One Touch of Magic (14 page)

“They be my property, girl, and none of your affair!” the man growled. “Now go away and tend your own business.”

“I will not!”

“That man is assaulting my sister!” Sarah cried, a white-hot fury rising up in her, choking her. She lifted her skirts above her ankles, and ran down the bank toward Mary Ann, Lord Ransome close at her heels. “Release her this instant, you villain!”

As they came closer, the man let go of Mary Ann, and she fell back a step, rubbing at her upper arm. She latched on to Sarah’s hand an instant before Sarah could slap the man heartily across his face.

Only then did Sarah see the rough sack on the ground between Mary Ann and the man. It writhed and mewed and wriggled.

Mary Ann turned a tearstained, indignant face to Sarah and Lord Ransome. “This dreadful man was going to drown these kittens.”

“I already have plenty of mousers. These would just be nuisances!” the man protested. “I don’t need no gentry mort to tell me how to run my own business! Now, go away and let me get on with it.”

“Never!” Mary Ann broke away from Sarah, and lunged down to grab the sack.

The man shoved her roughly, and she landed in the mud with a pained cry.

As quick as a lightning flash, Lord Ransome grabbed the front of the man’s stained shirt. He twisted hard, raising the man up onto his very toes. The farmer’s face turned purple with the effort to breathe, and his eyes bulged.

He was a bigger man than Lord Ransome, but flabby where Lord Ransome was lean. The strong muscles that Sarah had earlier felt beneath her hand corded and bunched under his coat sleeve. His face was utterly blank as he watched the struggling man, his blue eyes like ice or marble. Her warm, laughing companion of only fifteen minutes ago had completely vanished.

Sarah knelt beside Mary Ann and helped her sister sit up, never taking her stare from the horribly fascinating scene before her. She wasn’t sure whom she was more frightened of, the bullying farmer or the cold stranger Lord Ransome had suddenly become.

“You will never treat a lady in such a fashion again, or I will thrash you to within an inch of your life,” Lord Ransome said, his voice low and emotionless. The man gave a choking sound, and Sarah was just wondering if she should somehow intervene when Lord Ransome released the man’s shirtfront and he fell onto the ground. He sucked in a large breath of air, while Lord Ransome watched him dispassionately.

“Do you know who I am?” Lord Ransome said, in that same cold voice.

The man shook his head.

“I am Lord Ransome. You are not a tenant of my land, are you? I have never seen you before.”

“I—no, my lord,” he said hoarsely. All of his bluster had vanished. “I live on the other side of York. My name be White.”

“You are on my property now, and nobody abuses a lady anywhere in my presence. Now, leave before I have you clapped into irons.”

The man scrambled to his feet, and reached for the sack. Mary Ann, despite her pale, shocked expression, gave a protesting cry.

“Leave that,” Lord Ransome ordered brusquely.

The man dropped the sack and scurried away. The workers who had gathered about drifted off, muttering amongst themselves. Sarah, Mary Ann, and Lord Ransome were left alone in their frozen tableau. Sarah put her arm about Mary Ann, holding her close, and Lord Ransome stood with his back to them for a long moment.

Gradually, Sarah was able to breathe again, to hear the sounds of the birds and the stream that flowed around her. She watched Lord Ransome, warily waiting for him to turn and look at them.

Mary Ann drew away to pull the sack toward her. She untied the rope around its opening, and three tiny kittens, all of them bundles of black-and-white fur with bright green eyes, tumbled out onto her lap. They mewed softly, stumbling about on Mary Ann’s muslin skirt in a sweet tangle.

The sounds of them made Lord Ransome turn around. He looked tired and still expressionless, but slowly the mask cracked, and he smiled at them. It was a weary, strained smile, yet it made him seem a little more like the man Sarah had come to know. She relaxed a bit, her shoulders aching with the stiffness she had not realized she was holding there.

“I—apologize, Lady Iverson, Miss Bellweather,” he said. “I should not have behaved in such a way in front of you.”

Mary Ann, cuddling one of the kittens against her shoulder, looked up at him with shining eyes. “You saved me, Lord Ransome! You drove that horrid brute away. These darling babies are alive because of you.”

“I hardly think you needed ‘saving,’ Miss Bellweather,” he answered. “You seemed to be more than holding your own; you are a very brave young lady.”

