Ten
Sitting by the side of their small fire, leaning back against the slanting stone of the crevice, Gavin felt an odd combination of contentment and restlessness. The shelter had grown fairly warm. The back reflected the heat of the flames as they had planned. The children were sitting or lying between him and Rose at the other end of the row. Emily had collapsed into sleep like a worn-out puppy or kitten. She’d shown no sign of guilt for causing this misadventure. Indeed, she and Branwell seemed to be having a splendid time. The older girls were more concerned.
It occurred to Gavin that groups like this had sat together, perhaps in this very spot, out of the rain, across years and years of history. Hundreds, thousands of years, if he remembered correctly. There were remains of ancient people on the moor. He and his friends had tried to dig into a barrow once, until Alan scared them off with tales of “ghost wights.” Whatever a wight might be. Sheltering here, making fire, caring for children, these things had happened over and over. Gavin felt as if he was staring down a bottomless well into the depths of time. It was disorienting.
His gaze caught on Rose as she bent to add a bit of wood to the flames. His mother and sisters always sneered at her, the dull and dowdy Rose Denholme, the eccentric collector of plants, the awkward outsider. But she wasn’t like that at all. He’d known that once upon a time, and yet had lost track of it under his mother’s incessant criticism. Now he was recovering the lost knowledge of his past. Rose was quick, smarter than any of them, Gavin thought. She was also lovely and passionate. When he’d held her in his arms…
Heat ran through him, as if the fire had suddenly roared up. Rose was delectable, and he wanted her, more than he could remember wanting anything else in his life.
She looked up at him, as if his thought had reached her. Their eyes locked. She received his gaze freely and fully. She even gave a small nod, agreeing to…what? They were here, together, in the night.
With five small children in their care.
A man could not explode, Gavin told himself. He was not a cannonball or an incendiary bomb. But right at this moment, he didn’t know how to contain his longings. “I’m going to look for more wood,” he said.
“Your clothes will be soaked,” Rose replied.
He’d want to rip them off. Well, so he would, damn it. “I don’t intend to wear them.”
“What?”
“I’ll leave them here,” Gavin told her. “To be dry when I finish.”
Rose’s mouth fell a little open. Those parted lips! When she moistened the lower one with the tip of her tongue, Gavin sprang to his feet.
“I can help,” declared Branwell, starting to remove his small coat.
“No,” Gavin replied. “You must stay here and watch over the ladies.”
His eldest sister, Maria, looked indignant.
“You won’t be able to see much in the dark,” Rose said, her voice a little choked.
“Neither will you,” quipped Gavin, pleased to have flustered her. He rose and walked behind his hanging greatcoat, tearing at his neckcloth as he moved.
He sat on the stone to pull off his boots, then rose and shed coat, shirt, riding breeches, stockings, and drawers. He was too roused up to feel the chill.
After a brief consideration, he put his boots back on. He couldn’t walk through the dark, over rough ground, barefoot. Then he paused a moment to smile at the picture he must make—naked except for his footwear.
He stepped down from the crevice into the rain. The cold droplets pelting his body tamped down the inner fire. It was a bracing sensation. Gavin laughed quietly. He hadn’t spent the night on the moor in years. This was something a bit more piquant than those youthful expeditions.
He took a careful step and then another. The fire behind him threw a little light on the bushes. Rain soaked every inch of him. Proceeding slowly to let his eyes adjust to the dark, he moved along the cliff. He’d remembered seeing a downed birch tree not far from its upper end when they arrived.
The crevice dwindled down to nothing. The stone escarpment dipped into the earth, no longer a guide. Gavin narrowed his eyes against the rain and turned from side to side. Catching a pale glimmer in the corner of his eye, he shifted carefully along the rocky ground and after a while found the birch. It had broken off near its base. A few shreds held the trunk up off the ground, so it had not rotted. He took hold and pulled the trunk free.
Turning, he found the light of the fire and started toward it, dragging the small tree behind him. It caught briefly on a bush. He jerked it loose. And then he was approaching the firelit part of the crevice. Rose and the children looked like a painting by Rembrandt, arranged in a row with the firelight gilding their faces.
