Not by Sight (10 page)

A dog barked in the distance, then yelped, and Grace saw the cur tuck its tail and run behind a building for shelter. The woman selling bread actually left her cart in the street to walk toward the car, staring.

Seized with righteous indignation, Grace tucked her letter back inside her uniform. How dare they look at him that way! She marched back to the Daimler and slid behind the wheel.
Removing the brake, she swung the car around and headed back out of town.

“That was quick.” With the car’s motion, Lord Roxwood’s hand relaxed against the frame.

“I forgot to bring money,” she lied. “I’ll post my letter another time.”

“Ah, the freak comes to town and everyone has to stop and stare, is that it?”

Darting a glance at the mask, Grace wondered if she was being too harsh on the villagers for their reaction. To someone who had never caught sight of him before, the image he presented was frightening.

“I understand,” he said when she didn’t answer. “It must have been a very busy day in the village of Roxwood.”

Despite the light remark, Grace heard his bitterness. “More like busybodies,” she muttered. She slowed the Daimler, making the turn he’d indicated.

They began heading south on a well-maintained graveled road. “They’re just simpleminded folk.” Oddly she felt a need to assuage his pride. “When I first met you, I was a little surprised, but I’ve discovered you’re not a monster.”

“Ah, so that’s the current rumor they’re spreading.”

Why couldn’t she govern her tongue? “Such silliness,” she said.

“What else are they saying?”

Grace didn’t think it wise to reveal the outlandish things she’d heard. “You know how people talk,” she said vaguely.

“Tell me.”

She froze as he leaned closer to her.

“Now, Miss Mabry, unless you’d like to tell me more about yourself and your family?”

Grace needed no further prompting. “If you must know, I was told you had pointed ears and a hunched back, that you limp, which of course you don’t, and that you howl at the moon.”

The same choked noise—laughter—emerged from behind the steel mesh. “They say all that, do they?” he said finally. “I suppose it does make me a monster.”

He turned to the open window. Grace refocused her attention on the road. Plane trees bordered the pastureland to her left, while beyond lay an endless stretch of valley, dotted with majestic oaks and a body of water much larger than Camden Pond. “I see a lake, coming up on the left.”

“Harmon Lake.”

She glanced at him. “Did you fish there, as well?”

“Rarely,” he said. “Most of the time we took Grandfather’s small sailboat and crossed back and forth between shores. Harmon Lake is quite large.”

Indeed it was. Grace tried to imagine a small boat traversing such a body of water.

“Turn right just before the lake at Isle Crossing. Follow the road for about two miles until you reach the first hill.”

She did as she was told, and when they began to ascend the mild incline, he said, “Pull over at the crest. There should be a semicircular patch on which to park.”

Grace saw the place he’d described and marveled anew at his sense of direction and his powers of memory. Once she parked the car, he turned to her. “I’d like you to cross the road and walk about five hundred yards. You’ll know when to stop.”

His request surprised her. He must have sensed her hesitation. “The view is not for the simpleminded, Miss Mabry, therefore I think you’ll enjoy it.”

She blinked. He’d just given her a compliment. Was it due to her earlier defense of him? She thought to ask, but her curiosity to see a place he deemed worth looking at won out. “I won’t be long.”

Exiting the car, she traveled a short distance through woods scented with ferns and painted with a splash of white roses and
purple orchids. The faint, sweet smell of honeysuckle reached her nostrils as she came to a stop before a precipice overlooking a valley.

It was the same verdant stretch she’d seen earlier. To the east, the sun cast a pink glint against distant clouds, while below her the sparkle of water—a river—meandered like a shiny piece of ribbon across the vale floor. Forests rose in the distance, in varying shades of green, with red-berried hawthorn and the white catkins of sweet chestnut adding their touches of color.

Grace admitted the pastoral scene was unlike any she’d viewed in London, and much more beautiful. She wondered if Ireland might be like this. Da had often talked of his homeland. She’d heard the love in his voice and seen the wistful look in his eyes when he spoke of Uncle Brian’s farm outside Dublin. He had told her and Colin there were more shades of green to be seen on the island than in any other part of the world. If it was anything like this view, then she wanted to visit one day.