Mary Ann giggled, and ducked her head to nuzzle the kitten.

“Thank you, Lord Ransome,” Sarah said. “You were indeed very gallant.”

They all fell into silence, the kittens’ mews and the rush of the stream the only sounds, until a voice behind them said, “That was quite a scene, your lordship.”

Sarah looked back to see a man coming down the muddy slope toward them. He wasn’t one of the workers; he was a stranger, as the rough farmer had been. But he looked nothing like the farmer.

He was obviously not very old, though his sun-browned skin and the deep grooves that lined his mouth made him seem older. The jet-black hair that waved back from his face was liberally streaked with silver, and his green eyes looked out wearily onto the world. He limped slightly as he walked.

He was very thin; his cheap clothes hung on him as if made for another man. But he was not at all fearsome, as the strange farmer had been. He looked at them seriously but kindly, with only the hint of a spark of interest when he saw Mary Ann.

Lord Ransome’s eyes widened with surprise, and he took a step forward. “Lieutenant O’Riley? What are you doing here?”

Lieutenant O’Riley laughed, and answered, with a hint of a lilting brogue in his voice, “Well, now, you said if I was ever in need of work I should look for you. Here I am. I should have appeared earlier; I can be a handy man to have around in a brawl.”

Lord Ransome laughed, too. “It was hardly a brawl! But it is good to have you here nonetheless. You look—different than when we last met in London.”

“Ah, well, I cleaned up a bit before I came here.” Lieutenant O’Riley glanced at Sarah and Mary Ann.

“Forgive me,” Lord Ransome said, turning to them. “Lady Iverson, Miss Bellweather, this is Lieutenant O’Riley. We met some months ago in Town.”

Sarah rose to her feet, and drew Mary Ann with her. Mary Ann now held all the kittens in her arms, but she managed to give him a pretty smile over their fur.

“How do you do, Lieutenant O’Riley?” Sarah said. “I am Lady Iverson. I work on the Viking village just over the slope. And this is my younger sister, Miss Bellweather.”

“I’m very pleased to meet you. But it’s just plain Mr. O’Riley now—I left the Army behind long ago.”

Sarah nodded. She wondered just what Lieutenant—Mr. O’Riley had been in Lord Ransome’s military life, and what his coming here meant. Perhaps he was the former soldier who was going to turn her village into a farm.

She wasn’t sure she quite liked the way Mary Ann was looking at the Irish soldier, either. She took Mary Ann’s arm, kittens and all, and said, “We should be going home now. It’s muddy and hot here, and I’m sure Mary Ann is tired.”

“I need to make the kittens a bed, and find them some milk,” Mary Ann said.

“Let us walk back with you, then,” Lord Ransome suggested. “Just in case our new friend the kittendrowner decides to return.”

“Thank you,” Sarah said. “That is most kind of you.”

Sarah was glad of the men’s company and strength on the walk back to the hunting box. But, in reality, she was not sure which was more dangerous—kitten-hating farmers, or Lord Ransome himself.

That night, Sarah sat at her desk in the drawing room of the hunting box, ostensibly working on her notes from that day’s dig. Her papers and books were spread out, but her pen lay idle in her hand.

She watched Mary Ann, where she sat playing with the kittens beside the fire, and thought about their very strange afternoon. If Mary Ann had not shouted out when she had, what would Lord Ransome have said to her? Would he have given her a time when she must be off Ransome land? And what would she,
could
she, have said to that?

There would have been no choice for her but to acquiesce.

Sarah looked down at her notes, half finished on the page—just like her work. She laid down the pen, and closed her eyes.

In the darkness of her mind, she saw Lord Ransome, not as he usually was, kind and open, but as he had been today when he threatened Mary Ann’s assailant. She would not have imagined there could be such violent intent on his handsome face—he had been so very deeply angry with the man. He had been unaware of anything around him but that cold anger. Sarah imagined that was what he must have been like in a battle.

She herself had been angry with the horrid farmer, and would have knocked him to the ground if she had been capable. But she was also taken aback by the new side of Lord Ransome she was seeing.

Taken aback—and maybe just a little frightened. And something else, some dark excitement she could not, or would not, name.

“Sarah?” she heard Mary Ann say. “Are you quite all right?”

Sarah opened her eyes to look at her sister, still sitting on the floor with all the kittens asleep on her lap. Mary Ann frowned in concern.

