Chapter Three

F rancesca lay awake for some time, thinking about her strangely appealing guest.

She liked his serious expression and his sudden, sweet smile. She liked his instinctive kindness and the way he focused on what she—or Mark—said. She liked that he never imposed.

And, if she was strictly honest, she liked the way he looked, with his bronzed skin and his distinguished, handsome features. From the slight graying of the hair at his temples, she guessed he was around forty years old, a little older than her, pleasingly mature and yet with an air of almost childlike innocence.

The admiration she read in his eyes had surprised her but not frightened her. And he had taken no liberties apart from holding her hand once, and that had been comfort, not attempted seduction. He seemed very open and blunt, and yet mysterious too. She knew he was hiding something about his past.

Well, everyone was entitled to privacy. She had not needed to tell him about her fear of thunder and its association with the theatre attack… She had never told anyone before. She and Percival had rarely even discussed it because it came so close to separating them forever. Percival expressed himself through music, and he had cared deeply. But he had been too selfish to be very observant.

George had noticed her fear, and he had seemed to admire rather than judge, understand rather than pretend. And curiously, it helped. Had he stayed talking to her merely to distract her, out of kindness?

She liked kindness. But for the first time since Percival's death, she wanted to be liked . To be admired as a man admired a woman. She wanted George to desire her as, God help her, she desired him. Which was highly dangerous in the circumstances.

But she had been a widow for two years, and she could not help the stirrings of her body or her odd tug of attraction to the intriguing stranger. She savored the feeling, reveling in the secret heat spreading through her body, imagining his kiss, the touch of his hands…the intimate, deliciously physical loving she had known only with Percival.

George would be a different kind of lover, gentler, sweeter, with all the understanding and self-control of maturity. He would seek her pleasure always… Her body began to throb, making her shift restlessly, tangling her limbs in the sheets.

How wonderful would it be to seduce him from that self-discipline, just occasionally?

She gasped at the sudden ferocity of need—and Mark's laughter rang out, instantly dousing the foolish fantasy. She leapt out of bed and felt her way to the connecting door to Mark's room. A night light was always left there, burning very low. In its faint glow, Mark was sitting up against the pillows, grinning at something at the foot of his bed. He laughed again, turning his happy gaze toward Francesca.

"Look, Papa! Mama is here and can answer for herself."

Pain twisted through her, along with a frisson she could not explain. There was guilt that he needed his father so much that he imagined his presence, helplessness because she did not know what to do. At first, she had thought it a phase that would pass and had said little to disillusion him. Now, she wondered if she had done the right thing. Should she have nipped it in the bud from the beginning?

"She certainly can," she said. "And so can you. Why are you not asleep?"

"Papa woke me."

Deliberately, she sat at the foot of the bad, as close as she could to where he had been gazing when she first entered. For an instant, she imagined the warmth of another presence, familiar and welcome, and old grief mingled with irritation at her own weakness.

"Marco," she said gently, "Papa is always with us, in our hearts and memories. Wishing he was still alive does not make it so."

"Oh, I know that, but he is here. Right beside you."

She blinked, trying to find the right response.

"We were just laughing at how wet poor Sir George was when he arrived," Mark said cheerfully. "Papa said he looked like a fountain!"

"Well, so would you if you had walked from the village in that deluge. Although you would have been a much smaller one."

Mark grinned, then his gaze slid to the side of her. "Papa says you can't hear him."

"I can't." She sat forward, reaching out her hand to him. "Marco—"

"He wants to know if you like Sir George."

Her hand fell back into her lap. "Why don't you just ask me yourself, if you want to know?"

"Oh, I know. I can tell you like him. So do I. But Papa worries, because he is a stranger and because of the recent trouble."

Francesca deliberately smoothed out her forming frown. There had been a series of annoying tricks this last month—mostly people knocking on the door and hiding. She had blamed children, probably put up to it by their parents, either directly or indirectly. They died away when she had not reacted. Though Martin had tottered after someone into the woods.

Had the incidents worried Mark more than she had seen at the time? "Oh, we don't need to worry about such jokes," she said lightly. "And I believe Sir George is a perfect gentleman."

Again, Mark glanced away from her. After a pause, he said, "He had better be—according to Papa."

