“They weren’t really wicked, my dear, although the world calls them that. They were just sad, misguided creatures who loved him and mistakenly trusted him.
“One of them came to the house once. She was desperate, poor soul. My father had set her up in a fine house, lavished gifts on her, then thrown her out when she was with child. Even my mother pitied her, and gave her some money.”
“Was Grandpapa a wicked man, Mama?”
“He was like many a man, selfish and indifferent, concerned only with pleasing himself. That’s why a kind, loving man like your father should be prized. There are so few like him.”
In that modest, virtuous household there had been nobody to tell Rena that she was growing into an attractive young woman. Her hair was a pale honey colour, and her eyes which seemed almost too large for her small face, were the blue of the sky.
In fact, if she had been properly dressed and her hair well arranged, a man might easily have called her beautiful.
As it was, when she had seen herself in the mirror recently, she was not impressed. Her illness had left her thin, especially her face, so that her large eyes now seemed enormous.
“I look plain and haggard,” she had thought, but without emotion, for what difference could it make to her now?
But suddenly she remembered the Earl saying –
“Hurricanes, mermaids, beautiful young women springing up through trapdoors – Her Majesty’s Navy is ready for anything.”
He had called her beautiful.
But he was only joking, of course.
But no man had ever used that word in connection with her before. And she couldn’t help smiling.
She had come to the drawing room where the lamp showed her a large sofa that might do for a bed, just for tonight. Some moonlight came through the large windows and she decided to return the lamp to the kitchen.
Turning, she headed for the door and immediately collided with a chair that she hadn’t seen in her path. It went over onto the wooden floor with a mighty clang that seemed to echo through the house.
She stood listening while the echoes died away. Then there was silence.
She made her way back to the kitchen where Clara was inspecting the floor.
“You’d better come with me,” she said. “After tonight I don’t want to let you out of my sight. Parish property indeed.”
She turned out the lamp, scooped Clara up and returned along the passage to the drawing room. She had left the door open, so that although the passage was dark she could see her destination by the glow of moonlight.
But as she took the final step through the doorway a mountain seemed to descend on her. Clara escaped and flew upwards, squawking horribly.
After the first moment’s blind panic Rena fought back fiercely, kicking out with her feet and thrashing her arms. She even managed to launch some sort of blow, if the grunt from her assailant was anything to go by.
Then they were on the floor together, rolling over and over in the darkness, each trying to get a firm grip on the other, gasping, thumping, flailing, until at last her head banged against the floor and she let out a yell.
“What the devil – ?” said a voice that she recognised.
The fight had taken them into a patch of moonlight near the window. Rena found she was lying on her back with a hard, masculine body on top of her, and the Earl’s face staring down at her with shock.
“M-Miss Colwell?”
At that moment Clara landed on his head.
“Miss Colwell?” he said again, aghast. “It’s you.”
“Certainly it’s me. Kindly rise, sir.”
“Of course, of course.” He hastily sprang to his feet and reached down to help her up.
“Do you normally attack people who enter your home?” she demanded. She was breathless from the fight, and from strange sensations that were coursing around her body.
“Only the ones who come by night and don’t ring the doorbell,” he said promptly. “To be honest, I thought you were the ghost.”
“Really!”
“Truly, I did. I heard a noise from down here and came to investigate. Then I heard ghostly footsteps coming along the passage, and then some creature came through the door, holding something under her arm. So naturally I thought you were carrying your head.”
“I beg your pardon!”
“You were carrying something under your arm, so I thought it was your head. Headless Lady, you know.”
“It was not my head,” Rena said with awful dignity. “It was a chicken.”
“A chicken? Yes – well, I quite see that that explains everything.”
Her lips twitched. “You are absurd,” she said.
“I beg your pardon, madam! You glide about the house at midnight, carrying a chicken under your arm, and I am absurd?”
“I can explain the chicken.”
“Please don’t,” he begged, beginning to laugh. “I think I’d prefer it to remain a mystery.”
“Whatever Your Lordship pleases,” she said, beginning to dust herself down.
“Don’t you think, after this, that you might bring yourself to call me John?”
“Yes, I do. And I’m Rena. And the chicken is Clara. She lays excellent eggs, as you will find.”
“I’m moved by this concern for my appetite, but I assure you tomorrow would have been soon enough.”
“Yes, but I – oh heavens!” she said, as the evening’s events came back to her.
“My dear girl, whatever has happened? I can’t see your face properly, but I can tell you’re very depressed. No, don’t answer now. Let us go into the kitchen and have some tea, and you can tell me all about it.”
His kindly concern was balm to her soul. In the kitchen she relit the lamp and he made her sit down on the old oak settle by the stove while he boiled the kettle. She told him the whole story of her arrival at the vicarage, her discovery of the family, and her battle with them.
“I behaved terribly,” she said, shocked at herself.
“It sounds to me as though you behaved very sensibly,” he said, handing her a cup of tea, and sitting down beside her. “They may not be a den of thieves exactly, but they’re certainly a nest of bullies. And the only thing to do with bullies is stand up to them.”
“Well, that’s what I think too,” she said, delighted to find a kindred spirit. “And yet – oh, goodness, if you could have heard the things I said to them.”
“I wish I had. I’m sure it would have been very entertaining.”
“Oh no, I’m sure that’s wrong,” she said, conscience stricken. “How can a fight be entertaining?”
“Very easily if you have righteousness on your side. Nothing like a good fight. Engage the enemy and turn your ten-pounders on him.”
“Ten-pounders?”
“Guns.”
“They said – ” her voice began to shake from another reason, “they said they’d tell the constable that Clara was parish property, and I said – ” mirth was overcoming her, “I said – ”
“Don’t stop there,” he begged. “I can’t stand it.”
“I said he would take my side because – he’d