The blind woman lived on one of the quaint, cobbled, side streets of the village. She was not poor or needy like the Nelcotts, or infirm like the Pottfords, but the sweet soul was quite alone in the world.
Miss Hayes never failed to twist Grace’s heart with poignancy at her endless gratitude for any small kindness shown her. Again, Grace delivered the soup along with a small bunch of flowers from her garden, and Miss Hayes praised her beyond all bounds.
“Oh, come, Clara,” Grace teased her, blushing, “it’s just some soup, not a pot of gold!”
“It might as well be, to me. Each week, I wonder if you’ll forget me, but you never do.”
Grace clasped the woman’s hands between her own. “And I never will. Now then, we’ve brought someone new to meet you today. Our new neighbor, Lord Trevor Montgomery.”
He stepped closer and bowed to her, though she could not see him. “Miss Hayes, a pleasure.”
“How kind of you to come, sir! You’re the one who bought the Grange?”
“I am,” he said firmly, smiling.
She let out an almost mischievous giggle and leaned toward Grace with a stage whisper. “Everyone says he’s very handsome.”
“It’s true!” Callie piped up gaily.
“Pshaw,” the man in question scoffed.
“I suppose he’s not half-bad,” Grace conceded, eyeing him in amusement.
He smirked at her.
“Do you mind if I judge for myself?” Miss Hayes ventured.
Grace glanced at Trevor. “Miss Hayes can tell what a person looks like if you’ll let her touch your face.”
“If you don’t mind, of course. I wouldn’t want to make you uncomfortable—”
“I don’t mind at all,” he assured her in a breezy tone as he sat down on a nearby stool. “Just don’t get your hopes up,” he added dryly. “I assure you, Miss Hayes, I am altogether ordinary.”
“Pshaw,” said Grace, echoing his earlier denial.
He crooked a brow at her, surprised at her compliment, but she smiled fondly at him, filled with gratitude. His gentleness with the old Pottfords and the young Nelcotts, and his patience as he let Miss Hayes explore the contours of his face made Grace find him handsomer than ever.
He really was a rather wonderful man.
“What strong features you have, Lord Trevor,” Miss Hayes said admiringly as she molded her fingers against the shape of his brow, over the angle of his nose, and the chiseled line of his jaw. Once more, she lowered her hands demurely to her lap. “I’m afraid the gossip is true, my lord. You have a noble face.”
“And a black heart,” he teased. Then he noticed the pianoforte by the wall. “Are you a lady of musical talents, Miss Hayes?”
“She plays beautifully,” Grace spoke up on her friend’s behalf.
“Not as well as Mrs. Bowen-Hill,” Miss Hayes started.
“Yes, you do! My father has even asked her to play in church now and then, but she’s too shy to risk it in front of the whole congregation.”
“Too many people!”
“I wonder if we could persuade you to play something for us now, Miss Hayes?” Trevor asked. “That would be most diverting.”
Grace could hear it in his voice that he was going out of his way to be friendly to her, and she was touched.
“Certainly,” Miss Hayes responded, then she echoed his own teasing words back to him. “As long as you don’t get your hopes up too high.”
“I will take that under advisement,” he replied. Then he assisted her in rising from her seat, offering a gentlemanly hand as he would to any lady.
Clara Hayes was fully capable of making her way around her home independently, but no doubt, she appreciated the gallant gesture. A moment later, she settled herself before her pianoforte.
When she began to play a familiar tune by Bach, Trevor winced; Grace sent him a sideways look, for although Miss Hayes was a talented player, her pianoforte was horribly out of tune.
Considering that her music was her one consolation in a life that could not be easy, Trevor looked outraged at the injustice of the dear woman having to play on such an ill-tuned instrument.
Grace wondered what he thought of it all as they returned to the carriage. “Well?”
He sent her a troubled frown. “She’s very ladylike. What’s her story?”
“She was born blind. Her father was a gentleman though he wasn’t rich. Her parents left her a modest inheritance, but unfortunately, she’s had a lot of unexpected bills from various physicians.”
“Is she sick?”
“No, she took a bad fall a few years ago during the winter. Slipped on the ice and badly hurt her back. It was a difficult recovery, and, I’m afraid, quite drained her resources. Thankfully, she’s finally out of pain, but what’s left of her inheritance has got to last her the rest of her days, so she must make economies, as do we all.”
“I suppose tuning her pianoforte isn’t the priority, then.”
“No, I wouldn’t think so.”
“She’s a real inspiration, isn’t she?”
Grace nodded. “She doesn’t let her blindness slow her down a bit.”