"He will be gone tomorrow," Francesca said. Surprised by the sudden stab of sadness, she focused on Mark's imagination instead, and tried a different approach. "Why is Papa here and not at rest?"

Mark's eyebrows flew up in surprise. He glanced away in silence, then back to Francesca. "He says because he didn't want to leave us. He says he is watching over us."

"He is not God," Francesca said, more tartly than she had intended, perhaps because Mark's answer did not sound like Mark. The words sounded more like…Percival's.

She shivered. Something soft trailed across her cheek, like a breath or the faintest of caresses, and her breath caught. She had felt this before, in bed, only half awake as she longed for Percival, dreamed, perhaps, that he was not dead. And for those instants, she had believed it, before reality intruded along with the tears.

Her hand flew to her cheek, but of course there was nothing there. Not physically. But her own imagination was playing tricks, for she almost sensed his presence, warm, lively, and once so very necessary…

"You must sleep," she said to Mark, rearranging the pillows and pushing him gently to lie down. He did not resist, although he smiled beyond her shoulder, and the hairs on the back of her neck stood up. She only just stopped herself from jerking around to look. "Papa would not wake you in the middle of the night."

Even as she said the words, she remembered that he had done so on several occasions, returning from a tour of concerts or just because he wanted to see his son smile at him. She wasn't surprised by Mark's skeptical look. Instead, it made her laugh.

She stroked the hair off his forehead and kissed him goodnight. Then she sat and waited for him to close his eyes and fall into the deep, even breathing of sleep. She rose silently and tiptoed from the room, leaving the connecting door slightly ajar.

As she climbed back into bed, she wondered if it was her late husband's presence she felt, or the faint excitement of guilty new interest.

*

She woke with the realization that today was Hallowe'en. All Hallows' Eve. Not that it made any difference to her life. She suspected it was merely the discussion with Mark about Percival's presence that prompted her to think of it. Though to be sure, Percival was no demon!

For the first time, it seemed, she could smile at his memory, the simple warmth of affection uncontaminated by grief. The grief would never go completely, of course. He had been her first love, and much too young to die. But for her own sake as much as Mark's, she had to return to life. Mark himself was becoming a warning of what could happen to someone too absorbed by the past and what should have been.

Since Mark was still asleep, she went downstairs alone and found Ada in the kitchen.

"Sir Arthur's gone to the village already," Ada informed her. She sniffed. "Seems like a respectable gentleman. Courteous."

"Indeed. Did he take his baggage with him?"

"No, he means to return, whether or not his chaise is repaired, to thank you for your hospitality."

This pleased Francesca far more than it should. She was glad she had chosen to wear the lavender morning gown rather than the gray, which made her look too much like the ghost she was becoming.

After breakfast, she harnessed the old pony to the trap, and she and Mark made a quick tour of the tenant cottages to make sure none had been damaged by lightning or the excessive rain. Fortunately, they found nothing worse than a couple of minor leaks, which she promised to have dealt with today.

On the way home, they halted, as they sometimes did, for a cup of tea with Mrs. Gates, whose husband rented the nearest farm and cottage. She had a daughter the same age as Mark and a son a couple of years older. They were friendly children, and for the first time, Francesca encouraged Mark to go outside and play with them. Aware of the hostility in the village, she had kept him too much away from other children, but now she realized the harm it was doing.

On impulse, she asked Mrs. Gates about the children coming to Hazel House next week. Mrs. Gates looked genuinely pleased and agreed at once.

Francesca returned to Hazel House feeling better, more hopeful that she had since Percival's death. They enjoyed a light luncheon while Mark chattered away about the Gates children.

When Mark sloped off to play with his toy soldiers in his room, Francesca cleared up and, leaving the used crockery with Ada in the kitchen, went outside through the back door to fetch water from the well in the yard. Ada could no longer manage the heavy jobs. Nor could Martin, really. Francesca needed younger servants, and preferably a few more of them, but the Martins had been with Percival's family forever, and she could not turn them out. Besides, she was fond of them, and they were loyal.

Her thoughts fled with an unpleasant jolt. Two men stood by the well, sniggering. She recognized them as Jack Forest and Bill Kell, two of the most offensive villagers. Bill held a wriggling cat, while Jack pulled up the well bucket and rested it on the wall.