Gavin doubted they could see more than a pale figure with their fire-dazzled eyes, but he kept the branches between himself and embarrassment. He pushed the birch trunk onto the lip of the crevice and then fed it along to the back. Rose took hold and helped it along, pulling the tree well in.
Slipping back from the light, Gavin returned to the curtained end of the crevice. He used his neckcloth to dry off a bit before redonning his clothes. With a last rub at his wet hair, he pushed back the greatcoat screen and joined the others. He felt Rose’s eyes on him as he emerged.
“How did you cut down a tree?” asked Branwell.
“It was already broken,” Gavin replied. He edged past the others to the birch. Putting one foot on the upper trunk, he pulled and broke off the slender upper part with its crown of thin leafless branches. He set this aside and lifted the rest of the tree, placing the middle carefully on their fire, so that the wet bark didn’t douse the flames. “We can push the ends inward as it burns,” he said. “It should last the night.”
Rose nodded.
He started to sit down beside her. But that wouldn’t be wise. To be so close would be to yearn to touch, and he could not. Gavin returned to his former place flanking the children.
Emily slept with utter abandon. Branwell’s eyelids were drooping, and Charlotte had curled up on Rose’s cloak ready to drop off. The two oldest Bront?s sat close together, their expressions anxious. “I suppose people have been looking for us,” said Maria.
“Tabitha probably went to the village for help,” said Elizabeth. “I hope worry does not make Mama worse.”
Her sister winced.
“Perhaps they didn’t tell her,” Elizabeth added. Neither girl looked convinced of that.
“Papa will say I have been wickedly heedless,” said Maria. Her shoulders drooped. “And I was. I know that Emily is likely to wander off in a daydream.”
“Branwell fell in the stream,” said Elizabeth.
“That too!” Maria answered. She took it as another criticism, though Gavin thought it had been meant to excuse her.
“No harm has been done,” said Rose. “We will see you safely home.”
“I failed in my duty to watch over the children,” replied Maria.
Too heavy a duty for a child of her years, Gavin thought. “This is really no great matter,” he said. “My friends and I had many more serious mishaps when we were young. Youngsters here range over the moor. I will tell your father so.” He saw Rose looking at him and gave her a half shrug. It was true that children this age did not go wandering. And they might have been hurt if they’d been caught out alone in the storm. But he wanted to lift some of the weight from the little girl’s spirit.
Maria did seem a little comforted, though she said, “I shall be more careful in the future.”
“We all begged you to let us go out for a whole day,” said Elizabeth.
“And I shan’t listen again.”
With this the older two lay down, and in a few minutes all the children were sleeping. Fatigue made the rock floor comfortable enough, Gavin supposed. He listened to their even breathing, the crackling of the fire, and the hiss of rain, becoming more and more conscious of Rose a few feet away. Their silence seemed to make her more present rather than less.
“I’ve never been out on the moor all night,” she said softly after a while. “I used to envy you and the other boys when you did it.”
She wouldn’t have been allowed, Gavin thought. He remembered how it had been. The scattering of girls in their group of youthful adventurers had disappeared one by one as they passed into their teens. A while later, they’d reemerged, like butterflies, in long skirts with their hair up. He’d simply accepted that. He hadn’t considered what they missed.
“It’s fine but a little… Not as wild as I expected.” She sounded disappointed.
“In this way, with a fire,” Gavin replied. “It’s like being in a house with walls of light.”
“Walls?” She looked around.
“The firelight cuts one off from the moor.”
She gazed out into the darkness, nodding.
“But without a fire, it’s a very different thing.” He thought back to those camps. “We would go out before sunset and find a good spot. On a hillock, say, or even the top of a tor. Wrap in a blanket and let the darkness fall. Your eyes become accustomed after a while, and you can see a good deal by starlight. The animals out about their business. Owls hunting.”
“But what about?” Rose gestured at the rain.
“Well, we didn’t venture out in any storms. A fair night is best, of course. And a full moon even better.” Gavin smiled at her.
Rose smiled back. “I would like to see that.”
