One Touch of Magic (16 page)

Mr. O’Riley was smiling down at Mary Ann, who laughed up at him.

Sarah was glad to see her sister so happy, but . . .

“Yes. They do seem to enjoy each other’s company,” she said.

“Do you not approve?”

“How could I
dis
approve? She is merely talking to a gentleman, not twenty steps away from me. But Mary Ann is very young, and she reads a great many novels. She has some—some very romantic notions.”

“Unlike her sensible sister?” he said, in a lightly teasing tone.

Sarah laughed. “Quite right!”

“I am sure Mr. O’Riley has enough sense for both of them.” They reached the end of the terrace, and Lord Ransome leaned back against the marble balustrade, his arms crossed over his chest. “I hope she has not suffered any ill effects from the—incident yesterday.”

“Not at all. In fact, she is very happy with her new pets. Though I doubt our mother will be as happy when she arrives back at home with three cats in tow! It was very kind of you to come to our rescue.”

“Kind?” He looked quite surprised.

Sarah had a quick, flashing memory of the fury on his face as he grabbed the farmer. She closed her eyes against it. “Yes. But I fear that all the drama interrupted you when you were about to tell me something.” She did not
really
want to know what he had been going to say, yet she knew she would have to face it eventually.

“There was something I wanted to talk to you about,” he said. “This hardly seems the time, though. Perhaps I could call on you tomorrow, Lady Iverson? If that would be convenient. It is rather important.”

Convenient? Convenient for her to abandon her work? She almost gave a humorless bark of laughter, and pressed her hand to her mouth. “Of course. Tomorrow morning, then?”

He nodded. “Tomorrow morning.”

He was not coming. It was too late in the morning. Surely he would not come; perhaps he had changed his mind.

Sarah paced across the drawing room, peering out the window. It was growing late, almost time for luncheon. She had dressed in one of her plain work dresses, so that she could go to the village and do as much digging as possible after she spoke to Lord Ransome. Mary Ann had already gone ahead.

Now Sarah wondered if she should have worn one of her fine muslin morning gowns. She glanced down at her gray dress; it was hardly attire that inspired confidence and authority. It was faded, and dusty around the hem. And her hair was simply pulled back with a ribbon, up off her neck where it would not be in the way.

But it hardly mattered anyway. She looked over at the clock on the fireplace mantel, and decided it was indeed too late, and he would not come today. She could leave.

Or run away,
her mind whispered.

No! she protested. She was not running away. She simply had her work to attend to. That was all.

She caught up her hat and the lunch hamper the cook had packed. As she hurried out the front door, she froze when she saw a horse coming up the lane. A horse with a familiar rider.

Lord Ransome. So he
had
come today, after all.

She thought again of her fine morning gowns, and glanced back into the house. There was no time for changing, though. He was almost to her door. So Sarah stood her ground, and tilted her chin up with what she hoped was a welcoming smile.

“Good day, Lord Ransome!” she said, as he dismounted at the foot of her narrow front steps.

“Good day, Lady Iverson,” he answered. He smiled, too, but it seemed tentative. Not his usual open grin at all.

Not the bold, white flash of the Viking in her dreams.

Sarah closed her eyes for an instant, to try to push that dream to the very back of her mind. It would never work to try to converse with Lord Ransome while envisioning him as a Viking, replaying his almost-kiss on a village street that had vanished over eight hundred years ago.

“I hope I am not calling at an inconvenient time,” he said.

She opened her eyes and looked back at him, half expecting to find him clad in a tunic, long golden hair flowing to his shoulders. But he was just his ordinary self, cropped hair shining in the sunlight, clad in an ordinary dark blue coat and buckskin breeches. Unfortunately, his own ordinary self was far more disconcerting than any dream-Viking could be. “An inconvenient time?”

“It appears you are on your way out.” He gestured towards the hat and hamper in her hands.

“Oh.” Sarah stared down at them stupidly. She
had
been going out, hadn’t she? “Yes, I was on my way to the village, but I’m sure they can manage without me for a while. Please, do come in.”