“Do you think if a piano tuner could be found, she’d permit me to hire him for her as a gift? It’s sad enough that she can’t see. The woman deserves at least to be able to hear a decent melody in tune.”
“That’s very kind of you, but I don’t think she would accept. She was raised a gentlewoman, and that would not be proper. And what about her pride?”
“Well, I can understand that.” He shrugged. “But she wouldn’t have to know it was from me. We could say it was your father’s idea, so that she could practice more and play in church, as he requested.”
“Hmm.” Grace considered the notion, impressed with his thoughtfulness. “I suppose we could tell her that Mrs. Bowen-Hill might want a break every now and then, instead of having to play
every
Sunday . . . She might just go along with that.”
He tapped her on the nose. “Good! Now all we have to find is a piano tuner. Where to next?”
There were three more calls on Grace’s weekly list, but before the last one, she drove Callie back to her pony gig waiting at the Nelcotts’.
The final stop was not one in which Callie could participate.
“Why is that?” Lord Trevor asked.
“Because she’s off to see Tom Moody,” the girl informed him.
“Who’s that?”
“The town drunk. A most unsavory fellow,” Callie added sardonically. “My parents have forbidden me to go near him.”
“Indeed? And our Miss Kenwood goes to visit him alone?”
“Every week,” said Calpurnia.
He turned to Grace, scowling.
“Oh, he’s harmless! He goes on a drunken rant every now and then, curses the world, and screams at anyone in sight. But other than that—”
“I see.” He glowered at her in lordly displeasure.
“Don’t worry,” she insisted. “If I thought he was a danger to me, I wouldn’t go. I’m not stupid.”
“No, but you’re too nice,” Callie interjected. “Mother says some people aren’t worthy of our charity.”
Trevor glanced at her, considering this.
“I appreciate your concern,” Grace said, “but you should let Callie drive you back up to the Grange.”
“I’d be happy to!” the girl said brightly.
“Absolutely not. I’m going with you,” he told Grace.
“There’s no need! Honestly,” she assured him, amused and a little taken aback by his protectiveness. “You have a lot to do, and you’ve already been such a great help today. I don’t want to take up any more of your time.”
“Your safety is more important.”
She blushed. “That’s very sweet, but really, I-I only go and spend ten minutes checking to make sure he’s still alive. He wouldn’t dare aim his wrath at me. I’m the only person in town besides Papa who treats the poor beggar with any dignity.”
Trevor just stared at her, making no move to get out of the carriage. “Good day, Miss Windlesham.”
“You’re serious?” Grace exclaimed.
He glared at her, and Callie chuckled.
“I, for one, am glad he’s going with you,” the girl said. “I expected nothing less from a genuine hero!”
He sent her an irked frown, for Callie had not yet realized, as Grace had, that he hated being called that.
Callie jumped down from the cart and strode back to her pony, untying it from the Nelcotts’ fence.
“Last chance to escape a tedious duty,” Grace advised him.
He shook his head stubbornly. She shrugged and urged her horses into motion.
Callie waved good-bye as they pulled away. Lord Trevor stepped up from the back of the cart and sat himself down in the driver’s seat beside her.
Grace looked askance at him; he gave her a dirty look.
“What?” she insisted.
“I took you for a woman of sense.”
“I beg your pardon!”
“Visiting an angry drunk alone in the middle of nowhere? Has he ever been violent?”
She shifted uncomfortably on her seat. “Not to me.”
He cursed softly in a language she didn’t know, possibly Italian.
“You don’t have to insult me!”
“I don’t care how unfortunate he is! If he ever harms you—no, if he ever merely scares you—I will most assuredly cut his throat.”
His violent utterance took her aback. She looked at him, startled, and drove on, frowning uneasily.
“I don’t like violence,” she informed him after a moment.
“I don’t care,” he answered matter-of-factly.
“There’s no need to growl at me! I’ve been doing this long before you moved into town. Do you think I enjoy going to see him? Believe me, I find Mr. Moody as revolting as everybody else does, other than his poor, long-suffering, little dog.”
“But you don’t let that stop you.”
“The dog is nice,” she replied, feeling defensive but trying to sound reasonable as they rolled along the dusty road. “I just think of it as if I’m going to visit Nelson. A very sweet little Brittany spaniel.”
Lord Trevor scoffed and huffed at her attempt to placate his protective ire.
“Come,” she cajoled him, then she attempted to explain her reasoning because she was so flattered by his concern for her safety. Besides, she didn’t want him to think she was foolish. “It’s easy to be generous to the Nelcotts, adorable as they are, and to Miss Hayes, who is so good and gentle and asks the world for nothing. But our Lord went among the lepers, didn’t he? It’s with people like Tom Moody where the true test lies.”