Gavin’s heart beat faster. He started to say that he would take her out for a night on the moor when next the moon was full, but then realized he couldn’t do that. Tonight was as close as they would come to such an expedition. And when her parents learned she’d been out here… He sighed.
Rose looked away. Emily muttered in her sleep and turned over. The others softly breathed. “They are such unusual children,” Rose said quietly. “I wonder what they will become.”
“Something interesting, I suspect,” Gavin replied.
“I have no doubt. It is an interesting household.”
“Young Branwell with four sisters…”
“Five. There’s a baby at home.”
“Oh yes. Five sisters! He will have a time of it.”
“A time?” Rose repeated with raised brows.
“Some sort of time. I can’t quite imagine. Two sisters are enough for me.”
Rose started to speak, then appeared to change her mind.
Noticing that the birch trunk was burned through, Gavin pushed at the end nearest him, moving another section into the flames.
Emily suddenly sat up. “Scratching at the windows,” she said. Her eyes were open but vacant. Gavin didn’t think she was fully awake. “In,” she said. “Let me in.”
“It’s all right,” Gavin said, keeping his voice low but decisive. “We are keeping watch. You are quite safe.”
Emily let out a deep sigh and sank back down. Her eyes closed. She might never have moved.
They were silent for a while after that.
She had never felt safer, Rose realized. What an odd thing that was. She was miles from home, with five children in her charge and no means of transporting them. She ached a bit from sitting so long on stone. She was hungry. Their shared picnic seemed a long time ago. And yet she wasn’t worried. Indeed, she was…elated. Because of Gavin Keighley. She glanced at him and found him looking back. His eyes seemed full of messages. She could imagine some of them, but she couldn’t be sure. They had things to say, she thought. Not here and now, but…soon. It needed to be soon. Until then she had better look away. “I think the rain is less,” she said.
“Maybe a little. It could clear off by morning.”
Rose leaned back against the wall. Maria stirred, stretched, and rose to go behind the greatcoat screen. When she returned, she seemed disinclined to sleep again. No, now was not the time for important conversations, Rose thought. She smiled at Maria to reassure her. The fire and the rain kept up their antiphonal melody. At some point in the deep night, Rose sank into slumber.
When she woke, the sky was lightening and Gavin stood at the opening of the crevice. The rain had eased a bit. It was a drizzle now rather than a storm. He turned when she moved. “I will go and bring back horses,” he said.
She nodded, blinking away sleep and working stiff muscles.
“What is the quickest route from here, do you think?” He always acknowledged her familiarity with the moors. He didn’t make a rivalry of it.
Rose gathered her thoughts and drew the paths in the thin layer of ash on the floor of the crevice.
“Yes, I see,” he replied.
When they explained what he meant to do, the children insisted he take the greatcoat. Since it had served its function, and Rose thought the little girls would be more comfortable with her anyhow, she joined in their urging. Gavin took it down and put it on. He insisted on leaving his hat so that they would have drinking water. He bent and stepped down from the crevice into the rain. “As soon as I can,” he said to Rose. With a nod, he strode away.
“He’ll find help,” said Charlotte Bront?.
“Yes, he will,” Rose replied without a trace of doubt.
“I wish we had muffins,” said Branwell, rubbing his eyes. “Or even porridge.”
And a cup of hot tea, Rose thought wistfully. “It won’t be long.”
The rain soon soaked Gavin. The drops falling on the top of his head and running through his hair and down his face felt strange. The skirts of his greatcoat grew heavy with water.
Yerndon was closest, and he moved along the route Rose had outlined as quickly as he could. In daylight he could find his way without trouble. As she’d said, it would have been another story at night.
Tereford would let him have horses. The children would have to ride in the rain, which was not ideal, but no vehicle could reach them where they were. He would ask the duchess for heavy cloaks as well.
Gavin strode along at his best pace, and at last Yerndon loomed up through the rain. He came out near the stables, and as he rounded the corner of the building, he came upon Phelps leaning in the doorway gazing out over the moor. The man’s eyes showed a flicker of surprise. He looked Gavin up and down, taking in his sodden state. Questions were obvious in his expression.
