Chapter Three
Clara dashed on toward where she knew she’d heard Harvey barking. The night was inky and oppressive, all the more reason to find Harvey and get him inside.
She thought she saw a second lantern ahead, a warm glow lighting her way. Another person who liked walking in the rain? Or had he or she found Harvey as well?
Alden tramped behind her, grumbling and growling as though he was utterly miserable. The silly man hadn’t even brought a lantern to light his way. Did he enjoy stumbling about in the dark?
That he’d come at all trickled warmth through her. He’d worked hard that afternoon to get Harvey free, had sacrificed an entire flask of expensive brandy to the cause. Now, Alden worried so about one dog in the rain that he’d left the considerable comfort of his home to venture into the night.
He’d come alone, without his foppish friends. Not even the kind Mr. Forsythe had accompanied him.
The fact that Alden was behind her, looking out for her, made Clara feel protected and sheltered, even if he was a grump.
A grump with fine eyes and a strength that made her heart beat faster. Something she’d never admit to her next younger sister, Emily, who’d assisted Clara’s escape into the night and promised to unlock the door for her again when she returned.
As Clara drew nearer the pinpoint of light, the barking grew louder. “Harvey?” she called.
More barking, punctuated with yips and squeals. Clara sped her steps, making Alden curse behind her. Really, the man swore quite often.
The light did prove to be a lantern, abandoned but still lit beside the small marker of a woman who had passed away five years ago. Clara glimpsed the date and name before she set her lantern on a stone and crouched down.
Harvey, who’d been lying next to the lamp, lifted himself to his feet, his tail waving faintly.
“Good lad.” Clara opened her arms. “Come here, boy.”
Alden’s heavy footsteps made Harvey come alert, the fearful look filling his eyes once again.
“No.” Clara put her hand up to make Alden stop. “He won’t hurt you, sweetheart,” she said to Harvey. “Come. We’re going to take you out of the rain.”
Alden, bless him, did halt, for once not saying a word. Clara continued to speak to the dog, making her tone both coaxing and quiet.
Finally, Harvey, with an exhausted sigh, took a few limping steps to her. She wrapped her arms around him, holding her breath against the stench of the poor thing. He trembled but allowed the embrace.
Clara quickly buckled the collar she’d brought with her around his neck, then patted and stroked him to calm him once more. She was ruining yet another pair of gloves, but she would put up with her mother’s despair about them. Clara was certain her mother would understand when she knew the reason.
Alden kept his distance, observing the tableau. Clara sensed him ready to leap in if Harvey turned fierce, but the dog was being still and calm, betraying relief that he’d been found.
Clara removed a coiled lead from her pocket, clipped it onto the collar, and slowly rose to her feet.
“Good lad,” she said. She patted him again as Alden came slowly to them.
Instead of trying to bolt, Harvey shook himself, spraying Alden with droplets of mud and water.
“Bloody dog,” Alden rumbled. He wiped ineffectually at his coat. “How did you happen to have the lead and collar?”
Clara shrugged. “We’ve always had dogs at home. There are leads and collars lying about the garden shed. How did you think you’d retrieve him without them?”
Alden didn’t answer. He’d apparently not thought of anything beyond rushing into the night to fruitlessly search. Gallant of him, though not very practical.
“He must have been drawn to the light,” Clara mused.
The lantern was plain iron with glass sides and a candle within, the sort anyone might carry if they had to walk somewhere in the dark, or one a servant would use to light a gentleman’s or lady’s way.
“Whoever brought it out here left it behind. I wonder why?”
She scanned the darkness, but could see no one beyond the circle of light.
“Perhaps a ghost startled them,” Alden said with a straight face.
“Very amusing. Though it is eerie here, like in the ghost stories my sisters enjoy.”
Trees bent over the line of grave markers, small obelisks, crosses, or plain square stones that told of a life now gone. The rain made everything slick and muddy, marble shining in the lantern light.
Without Alden and Harvey, Clara might have let the atmosphere spook her into hastening home, despite her conviction that the departed didn’t truly linger to haunt the living.
