as this replayed every day.

“I—” James cleared his throat. “I have. It’s an old-fashioned term for…ah…when a soldier has no mark on his body, yet he’s dead.”

Sylvan nodded. “Surgeons used to believe that the wind of a passing bullet sucked the air from the soldiers’ lungs and they suffocated. Upon examination, it was proved that severe internal damage caused the deaths, leaving no external symptoms.”

“Are you suggesting that’s what happened to Rand?” Lady Adela asked.

“Not quite,” Rand answered. “I’m not dead, yet.”

“A trifling distinction, but important.” Sylvan sounded solemn, but Rand wondered. “I am suggesting there may be injury to the spine.”

Rand wanted to believe it. He wanted to, so badly, but he said, “Impossible. It wasn’t until I went to give my report to Wellington that I collapsed. I was unconscious for two days, and when I woke—” He pointed at his legs.

“Perhaps it wasn’t one particular injury which crippled you,” Garth suggested. “Perhaps all the injuries, coming one on top of the other, proved your downfall.”

“Or an accumulation of blood on your spine, and as time goes on, it’ll wash away. Walk again!” James’s excitement betrayed his desire.

“Anything’s possible,” Sylvan said gently. “But Rand
needs to adjust to the situation as it exists, rather than looking for a miracle that may never happen.”

James still stared at Rand with those haunted, hungry eyes, and Rand felt the weight of his expectations chaining him to the chair. “Who’s going to help me adjust?” He sneered at Sylvan. “You?”

“Yes, her,” Garth said. “Rand—”

“Don’t you know who she is?”

Rand said it so nastily, Sylvan knew what he was going to reveal. Damn him. Couldn’t he have waited just one day? Couldn’t he have waited until she’d had some sleep?

“Nursing, I’m sure you’ll all agree, is one of the most disgraceful professions a woman can stoop to.”

The women averted their gazes, acknowledgment contained within their silence.

“Rand, this is unnecessary,” Garth said shortly.

“But for this woman,” Rand continued with relish, “nursing was a move up from the world’s oldest profession.”

“Rand.” Lady Emmie gasped. “You don’t mean…”

“Sylvan was the mistress of Hibbert, earl of Mayfield.”

He could have said much worse, Sylvan supposed. He could have claimed she walked the streets of Brussels, or that he had had intimate knowledge of her for a price. But the results were much the same.

Lady Emmie laid a hand on her heart, and Lady Adela drew herself away as if Sylvan’s mere presence contaminated the air. For just a moment, James viewed her with a kind of half-slobbering anticipation. Then he cleared his features and reverted to his previous courtesy.

Color flooded Garth’s face. Rand cast one triumphant glance at Sylvan, and she knew he thought he’d won.

“Why did you tell them that?” Garth stepped forward
as if he wanted to pummel his own brother. “Did she make you do what you didn’t want to do? Did she make you realize what an ass you’ve been? Is that why you attacked her?”

Rand’s smile faded, and he shook his head as if he didn’t understand, and Sylvan knew he didn’t. He’d thought Garth would be as shocked as the rest of his family. He didn’t know that Garth had offered her sanctuary from just those accusations.

Rand said, “Aren’t you shocked? Don’t you think our mother has the right to know what kind of woman she’s dealing with?”

“You never used to be a hypocrite.” Garth put his hands on the arms of the wheelchair and leaned forward until his face was level with Rand’s. “I know you, Rand, and I know your tastes. You were jealous of Hibbert. You’re probably still jealous of Hibbert.”

“How the hell could I be jealous of a dead man?”

“He might be dead, but when he was alive he had what you wanted—”

“Garth!” Lady Emmie said, shocked.

“—what you still want. You’re nothing but a sniveling little coward.”

Sylvan moaned and covered her eyes. Rand was stupefied by the unexpected direction of this attack, but she was humiliated. How had Garth guessed so accurately about the desire that had united her and Rand in one short dance?

She remembered it even now. The bright room, overheated with the light of candles and the crush of human bodies. The music, a perfect waltz. The warmth of Rand’s touch on her back, the strength of his shoulder beneath her palm. Their two hands, clasped firmly. Their two gazes, brushing, meeting, avoiding and
returning as the rhythm whirled them up off the floor and into a magic place where they were alone.

And when the waltz finished, his fingers lifting her chin, brushing her lips, promising her unknown delights.

He hadn’t asked her to dance again. She hadn’t wanted him to.

The contact had been so brief, none of the gossips had even noticed. No one had noticed except dear Hibbert, and he hadn’t lived beyond the next day.

“You dare?” Rand shouted.

Sylvan jumped, but he wasn’t shouting at her.

He jerked his chair from beneath Garth’s grasp. “Call me a coward?”

“Oh, you went to Waterloo and killed Frenchies for the safety of England,” Garth acknowledged. “But you’re afraid of the consequences. You’ve lived your whole life challenging injustice and brutality and walked away every time, the victor. Well, you’re the victor this time, too, but you had to pay a penalty. Get on with it, Rand! Stop wallowing in this self-pity and get on with it.”

Rand cast one flaming glance at his brother and wheeled around. If Sylvan hadn’t moved, he’d have run over her in his haste to flee, and she didn’t think he even noticed.

Garth touched her arm. “Don’t worry.”

She stared at him, uncomprehending.

“I’ll make it right with the ladies and James. They’ll treat you with the respect you deserve, I promise.”

She nodded stupidly.

Steering her toward the door and into the hallway, he said, “Betty will show you up to your room now.”

Betty stepped forward and took her arm, and Garth disappeared back into the study and shut the door.

“What a fuss, eh, miss?” Betty chatted as she led Sylvan up the grand staircase, down a wide hall, and through double doors. “But don’t you worry. Mr. Garth’ll straighten it out. We put your trunks in here. ’Tis the best suite in the women’s wing, except those which Her Grace and Lady Adela occupy, of course.”

Garth obviously hoped her living arrangements would ease the sting of her labor, for the door opened off the hall into a lavish sitting room decorated in shades of blue and gold. Chairs and a couch circled a massive fireplace where even now a fire blazed. A burnished table held a setting of china, and the windows were hung with brocade curtains. Through the open door she glimpsed a bedroom with a high curtained bed, another fireplace, and carpets to ward off the chill of the floor.