“Well?” Lord Roxwood demanded when she returned to the car.

“Magical.” Grace heard the wonder in her own voice. “I felt as though I were looking at a painting.”

“I call the spot Eden,” he said. “Who could not wish to paint such a paradise?” He tipped his masked face down. “The view was one of the most impressive I’ve ever seen.”

Was.
Compassion seized her, and for the first time Grace saw his guise as the infuriatingly arrogant employer begin to crack around the edges. He’d given her a gift, sharing with her a place once so beautiful to him, now lost forever. “Thank you,” she said. “I’m sure I will never forget it.”

He nodded, and Grace heard the rustling chink of metal.
Trapped from the beauty of the outside
world
. “Shall I drive on?” She didn’t wait for his agreement as she set the car back in
motion. Again she considered his kind gesture, and her mood lightened. Perhaps they might begin anew and enjoy being in each other’s company for a change.

“When we first met in my hedge maze, you said you worked for the Women’s Forage Corps. How did you come to be at Roxwood in particular?”

Her optimism faded. “I went where I was assigned. Why?”

“I was curious to know if you could choose your posting. Is your father affiliated with the WFC?”

“Of course not,” she said with impatience. “It was my choice to join up and do my part to help my brother and others in the cavalry by working to feed their horses.”

“Yes, you told me he’s in France. The BEF—British Expeditionary Force?”

“Yes, Colin is in the Second Cavalry Division.”

“Have you or your father attended any of the war aid benefits held in London? I ask because at one time I frequented several, doing my bit for our boys overseas.”

Grace’s mouth twisted in scorn. “Doing his bit” meant drinking, womanizing, and hiding out from the war.

“In fact, the last benefit was held at Lady Bassett’s home in April,” he said. “Perhaps we met there?”

She gripped the steering wheel tightly. Was he baiting her? Had he known all along she was at the ball? Grace’s mind raced. While she disliked being evasive with him, telling the truth would get her banished from Roxwood. “I believe I told you yesterday, my father stays too busy with his tea business to attend parties,” she said truthfully. “And while Lady Bassett remains his chief patroness, we are in trade, sir. Neither I nor my father have ever received such an illustrious invitation.” She omitted the fact she’d shown up at the ball without one.

“I’d like to know why you persist in these questions,” she said, taking the offensive. “In our brief time together you’ve
been more than a little keen to know about my family, my father in particular. Please tell me why.”

“I’m merely making polite conversation while we take in the country air.”

His interrogation was hardly polite. “I’ll make you a bargain,” she said as inspiration struck. “You can ask me a question, then I’ll ask you one. Does that sound fair?”

She could tell her terms annoyed him. He turned to face the open window, his fingers tapping against the doorframe. “All right,” he said finally, swinging the mask back around to face her. “I’ll go first. Have you and I ever met before? Prior to you chasing a pig into my labyrinth?”

The fine line she was treading seemed ready to snap. “We were never introduced, but I have seen you before,” she said with as much honesty as she dared.

“Aside from my photograph in the newspapers?”

“That’s two questions. I believe it’s my turn now. What kind of mask do you wear?”

“You’ll answer my question first.” His implacable tone resonated from behind the mesh. “Well? Yes or no?”

Grace chewed on her lower lip as she weighed how much to tell him. “Yes, aside from the newspapers, I did see you. You were getting into a hired cab,” she said, recalling his swift departure from Lady Bassett’s ball.

He snorted beneath the mask. “That could be any one of a thousand places.” He leaned back in his seat. His voice turned wistful as he added, “There was a time when I was always on my way somewhere.”

“I believe it’s my turn,” Grace said again, longing to change the subject.

He let out a deep breath. “It’s called a splatter mask. The metal slats over the eyes and the steel-mesh curtain across the mouth are designed to protect the wearer from metal and paint
flakes shearing off inside a tank during shelling.” He paused. “Tell me why you decided to join the Women’s Forage Corps.”

“It wasn’t my first choice. I wanted to become a munitionette at one of the factories in London, or drive a field ambulance with the First Aid Nursing Yeomanry, but Da—my father—wouldn’t allow it. He said it was far too dangerous.”