He scoffed. “Test of what?”
“Love,” she answered.
“Grace, it’s dangerous.”
“So? Your duty for the Order was dangerous, too, wasn’t it? But that didn’t stop you. Well, this is mine. My duty. Why should it be any different for me? In our separate spheres, we’re not so different, you and I.”
T
revor stared at her, nonplussed.
He had never heard such talk from a female before in his life. He was equal parts annoyed and awed at the woman.
He scarcely knew what to think.
Perhaps she fancied that a lightning bolt from the Almighty would come down and protect her, strike this Moody fellow dead if the vermin ever sought to harm her.
Bloody blind faith!
And yet, she was totally committed to her principles, and that, he could not help but respect.
“Very well,” he muttered at length, noting her worried glance in his direction. “I’ll go and see the
dog
with you, then. But next time, you come and get me first before you visit this ‘unfortunate soul.’ Understand?”
She smiled fondly but made him no such promise. Looking almost amused at his protectiveness, she returned her gaze to the road ahead and simply drove on.
T
om Moody lived on the edge of the woods in a hovel far worse than anything they had seen so far today. In fact, it was near the farthest border of the Grange property, and Trevor was panic-stricken to think of the two Nelcott boys playing by themselves so near the haunt of a man of such low, uncertain character.
As they neared the old shed where the “unfortunate soul” lived, before Grace had even halted the carriage, they could hear furious yelling and raucous noise coming from inside.
What the hell?
“Is this normal for him?” Trevor murmured, scanning the place on full alert.
“No.” Grace grasped his arm and glanced at him in concern.
Wails and incoherent shouts, crashes and bangs emanated from the shed. “Nelson! Nelson?” howled a male voice, slurred and full of anguish.
“Nelson’s the dog?” Trevor murmured.
Grace nodded, fear stamped across her face. She halted the cart, threw the brake, and immediately jumped down from the box.
“Hey, wait! Not so fast!” He leaped down after her and, in a few swift strides, caught her by the elbow. “You don’t want to surprise a man in his condition.”
“Let me go! I know what I’m doing! He sounds like he’s hurt.”
Trevor did not release her. “Is he likely to be armed? I want to know what I’m walking into.”
She glanced at the hovel in distress. “I don’t think so.” It seemed to cost her a great effort to tear her attention away from the noises of rage. “Maybe a knife. If he ever owned a gun, he’d have traded it long ago for drink.”
To Trevor’s frustration, she tore her arm free of his hold and rushed to the door. “Mr. Moody? Tom! It’s Grace Kenwood! What’s going on in there? Are you all right?”
She pounded on the unpainted door.
It suddenly banged open, and a face emerged from the shadows: dirty, weathered, streaked with wild tears.
Trevor was taken aback at the sight of a grown man sobbing. He had not seen that kind of raw pain on a man’s face since the battlefield, and it instantly brought back of flood of memories he had no desire to recall. All of a sudden, he felt physically ill.
“Oh, Miss Grace! Thank God you’ve come!”
“What’s happened?” She approached him without fear.
“It’s Nelson,” he wrenched out. “I think he’s hurt.”
“
What?
”
Trevor strode toward them, but foxed as he was, Tom Moody had not yet noticed him.
“What happened?” Grace asked quickly.
“I don’t know! It wasn’t my fault,” the dirty-faced man slurred. “He jumped up like he always does and knocked everything over, and I—”
“What did you do, Tom?”
“I kicked the damn thing! All right? And now he’s run off into the woods! He won’t came back. I think I might of broke his ribs. I didn’t mean to, ma’am, I swear. You know I love that dog. He’s all I got. But now he’s gone. I keep callin’. He won’t come back. Won’t you please help me find him?”
Grace was saying soothing things, trying to get control of the situation, but Trevor just stood there, numb. Frozen. The man’s despair had turned his blood to ice water in his veins.
When he saw the peg leg that probably explained why the town drunk could not get very far in searching the woods himself for the dog, the realization sank in that this man was probably a veteran. He had an instant, sickening suspicion that Tom Moody was one of the few survivors from Colonel Avery’s regiment.
He lowered his gaze, fighting against an unwanted sense of kinship to this broken man, this lost soul.
But for the grace of God.
Suddenly, Trevor felt a million miles away, jarred into a cold, detached frame of mind that he’d not had occasion to use in the past several months. A dark, emotionless state that was all about simply getting the job done, whatever it was.
Grace glanced twice at him, her soothing words to Moody breaking off midsentence. “Trevor?”