Alden opened the second lantern and snuffed out the candle with his gloved fingers. “Whoever left it might come back for it in the morning,” he explained. “Should save the candle for them, and not let it catch the trees on fire.”
“And here I was just thinking you were not a practical man.”
“I am perfectly practical,” he answered coolly. “Most of the time, anyway.”
Clara couldn’t help but smile at him. He was quite ridiculous and very handsome at the same time.
Alden drew back slightly, as though startled by her smile. His eyes sparked with something unreadable in the lantern light.
Harvey shook himself again, and then stared off into the distance, as though seeing something Clara and Alden could not.
Clara shivered. “We ought to get indoors.”
“We ought to be indoors.” Alden took up the lantern she had set down. “Come on. You can’t lead the dog and carry the light at the same time. More practical thinking for you.”
Clara smothered a retort. She wasn’t certain whether to be amused or irritated by the man, but he did help, so she wouldn’t offend him. Not until they were warm and dry and Harvey was all right, anyway.
She followed him back across the cemetery and to the gate through which she’d entered. Alden creaked it open, then closed it behind them with a metallic thunk.
“Did you unlock this?” he asked her as they turned away.
“No.” How would he think she could? “It was unchained when I arrived.”
“Hmm,” Alden said. “Possibly by the person who left the lantern.”
“Possibly.”
Later, Clara decided, she’d think this through and try to work out who could have done such a thing. Only someone who worked in the cemetery or had the keys, obviously. A sexton from one of the nearby churches or chapels, perhaps.
For the moment, she only wanted to get Harvey under shelter from the rain and the cold.
She realized as they moved through the deserted lanes on the edge of the Heath that Alden was striding for his own house, not hers.
“My garden gate is that way.” Clara pointed down the curving shrubbery that ran behind the homes that lined the Heath.
Alden didn’t slow. “My garden is larger and uncluttered. We had this argument before.”
“Yes, but my family knows how to take care of dogs.”
He turned back, lifting the lantern to illuminate Clara’s face. “I grew up among packs of hounds, so I know dogs very well. Harvey will need space to run when he’s well enough to, and my garden shed is cavernous. And, as I said before, your mother’s rosebushes will be in no danger.”
Imagining her mother’s wrath if Harvey ripped into one of Lady Banks’s climbing roses made Clara concede the point. “Very well.”
She followed him to a solid, door-like gate.
In contrast to the low shrubs and simple iron gate that led to her family’s garden in the back of their house, Alden had a high wall lined with a hedge and a tall wooden door that blocked any view of his garden.
A carved raven at the top of the door surveyed those who approached.
Alden reached for the lead, but Harvey cringed against Clara, and she kept hold of it. Alden heaved a heavy sigh, produced a key, and unlocked the gate. Clara led Harvey inside, and Alden closed the gate behind them.
Clara feared Harvey would be frightened when he was shut inside, but the dog looked about the dark garden with some interest. He followed readily enough as Alden led them to a large door built into an extension of the house and opened this with another key.
He waved Clara inside the shed then hung the lantern on a hook near the door.
She noted with approval the neat rows of tools on the walls, boxes and bags stacked evenly on shelves, and the well-swept floor.
The shed held the musty, earthy odor of soil and compost that evoked the image of her mother kneeling beside a bench, potting her beloved roses.
Now that they were out of the rain and wind, another odor wafted around them. Clara wrinkled her nose. “Harvey very much needs a bath.”
“It’s too cold now,” Alden said. “I’ll give him a scrubbing in the morning.”
She raised her brows. “You will? Not one of your legions of servants?”
He eyed her impatiently. “I have four staff, including the gardener. Milford would give notice if I bade him wash a dog. The gardener works hard enough as it is, and the footmen are busy looking after my ungrateful friends.”
“Oh.” Clara rearranged her preconceptions. “If your friends are so awful, why are you allowing them your house?”
Alden shrugged, that unreadable expression crossing his face again. “Even I crave company, sometimes.”