“Yet he approves of your baling hay for horses in the fields.”

“My turn,” she said. “Why do you wear the mask?”

She jumped when he leaned toward her and snapped, “Isn’t it obvious? I believe you got a good look the other day in the labyrinth.”

“I . . . I did,” she admitted. “But why wear such a macabre disguise?” She glanced at him. “The mask makes you look positively frightful.”

His shoulders eased as he retreated from her a safe distance. “It protects my face. My burns are still healing, and direct sunlight is bad for the skin, or so my physician tells me. As to why I wear this particular covering, well . . . what else would a monster wear?”

Hearing his bitter tone, she looked down to see his hand fisted against the seat.

“Well?” he said.

“I suspect my father allowed me to join the WFC because he was concerned over the recent bombings in London and wanted me safely away,” she said quietly. “And he also happens to be Irish.”

“I understand the first reason, but why does being Irish matter?”

She smiled. “Everyone knows the Irish love the land. Aiding the war effort in this way is both noble and relatively safe, so Agnes and I signed up and were sent here to Roxwood.”

“Agnes?”

Grace tired of keeping track of whose turn it was. “She’s
my maid from London.” She looked at him. “Do they hurt? The burns, I mean.”

“I’m very tired, Miss Mabry. If you’d turn the car around at the first opportunity, I’d like to return home.”

Apparently his scars were off-limits. Grace did as he asked and soon had the car heading back toward the manor. When she parked the car and made to exit, he surprised her by opening his own door. “Until Monday,” he said, hauling himself from the Daimler.

“You’re certain about church tomorrow?” she called to him. Oddly, the notion of his staying at home alone bothered her. The villagers might see him as less frightful and more God-fearing if he at least attended services with them.

“Good day to you, Miss Mabry.” He turned his back on her and mounted the steps.

Watching him, Grace felt a jumble of sentiment: irritation at his demands and his constant barrage of questions, but also compassion, as she felt driven to defend his privacy after seeing how others looked at him. Then later, when he’d shared with her the place so very special to him, Eden . . .

Grace felt her insides flutter. He’d complimented her, allowing her to see a side of him rarely revealed to anyone else. It felt intimate in some way.

As she drove the Daimler to the garage, she considered that despite the few answers she’d received from him today, Jack Benningham was an even greater mystery to her now than before.

7

“It’s about time you got here.” Clare Danner stood at the barn doors with a handful of burlap sacks and a shovel. “Lord Roxwood kept you longer than usual?”

Grace climbed off her bicycle. “Yes, now that he knows I won’t crash the car, he actually let me drive him beyond the estate. We headed toward Canterbury.”

“Canterbury?” Clare straightened. “What did you see there?”

“We didn’t go into the town, just as far as Harmon Lake. The scenery was delightful.” She noted Clare’s pale expression. “Is something wrong?”

“No,” she said quickly, then added, “Come with me. You and I are making chaff for the horses.” Carrying her supplies, Clare stepped into the barn through its big double doors. Grace was left to follow.

Inside the dimly lit interior stood a mountain of dried hay, and beside it, a metal stand waist-high with a large cutting wheel and crank handle.

Beneath the stand sat a wooden crate. “Did you make chaff at the training farm?”

Grace shook her head, relieved Clare’s question held no mockery.

“This is last year’s straw, mixed with a bit of hay. You’ll feed it into the chute”—Clare pointed to a metal trough on the opposite side of the stand—“while I chop it with the cutting wheel. Once we’ve filled the crate, we’ll bag it.” She dropped the burlap sacks to the ground. “With hay and oats in short supply, the cavalry uses it to bulk up the horses’ feed. All right, let’s get started,” she said with a nod.

Grace pulled on her gloves and began feeding the straw into the chute. Clare cranked the wheel, and the blades sliced it into bite-sized chunks that fell into the crate.

“Have you been to Canterbury?” Grace asked after a few minutes.

Clare’s head shot up. “No. Why?”

“You just seemed a bit surprised when I mentioned the town.” Grace pushed more straw through the trough. “I thought you must have been there, that’s all.”

“Well, you’re mistaken.” Clare’s tone was curt. “Did you go anywhere else?”

