Authors: Cathy Maxwell
“Why didn’t your father find a husband for you?” he asked.
She frowned at him. “It’s not that easy. Look at me.”
“I am looking at you. I see nothing wrong with you.” He’d actually spoken the truth. Miss Northrup was no sultry beauty, but she was an attractive woman with a fresh wholesomeness. She also had nice breasts—but he was not going to mention that to her!
“Why do you smile when you say that?” she asked, misinterpreting the reason behind his smile. “Come, Mr. Browne, I’m rather plain.”
“Absolutely not!”
“Yes. But also, I didn’t have time to marry when I was younger. My father needed me. Mother was sick, and he needed someone to care for her and help him with his duties. I understand why a man would wish for a prettier girl than myself. Especially one with fewer commitments.”
“Then he isn’t a man worth having.”
He held her attention now. He drew her hand into his, giving her fingers a reassuring squeeze.
“Miss Northrup, sometimes it is possible to have all the things you’ve wished and still be alone. You can even have a family and not feel included.”
She raised her eyes to meet his. “Have you ever been lonely, Mr. Browne?”
Her directness caught him off guard. He answered truthfully. “Aye.”
She nodded as if his response was what she had expected. Actually, she was a very attractive woman, with a pert nose and determined chin. Kissable lips…Of course, a gentleman would never seduce a vicar’s daughter.
But she was the one who broke contact first.
She pulled her hand from his. “Well, I need to find clothes for you.”
He rose to his feet, a bit embarrassed by the direction of his thoughts. He liked Miss Northrup. She’d cried, but she hadn’t clung or expected him to solve her problems. She was a brave woman and he hoped everything worked out for her.
“Perhaps your father had something I could wear?”
Coming to her feet, she shook her head. “You are a good six inches taller than my father. Besides, anything worthwhile I gave to the poor.” She took her cape off a peg on the wall and threw it over her shoulders. She then reached for what had to be the ugliest bonnet he’d ever seen. The black silk material covering it had been faded by the weather. When she set it on her
head, she looked like she was wearing a crow.
“Where are you going?” Yale asked.
“I’m going to call on Mr. Sadler and see if he has any cast-offs for you.”
“Cast-offs? You want me to wear the cast-offs of an innkeeper?”
“You sound as offended as a duke. Beggars can’t be choosers, Mr. Browne. Sproule is a small village. If you wish to purchase new clothing, you can do that in Morpeth. But for now, I’ll have to scavenge for breeches and you’ll have to settle for whatever I can find, especially since you are such a tall and brawny man.”
Yale couldn’t help but preen a bit. He liked the way the soft Northern burr in her voice rolled over the words “tall and brawny man.”
“Did you just pay me a compliment, Miss Northrup?”
To his surprise, she smiled.
He’d been right. She was a fetching lass when she smiled. The smile lit her whole face.
“If calling a man too big to make it easy to find breeches for him is a compliment, sir, then that I did.” On those words, she opened the door and left.
Charmed, Yale went to the window to watch her trudge through the inch or two of crusty snow on the ground. He scratched the growth of beard on his jaw. He hadn’t shaved since he’d left London.
He opened the door, stuck out his head, and shouted, “Don’t forget to bring a razor!”
She waved that she’d heard him.
He shut the door.
Silver gray clouds covered the sky. They were too high to herald more snow. He still felt weak, but was also eager to return to his life in London.
The truth was, he shouldn’t have come back.
Or he should have come back years earlier—while his father was still alive. He could have returned to England three years ago, but he hadn’t felt he had enough money or enough power to properly impress the great duke of Ayleborough…or so he thought.
He looked down at himself. He was a rich man, the owner of his own shipping company, and yet here he stood in a vicarage kitchen in the tiny village of Sproule dressed in nothing more than a sheet.
What a fool he was!
Of course, he could stop in London and see his brother Wayland and his sister Twyla.
He immediately rejected the idea. He could not face them. Not now that their father was dead.
His failure to be at his father’s side in his last hours would be only one more way in which Yale had disappointed his family. Besides, because of the age difference and their separate mothers, they had never been close as family. Wayland and Twyla had always done what had been expected of them. Yale had rebelled.
How many schools had he been sent down from for miscreant behavior? He’d forgotten.
He’d also been extremely selfish. The truth was, his father had ignored him, favoring the children from his first marriage over Yale.
And it had hurt. At some point he’d learned that if he acted badly, his father had no choice but to pay attention.
Yale winced at the memories of some of the pranks he’d pulled.