“How long has the dog been gone?” he heard himself ask in a clipped staccato.
“Who’s this?” Tom Moody asked Grace, dragging his tear-filled gaze away from her to Trevor.
“Our new neighbor, Lord Trevor Montgomery. He bought the Grange.”
“Can ye help me find my dog, sir? He’s a good dog.”
“Which way did he go?” he asked in a deadened tone.
Moody gestured toward a path that opened into the woods. “That way.”
“How long ago?”
“Only about ten minutes or so.”
Trevor nodded, but he had to get away from this man, right now. As if Tom’s brokenness was catching.
It was as though, deep in the back of his mind, he could hear a hurricane howling in the night black distance, and he knew it was coming for him.
Perhaps that was why he had never married Laura. Perhaps he’d always known that when the storm in him broke, it would blow her away. Blow his perfect house down. Ruin everything. And then he would have been trapped under the ruins for the rest of his life.
“Trevor?” Grace asked softly, searching his face. “Are you all right?”
“Of course. Stay here.” He glanced warily at Grace. “I’ll be back.” With that, he pivoted and headed for the woods, every muscle in him taut and bristling.
“I’m coming with you!”
He could hear her following but did not look back. “Please don’t.”
“Trevor, what’s wrong?” Grace demanded, striding after him toward the path into the woods.
He knew it was no use denying that he was out of sorts, but there was no way in hell he was telling her the truth. He stared straight ahead. “I don’t like people that hurt animals.”
“It’s more than that.”
“Go and wait in the carriage. If the dog is too badly hurt, I may have to kill it. You don’t want to see that.”
She fell behind in dismay, watching him march off like a wooden soldier.
G
race had never seen that look on his face before.
Anxious as she was about the dog, she was more worried at the moment about Trevor. Something about this situation had obviously struck a nerve.
If the drunkard had indeed accidentally killed his dog, she did not know how she was going to stop Trevor from killing
him.
From the direction of the woods, she could hear him calling the dog’s name. They said that animals could sense a human’s emotions; even if Nelson were able to move, Grace doubted the dog would be eager to risk coming out to face another angry man.
On the other hand, the smell of food might help to lure the frightened animal out of hiding. Picking up the hem of her skirts, she hurried back to the cart and fetched the last jar of soup. She had, of course, brought it for Tom, but the best way to help the weeping drunkard at the moment was to locate his dog. The poor man was inconsolable.
Praying they would not find the lovable little spaniel too badly injured, Grace carried the jar of soup into the woods. Keeping to the path, she followed the sound of Trevor’s voice through the green, leafy shadows.
“Nelson! Here boy!”
Grace was not sure what was going on inside his mind, but clearly, their visit here had affected him deeply. When she caught up to him, he sent her a dark glance, but she lifted the jar of soup to show him she had brought it to lure the dog.
He gave a begrudging nod and moved on.
She followed him through the woods while he continued using his tracking skills to find the animal. Leaves crackled underfoot, twigs snapping as they forged a path through the underbrush, following little more than a deer path. “Nelson!” They both kept on calling the dog.
Trevor held a branch aside for her; Grace picked her way along behind him over the uneven ground, no easy feat in long skirts.
“I wonder if we should spread out?”
“No need.” He stopped. “He’s in there.” He pointed to a low, horizontal crevice like a fox’s den in the little rocky hillside. “Nelson?”
Trevor took the soup from Grace and even as he approached, calling the animal’s name, she saw a black-and-pink-speckled nose poking nervously out of the den.
“Here, Nelson. Good boy,” he greeted the dog in a gentle tone, slowly setting the soup on the ground in front of the little cave. He pried off the lid and the odor floated into the air. “Come out and see us, boy,” he coaxed the frightened animal. “How are you doing in there? Let us have a look at you. Come on, now.”
Grace scaled the steep angle of the little hill. “Here, Nelson. Remember me? Come out, boy. We’re here to help you.” She approached quietly and crouched by Trevor’s side outside the mouth of the miniature cave.
From within, Nelson let out a small whine.
“I know, boy. It’s cruel,” Trevor said softly, putting out his hand so the dog could smell him.
They still couldn’t see the dog’s body as Nelson cowered in his hiding place. Grace waited with a cold knot of fear in the pit of her stomach for the dog to emerge so they could learn the extent of his injuries.
“Good boy, it’s all right now,” Trevor was soothing him.
“How can someone do this? All the creature wanted was to be his friend,” Grace whispered, tears welling up unexpectedly in her eyes.
Trevor shook his head, mute.
Then the brown-and-white spaniel came slinking out of the fox’s den with another pitiful whine, his head low, his feathered tail wagging nervously.
