The Bishop's Daughter (11 page)

Harry raised his shoulders in a shrug that was perhaps a shade too nonchalant. "I didn't suppose anyone would much care."

"There are a great many people who do." She swallowed. "I-I am quite fond of you, my lord."

"Kate!"

"And I trust we shall always be friends," she added primly.

Harry moved closer, stealing his arm about her waist. "I hope so, too. I know I am considered hopelessly unfashionable, but I think it much better when married people can remain friends."

He saw the flash of alarm in her eyes and knew he was rushing his fences. Though it took a great effort of will on his part, he withdrew his arm. "No need to look so panicked," he said. "That wasn't the beginning of another proposal. I never ask girls to marry me on Sunday."

When she cast him a doubtful glance, he drew himself up with feigned sternness. "It's supposed to be a day of rest, Miss Towers. As a bishop's daughter, you should know that."

An indignant gasp escaped her that turned into a most unwilling gurgle of laughter. "Oh, Harry, you really are abominable."

"That's better," he approved, turning his attention back to his restive horses, giving them the office to start up again. "I thought you were going to 'my lord' me to death.”

The team set off down the road, the jauntiness in their step that was reflected in the lifting of Harry's own spirits. True, Kate's response had not been all that he had hoped. She was not ready to cast herself into his arms, but at least he had got her to smile. And Harry had learned to be a trifle more patient than he had been two years ago.

Kate struggled to school her face into a more prim expression, but it was a losing battle. Harry had always been able to make her laugh when she tried too hard to be serious. He grinned at her and tossed the reins in her lap. Kate caught them in a gesture that was almost reflexive.

"Do you still remember?" he asked.

"Of course I do," Kate said, taking up the challenge, gathering up the leather in a firm, but graceful grip. It was Harry himself who had taught her to handle a team. He watched her critically for a moment, then relaxed back against the seat appearing satisfied with her performance.

It was not an accomplishment of which her Papa would ever have approved, but Kate could not help a glow of pride creeping into her cheeks. Harry did not permit just anyone to drive his chestnuts.

As the team followed the winding lane, sweeping past the hedgerows and fields, Kate sensed another distance being closed as well—the span of two years. The constraint she had expected to feel with Harry simply did not exist. It was as though all those lonely, empty days, weeks, months had never been.

She sensed that Harry felt it, too. He loosened his cravat, heaving a contented sigh.

"Lord, it's good to be home. I had nigh forgotten how green it all is here. Nothing has changed," he added softly, looking toward her. She knew from the warmth in his eyes he was speaking of more than his lands.

Her heart gave an answering flutter and she half started to agree with him. But memory intruded. Something indeed had changed since that spring. There was a freshly laid stone among all other aged memorials in the vast cold halls of Chillingsworth Cathedral.

Kate's shoulders sagged beneath a mixed weight of sorrow and guilt. Harry read the change in her expression all too well.

"I was sorry to hear about your father," he said.

He spoke with a quiet simplicity, and Kate knew that, despite the differences that had existed between him and the late bishop, Harry meant it.

"Thank you," she murmured. Although Harry had been away in London at the time of her father's death, a spray of flowers had found its way to her door. The enclosed card had borne but one word, Harry. Yet somehow that had brought her more consolation than all the scriptural outpourings of her father's ecclesiastical friends.

It had not been long after that she had received the tidings that Harry had bought his commission. Kate had been deeply troubled by this rash action, and she ventured to mention it to him.

"I was worried about you when I heard you joined the army. I was afraid that perhaps it was all my doing—that I was to blame."

"Because I was nursing a broken heart? Nonsense, Kate. You know I have a tougher hide than that. No, it was simply that London was becoming a dead bore and, in any event, it's family tradition. All the Lytton men at sometime or other seem to have gotten a mad hankering to run off to be a soldier." After a pause, Harry said, "Though I don't know why. Rum business soldiering."

Despite the offhand nature of the comment, something in Harry's tone caused Kate to glance at him. His features had stilled into somber lines, a darkness gathered in the wells of his eyes that Kate had never seen there before. Kate realized Harry had sustained more wounds at Waterloo than just his arm. So full of life himself, he was not the sort of man to take pleasure in death, not even of his enemies.

She longed to reach out to him, comfort him, but as ever Harry was quick to toss off his own somber mood with a jest. He proceeded to assure her with mock solemnity, "You see me returned home, my Kate, content to live the rest of my life as a sober country gentleman. I intended to become so stuffed with respectability, my tailor shall have to let out my waistcoats."

Kate could not quite prevent her brow from quirking in dubious fashion. Harry began to make all sort of outrageous promises that ranged from attending church every Sunday to never engaging in any sport more dangerous than whist for a penny a point.

Although he had her laughing as they drew near the turning to Huddleston farm, Kate could not forebear remarking, "I hope all this newfound respectability includes showing a greater interest in your estates."

"Oh, indubitably," Harry said, taking the reins from her, guiding the curricle past the stile.

The Huddlestons were some of Harry's best tenants. The wide welcoming barnyard was as well noted for its flock of speckled hens as for its brood of lively, sandy-haired children. The only thing that marred the appearance of the, snug, solidly built stone farmhouse was that one end of the thatched roof had through time and neglect begun to sag.

"Lord!" Harry exclaimed in shock as he reined in his team.

Kate half turned to him, not wishing Harry to be too distraught with remorse. After all, he had been away so long, but any reassurance she had been about to give was cut off when Harry emitted a low whistle.

"Damn! But those children have grown several hands since I saw them last. Even little Jack."

