The Mistress of Tall Acre (41 page)

Upstairs, she passed down the hall to his room, struck by its starkness. She’d had no cause to come here before. ’Twas completely masculine, a shock to her feminine senses. No doubt he’d find her chamber just as strange with its frills and flourishes. She shut the door and allowed herself a few luxurious liberties. A linen shirt hung from a near peg. She reached for it as hungrily as if it had been Seamus himself, burying her face in its soft, scented folds. Her fingers grazed the razor and leather case on his shaving stand, the soap and toiletries scented with lime and sandalwood. A linen stock lay beside a clothes brush and a nest of queue ribbons. Across the room a cupboard door stood ajar, revealing fine broadcloth suits. She wondered where he kept his uniform. His cocked hat with its finely worked cockade rested in a window ledge.

The bed . . . it was so big. Did a man need so much room? Once Florie brought her a nightgown, she used the bed steps to climb atop the high tester, the lush feather mattress sinking beneath her weight.

She’d rather have Seamus than his room, the comfort of his arms rather than the warmest coverlet. But even this was far more than she’d ever dreamed of.

After working at his desk till midnight, Seamus checked all the doors in the house. Once in Sophie’s bedchamber, he nearly forgot the threatening note. Evidence of her trousseau—a hat and gloves and stockings—lay about in provocative disarray. Two dresses he’d never seen were draped across a love seat. He studied them, tongue in cheek. Was she trying to tempt him? Or had Florie just left things untended?

He was more undone when he lay down. The bed linens held her subtle scent, the pillow a slight indentation. A lone candle threw light around the room, calling out all the ways she’d made it hers. He rolled over, facing the wall where the shadows were the thickest.

She was overhead, sleeping in his very bed. Did she ever think of him in a more than practical way? Need him . . . desire him? Did she ever long to embrace the life God meant for them as husband and wife? That holy, mysterious intertwining marriage wrought? Not just in body but in soul?

Despite his ongoing anguish, his visceral need of her was unrelenting, but it strayed well beyond that. ’Twas more the depth of his desire, his wanting more of her. Her friendship, first and foremost. Her companionship. Her devotion. The thought of it being ripped away, the loss of her, had flipped his world on end again.

Prayers for her protection crowded in, desperate and beseeching. He finally slept, and then, like getting a face full of icy water, he jerked awake. Lily Cate? Cold reality rushed in as he recalled the loss. The rousing cry held a woman’s strength, sharp and strangled, before snapping short. He was on his feet, grabbing his pistol before taking the back stairs to his room. Its familiarity was his advantage. Even in pitch blackness he quickly determined there was no danger.

A single taper burned on a low table. Sophie sat in the center of his bed, knees drawn up to her chin. With a little moan of dismay, she seemed embarrassed at his appearing. Her hands went to her unbound hair in a show of modesty before circling her knees again. She looked touchingly girlish. He found himself wishing she’d open her arms to him like she often had Lily Cate.

“Sophie?” The tenderness of his voice seemed to ease her. What had she said?

I’m not frightened, Seamus.
Not with you here.

He sat on the edge of the bed, determined to still her shaking. When he leaned nearer she almost seemed to startle, making him second-guess what he was about to do. He ached to hold her. To make amends with more than words, gifts. The busk he’d given her seemed a paltry thing.

Go slowly. Don’t scare her.

The reminder was at odds with his need. The glint of her wedding ring caught the candlelight as he took her hand. She lowered her eyes, thick-lashed and black, and the last of his reserve cracked. How could he have ever thought her undesirable or plain?

The feel of her was so unfamiliar it shook him. He rested his chin on the crown of her bent head, aware of a great many things at once. Her wildly erratic heartbeat. Her shallow breathing. Her skittishness.

His pulse began a slow climb. Their unexpected closeness begged him to do something.

If she wasn’t so uneasy, he would tip her chin up and kiss her . . . Aye, he wanted to kiss her. He wanted her to kiss him back. Fully. Feverishly. He wanted his everlasting misery over Lily Cate to abate if only momentarily in the sanctuary of her arms.

He went still, wrenched back to reality as she slipped free of him. “Just a bad dream, Seamus. No more.”

Though her words were reassuring, he sensed something else at play. He sat silent for several moments, listening. Gauging the darkness.

“You’re all right . . . alone?” At her nod, he made a reluctant exit, casting a last, uneasy look at her from the doorway.

When Seamus left, Sophie started toward Anne’s former bedchamber. Taking up the candle, she shouldered aside her dread. The adjoining door opened soundlessly with the turn of the knob. Her hand shaking, the light wavered and threatened to go out.

