Charity Begins at Home (33 page)

Tristan's hand slid to Charity's arm, gripping and releasing as if through his touch he could pass on a little of his strength. She wondered if he understood all this village justice. The worst punishment might be disapproval, but she dreaded that. He was not really one of them, she thought, and he would not dread disapproval. But she leaned back against the firm clasp of his hand, knowing that if nothing else he understood how hard this was for a girl who had known no other home.

Then his hand slipped away from her as he rose. She realized that he had appointed himself her defender, and she blinked back the tears that stung at her eyes. She couldn't listen to his defense, knowing that everyone would be remembering that once, not very long ago, they had been betrothed. She didn't want to break down in front of all of them. Quietly she slipped out of the pew and out through the side door into the churchyard.

Chapter Twenty-one

It was one of the longest days of the year, so the sun was just setting when the meeting broke up. On instinct, Tristan followed the path through the gravestones in search of Charity. She was sitting half in darkness, hands clasped in her lap, on the bridge overlooking the stream where he had made that first unromantic proposal.

He wasn't used to seeing her so still, and it stopped him for a moment. She was always so busy, so cheerful, a small efficient bundle of energy. But now she was just sitting there, still and alone, her back to him and the church. He felt the ache rise in his throat, and he wanted to demand that she give him all that pain she was holding in that straight little body and strong little spirit.

But he knew something now of her pride and her sense of herself. He took a seat beside her, close enough to touch her but not touching. Her face was pale, but the ironic glint was back in her eyes as she turned to greet him. "You are very brave, to associate with the heretic."

"Idiot." To his mind, his response was insufficiently sympathetic, but it made her smile. He touched that curved lower lip with his thumb, wanting to kiss her, but thinking she would cry if he did. "You are officially forgiven. Back in charge."

She was startled and not as pleased as he had hoped. In fact, she pulled away from his hand and turned away, hunching her shoulders as if to ward him off. He felt stupidly wounded, as if she had returned a gift he had given her.

At least her voice was determinedly light, though she kept her back to him. "You must have been very eloquent."

"Devil a bit. I'm never eloquent in English. Not in Italian either, for that matter." He couldn't help but brush aside the feathery tendrils of hair, to trace the vulnerable curve of her neck, to say with his caress what he couldn't say aloud: That her hurt was his hurt, that she should let him take it from her. She shivered under his fingertips, so he drew his hand across the nape of her neck under the ear to the stubborn line of her jaw. Just for a moment, she bent her head and let her cheek rest on his hand.

Very gently, he added, "I merely suggested that you had never once thought of your own interest in this matter, or in any other matter either. And that Mr. Greenaway had his own reasons for bringing this accusation."

"He said nothing that wasn't true."

"Neither did I. And the truth is that he is rancid with jealousy because you can teach his pupils and he can't, and because you can write a play and he can't. Say the word," he added, lowering his voice to a melodramatic whisper, though he meant it entirely, "and I will break his neck."

"It would serve you square if I did say the word and you had to go off and find him." Charity was feeling better, he could tell from the ironic tone that lightened her voice.

"He might be hard to find after all. I caught him as he was slinking off and suggested that if he valued his life, he might find another set of pupils to bore stiff."

This news cheered her. "He will be leaving then? Oh, that means then that we—" she broke off, then started up again, "that they will have to employ another schoolmaster for the fall term." She was still studying her clasped hands, but she didn't avert her face from him now, and he could see the uncertainty, the anger, the guilt she felt. "Tell me who else spoke."

"Francis, of course, took the blame as Barry's guardian. I think he must be auditioning for Early Christian Martyr."

That surprised a chuckle out of her, quickly suppressed. "He's a very good brother."

"Very good indeed. And Mrs. Hering said that she knew you'd done it to protect Barry and her boys, too, and that you'd been doing it all your life and no one should expect that you'd stop now. She expressed the intention of going home and boxing a few ears, and no intention at all of serving on any committee that didn't have you at its head. And Mrs. Dalton concurred."

"Mrs. Williams?"

"Mrs. Williams recanted her position and decided to support you. Probably she did not relish heading up a committee without any members at all and the fair four days away." He knew he sounded as cynical as he felt, but whatever the outcome, he had found this public forum as unfair as a public hanging. And it exacted the harshest penalty from Charity. She had, he was sure, never been found lacking before as she had worked her life to live up to everyone's expectations.

However straight she kept her little shoulders, he knew this incident had shaken the foundations of Charity's world.

So though he wanted to tell her to just brush it off, as he would brush off a bad review, he knew that this mattered too much to her. "They felt guilty right off. I think no one meant to go through with this. And they were relieved to vote to have you back, even the vicar."

"They think no one else can do the work."

Her hard tone was new; so was the sigh that stirred against his hand. He had never seen her like this, so subdued, so sad. He stroked her cheek, wishing he could still see her face. But the gathering dusk concealed her from him. "Charity, it was near unanimous. It is an endorsement of you."

"How kind."

She didn't sound grateful. But then she leaned back against him as if keeping her back straight and her chin up these last hours had wearied her beyond discretion. He knew better than to take advantage of this;, so he let his hand drop to her shoulder in a casual caress but made no move to embrace her. "What do you mean to do?"

"I mean to—I don't mean to return to the position of organizer." She shook her head at his automatic protest. "Tristan, they were right, you know. I shouldn't have allowed Barry to make book. It was a corruption of the whole idea of the fair."

This time he couldn't help himself. With an arm around her waist, he pulled her against him, resting his cheek on her hair. "You only did what you thought right."

