Columbine (10 page)

He glanced briefly at Kit, then down at the ground.

“The lass meant no harm, Master Sparhawk, an’ I’ll see she’ll not do it again,” he said contritely.

“Now fetch Mercy, Annie, an’ we’d best go home.”

It was all Kit could do not to pick Dianna up out of the dirt himself. He had never hit a woman, nor would he ever order one whipped, despite what that old fool Wing had said. She looked so small and pitiful, rubbing the dirt from her hands as she slowly rose to her feet, that he instantly regretted what he’d said about her. No, not what he’d said, for that was the truth. But regretted that she’d overheard him. He wished he could let her leave her mistakes behind and begin all over with her, as he would with any other Woman he might meet. But that meant wishing away the past, and not even the Sparhawks had the power to do that.

Drawn by the noise, Mercy came behind him, her small hand clutching the hem of his shirt. For one bittersweet moment, Kit let himself imagine it was his sister Tamsin there instead, giggling, counting on him to rescue her again from whatever mischief she’d started. But he hadn’t rescued her when she’d needed him most, and she’d been only seven then, Mercy’s age.

With measured carefulness, Dianna smoothed back her hair and brushed the new dirt from the fall off her sooty apron. Only then did she dare to meet Kit’s eyes. But instead of the smug satisfaction she’d dreaded to find on his handsome face, there was nothing. His thoughts were clearly a thousand miles away, and she felt his disinterest more sharply than the contempt she’d been prepared for. It hurt her feelings, but more than that, it hurt the one thing she still clung to most: her pride.

She would adapt, and she would learn what they knew. She would survive. She would prove to them all that Lady Dianna Grey could be as clever, as resourceful, as any Yankee woman.

And she would make certain that Kit Sparhawk could never again call her an ignorant hussy.

“You will pay for this, little brother,” said Kit in exasperation as he climbed down from Thunder’s back, “and I’ll make certain that you’ll pay in blood.”

But Jonathan only laughed.

“After that debacle with little lost Lady Grey, I thought you’d welcome the chance to restore your confidence with the fair sex. Consider this my last gift to you before I sail.

Though you’re not being particularly grateful.”

“I’m feeling ambushed, that’s why,” said Kit glumly, wishing he’d told his brother last night that Dianna Grey was now anything but lost. He tied their two horses to one of the rings fastened to the oak tree on the green, then resettled his hat, the dark red plume fluttering in the breeze.

“To bring Constance here to Wickhamton, to the meetinghouse on the Sabbath, for God’s sake!”

Jonathan shrugged and brushed a nonexistent speck of dust from his coat.

“I merely served as the lady’s escort from New London so that she might visit her aunt.”

“So she might visit herself on me like a plague is more the truth,” grumbled Kit.

“Well, let’s get on with it, or she’ll talk the ears off Dr. Manning.”

They walked slowly toward the meeting house, Kit measuring his steps to match his brother’s limp and in no hurry to reach the young woman waving madly from the porch. She was dressed more for a ball than Sabbath services, her purple, quilted cloak turned back to show a yellow satin gown cut far too low to be appropriate, and the way she was shrieking his name set his teeth on edge. Oh, she was pretty enough with her golden curls and pert little nose, but to have her here, in his own town, where he couldn’t avoid her chattering and her husband-hunting tactics, was almost enough to make him join Jonathan on the Prosperity.

Inside the meeting house, Dianna sat alone on one of the back benches reserved for servants. Neither she nor her father had been much for church-going, but Asa had been adamant about her bringing Mercy to Sabbath services, though, Dianna noticed, he showed no interest in going himself. Still, the morning had dawned sunny and with the first warm promise of spring, and Dianna was eager to see Wickhamton, at three miles away the nearest town. Even Mercy had seemed less hostile, though she had been quick enough to abandon Dianna to her place with the servants while she joined another family closer to the front.

Dianna watched as the congregation gradually straggled in, hoping Hester would come and join hex.

Asa had made the service sound like a grim, serious affair, but at least beforehand people were whispering and smiling among themselves, and Dianna wished Hester were here to identify everyone and perhaps introduce her. So far she had received only nods and curious stares in response to her shy smiles, and when, at last, another young woman came to sit beside her, she eagerly made room.