“Oh, yes,” Sarah answered, trying to smile reassuringly. “I just have a bit of a headache.”

“Poor Sarah! That is hardly surprising after the long day we have passed.” Mary Ann looked down at the jumble of downy kitten bodies on her lap, and rubbed one’s head with her fingertip. “I think you ought to marry Lord Ransome.”

Unlike her usual outrageous pronouncements on gentlemen, Lord Ransome in particular, this statement was made quietly, hopefully, almost wistfully.

“He was so heroic today, rescuing me and these babies from that horrible man,” Mary Ann went on. “Just like a knight in a book. He would be worthy of you, would look after you always. I am sure he would look after all of us, even Mother and Kitty.”

Sarah watched Mary Ann in surprise. Mary Ann had been so young when their father died, just an infant really, and she had grown up in a family of only women. But Sarah had not realized she so wanted male influence—not
romantic
influence, but fatherly or brotherly—until now.

She tried to laugh. “Oh, Mary Ann! A lady can hardly marry a man who has not made her an offer. Nor is he likely to.”

Mary Ann shook her head. “I am sure he wants to.”

Sarah left her desk, and went to sit on the floor beside her sister. She took one of the sleeping kittens onto her own lap, and it sank down into her skirts with a mew and a stretch. “Oh, Mary Ann. We cannot know what he wants. We can only go about our lives the best we can. I have my work, and it makes me happy. One day, you will see that things cannot be as they are in books, but that life can be just as good—or better. You will meet someone, and fall in love, and build a real life with him. A good one, all your own.”

Mary Ann looked up at her, tears sparkling in her brown eyes. “Do you think so?”

“Of course. Just be certain that you marry someone you
do
love, not just someone that our mother thinks would be suitable.”

“Oh, never!” Mary Ann said with a laugh. “You cannot imagine the truly horrid men Mother thinks are suitable.”

Sarah thought she could; they were probably the same men their mother had once tried to foist onto
her.
But she was confident that Mary Ann would not let herself be bullied into an unhappy match, and hopefully her search for her own true love would distract her from Sarah’s romantic life, or lack thereof.

There was a knock at the drawing room door, and Rose, Mary Ann’s maid, came in. She held a square of expensive-looking vellum on a tray.

“Excuse me, my lady,” she said, “but this just came for you by messenger.”

“Thank you, Rose.” Sarah stood up, and took the letter, breaking the wax seal with her fingernail.

“What is it?” Mary Ann asked worriedly, as Sarah read in silence. “Bad news?”

“Oh, no.” Sarah turned to look at her sister. “We are invited, along with the Hamiltons, to dine at Ransome Hall tomorrow evening. So then we may thank Lord Ransome in person for his gallant rescue today, can’t we, Mary Ann?”

“Of course.” Mary Ann hugged one of the kittens close to her. “Do you suppose that that handsome Mr. O’Riley will be there?”

“It is good to see you again, Lieutenant—Mr. O’Riley,” Miles said. He poured out a generous measure of brandy and handed it to his guest.

Mr. O’Riley laughed. “Call me Patrick, please, my lord. I feel all stiff and formal enough in your grand house without looking about for my father or my uncle every time someone says ‘Mr. O’Riley.’ ”

“Patrick it is, if there will be no more ‘my lording.’ I am Miles.” He poured his own brandy, and sat down in the chair across from Patrick’s. The library around them was dark and quiet in the after-supper lull, and, indeed, very grand. “I am glad you are here, but I would have looked for you several weeks ago. I thought perhaps you did not mean to take me up on my offer of a job. I take it you have not mended things with your family in Ireland.”

Patrick shrugged, and took a deep, appreciative swallow of his drink. “There is little chance of that, I fear, though it’s a pity. That estate was my father’s home, as well as his older brother’s, my uncle’s. And I could not afford to come to the country, until now. I got work, though, building a grand house for some earl or such, despite my bad leg. Then I got this cough. The apothecary I saw told me I should go the country, find work on a farm where there’s good, clean air. I remembered your offer, and I had heard one of the earl’s friends say you had inherited this place, so here I am.” He looked solemnly at Miles. “I wasn’t sure you would even remember me.”

“Of course, I remember you. You helped me a great deal.”

Patrick’s dark brows arched in surprise. “I helped you, Lord—Miles? How could that be? We only met so briefly.”