Then there was episode that had gotten him disinherited. He’d been kicked out of school, this time permanently, but instead of returning home to Northumberland, he’d hired a coach and driver.
Even now he smiled at the memory of his younger self, full of self-importance and no small amount of gall, setting himself up as a man on the Town. He’d been all of eighteen. Not one merchant or a matchmaking mama had questioned him.
He’d rented rooms, purchased a horse, had a new wardrobe made, and lived the high life with plenty of women eager for his attentions and a new set of friends to take him around London. In less than six weeks he’d gambled away a small fortune—including the inheritance from his mother.
He stared out the kitchen window. Snow blanketed the graves and headstones. From this angle, he could just see the Ayleborough vault.
His breath made a fog on the window. He touched the cold glass with his finger, remem
bering that day when his father had come to Yale’s rooms in London and found him passed out drunk, a naked opera dancer at his side.
The duke had been furious. The school had notified him that they had sent Yale home. He’d been worried about Yale’s whereabouts until word had reached him through friends in London.
When his father had confronted him, Yale, hung over and full of pride, had demanded his portion of his inheritance right then and there so he could live his life the way he wished.
That had stopped his father’s lecture.
But to Yale’s surprise, he had agreed.
“It will make a man of you,” he’d said. He’d pulled from his pockets all of Yale’s debts. He’d bought them up and now held the chits in front of Yale.
“Here is your inheritance,” he’d said. “Twenty-seven thousand pounds. Wasted.”
And then he had disinherited his younger son on the spot.
Yale turned from the window. He now knew how hard it was to earn that sum with one’s sweat. He also understood more of the world now.
Back then, he’d been hurt when his new friends had deserted him. Doors that had been open to him had slammed shut the minute notice of his disinheritance had been posted in the
Gazette.
He’d gone off to a dockside tavern to get good and drunk. He’d succeeded. He’d also signed on as a crew member of a merchantman.
When he’d come to his senses, the ship was well out to sea. Foolishly, he’d demanded to be released from the contract he’d signed and had been soundly beaten for his rebellion.
It had been the making of him.
He’d stayed with the ship because he’d had no choice—and because he’d rather cut off his own arm than beg his father for forgiveness. When the ship put into port in Naples, a more sober, and somewhat wiser, Yale had found a small church, and there he had made an oath. He vowed he would prove his father wrong. He would not crawl home a broken man like the prodigal son but as a rich man.
In the ensuing years, there had been times he wondered if he would succeed. Life’s lessons were hard.
He’d thought himself a swordsman until he’d found himself battling for his life against Mediterranean pirates. He quickly learned tricks not taught by any London fencing master. And no boxing school could teach him how to brawl the way he’d learned on the mean streets of Algiers and Calcutta.
In time, he’d learned how the world truly measured the worth of a man. His rebelliousness was replaced by a very sincere desire just to stay alive. He’d learned to live in a world where a
man’s word was his bond—breaking it could be a death warrant.
The first gold coin he’d earned by his own labor, he’d put in a leather bag that he wore around his neck, lest one of his comrades should steal it. It had taken him almost another full year to earn another. He’d decided there had to be a better way to build his fortune. He’d purchased a few shares in a sailing ship. In a few years, he’d owned the ship.
The keen intelligence that had lain dormant through all his history and Latin lessons now became a powerful weapon, especially in the hands of a man who had to educate himself. He’d asked questions and listened hard.
He’d also learned he had a talent for making money.
But now, it all seemed hollow—the money, the vow, the desire to show his family he was a man.
He sat down in the chair in Miss Northrup’s small kitchen. The brick floor made his toes cold. He curled them up under the sheet and crossed his arms, waiting.
He must have dozed in the warmth by the hearth because when next he knew, a rush of cold air jerked him to consciousness.
It took him a moment to gather his bearings and when he did, he found himself surrounded by a group of angry men. He immediately recognized the innkeeper and the blacksmith with whom he had left his horse upon arriving in Sproule. The blacksmith was carrying the heavy
hammer he used to pound metal into horseshoes. The innkeeper held a club. The other men didn’t look any friendlier. The women he’d met earlier poured in the door behind the men. By the set expressions on everyone’s faces, this was obviously not a social call.
“Marvin Browne?” questioned an officious man in drab brown and green hunting clothes and a great wool scarf. He cradled an aged blunderbuss in his arms.
Yale stared at him, refusing to answer.
“Aye, Squire Biggers, that is Marvin Browne,” Mrs. Sadler answered for him. “See? He’s wearing nothing but the bed linens.”