The newcomer introduced herself as Ruth and made a great show of arranging her skirts neatly on the bench on either side of her.

“I don’t know how my mistress thinks she’d fare in a forsaken place like this,” she sniffed.

“She’d perish, she would! Our meeting house in New London’s ten times finer than this, with silver candlesticks an’ carving on the’ pulpit!”

True, the Wickhamton meeting house was plain, the wails simply whitewashed and the benches pegged together from pine. There were no statues and no stained glass, none of the rich cushions for kneeling or embroidered hangings that Dianna remembered from the churches in London. But she doubted the New London meeting house was so much grander that Ruth had reason to complain, and, besides, Dianna liked the building’s simplicity, much as she liked Plumstead’s and much, too, as she already disliked Ruth.

“You are visiting?”

“My mistress be here by the’ especial invitation of a certain gentleman,” said Ruth archly.

“Though, of course, as is proper, she stays wit’ her aunt, Madame Bass.”

Before Dianna could ask the man’s name, Ruth leaned forward excitedly.

“Oh, there they be now!

Did ye ever see a more handsome couple?”

Dianna looked, and her heart sank. Walking proudly to the first bench was Kit, his dark green velvet coat the ideal color for his eyes, the white linen of his shirt in striking contrast to his sun browned face. No other man there could even come close to him, decided Dianna sadly, except perhaps Jonathan, though Dianna found his darker coloring less appealing than Kit’s gold.

But while under one arm Kit carded a wide-brimmed beaver hat with a plume, tucked beneath the other was the hand of a young woman every bit as fair as himself. She was elegantly tall, her movements fashionably languid. Her blond hair was artfully dressed in a tumble of curls, crowned by a tiny lace cap, and her skin was pale and perfect. As Kit stepped to one side to let her pass, she smiled brilliantly at him and boldly brushed her skirts across his legs as she moved by him.

“That be my mistress, Constance Lindsey,” whispered Ruth importantly.

“Don’t that gown become her? It’s in the latest fashion at court.”

“Nay, it’s not,” Dianna whispered back. It was small of her, she knew, but she couldn’t help herself.

“No one’s worn turned-back petticoats for at least three seasons. I’m new arrived from London myself,” she added hastily as Ruth eyed her with suspicion.

“Well, no matter, it does become her,” said Ruth firmly.

“And when she marries Master Sparhawk, then he can take her to London an’ she can see for herself. Master Sparhawk be rich enough t’give her whatever she fancies.”

Dianna tried to keep her whispered voice level.

“They are betrothed?”

Ruth tossed her head.

“Well, nay, not yet, but they will be before she goes back to New London.” Behind them an older woman shushed Ruth loudly, and Dianna realized that, while they’d been whispering,

the service had begun. She bowed her head with the others, glad no one could see the unhappiness she knew clouded her face.

Miserably she pictured herself as she must look in Lucy Wing’s worn grey linsey-woolsey, her haft braided beneath a plain white cap. Her hands were red and rough from the cold, and when she’d caught sight of her reflection this morning in a polished pewter bowl, she had been shocked by how pale and thin her face had become. She had never been a beauty like Constance Lindsey, but, oh, how she wished Kit had seen her, just once, before her father’s death, when she had been plump and merry and beautifully dressed!

Trapped. That was how Kit felt. Trapped, with Constance pressing into him as she pretended to study her prayer book. At least she held it right side up; he doubted she was smart enough to know the difference. He glanced down at her half-naked breasts, and she simpered slyly back at him. He liked female flesh as much as any man—more, perhaps—but so much of Constance on display on a Sunday morning was vulgar, not seductive and again, he doubted she knew the difference. If he had anything to say about it, she would be on her way back to New London in the morning.

“Of course, my mistress will send the’ little chit packing,” Ruth was whispering crossly.

“Look at her, sitting plain as day between Master Christopher an’ Cap’n Jonathan!”

Dianna saw Mercy’s small head barely showing above the bench, her little white cap flanked by the two broad-shouldered Sparhawk men. As she watched, Mercy tugged on Kit’s sleeve, and he bent down to listen. Dianna smiled. She didn’t know how Mercy had managed it, but Dianna was delighted for once to see her claiming her share of Kit’s attention.