But his head was hung low with visible canine sorrow, and he only took a few steps, hunched with either pain or fear, before dropping submissively at Trevor’s feet.
He licked his nose anxiously and, with his great, brown, soulful eyes, stared at them as if waiting for them to explain why this had been done to him.
“He’s hurt,” Grace whispered, knowing Tom’s fear was confirmed.
“It’s all right, boy. Let me check you now,” Trevor forced out.
Grace petted the dog’s head to calm and comfort him while Trevor ran his hands over the animal, searching for any broken bones. It rather surprised her that the dog allowed him to do this, though Nelson nosed his hand away when Trevor touched his rib cage.
“Hold his head more firmly,” he instructed her. “If his ribs are broken, he might’ve punctured a lung.”
“Be careful, don’t hurt him.” Half-blinded by tears, Grace captured the dog’s head gently between her hands. She distracted Nelson, giving him a tender scratch under his floppy ears, while Trevor examined his rib cage more closely.
The dog obviously didn’t like it, but at least he didn’t yelp or whine or try to nip either of them.
“You’re a good dog,” she whispered over and over, but Trevor was silent, concentrating on his task.
She could not think of anyone with whom she’d have rather faced this nerve-racking moment. Trevor had clearly been upset before, but then when it came down to the moment, he seemed to take the crisis in his stride.
Grace was just the opposite. She had been fine before, but now that she saw the gentle, innocent dog cowering in pain, she felt like she was falling apart inwardly, trying to hold back tears and losing the battle after all the pointless suffering that she had seen today.
Why did life have to hurt so much? Why was there so much ugliness, and what was the point in trying to go against it? The darkness was too deep. Surely, she was a fool to waste her life in a losing battle. A tear fell from her eye onto the dog’s head.
Thankfully, Trevor didn’t notice. He ran his hands carefully over the dog’s spine and down each leg, then he finally let out a sigh of relief.
“No breaks that I can feel,” he finally announced in a low tone. “Poor little fellow, he’s been pretty well beaten up, but I think he’s going to be all right. No guarantee a few of the ribs aren’t cracked. They obviously hurt him, but maybe they’re just bruised. Been there myself, boy. Not very comfortable, is it?” he murmured, stroking the dog’s head. “No blood on him. But if Moody kicked him in the belly, we’ll have to keep an eye on him to see if there’s any organ damage.”
Grace was so grateful for this news, she couldn’t get a word out. She wasn’t entirely sure why she was so overcome, but her voice was blocked by the lump in her throat. She pressed her lips together, holding back a stupid sob. What on earth was wrong with her?
Trevor still hadn’t noticed her discomposure, fortunately. She was, after all, supposed to be the strong one.
Always.
Without fail.
She was Grace bloody Kenwood.
“Poor Nelson. Let’s hope he lives up to his namesake—Grace?” Trevor asked abruptly as a pair of tears dripped from her eyes without warning and fell onto his hand as he was petting the dog.
At the same moment that a small sob wrenched past her lips.
“Grace,” he said wonderingly.
She turned away and covered her mouth with the back of her hand, but it was no use. She simply crumbled.
T
revor stared at her, taken aback. The woman he knew as a tower of strength was weeping uncontrollably.
Her shoulders shook; she kept herself turned away, as though trying to hide the obvious from him. She took her fist off her mouth for a gulp of air amid a tangled sob, but still refused to turn to him.
His brow furrowed in bewilderment, Trevor laid his hand gently on her shoulder. “Grace, Nelson’s going to be all right.”
“It’s not that. Please—never mind me,” she choked out. “I’ll be fine in a moment, really—”
“Tell me what’s the matter,” he said softly.
She looked at him in bewilderment. “I just d-don’t understand. Why does there have to be so much pain a-and brutality? First all those people we saw today, and now this. The suffering, it’s endless,” she wrenched out. “I mean, if a man can do that to a poor innocent dog, a dog that loves him, what hope is there for any of us?”
“Come here,” he whispered, pulling her into his arms.
The green woods whispered around them as they knelt in the dirt, embracing. Trevor shut his eyes, firmly cradling her head with his hand while she soaked his shoulder with her tears. “Shh, it’s all right. I know,” he whispered. “You’ve been strong for everyone for so long, haven’t you? I’m here now. You go ahead and cry.”
G
race scarcely knew what had come over her.
This sudden storm of emotion was totally unlike her, but as she clung to him, still haunted by the pain on all those faces, the ex-assassin comforted her with the utmost tenderness, stroking her hair and her back, hushing her and speaking soft nonsense in soothing tones, while the sobs racked her.