"I know. That's exactly the point, Tristan. It never occurred to me to ask anyone else, not even Francis. Not even you. Certainly not the vicar. I thought I could balance it all, that the extra money would make up for what Barry is planning and that no one would be the wiser. Poor Barry." Her voice came muffled against his arm. "I expect his syndicate will be defunct now."

"Serves him right."

"So all my machinations have come to naught. My crime is exposed. The Tower Fund gets no great gambling revenue. Barry will have to do what he thinks is dishonorable—"

"He'll just have to give back the money he collected," Tristan pointed out. "And if he's spent it already, Francis will ante up. I hope he extracts a pound of flesh when he does it. What a nodcock Barry is. Are you sure he is your brother?"

"I should think there would be no doubt. I've spent the last three weeks acting like a nodcock myself. Oh, Tristan." Her back pressed against him as she sighed. "I think I have lost my way. I have always, always known my place, and now I don't know where I am."

"Here with me."

It was all the declaration he could let himself make. He didn't want to take advantage of her vulnerability now, still less to add to her confusion. But it was enough for the moment. She nestled closer and said with a wavering chuckle, "Yes, I am here with you. You have turned out to be an excellent friend after all."

"And without even trying." They were on dangerous ground here, reminding each other of that one explosive confrontation, and he thought it best to change the subject. "What will you do then, about the fair? I hope you don't mean to stop painting with me, when we are so close to finishing."

"I expect I can't stop that now or quit rehearsing the children either. But I will let Mrs. Hering tell me what else she means for me to do. Or Mrs. Williams, if Mrs. Hering won't serve. I will certainly no longer be in charge."

"There is no need to punish yourself."

"It's not punishment, exactly."

"Then no need to punish them, either, by withdrawing."

She laughed again, more truly this time. "I don't mean to do that either. I will do what I'm told to do, all that must be done. But I have been fighting this Midsummer battle, and all these other battles, for so long. I am weary of it suddenly. It has all taken up so much of my mind, I've hardly room for my own thoughts and notions." She sat up suddenly, pulling away from him and gazing around in the twilight as if this scene was too familiar and yet newly strange. "I think I must leave this place. Or I shall end up leaving myself."

It was what he wanted to hear. Still he worried that she was reacting to a long and frightening day. "Why must you leave?"

"It is—" Her voice wavered again, then she began again. "It is just like remaining in my parents' home. Only they are gone, and it is Francis's home, and I am welcome always, and even necessary at times. But it is not mine, no matter how I try to make it so. I think I must make my own place. But first I must find it."

He might have offered to take her there, but he had learned subtlety lately. Instead he bent to pick up the handful of flowers he had dropped earlier. "Look what I have."

The rising moon cast quite a ghostly light on his now-bedraggled briar roses. He almost laughed at her frown—it was such a Charity sort of frown, showing bemusement and far less sadness than before. "Those are from the altar, aren't they? I put them there myself."

"And I stole them myself. Turn your head away,
carissima
."

Startled but acquiescent, she looked down at the moon-dappled stream. He tangled his hand in her hair, pulling it loose from its pins, threading the blossoms into her curls. This was more improper than anything he had ever done, for when he had kissed her they were betrothed and now they were merely friends, however excellent. But she didn't protest. She only shivered as his fingers slipped down her neck, still twined in the thick silk of her hair.

She let go the breath she had been holding and turned to face him. He tilted her chin up with one finger and, in the most objective voice he could manage, observed, "How pretty you are. The moonlight is so pale on the roses, and the night so dark on your hair." He traced a path from her ear to her lips with a callused thumb, watching her eyes all the time, seeing them widen and then half-close. A sensualist, he thought, and traced the gentle bow of her mouth.

"You look quite Dionysian, with those flowers in your hair. That the flowers come from the altar makes it all the more provocative."

Her eyes flew open. "Tristan! You are so—so wicked." She reached up to touch one of the roses but didn't remove it. "To make me a pagan with altar flowers is almost sacrilegious."

"But you're forgetting it's Midsummer. And Midsummer is pagan, however you tried to convince the vicar otherwise. Did you know, those pagans used to cover altars with flowers, armfuls of flowers. And do you know what they used to do on those altars?"

"What?" In her eyes was a mix of wariness and eagerness.

"Licentious things."

Even in the moonlight he could see the color that crept up her cheeks. But the look she gave him was pure Charity—pragmatic and ironic. "Well, if those flowers were mostly roses, I think your pagans must have had a rather prickly time of it."

After only a moment she joined in his laughter. But too soon her laughter faded and she stood up, shaking her head so the flowers fell out of her hair. He caught one and held it out to her. With a blush she took it and hid it away in her pocket. "I'd best stop at the vicar's to tell him what I've decided. And Mrs. Hering, too. I hope they can manage to keep from brangling for the rest of the week, for I am determined to stay quite in the background."

"This I shall have to see," he murmured, picking up another of the fallen roses and pocketing it. "Charity in the background."

She stopped halfway across the bridge and looked back. "What do you mean?"

"I mean,
mia cara
, that, like the moon tonight, you shine too bright to be anywhere but in the center of life."

And with that, he let her go, following at a discreet distance just in case David Greenaway had plans for more revenge.

Chapter Twenty-two

The dragon was a great success, at least with Lawrence and Jeremy. They came over to knock on it and test its weight by tugging on the pole. Charity explained that Jacob had volunteered to haul it around during that evening's parade and the play. "'You must remind your uncle to be very careful to behead the dragon and not Jacob!"

Now seasoned performers, Lawrence and Jeremy had accompanied their uncle to the village green to sustain him during his single rehearsal as St. George. Charity was glad to see the boys had made Tristan learn his seven lines and could prompt him when he hesitated.