“My poor mistress!” sputtered Ruth indignantly.

“To be forced t’bear such shame! That he would bring his little bastard wit’ him into meeting! He might not care about the’ gossip, but, oh, poor Mistress Constance!”

Her thoughts spinning, Dianna once again bowed her head. There was nothing beyond this woman’s gossip that said Mercy was Kit’s daughter, no resemblance between them. Yet it could explain so much.

What had Asa said—that Mercy could not replace the other Kit had lost. Was the other Lucy Wing, the wife of a man he called his friend? First the woman in Saybrook, and now this. Troubled and confused, Dianna found herself praying for the strength to keep away from Kit Sparhawk.

Kit knew Dianna was there. He had found her the moment he’d entered the door, and her presence only made Constance all the more unbearable. He felt badly about what had happened yesterday. Servant or no, Asa should not have struck her, and he should not have let it happen. That Hester had railed at him about the girl while she slammed pots and kettles about in the kitchen hadn’t helped, either. He was surprised that Dianna wanted to learn from Hester.

He hadn’t expected that from her, any more than he’d expected her to fly at him for merely calling her a hussy. He still thought her a strumpet, though Jonathan had scoffed and Called him a righteous prig and said the girl could not be blamed for the gossip of others.

Almost unconsciously Kit’s eyes strayed back to the se ant bench, where the morning light streamed over Dianna’s small figure. He liked her in the pale, simple clothing, a foil to her aristocratic features and dramatic coloring. The sunlight caught her in profile, outlining her nose with the little bump on the bridge, her full lower lip, her dimpled chin.

Kit could not believe that Jonathan had dismissed her as a little wren: there was more grace in the line of Dianna Grey’s throat than in Constance’s entire body. If she were a little wren, then Constance was an over-bright, squawking parrot and Jonathan was welcome to her.

Somehow Dianna sensed he was studying her and she turned her face toward him her lips slightly parted with surprise. For a moment, across the rows of bowed heads, their eyes met. A soft flush colored her cheeks and she quickly looked down.

Reluctantly Kit tried to return his attention to Dr. Manning’s sermon. This was his first Sunday home after a long and difficult journey and he had much to be thankful for: Jonathan’s recovery, a profitable voyage with the loss of only one man, a good harvest at Plumstead while he’d been away. And yet all his best intentions toward prayer were pushed aside by the thought of Dianna behind him.

When the break in the services came in early afternoon, Kit was the first to his feet, impatiently searching for Dianna. He wanted to find her, talk to her, not to apologize exactly, but to say he understood how difficult Asa could be. But with Constance hanging on his arm and a crowd of neighbors welcoming him home, he was one of the last to leave the meetinghouse. Outside, the congregation dawdled in the churchyard in the warm spring sunshine, chatting among themselves as the baskets with cold suppers were unpacked from wagons and horses. Kit spotted Dianna at once. She was hard to miss, with Jonathan in his scarlet coat dawdling beside her, giving her the full benefit of his considerable charm. Kit almost swore, remembering in time that it was the Sabbath. But it was so like Jonathan to saddle him with Constance and then go after Dianna himself.

“I swear you’ve not heard a word I’ve told you, Christopher,” Constance was saying petulantly.

“You’d sooner see me starve than fetch me my supper!”

But before Kit answered, a man on horseback cantered up to the meetinghouse, sending children and a neighbor’s chickens scurrying for safety. The rider laughed and cruelly jerked the horse’s head around, scattering flecks of spittle and blood from its mouth.

He was a heavy-set man and strong, easily controlling the horse with one gloved hand. His round, florid face was framed by a black, curling beard streaked with white, and his hair was carelessly tied back with a limp riband. A single pearl on a gold loop dangled from one ear. His clothes were expensive, velvet and broadcloth, though stained with neglect, and his tall boots, too, were scuffed and mud-stained, the silver spurs glinting in the sun.

“Sparhawk!” the man called to Kit, challenging.

“Sacrd sang, the savages for once did not lie, and your filthy English soul is back among us!”

“Haul your black carcass out of the sight of decent folk, Robillard,” answered Kit evenly, but the threat in his voice was clear. The crowd around him had melted away, leaving an open path between him and the rider, and even Constance had vanished.