Yale slowly rose from his chair, feeling at a disadvantage with the men looming over him. As he had expected, when he came to his full height, they took a step back—everyone, that is, except Squire Biggers.
“Where is Miss Northrup?” Yale asked.
At that moment, she pushed her way forward from the back of the group. She turned and faced them. “This is ridiculous! I insist you stop immediately!”
Mrs. Sadler spoke. “We told you to stay at the inn, Miss Northrup. We know what we are doing.”
“Someone take her back to the inn,” Squire Biggers ordered. Mr. Sadler moved to obey.
The squire turned his attention back to Yale. He patted his blunderbuss. “Mr. Browne, I am also the local magistrate.”
“It is a pleasure to meet you,” Yale replied dryly.
“It’s no pleasure for me, sir,” the squire shot back. “We are all concerned for the reputation of Miss Northrup.”
“Oh, I can’t believe this!” Miss Northrup protested. She’d dug in her heels and wasn’t making it easy for Mr. Sadler to remove her person.
Yale looked Squire Biggers in the eye. “I assure you her reputation is safe. I have done nothing untoward here.”
“Do you call parading yourself naked in front of our women
nothing,
sir?”
Every man jack of them waited for Yale’s answer, and he knew they wouldn’t believe him, whatever he said. “It was a mistake. They have my sincerest apologies.”
“Oh, it was a mistake, all right,” the squire agreed. “And I have no doubt you’ve been in the company of Miss Northrup without your clothing, too.”
Yale sensed a trap but he didn’t know what kind. “If you have no doubt, then it is futile for me to protest it,” he said cautiously.
“Not as long as you do the right thing, sir.” Squire Biggers laid a loving hand on his blunderbuss.
“The right thing?” Yale asked.
“Aye,” the squire answered. “We expect you to marry her.”
H
ustled to the back of the crowd gathered around her kitchen door, Samantha heard the squire’s words. Her knees buckled beneath her in shock.
Her stumbling caused Mr. Sadler to loosen his hold and she used the opportunity to twist out of his grasp, slip under his arm, and charge back into the house with a ringing, “No!”
She pushed her way past her neighbors to confront the squire angrily. “What do you think you’re doing?”
He didn’t even bother to look at her. “This is none of your affair, missy.”
“None of my affair?” Samantha repeated incredulously. She shot a glance at Mr. Browne to see if he was as disbelieving as she was. He stood, his arms folded against his chest, his face a stone mask. He reminded her of the Sphinx of Ancient Egypt—except that he had the body of Apollo.
Funny she should notice that at this particular
moment, but then, any other man would look ridiculous wearing nothing but a sheet.
She faced Squire Biggers. “How dare you walk into my home, confront a sick man, and order him to marry me!”
There was a rustle of murmurs from the villagers. The squire was known for his quick, irrational temper. Few people dared question him.
Squire Biggers’s eyebrows practically rose to where his hairline used to be and he pulled himself up to every inch of his short stature. “I dare,” he drawled in his best patrician voice, “because you have
no one else
to speak for you, Miss Northrup. Because we have
standards
in our community, and we will not have some ne’er-do-well taking
advantage
of our dear departed vicar’s daughter, God rest his soul.”
“Mr. Browne has done nothing to take advantage of me,” Samantha shot back. “None of this is his fault. He’s been very ill. Since he wasn’t conscious when we moved him from the inn, he didn’t know where he was. Furthermore, I burned his clothes to prevent the spread of disease. The man had nothing to wear, he woke up in a strange place, and he didn’t know the kitchen was full of women.”
“What? He couldn’t hear them?” Mr. Porter demanded. “I’ve never seen the lot of you get together without making a good deal of chatter.”
“Mr. Porter, he did not know where he was,” Samantha reiterated. These people were going to drive her to madness. “He’d been so sick, he
didn’t even know I’d undressed him.”
“
You
undressed him?” the squire said, raising an eyebrow.
“Well, how do you think he got undressed?” she snapped. She glanced at Mr. Browne. He didn’t appear to be attending the conversation but stared ahead, as if concentrating on something only he could hear or see.
“You know, you could be helpful in explaining all this,” she told him.
“If they won’t listen to you, what makes you think they’ll listen to me?”
She hated his logic.
“It doesn’t matter what either of you says,” Squire Biggers insisted. “We are not questioning whether what you did saved this man’s life or not. It did, we all agree. But now we expect him to do what is decent and marry you.”