“We made a quick stop in the village.” The memory sparked Grace’s ire all over again. “They apparently don’t get too many visitors in blue Daimlers.”

Clare stared at her. “And having the Tin Man seated inside wasn’t a curiosity?”

“They give
bumpkin
a new meaning,” Grace said, frowning. “Scads of them stopped in the streets, gawking like he was the bogeyman come to run off with their children.” She shoved another wad of straw into the machine. “It isn’t as if he can help the way he looks.”

“That doesn’t stop people from being cruel.”

Grace glanced up, surprised at Clare’s bitter tone. Ironic when the woman herself had been mean-spirited toward Grace
when she first arrived. “Ignorance and fear can breed that sort of attitude,” she agreed, not wishing to strain their fragile bond.

“You’ve got the hang of it.” Clare nodded approvingly. “We’ll switch off after a while. Making chaff by hand definitely tires out your arms.”

Grace beamed. Clare’s praise felt like a balm, easing her guilt at being only part-time help to her co-workers. It also felt good to know she was helping her brother and their horses, even if it was in a small way. The sooner the war was won, the sooner Colin could come home. She longed to see him and tell him how proud she was. She prayed she would have the chance.

Oh, Lord, please keep him
safe.
Her heart squeezed as fear and doubt shoved their way into her thoughts. If something happened to him in France . . .

“Mabry, what’s wrong?”

Clare’s voice reached her. Grace looked up, shaking off the dark mood. “I’m fine.” She reached for another sheaf.

“Are you sick?”

Grace shook her head. She didn’t often experience this clairvoyance with her twin: only twice before, once when Colin contracted a serious fever during an expedition with his British Boy Scouts, and another time when she and her brother went out riding together. That time, Colin failed to duck for a low-hanging branch and fell off his horse, breaking his arm.

Now she was having that same impression again. “Have you ever felt a sense of impending doom . . . about someone close to you?”

Clare’s pretty features formed a scowl, but Grace caught her look of pain. “Why do you want to know?”

“My brother is at the Front, and I have a bad feeling. Colin could be wounded.” She hesitated. “Or worse.”

“Grace, you can’t let your emotions prey upon you.” Clare’s tone was hard. “Your brother will come home to you. We can’t
give up hope. . . .” Her voice trailed off as she began cranking the wheel harder.

“Are you also waiting for someone to come home?”

Clare stopped her work and seemed to consider Grace a long moment before she said, “I suppose I can trust you. After all, you did tell that outrageous story about the pigs.” She took a deep breath. “I do have someone,” she said softly. “She’s not fighting in the war overseas, but I won’t give up until I find her.”

“Who?” Grace asked gently.

Clare pulled off a glove and reached beneath her uniform for the flower pendant. “Daisy.” Her gaze, normally like flint, gleamed with unshed tears. “My daughter.”

Grace felt too surprised to speak. Finally she said, “Her father . . . ?”

Clare made a face, but the sadness lingered. “The son of a viscount. His family seat is in the north. I was an upstairs maid with grand dreams and little sense.” She gave the chaffing wheel another turn. “Once he learned I carried his child, he wanted nothing more to do with me.

“I was a good girl.” She cast an imploring look at Grace. “I loved him and I thought he would be honorable. He made me all sorts of promises, you know, before . . .” A shuddering sigh escaped her. “His mother had me sent off to a Magdalene House. After I had the child, they took her from me, my little girl. I managed to leave the place. His lordliness must have felt guilty. I left the city then. I wanted to change my life, and the WFC offered me that chance. I hoped to earn enough money to hire someone to find my Daisy and bring her back to me.”

“I saw you this morning,” Grace said. “You spoke to a gentleman inside the cobbler’s shop.”

Clare nodded. “When you mentioned Canterbury, I nearly fainted. He’d just told me of a report that Daisy is being fos
tered by a family there. I won’t know for certain until he makes more inquiries.”

Her face crumpled with tears. “A miracle brought me here, working in this place so close to her. But we’ll only be here a few weeks. I can’t bear knowing she might be less than an hour from me and yet I might lose her again.”