“Thank you.” He followed her into the cool dimness of the hunting box’s drawing room. As he looked around him at the small chamber, Sarah truly noticed its shabbiness for the first time. She and John had moved into it with the furnishings that were already there, and had never given them a second thought. They were almost never there, anyway, and scarred wood and frayed upholstery hardly mattered.

But now she saw its untidiness through Lord Ransome’s eyes. Her desk in the corner was covered with papers and books, and dirty objects newly discovered in the village. Mary Ann’s easel was set up by the window, and surrounded by her sketchbooks and paint pots. Slippers, shawls, baskets of mending, and scholarly publications cluttered up the carpet so that the faded floral pattern could scarcely be seen. The kittens slept in their basket bed by the empty fireplace.

Perhaps he was thinking how very foolish his uncle had been to loan his hunting box to such untidy people. Weren’t military men noted for being very orderly and organized?

She nudged some newspapers under the settee with her toe, and said, “I do apologize for the—confusion. We have a very small staff here.”

“Not at all,” he answered kindly, and with every evidence of sincerity. “It is a most charming space.”

“Thank you. Won’t you sit down? Shall I ring for some tea?”

Lord Ransome moved a shawl from a chair, and sat down. “Please, don’t go to any trouble, Lady Iverson. The cook at Ransome Hall will have a tea waiting when I return.” He clasped his hands together, and looked down at them, as if gathering his thoughts before speaking again. “You probably know what I have come to speak to you about,”

So the moment had arrived. The tips of Sarah’s fingers grew suddenly numb, and she stared at them as if they did not belong to her at all. “In—indeed?”

“Yes. I imagine that you will hardly be surprised at what I have to say. I would have spoken much sooner, but—”

“Please, Lord Ransome!” Sarah burst out. “Just say it, whatever it is.”

He nodded, and glanced back down at his clasped hands. She was grateful not to have the force of that sky blue gaze on her for the moment.

“When I was a child,” he said, “my father often spoke to me about responsibility and duty. Those were very important concepts to him; they were the principles he lived by, always. And he impressed this on me, along with the precept that when a person is given much in this world, that person owes a debt in return. A debt that is especially due to those less fortunate.”

Sarah hardly saw how this was “just saying it,” but she held her tongue. She was drawn in by the quiet, deep sound of his voice, by his words; she wanted to see where his tale was going. So she sat in silence.

“I took his lessons into the war with me. In Spain, I commanded many men, some of them worthless rascals I would hope never to see again in my life, but most of them good men. Men with families, and hopes for the future. I did the very best I could for them, and they sacrificed much for their country.” He looked back up at her, his gaze intense and unswerving. “Now so many of those very men, and men just like them, are suffering. There are not enough jobs for all of them, not enough money, and they cannot provide for their families.”

Sarah swallowed, caught by his unwavering stare. This was obviously something he cared very, very deeply about. She felt almost as if she was looking into his very heart.

It was difficult to find words to answer him, but she knew she had to try. “Yes, I know, Lord Ransome. I do not live entirely in my own world of books and dusty artifacts; I read newspapers. I see how difficult things are right now, and I think it is admirable that you feel as you do. Many are completely indifferent to the sufferings of others.”

“But I cannot just
feel,
Lady Iverson! I must do something—do whatever I can.”

Sarah was confused, tangled up in emotions of admiration, attraction, guilt, dread. Her work was slipping away from her somehow, caught up in Lord Ransome’s conscience, and politics she could in no way control or even understand. She felt as if she was hanging on to her life by a tiny thread, and she was desperate to keep all she had in her grasp.

At the same time, paradoxically, her regard for Lord Ransome, the man who was taking it from her, grew. His passion, his compassion, touched her.

She pressed her fingers to her throbbing temples. “What—what then do you intend to do, Lord Ransome?”

“My uncle had many concerns other than his estate, as you know,” he answered, his voice quiet again, taut with his effort at calm coolness. “Ransome Hall is a desperately underused resource, and much farmland is uncultivated. Land that could provide jobs and food.”