Samantha wanted to stamp her feet in frustration. “But he doesn’t
have
to marry me. We did nothing
wrong!
” She spied a thin farmer hovering by the kitchen door in the back of the ever-growing crowd outside her house. “You, Mr. Hatfield. I helped you with the croup when it had left you so weakened you feared you would die. No one expected you to marry me, did they?”
“I am already married, Miss Northrup,” the farmer answered.
She blinked and then cried out, “That’s right!” seeing a new way out of this silliness. “And how
do you know Mr. Browne isn’t already married, Squire Biggers?”
“Because he told me he was not,” Mrs. Sadler said. “When he signed the innkeeper’s book, I asked him. I said, ‘Do you have family in the area, Mr. Browne?’ And he said, ‘No.’ And I said, ‘Well, it is hard to travel away from one’s family.’ And he said, ‘I have no family at all.’ Just like that. Quick and short: ‘I have no family at all.’” She looked to her friends gathered around her. “It is always good to know these things about your guests.”
Her lady friends nodded agreement.
The squire smiled benevolently down at Samantha. “Then it appears the two of you can be married.”
“No, it doesn’t!” she argued.
But he continued as if she hadn’t spoken. “Your father would understand the need for urgency. I believe a special license can be arranged. I’ll send a lad on my fastest horse to the bishop. We should have it before dark.”
Samantha watched the heads of her friends and neighbors agree with him. “This is lunacy. I will not marry this man. I don’t know him. Besides, he is a drunkard,” she added, in a flash of inspiration.
“Thank you,” was Mr. Browne’s dry response behind her.
“And he is sarcastic,” Samantha finished without missing a beat.
Suddenly Mrs. Biggers charged forward, the
pheasant feathers on her hat quivering. “This is outrageous,” she told her husband. “Why are you indulging the girl?” She confronted Samantha. “You are the most
ungrateful
woman imaginable. Do you not see what we are doing for you? Miss Mabel and Miss Hattie do not want you to live with them. They were only being kind, but now that they know you don’t even blush over naked men, they are not even interested…are you, ladies?”
Miss Mabel and Miss Hattie stood side-by-side next to Mrs. Porter. When Mrs. Biggers had turned her attention to them, their eyes grew round.
“Well, no, we should not, should we, Mrs. Biggers?” Miss Mabel said.
“Of course not,” Miss Hattie said. “Not if Mrs. Biggers says it is so.” The sisters huddled together.
“Our village needs a new vicar, Miss Northrup,” Mrs. Biggers said. “My nephew and his new wife deserve the benefice. Since your father’s death, he has made the trek from Morpeth and back to say the Sunday service. It is past time for you to get out of the vicarage. No one wants to tell you this, but it is time for someone new to live here. And yet you, in your selfishness, stand in their way. Marry this man. Leave! You are a thorn in our side.”
Samantha stared at the woman, stunned by her cruel words and yet hearing the truth in them.
For her part, Mrs. Biggers looked equally surprised that she’d said them. She burst out in loud, noisy sobs and was quickly surrounded by comforting friends.
Samantha stood alone.
Had she really believed that she’d been part of this small village? Every hope, every dream, even the reality she had assumed about her life melted away with nothing in their place.
Then a pair of strong hands came down on her shoulders. “I will marry her,” Mr. Browne said.
The import of his words was slow to sink in. Samantha almost believed she’d misheard him—and then, when she realized she hadn’t, the full circle of her shame was complete.
“No,” she whispered. “I don’t want—!”
The pressure of his hands on her shoulder warned her to silence.
Her protest wouldn’t have made any difference anyway. The women squealed with excitement and the men grinned and made approving sounds.
Squire Biggers even offered to shake Mr. Browne’s hand, but Mr. Browne made no move to take it. The squire withdrew his, pretending to straighten the coat cuff of his hand holding the blunderbuss. “I’ll make the arrangements for the license.”
“I expect you to,” Mr. Browne said.
“Oh. Well, I guess we are done here,” the squire said to his wife.
Her face tear-stained, Mrs. Biggers moved to
give Samantha a hug. But Samantha pulled back, finding herself in the protective embrace of Mr. Browne.
“Come, Mrs. Biggers,” the squire said. “You must help the women make plans. We would not want it said that Sproule did not take care of Miss Northrup.” Now as gentle and meek as a lamb, his wife followed him out the door.
Mrs. Porter and Mrs. Sadler came forward. “We are happy for you, Miss Northrup,” Mrs. Porter said. “Everything will work out fine.”