So saying, Harry was quick to alight. He handed down Kate and was soon swallowed in a sea of freckled faces. Despite the passage of time, he was somehow still able to identify all the little Huddlestons by name.

Kate could only gape at him as she realized that Harry didn't seem to notice the roof was about to cave in on their heads. She could have shaken him, but it would have taken a far more hard-hearted female not to melt at the sight of Harry tossing a small girl up onto his shoulders, her braids flying amid squeals of delight.

"Oh, Harry." Kate sighed, shaking her head ruefully. So charming, but so irresponsible, just as the bishop had always said.

And even though Kate could not help smiling as she followed Harry toward the house, a string of little ones hanging on to his coattails, she could feel the shadow of her father once more passing between them.

Dawn broke over Mapleshade, a fine mist shrouding the distant majesty of the towering trees, golden light spilling across the dewy green lawn until it resembled some lush carpet scattered with pearls. Harry peered out the study window, rubbing eyes gritty from lack of sleep.

It was not the first time he had watched the sun come up over his parklands. He had often witnessed this magnificent spectacle after one of those grueling all-night card sessions with his father, or riding home in the wee hours, his head splitting from carousing at one of the inns in Chillingsworth.

This time, however, it was a far different reason that found him out of his bed at daybreak. Wearily, Harry's gaze tracked to the oak desk littered with sheets of rumpled parchment, the candle that was no more than a charred wick protruding from a lump of dried wax. The scene bore mute testimony to his nightlong labors, going over the condition of his estate—a most dismaying and unrewarding task.

Massaging some of the stiffness from his neck, Harry turned back to the far more agreeable prospect that lay just outside his window. He had never been given much to flights of fancy, but his lands, beneath the sun's first rays, bore an aura of enchantment, the mists and soft light conjuring up images of days gone by.

Harry could well imagine the first earl, that dashing cavalier, charging across the lawn toward the Hill, the plumes of his hat waving, his sword drawn in defiance against Cromwell's soldiers, his bold deeds winning for him the heart of his lady fair.

Aye, Harry envied that ancient lord. How easy he had had things. Merely rattle his saber, hold Mapleshade against a score or so of Roundheads, mayhap endure a wound or two, and the woman of his dreams had melted into his embrace.

"But I'll wager the woman in question was not a bishop's daughter," Harry murmured with a wry smile. He had not seen Kate since he had driven her home from church five days ago, and their parting had been far from warm.

He had sensed the change in her immediately after, what had been for him, a most delightful visit to Huddleston's farm. But as he had handed Kate back into the curricle, she had been distant, taking refuge behind the prim demeanor he knew far too well.

When he had set her down at her own gate, she had attempted to fob him off with a stiff handshake. But he had held her fast, summoning up his most engaging grin.

"Now what have I done wrong, Kate?"

She refused to answer him, merely looking flustered. Finally he did manage to goad her into saying, "It is not so much what you have done, my lord, as what you have not."

As Harry tried to figure out what the devil that meant, Kate disengaged her hand.  "Forgive me, my lord. It is not my place to say— Good afternoon and thank you so much for bringing me home."

She had given him a look, at once so sad and somehow filled with disappointment, before fleeing into the sanctuary of her cottage, leaving Harry standing at the gate, feeling more confused than ever.

It was then that he had discovered the advantage of having an ally within Kate's stronghold. Kate might continue to try to avoid him, but not so her grandmama. When he had asked Lady Dane if she knew what had gone awry, that formidable dame did not mince words.

"It's the state of your tenants' farms, you young cawker. Kate feels you haven't been doing your duty by them and the heavens forfend! If there was one word that girl was taught the meaning of before she could even say 'mama,' it was duty."

At first, Harry had waxed indignant against the charge. He might not be the best of landlords, but as for neglect! He frequently passed by his tenants farms on horseback, enjoyed tousling the curls of the babes, jesting with the men, playfully flirting with their good wives, listening to the grandfathers spin tales of their youth.

But he took enough heed of what Lady Dane had told him to ride back to the Huddleston place and study it through more critical eyes. What he saw caused his face to burn with shame. The roof was all but coming down upon their heads.

As in turn he examined his other properties, he made discoveries equally as mortifying. No wonder Kate thought him such a frippery fellow.

Hence his midnight session, trying to sort out the problems of the estate, poring over accounts until his head ached, wondering what was to be done, not quite knowing where to begin. As he had paced before the study window, watching the sun rise, he had at last in desperation sent for his steward.

A soft knock at the door alerted him of Warren’s approach. Harry hastened to settle himself behind the desk, attempting to arrange the papers into a tidier heap.

"Come in," he called.

The steward crept into the room. Warren was a thin man, as dry as the parchment sheets of ancient ledgers, his eyes the color of faded ink.

"You sent for me, my lord?" he asked in a hesitant tone.

"Yes, I did."

Warren looked utterly confounded. Harry supposed he could understand why. In truth, he had never paid more heed to Warren than to one of the books in the library, devoting his interest to the advice of his head groom or his gameskeeper.

"Come and sit down," Harry said.

Warren did so, but he perched on the very edge of his seat as though yet expecting to find that the request for his presence had all been a mistake. His dull eyes drooped from the weight of skin bagging beneath them. Harry experienced a twinge of guilt as it occurred to him that he had dragged the old man from his bed at a most unreasonable hour.

But when Harry apologized, the steward protested, "Nay, my lord, I was awake. It has been a lifelong habit of mine to be up at first light of day."

"Mine as well." Harry grimaced and then moved on to the purpose of the interview. "I have been making a tour of the estate."

Warren's eyes rounded with even greater astonishment.