The Arrangement. Lyn Stone

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СКАЧАТЬ laid her hand on his arm and preceded him through the door. “What now?” she asked as they reached their mounts. She placed her tiny boot in his hand and let him boost her up.

      “I’ll ride back with you as far as the Hare’s Foot Inn, and then you’re on your own. Say what you will to Pip, but see he gets to bed at a decent hour. If I don’t show at Turkington’s affair tonight, he’ll let his stork of a daughter sing. The whole county will heave up its supper, and they’ll be blaming me for it.”

      She laughed hard, leaning forward in the saddle and almost unseating herself. Jon grinned up at her, wishing it was him she would be putting to bed later on. Actually it would be, but certainly not in the manner he fantasized. Curse his luck.

      As soon as they reached the village inn, Jon blew Kathryn a kiss and waved goodbye. He kicked Imp to a gallop and cut through the woods to the manor. Old Turkington would have to hum for his guests tonight. There were only moments to spare before his wife arrived at the house, expecting a wedding night of some sort. He supposed music would have to suffice.

      

      Kathryn took her time approaching Timberoak Manor. Moonlight did nothing to disguise the ragged condition of her new home. Half-dead vines hugged the stones as far up as the second-floor windows. The ivy appeared to be all that was holding the place together. Paint-peeled shutters hung precariously, threatening to drop to the ground with the first strong breeze. Knee-high grasses probably concealed all manner of debris around the weed-infested gravel of the driveway. Still, one could clearly see the ghost of former grandeur. Perhaps, with care and a hefty portion of her inheritance, she could resurrect that ghost.

      Kathryn clung to the newly realized ambition. Such as it was, she now had a home to call her own. She had always craved a home, a family and a husband. Timberoak, Jon Chadwick and Pip weren’t exactly what she’d had in mind during all those wishing sessions, but at the advanced age of almost twenty-five, she could hardly hope for much more.

      After she located the stable and fed Mabel, Kathryn walked around front again. The heavy door swung open at a touch. She strode down the entrance hall and entered the littered ballroom with forced confidence and determined hope. She had always heard it was best to begin as one meant to go.

      Pip sat on the floor with his back to her, humming along with the small harp he strummed. His tattered green robe was bunched around his hips, and his outstretched legs were bare. “Pip,” she called softly, afraid she would startle him. “It’s Kathryn.”

      He turned with a wide, vacant smile. Simply beautiful, she thought with a catch in her breath. And beautifully simple. Regret and sympathy streaked through her, leaving in their wake a need to do something, anything, to improve the quality of his life.

      “May I join you?” she asked as she knelt beside him.

      “Want to play?” Pip handed her the child’s harp.

      She pushed it back into his arms. “I don’t know how, dear.”

      “I play. You sing,” he ordered, and began to pluck a folk tune she vaguely remembered from childhood.

      “‘Winnowing Away,”’ she remarked as the title came to her. Her mother had sung it to her when she was little. Before...

      “I don’t sing. Ever,” she said. The words came out more sharply than she had meant them to. His mouth drew down in a pout.

      Before she thought what she was doing, Kathryn reached up and brushed his hair back, uncovering the dark bruise on his temple. He had scrubbed it nearly raw. The whole of his face and neck looked freshly washed, his sun-kissed hair still damp around it.

      She wondered whether he shaved his own face. Perhaps Jon or Grandy did it for him. At least he made some attempt at cleanliness on his own. She caught a faint whiff of cologne and smiled. He must have dabbled in Jon’s things out of curiosity.

      “Sing to me,” he mumbled, stroking the harp strings.

      Kathryn sighed. She hadn’t sung in thirteen years. The last time had gained her the only beating her father ever gave her. After that, even humming had drawn dark scowls from him.

      “My mother used to sing,” she said, almost to herself and noticed Pip’s head cock to one side as though he were interested.

      Kathryn realized then that she now had a confidant. Pip could listen to all her woes and would promptly forget them. She had talked to her cat when she was small and had no one else to listen. Whiskers had probably saved her sanity after Mother left and Father grew morose and distant. Come to think of it, Pip’s curious expression had a certain similarity to her feline friend’s.

      She smiled and clasped her hands together in her lap. “Mother sang like a nightingale, Pip. Still does, I expect.”

      “Mother died,” Pip said bluntly, catching a bass string with one fingernail. The note bonged and then faded to silence.

      “Your mother died? Mine went away. Sad, isn’t it?” Kathryn leaned against his shoulder, and Pip grunted softly in assent.

      He began to play again, this time a piece she didn’t know—one of his own, she suspected. The soft music soothed as a maternal caress was meant to. Perhaps Pip had invented his own consolation for the loss of his mother and was sharing it with her. What a lovely thought that, despite his disability, he possessed such sensitivity, such natural goodness.

      She lay back on the chilly floor and covered her eyes with one arm. Pip’s sweet, comforting sounds enfolded her, warmed her, and eventually lulled her to sleep.

      Chapter Five

      

      

      Strong sunlight and the smell of coffee greeted Kathryn when she woke. She blinked and rubbed her eyes, groaning as her corset bit into her rib cage.

      She was in Pip’s room. Or at least the one she had assigned him when she saw the pigsty he usually occupied. The covers lay tangled half about her, half on the floor. Otherwise, the place looked much as it had the last time she was in it. The dust was more evident, and the furnishings seemed a bit more faded than she recalled. How in the world had she gotten here?

      Searching her memory, Kathryn vaguely remembered strong arms beneath her, the shifting movements of being carried like a child. She lay back and sighed. So Pip was looking after her. The future didn’t look half so bleak as she had expected it would this morning.

      Once she had her money, she would restore his home and make it livable. Maybe even as beautiful as it had been in its glory days. And she would give him a life of comfort and ease. Her Pip would have no worries at all other than what note to play next. Her Pip. Nathan. She remembered the name Jon had written on the marriage certificate, but she could never think of Pip as Nathan. He probably wouldn’t answer to that name, anyway.

      So what if Pip wasn’t her ideal husband? Not likely she would ever have found the man she’d envisioned anyway. She had imagined a somewhat older fellow. Handsome, naturally. Virile and experienced, worldly, sure of himself, the master of all situations. And rich. Well, now she didn’t require a rich man. Love had never been on her wish list. She’d seen what love did to her father when he lost it. She wasn’t even certain what love meant; passion, supposedly, coupled with obsession. She would gladly settle for a different, safer kind of affection СКАЧАТЬ