“Oh, Clare.” Grace came around the machine and hugged her. She’d been shocked at first by the confession, but her compassion won out as she realized Clare had lost a child. And if Grace had learned anything from women’s suffrage, it was that men were generally full of vainglory and enjoyed manipulating women to their whims. “I’m so sorry for what you must be going through,” she whispered. “No wonder you dislike aristocrats so much.”

Clare looked up teary-eyed, and both women began to laugh.

“I’ve shared my secret, Grace,” she said once they’d sobered. “I hope you won’t judge me too harshly, not after the way I’ve treated you.”

“Nonsense. It’s in the past.” Grace smiled. “Now, please, let me know what I can do to help. I’ll even drive you to Canterbury when the time comes to go and get your little girl. How old is Daisy?”

“A year,” Clare said. “Her birthday was the eighth, the day you arrived.” She put a hand on Grace’s shoulder. “I was so upset. I shouldn’t have taken it out on you.”

“No, you shouldn’t have,” Grace agreed. “But we’re friends now, right?”

Clare squeezed her shoulder. “Friends.”

“And besides, look where I landed. After the pig fiasco, I’m still with the WFC
and
I get to drive Lord Roxwood all over creation.” She winked. “Not bad for a day’s disaster, is it?”

Clare flashed another smile. Grace said, “You should do that more often, you know. You’re very pretty, Clare Danner, when you’re not scowling at the world.”

“And you are quite the worker.” Clare indicated the bin now full of chaff. “You’ve also learned to dig proper ditches, and Becky told me yesterday you did a good job helping with the new fence. The fact is, Grace, I think you’re finally one of us.”

“Grace, how was your m-morning with the Tin Man?” Lucy reached for a slice of Becky’s delicious barley bread and dipped it into her bowl of vegetable soup. “Is he still asking lots of questions?”

“We take turns now.” Grace stirred at the hot broth in her bowl with her spoon. The fragrant aroma of celery, onions, and leeks rose to greet her hungry senses. “He asks me a question, then I ask him one. Since he dislikes my prying into his life, I believe it’s helping to curb his curiosity with mine.”

“What kinds of things do you ask him?” Becky paused in buttering her fourth slice. “If he only howls at the full moon?”

Laughter erupted around the table. “Of course not,” Grace said, grinning. “But I did ask about his mask.”

That got everyone’s attention. “Well?” Becky seemed captivated, spreading butter on her fingers instead of the bread.

“A splatter mask,” Grace said. She then relayed his explanation and reasons for wearing it.

Lucy asked, “Did he say how he g-got burned?”

“No, but the accident was in the papers months ago.” She told them about his townhouse burning but withheld details of how the blaze got started. No reason to sully his reputation further by telling them he was reported to be quite inebriated when it happened.

“So the Tin Man is also the heir to an earldom?” Becky stared at her, wide-eyed, wiping her buttery fingers on a cloth napkin. “Did you know him from London?”

Grace hesitated and turned to Agnes, seated a couple of
chairs away. She concluded from her maid’s slight shake of the head that neither of them wished to share how Grace first met Jack Benningham.

“What does it matter? He’s an aristocrat,” Clare said. Her new friend grabbed an apple from the bowl on the table and winked at Grace. “And I for one do not wish to sit here and listen while she bores us with his list of lordly titles and estates.”

Grace offered an appreciative smile, knowing Clare had purposely diverted everyone’s attention from broaching the subject further.

“Let’s eat up, girls. We’ve got church early in the morning.”

Mrs. Vance rose from the table with her empty kit and took it to the sink to wash it. “I think Mabry, Danner, and Pierpont get first crack at the tub tonight.”

Grace sighed. A hot bath! Later, after she’d scrubbed away the day’s grime and bits of straw accumulated beneath her uniform, she donned her nightgown and climbed into bed. Before one of the girls dimmed the lights, she grabbed up her journal and thought about her next outing with Lord Roxwood. She determined to start writing down all the questions she could possibly think to ask him.

Grace had to admit that despite his prickly nature and his questions, she looked forward to a new adventure each day. And he had shared that lovely view with her . . .

Perhaps he was undergoing a change of heart toward her, after all.