"What are you doing?" she demanded, her voice sharp with both irritation and suspicion.

They were not remotely alarmed. In fact, Jack grinned. Bill seemed too concerned with holding on to the wriggling cat. With another unpleasant jolt, she recognized it as one of the stable cat's last litter of kittens.

"Afternoon," Jack said, as though he had every right to be here.

"What are you doing?" she repeated, marching closer, her own large, empty pails in either hand.

Jack looked at the bucket in his grasp. "Fetching water. You don't grudge us a drink of water, do you?"

"Is something wrong with the village well? Your own taps?"

"Long walk to the village," Bill observed with blatant insolence.

"Which makes me wonder what brings you here," she retorted. "Be so good as to release my cat. He clearly does want to be held."

"Unlike the lady of the house," Jack said slyly.

Francesca's face flamed with anger. "You will keep a civil tongue in your head when you address me."

This was where, in the past, they would laugh, as if it was just a joke, and then they would slouch off, snorting and cackling, making other half-heard comments that she always chose to ignore. But it seemed they had grown bolder.

Bill did not release the cat. Neither of them laughed. Instead, Jack took a step closer, meeting her gaze with open insolence.

"Or what?" he sneered.

Her fingers curled hard on the handles of her pails. She fought the urge to bring them up and crash them into his head, for in doing so, she would lose what was left of her dignity, admit they could hurt her. In truth, there was nothing she could do, and she could think of nothing to say. She had never felt so helpless in her life.

And they knew it. They saw it.

"Well?" Bill said. He came closer, too, the cat still in his grasp. Jack's grin broadened. "What are you going to do?"

"Ma'am," said an unexpected male voice, causing Francesca and the men to jerk their heads around in surprise.

Sir Arthur Astley, George to his friends, dismounted from the back of a strange horse at the stable door and, abandoning it, strolled toward the well. Francesca's heart thudded with relief to have an ally, or at least a distraction.

"What?" Bill said, clearly confused, if not quite frightened.

"What are you going to do, ma'am ," George corrected him with apparent patience. "One treats a lady with courtesy."

He continued toward them, a distinguished figure, although Francesca would never have called him an imposing one—until now. He held the attention of both the other men. The cat, taking advantage of Bill's distraction, lashed out suddenly with her claws and broke free with a yowl, shooting back toward the safety of the stable.

"A lady ," Jack muttered, not quite beneath his breath. Clearly, he did not respect George either, which infuriated Francesca.

"Yes, a lady ," George snapped, holding his gaze. "And what the lady does is none of your business unless she chooses to tell you. What you do, on her property, however, is Mrs. Hazel's business. And I believe she requested your immediate absence."

As he walked past the men, not quite brushing against Jack, Francesca found herself holding her breath. But no one tripped or jostled him. His manner was too authoritative. He stopped beside Francesca, facing them.

Jack and Bill exchanged glances, and seemed to take courage from it, for Jack sneered openly once more. "So the question is for you ? What are you going to do about it? What can you do?"

"In the short term, I really don't advise you to find out. In the longer term, I suspect a consultation with my old friend Mr. Paston will be productive."

Mr. Paston was the local magistrate, though how George had discovered it was beyond Francesca's current ability to imagine.

Again, Jack laughed. "What are you going to charge me with? Stealing a bucket of water?"

"How could I?" George replied. "There is no water in the bucket. I was thinking more along the lines of attempted murder."

Francesca set down her pails. Jack and Bill stared at him open-mouthed.

"What were you planning?" George asked. "To put the poor cat in the bucket and lower it into the well so that it cried and frightened the household for Hallowe'en? And if the creature drowned, the well would be poisoned."

The idiots had clearly not thought of that. For the first time in their encounters, the fear was on their side, not hers.

"Rot!" Jack said aggressively. "I was just having a drink!"

"From an empty bucket?" George inquired. He turned his gaze on Bill. "And you?"

Bill swallowed. A trickle of blood ran down his cheek where the kitten had scratched him. "I like cats," he said lamely.

"They clearly don't like you," George observed with apparent amusement. "You may go, and do not return without invitation."

There was a short, surprised silence. Then Jack pushed the bucket off the wall and slouched away, Bill at his side. Jack tried to give a laugh of bravado as he went, but it was a poor effort.