This was not ideal. On the other hand, Gavin needed to deal with Phelps. It would just have to be quick. “Did my horse return here?” he asked.
Phelps shook his head.
“He was spooked by lightning,” Gavin added.
“Ha. Likely headed for the stable he knows best then,” the man suggested.
And thus would require an explanation to his mother, Gavin thought. Not that he could have avoided the topic once the story got out.
“Miss Denholme’s not with you?” Phelps asked.
She obviously wasn’t. And she was. It was too bad Phelps had caught sight of that kiss.
“When you both went missing, I wondered if you might have run off together, like Lucy Trent and that young footman.”
This was open insolence. “What did you say?”
“After what I seen the other day,” Phelps added.
“Which was none of your affair,” replied Gavin.
“It weren’t what you’d call private.”
“I would call it exactly that.”
Phelps shrugged. “It’s no matter to me,” he said. “But her ladyship does ask for news. Likes to hear all that’s going on in the neighborhood.”
“I didn’t take you for a talebearer,” said Gavin coldly. He fixed the man with a hard gaze.
“The thing is, I’m no manner of use here,” Phelps replied. “It’d be best if I go along home and see to my proper work.”
“And keep your mouth shut.”
“If I was back there, I’d be too busy to be talking.”
Gavin nodded. It was a clumsy attempt at blackmail, but he was glad for Phelps to go. “Fine. But before you leave, we must ride out and fetch the Bront? children. They were lost in the storm, and I sheltered with them last night. Ready four horses. I must speak to the duke.” He turned his back on Phelps and went to the house.
Gavin found the Terefords together in the parlor. The duchess exclaimed over his drenched state. “What has happened?” she asked. “We thought you and Miss Denholme must have gone to a neighbor in the storm.”
“We were about to send out inquiries,” said the duke.
He told them the story. “I hoped you might lend some cloaks to keep the rain off the children.”
“Of course.”
The duke rose. “I’ll see to it. And of course you must take any of the horses.”
“Change into dry clothes before you go out again,” the duchess said to Gavin. “You mustn’t make yourself ill.”
Though he was driven to rush, Gavin took her advice. He also pulled out a thick wool cloak that shed water fairly well. He could shelter the two smallest Bront?s under it if they rode before him.
Downstairs, he found four more heavy cloaks waiting. The duke wore one of them. “You needn’t come,” Gavin told him.
“I wish to.”
In the stable, Phelps and the grooms had horses ready. Since Tereford would be along, Gavin told Phelps to remain behind. “You can pack up your things and be off as soon as you like,” he told him in a low voice.
They mounted up and rode out into the rain, which continued at a lesser rate. Gavin’s cloak helped but didn’t keep off all the damp.
The journey was quicker on horseback with the landmarks Gavin had noted as he walked. They reached the crevice before noon. The children jumped up and cheered when they appeared at its front edge.
One by one they were lifted to the saddles. Gavin took Branwell and Emily, wrapping his cloak around them. They peeked out of the folds like baby birds in the nest. The duke took Charlotte. Maria rode on her own. Rose dowsed the fire with water from Gavin’s never-to-be-the-same hat. Then she donned her own wool cloak, mounted from the lip of rock, and set Elizabeth before her.
They rode first to Haworth parsonage, where they found the Bront? household frantic with worry. The ponies had indeed returned there without their riders, and the servants had been out searching the area all night. They greeted the children with glad cries of relief and carried them off in a cacophony of chatter as all the young ones tried to recount their adventure at once.
Of course they would tell the whole tale. Now that the children were home and safe, Gavin realized the story couldn’t be kept secret. And it would likely be garbled as it spread. He and Rose would certainly feature in the explosion of gossip that followed. He noticed that Rose had the hood of her cloak up and was keeping in the background. How could he shield her from what was to come? Just now he couldn’t think of a way.
The three of them rode back to Yerndon, where Gavin discovered that Phelps had gone. The duchess had hot drinks to welcome them, along with a crackling fire. Rose disappeared into her bedchamber almost at once. A few minutes later, the duchess went upstairs as well. Gavin clasped his hands around his warm cup and wished he was back in the shelter on the moor.