“I don’t think we should leave her here, though,” Mrs. Sadler said. “Why don’t you come back to the inn with us?”
Samantha shook her head. She was too angry, too hurt.
“Later,” Mr. Browne said. “Why don’t you two help plan the wedding and you can come back and fetch Miss Northrup later?”
“Yes, that’s a good idea,” Mrs. Porter said. “Come, Birdie.” She paused. “We’ll also bring clothes for you when we come back.”
“I would appreciate that,” Mr. Browne said. “I have no desire to walk into a church wearing a bed sheet.”
A few others came up and offered congratulations, but the majority of the villagers slipped away without speaking. Samantha waited until the last villager had gone out the door before crossing to it and putting down the lock bar.
She was alone with Mr. Browne. The kitchen was cold from having the door open for so long.
She crossed to the hearth and added more kindling. Once it had caught fire, she added a log and watched as the strong flame lapped at the hard wood.
“I don’t care what they think or what they wish. I will not marry you.” She rose and turned to face him, uncertain of his reaction to her words.
“Neither of us has a choice.”
Not exactly a romantic reaction. She shrugged. “Forcing you to marry me makes a mockery of the sacrament.”
He drew a chair up in front of the fire and sat. “Miss Northrup, no one is forcing me to marry you.”
She laughed. “You can’t mean you
wish
to do this?”
“Aye. I’m willing.” He pulled another chair toward the fire and gestured for her to sit in it.
Samantha didn’t. She didn’t feel like sitting. She took off her cape and hung it on the peg on the wall and then paced the perimeter of the room, conscious of his patient presence.
“You can leave,” she said. “Once we have clothes for you, you can sneak out of the house and escape.”
“I do not sneak anywhere,” he said with disgust, stretching his bare feet toward the fire. “Has it always been this cold in winter?”
“Have you been to Sproule before?”
He seemed to stiffen, as if she’d asked something he didn’t want to answer. But when he
spoke, his voice was relaxed. “I’ve passed through here.”
“I don’t remember seeing you.”
“There is no reason you should have. It was years ago.”
“Miss Mabel and Miss Hattie said the old duke of Ayleborough once had a tutor for his sons whose name was Marvin Browne, with an ‘e.’”
“I wouldn’t know him,” came the stony reply.
She crossed her arms. “I don’t want to marry you.”
He turned to her then. “Because I drink?” He was teasing her. “I assure you, Miss Northrup, my drinking the other night was a momentary lapse into a bad habit I gave up years ago. You won’t have a drunkard for a husband.”
“That’s not the reason I don’t want to marry you.”
“What is your Christian name?”
His change of subject was unsettling. “Why do you want to know?”
“Because I’ve asked.” The steadfastness in his dark eyes was compelling.
Against her better judgment, she said, “Samantha.”
“Mine’s—” He paused. “Marvin.”
“Yes, I know.” She couldn’t help but smile at the name. It didn’t seem to fit him.
“Come sit here, Samantha.” He patted the chair next to him.
Her name sounded differently on his lips than
she’d ever heard it sound before. “I’m fine here.”
“Please.”
She hesitated, then did as he’d asked.
They sat a moment staring into the fire, each lost in thought.
Then he spoke. “Would you leave Sproule if I didn’t marry you?”
“Of course not. Where would I go? Why would I want to leave it even if we did marry?”
His jaw tensed with anger. “I will not leave you here, not with these people.”
Samantha started pressing out one of the wrinkles in her dress with her hand. Her gaze didn’t meet his as she said, “They are not bad people.”
“No, just expedient,” he replied with distaste. “Samantha, up until now, I haven’t always done the right thing in my life. I have sinned, as you would so quaintly put it. Worse, I’ve made terrible mistakes for no other reason than my pride. But I have never turned my back on a person who needed help.”
“I don’t need help. It’s just that—” She stopped, uncertain if she was saying the right thing.
“Just what?” he prompted.
She lifted her gaze to his. “I’ve spent the majority of my life making excuses for people. You’re right. I’m deeply hurt that they want to be rid of me. But I’ve known it was coming. I’ve only managed to stay in the vicarage by my wiles. I thought that the people here valued my healing skills. They’ve always come to me and
I’ve always helped, even if it was in the middle of the night, or I’d have to stay for days. I felt I was one of them, and now, they’ve let me know differently. It’s just that I can’t imagine a life beyond Sproule.”
“There is plenty of life beyond Sproule,” he said with feeling.