There on the floor was the vase she’d heard fall from its perch on the nightstand, jarring her awake. She held the candle higher. In the deepest shadows, the chair to Anne’s desk was pushed back. Fumbling, afraid, she felt beneath the familiar panel and released the secret latch. The drawer was empty.

Anne’s diary was gone.

Returning to bed, Sophie lay awake till dawn. Seamus reappeared, surprising her yet again, trying his best to be quiet. Broad back to her, he was fumbling in a cupboard, clad only in breeches, feet bare. Clearly they’d thought too much about Tall Acre’s thief and not enough about the practicalities of switching rooms.

She lay quietly. This was how it would be . . . should be. Not separate rooms or separate lives. Not wondering when he’d gotten up or where he was.

He turned round and she shut her eyes. Soon he came to stand by the bed. She felt him there—his presence, his warmth, the wholeness of him. The heat of the blankets reached her face. Did he find her lacking, all mussed by sleep? Was he remembering last night?

Her breathing thinned when she felt his touch. Gently, almost imperceptibly, his fingers stroked a strand of her hair. The gesture, simple though it was, brought healing. Rekindled something lost.

Oh, Seamus.

She wanted to open her eyes. Her arms. But he stepped back and left as quietly as he’d come.

31

S
ophie recited the alphabet, thinking
The New England Primer
too melancholy. “A, in Adam’s fall we sinned all . . . G, as runs the glass our life doth pass . . . Y, while youth do cheer death may be near . . .” But Myrtilla and Jenny seemed not to mind, dutifully repeating each verse after her and scratching out letters on their slates.

She’d begun teaching in Seamus’s absence. Now that he was home again, the lessons continued. With its fresh paint and repaired chimney, a crate of new slates and books, the schoolroom had a bright, expectant feel. Above the mantel were colorful prints of animals. On the walls were maps. A window was open wide to the garden, ushering in a welcome breeze. Word was spreading in the quarters that lessons were not only pleasant but a blessed reprieve from work.

Sophie looked up as a stable hand darkened the doorway. “Come in, Jim.” Pleased, she gestured to an empty desk, retrieving a slate and stylus for him to use.

Mumbling his thanks, he sat as Jenny murmured a greeting and returned to her work. For the next half hour, Sophie taught the lanky boy to spell his name, introducing him to a picture book that had been Lily Cate’s.

If Lily Cate returned, what a help she would be.
If.
Biting her lip, Sophie prayed for a miracle.
When
Lily Cate came home, the joy of the schoolhouse would be complete.

As she thought it, a slightly sheepish Granny Bea entered, a baby on her hip. “I suppose I ain’t too old to learn my letters . . . read a book.”

Taking the baby from her, Sophie assured her that age had nothing to do with it. Busy minutes passed, the warmth of the day calling for Sophie to open the door. When the bell sounded from the blacksmith’s announcing the noon hour over, all returned to their work reluctantly.

The sudden emptiness seemed lonesome, the mosquito whining about her head assailing her as doggedly as the events of the last hours. Seamus’s unexpected return. The change in their rooms. Anne’s missing diary. What would happen next?

She straightened slates and books, craving order, wishing she could do the same with their unsettled circumstances. A bit woozy, she remembered she hadn’t eaten breakfast. Days and nights of neglect were taking a toll. She felt wrung out, benumbed, but for those fierce bursts of grief that ambushed her at every turn. She knew it went harder on Seamus. To lose a child, not to the grim, irreversible grip of death, but to be forever undone wondering . . .

Bear up, lass.

Her mother’s voice came clear as daylight. But this time it brought little calm.

Closing the schoolhouse door, Sophie paused on the sunlit stoop, bone weary. Before her, Tall Acre was spread like a lush landscape in oils. She stood unmoved by its beauty. She’d lost sight of the wonder of being its mistress, married to the man who was just now coming through the river doorway, sunlight framing every hard-muscled line of him. Unaware of her, Seamus took the shell path to the stables.

Her gaze trailed after him as he called to a groom before entering a far paddock where a new horse had recently been broken. The high-spirited bay shied at his approach, but he spoke a few words and began checking the horse’s girth with a sure hand. She nearly held her breath as he, in that effortless way he had, took the reins and swung himself into the saddle. Immediately the proud horse reared and danced, stirring up a whirlwind of dust.

Riveted, she watched from her porch perch, sensing Seamus warmed to the challenge, was adept at courting danger.

Or had ceased to care what happened to himself.

He held fast for a few breathtaking seconds, and then he fell, one booted foot caught in the stirrup. With a shrill whinny, the bay bolted round the paddock, dragging him through a storm of dirt and rock.