Rose wasn’t surprised when the duchess arrived at her bedroom door. Now that the excitement was over and the children safe, there were other things to deal with. She’d been out all night with a man. They hadn’t been alone, but her confidence in that protection was waning. Word was no doubt flying around the neighborhood. It might already have reached her parents. On top of Ian’s elopement, this was more excitement than this place had seen in years.
The duchess came in.
“I don’t see what else I could have done,” Rose said before her hostess could speak. “I went out walking. Alone.” Just looking for a bit of peace, Rose added silently, and with a strong sense of irony. “I encountered Sir Gavin. Briefly.” And did not kiss him again, she added silently. She wouldn’t be granted any credit for that. “I was going on my way, alone, when Elizabeth Bront? came riding up and said Emily was missing and begged for help.”
The duchess sat down in the armchair by the fire. She said nothing.
“I suppose I could have let Gavin go with her and come back to fetch the others. But we wouldn’t have known where they were.” And without Rose, Elizabeth wouldn’t have found her way back to her siblings. Also, it wouldn’t have felt right to send the girl off alone with Gavin. And the truth was, Rose had wanted to go with them.
“You may say I should not have been out walking on my own at all.” Her mother certainly would have. Rose sat on the bed, reaction to the end of the adventure washing over her. “But I was.”
“And so you were in place to do a good deed,” the duchess said.
“And now I will pay for it,” Rose replied. She was relieved not to be scolded, but she felt very tired suddenly.
“There will be talk.”
A humorless laugh escaped Rose.
“But I think Maria Bront? is of an age and level of understanding to assure people that there was no impropriety. We will simply be surprised that anyone might imagine there had been.” The duchess raised her golden eyebrows and looked haughtily astonished.
Rose laughed again, more naturally. She was filled with gratitude for this unusual woman. If only the duchess was the chief authority in her life. “That won’t matter to my parents. They will only care that I was with Gavin.” Rose grimaced. “They will order me home, I expect. In disgrace of some kind or another, no matter what Maria says.”
“But if they act as if you had done wrong…”
“I know,” Rose put in. “Everyone will assume there must be something to it. But this enmity with the Keighleys always takes over. Everything! In the stupidest way.”
The duchess shook her head. “So you don’t wish to go home?”
“No!” Surprised by her own vehemence, Rose blinked. “I wish I never had to.” It was a melancholy realization.
“Sir Gavin has said something similar to James,” the duchess told her.
“He has?” Rose blinked. “But he is the owner of his house.”
“Not the only inhabitant, however.”
Rose nodded. Lady Keighley would be raging about their rescue of the Bront?s. She too would care more about their joint action than for the children’s fate. “Why can’t there be an end to this stupid feud?”
“Sir Gavin gave James the idea that he is happier here,” the duchess went on.
“Because you make a real home,” Rose replied with sincere admiration.
Her hostess smiled. “Thank you. I believe your presence has been important to Sir Gavin’s feelings.”
“Mine?”
“Yes.”
“He said that?”
“It is my observation.” The duchess’s blue eyes twinkled. “I am rather good at noticing things.”
It was almost as if she knew about the kisses. Which she couldn’t, of course.
“It seems to me that you are fond of each other.”
Under the other woman’s steady gaze, Rose admitted it. She was more than fond. She cared deeply for Gavin. If he felt the same… She was shaken by a sense of danger. “We can’t be.”
“No?”
“Our families would never permit…” Anything. She didn’t have words for the opposition that would erupt.
“Would you let that stand between you and happiness?” asked the duchess.
“I wouldn’t!” Rose exclaimed defiantly. “Except…” Her father held the purse strings and authority over her in the eyes of society. And she simply couldn’t run off the way Lucy and Ian had. She didn’t want to marry that way. Also, nobody had asked her to. What might she dare if…someone did?
“We must see what can be managed.”
It was easy for the duchess, a happily married noblewoman, to say such things. Rose smiled politely and wished she was back out on the moors with her beloved landscape around her.