“Including the land my village lies on,” she said, looking away from him. Her gaze landed on the painting resting on Mary Ann’s easel, a half-finished watercolor of what the Viking house would have looked like when it was newly built. She focused on it as if it were her one piece of reality.

“Yes, I’m afraid so,” Lord Ransome said. His tone was not lacking in understanding, but at the same time it was full of resolve. “I have spoken to Mr. Benson, the bailiff, and to many of the tenants and neighboring farmers. They tell me that the soil in that valley is rich, and ripe for crops.”

“That is why the Vikings settled there. I am sure that, if we could look further afield, we would find other sites such as farms and homes.” Sarah wanted to cry. She wanted to wail, and beat her heels on the floor, as Mary Ann and Kitty had as children. But those tantrums had never gained them a doll or a new hair ribbon, and it would not save her village now. All she could save really was her dignity, and she held on to that with all her strength. “The land is yours, of course, Lord Ransome. You must do with it as you see fit.”

Suddenly, much to her shock, he leaned forward and took her hand in his. His clasp was warm and strong.

Sarah’s fingers curled instinctively around his, and she peeked up at him through her lashes. He looked every bit as surprised as she felt, as if taking her hand had been an irresistible impulse. But he did not move away—and neither did she. He smelled of sunshine and soap, and she wanted to bury her face in that sweet cleanness and cry.

“I am sorry, Lady Iverson,” he said. “But there is no hurry. Surely there is time for you to finish the work?”

Sarah shook her head. “If I worked as other antiquarians do, simply digging for valuable objects and tossing the rest away, perhaps. But my husband believed, as I do, that our work has a greater importance. We are learning about the past, and preserving England’s heritage for future generations. My husband’s methods of recording and preserving as much as possible are very time consuming; that is why we have been here so long. We would have to stop and cover everything for the winter months, and resume in the spring. There is so much still to be found, that I am sure we would be here until next fall.” She stared down at their joined hands, just for a second, then pulled hers back and returned it to her lap. “You will need to be preparing the fields for your farm very soon.”

“Lady Iverson, I wish . . .” he began. His voice faded on the words.

“Yes.” Sarah did not want to sit there and discuss this any more. If they went on, she would truly start to cry. “Could we perhaps talk about this further at a later time, Lord Ransome? I was expected at the village quite a while ago, and they will wonder where I am.”

“Yes, certainly.” They rose, and walked back to the front door. There, he turned to her with a strangely wistful expression on his face. “I did so enjoy my afternoon at the village last week, Lady Iverson. I do wish . . .”

A sudden wild impulse seized Sarah, a crazy idea that maybe she could still make him see, make him
know
. If he had really enjoyed his time at the village, then maybe, just maybe . . . “Would you care to come with me, Lord Ransome?”

He gave her a startled look. “You would invite me to your village? Even after what I came here to say today?”

“You are only acting on your own convictions,” Sarah answered. “I do see that. And I hope that we have become friends of sorts in these last few days—even if we
are
of conflicting opinions.”

He smiled at her slowly. “Yes, Lady Iverson, I would like to think we are friends.”

“Good. Because I need as many laborers as possible right now, and if you come with me today, I will be sure to put you to work.” Sarah tried to speak in a light tone, even though she felt like her heart was broken in her chest. Tears and pleadings would avail her nothing, and would be tiring besides. She might as well be amiable.

“Of course, Lady Iverson. I hope that you will let me assist you in any way I can.”

“May I be of assistance, Miss Bellweather?”

Mary Ann looked up from the object she was prying from the ground at the sound of a lilting voice. Mr. O’Riley stood behind her, a pleasant, inquiring smile on his gauntly good-looking face. His green eyes shone like twin emeralds—or the hills of Ireland.

She suddenly had the oddest sensation that she couldn’t feel her fingers, and the trowel fell from them onto the ground. She opened her mouth to answer, but no sound emerged.

Oh, dear!
she thought. Was Sarah right? Had reading romantic novels so affected her mind that she would swoon away over any handsome man who looked her way? To be fair, Sarah had not said
exactly
that, but Mary Ann had the feeling that was what she had thought. And Mary Ann feared it might be correct.