“Well, you ought to come to supper with us, then. Plenty of people to keep you company at our house. If you can lower yourself to dine with us, that is.”
“Actually, it sounds pleasant.”
Clara started, surprised he would take what she said as anything other than a jest. “Very well. I’ll arrange it.”
Alden blinked, as though surprised in turn. “Good.”
Harvey let out a whine. He stared up at them as they stood close over him, as though wondering was going to happen.
“You should go,” Alden said abruptly to Clara.
“I should stay.” She returned his stubborn look with one of her own. “Harvey will be afraid if I don’t.”
Alden glared at her a while longer. Harvey waited, his expression growing more and more worried.
Finally, Alden jerked his head in a nod, as though grudgingly agreeing. While Clara patted Harvey reassuringly, Alden found a few more lanterns and lit them from the candle in hers. They were oil lamps and gave off a brighter glow.
Clara found an bench to sink onto, glad to be out of the wind, but it was still very cold. Harvey lowered himself to his haunches next to her, pressing into her skirts.
“Are you certain you can bathe him?” she asked.
“Of course I can,” Alden answered impatiently. “Tomorrow, in the garden. There’s a pump out there, and I’ll scare up some carbolic soap. Milford swears by it.” He studied Harvey’s matted coat. “I don’t have any brushes for dogs, though, only for spoiled dandies.”
Wordlessly, Clara produced a stiff-bristled brush from her pocket. Alden stared at it, then, incredibly, began to laugh.
“Clara Griffin, you are an amazing woman.”
Her heart beat in slow, banging thuds. She’d never seen Alden laugh, and it lit his face, chasing away the shadows.
She’d always thought him handsome, but the laughter transformed him into something extraordinary. Clara stared up at him, lips parted, before she snapped her mouth shut, fearing she looked like a fool.
She shrugged. “I always wear coats with deep pockets.”
This set Alden into more laughter. Harvey sat up straighter, his tail beginning to thump.
“What else have you got in there?” Alden asked, wiping his eyes.
Clara dipped her hands inside her coat. “Several brushes, actually, and a comb. I wasn’t certain what we’d need. Also a flask of tea and a beef sandwich.” She laid everything on the bench beside her, the sandwich, made by the doting cook, wrapped in paper.
Alden collapsed on her other side, burying his face in his hands. “A beef sandwich and a flask of tea.”
“I thought Harvey might be hungry, but I didn’t want our cook to refuse me a bit of beef for a stray dog. So I said it was for me. It is probably why he has been hovering near me instead of you.”
Harvey’s nose was twitching, drool spilling from the sides of his mouth, his tail moving even faster. Clara unwrapped the sandwich and handed it out to him.
The dog took it and swallowed it in two gulps, the poor, starving thing. He licked his maw and eyed her eagerly, hoping for more.
Alden leaned his head back against the wall and let out a long breath. “I haven’t laughed like that since—” He broke off, pain darkening his expression. “In a long time.”
Clara put a hand on his arm. “It was nice to hear.”
“Don’t.” Alden abruptly leapt to his feet and took two swift steps backward. “Don’t touch me.”
Clara drew back, her heart stinging. “Pardon me, I’m sure.”
“No. No, I didn’t mean—”
She pretended to ignore him, hiding her hurt by touching the brush to Harvey’s coat. The bristles were too soft, she quickly determined, and switched to the comb, which would remove the burrs and leaves that had tangled in his fur.
“Clara.”
She took her time turning her head to look up at Alden. “Yes?”
“Leave it. He’ll be full of vermin.”
Clara pretended loftiness, as though anything he said could not cut her. “At least he has wears his unpleasantness on the outside.”
“Damnation.” Alden plucked the comb from Clara’s hand and dropped it on the bench, before he hauled her to her feet. “You have to leave.”
Harvey growled. Clara was too startled to soothe him as she hung in Alden’s very strong grip. Rain dripped from her hat as she tilted her head back to look all the way up at him.
Alden gazed at her for one more frozen moment before he scooped her against him and took her mouth in a hard kiss.