On Bended Knee, page 16
part #6 of Wicked Worthingtons Series
Mr. Worthington carried her case to the harnessed cart. As Gemma slowly buttoned her jacket and tightened her bonnet against the breeze, Topknot came lalloping up to them. Without a word, Mr. Worthington reached along the running board and let down a rough wooden step hinged beneath it. Topknot wagged her feathery banner of a tail and used the step to scramble awkwardly onto the driver's seat of the cart. Gemma stared. That had not been there before.
"Aye then, Topknot," Mr. Bing said with approval. "That works a treat, lad," he said to Mr. Worthington.
Gemma looked from Topknot's proud doggie grin to Mr. Worthington's casual indifference to the generosity of his invention. What sort of man took the time to do such a kindness for a dog?
Gemma remained very quiet as they drove the winding road up the dale. She remained astonished at Mr. Worthington's effortless command of the heretofore barely controllable Bad Pony. She watched as his hand occasionally reached to rub behind Topknot's feathery ears.
The dog made an excellent chaperone. Her fluffy rear took up the precise distance on the bench between Gemma and her companion. Gemma did not know whether to be pleased or disappointed.
When they arrived at the Hamme farmhold where Mr. Bing had sent them, the family at the farmhouse was confused but welcoming.
“Ain't no one sick right now," Farmer Hamme said, having taken off his cap to scratch at his head. "Still, as long as you've taken the trouble, my gran has t' bone-ache somethin' bad.”
With a silent accusation sent winging down the dale toward Mr. Bing, Gemma nodded with a smile. "Of course. I'd be happy to help."
She did a bit of simple doctoring, grinding her willow-bark for the elderly woman's arthritis and giving her a warming salve as well. Then the list grew. The children had insect bites and "Da has the corns somethin' awful."
Gemma rather thought she might start dropping in on more of the dale's populace, for it seemed people weren't coming to her as often as they ought. She could bring them chickens, which would guarantee her welcome. She smiled to herself. Mr. Bing would be so pleased.
While she was busy, she saw Farmer Hamme walk out to the barn with Mr. Worthington.
LYSANDER PUT HIS NEW calming skills to work to help Hamme mend a gate. Hamme was a silent fellow who never seemed to pass by his plump dark-haired wife without a touch to her shoulder or hand. Lysander put a good effort into fixing the gate, which was definitely a two-man job.
Mrs. Hamme banged a spoon on a cookpot to call the children inside and Lysander watched the black-haired horde pop up from all around him and stream into the house.
Life in the dale seemed very challenging to him, with the harsh winters and the hard work. Hamme's place wasn't a hovel, but neither was it prosperous. The house was a ramshackle mix of wood and stone and the barn a three-sided shed dug into the hillside with an earthen rear wall.
Yet the children were sturdy and well-tended and they had laughed and tussled as they obediently ran indoors. Hamme laughed heartily when Lysander's riding boots slid on the damp slope, landing him on his arse, but there was no meanness in it. People in the dale had a hard go, that was certain, but they also seemed to know how to have a bit of fun.
That made Lysander wonder. Why did Gemma Oakes never seem to have any fun?
Chapter 17
AFTER LEAVING THE HAMME farmstead, Gemma decided to take Mr. Bing's none-too-subtle advice. "If you follow the fork in the lane to the right, the path will take us up to the Nine Standards." She smiled at Mr. Worthington. "It's quite an astonishing view of the dale."
Oh dear. She'd forgotten how smiling at him quite turned him to a statue. She reached a hand over his to tug gently on the reins he held. Bad Pony veered smartly onto the path and continued his astonishingly well-behaved trot.
After leaving the lane, which had never been any wider than the cart wheels, the path began to narrow and turn bumpy with exposed rock and twisting turns that wound ever higher. To Gemma's surprise, Bad Pony took it all in stride. Mr. Worthington slowed him to a more careful walk but the pony nimbly picked his way through the chunks of half buried limestone. His short, sturdy legs pulled the cart with great ease despite the incline.
Gemma shook her head in wonder. "He's like another creature altogether."
To her surprise, Mr. Worthington shook his head to refute her. "He's the same. We've changed. We understand now."
Was he speaking of the war pony, or of himself? Either way it was the most spontaneous conversation she'd ever had from him. There had been no prying questions required.
Was that perhaps the secret? To make mild statements of general curiosity instead of direct questions? It made excellent sense, now that she'd thought of it. After all, she wasn't terribly fond of direct questions herself, especially when those questions intruded on very personal matters. Encouraged, she tried something else. "I don't think that I have ever stood upon a point so high as this." She waited.
"No."
Just when Gemma had decided she would get nothing more from him, he went on.
"St. Paul's. Bell tower." He slid his gaze from the road to meet her surprised one. "Prank. Four brothers." As if that explained everything. Then, "Ale."
Perhaps it explained a great deal. Heavens, five sons! It sounded wonderful — and somewhat terrifying. Gemma had always imagined herself with a houseful of children, but as time went on she'd resigned herself to two, or perhaps one. Then Edmund had been lost and that one child had never come.
Still, five sons. "Your mother must be exhausted."
Mr. Worthington did not answer. When she looked at him again his expression had gone quite set and his jaw tensed. Oh dear, the four brothers were not a touchy topic, but apparently his mother, Iris, was too tender a subject to touch upon.
"I'll stay to drive for you." He glanced down at her well-wrapped wrist. "Until you're better."
Oh, yes. It would not do to forget that this man had been on his way from somewhere to somewhere else when they had met during the ill-fated festival. Was he headed home to his mother then? She had gathered that his family was in London, although perhaps that assumption wasn't correct. Some thought was required to come up with the appropriate indirect statement.
"I think the Dales are lovely. The winters are severe, but so worth it when spring comes. Do you know Yorkshire well?"
He shook his head quickly, not looking at her.
Unconcerned, she continued. "It is very different here from where I was reared. I was born in Cambridge. It is a fair-sized city, although nothing compared to London."
"Born in Shropshire." This time he did meet her gaze. "Sheep there too."
She had to grin, for although he remained very nearly expressionless, there had been something in his eyes, a flash of awareness of such an absurd link in common. He was teasing her. Weakly, and not well, but it was a sign to Gemma that there was a man inside, perhaps not whole, perhaps not entire, perhaps not yet. But Mr. Worthington was no drilled-out shell of a person. He was ever so much more than that.
Gemma leaned back on the bench seat and braced her heels against the footrest so that she would not need to hold on with her sore arm. She savored her delight quietly as she tilted her head back and looked through the tunnel of her bonnet brim at the blue sky above. She was not quite sure why she felt deeply affected by this new knowledge. Perhaps it did not matter. Perhaps it was simply gladness that at least one person had not been entirely eradicated by war.
LYSANDER HAD NEVER EXPERIENCED such stillness. The war seemed so far away in the dales. Of course, no patch of England had escaped her losses entirely, for Lysander had seen sons of every county go down in the muddy fields outside Burgos Castle. If he asked, he knew that he would learn of many families who were one, or two, or three sons lesser than they had been.
Yet however grieving, the dale folk carried on through their seasons of loss and plenty. Sorrow might fill their insides with broken shards but the rhythm of the days went on. Lambs needed birthing, sheep needed shearing, wood needed stacking for the winter, gardens needed tending.
Now spring had come, with life renewing all around them. It seemed that everyone had a role to play. Perhaps they had learned some secret, a lesson Lysander not found in the clamoring, rattling, never-ending round of London life.
He looked down at his hands that held the reins so gently upon the war pony's mouth. Even this tragically misunderstood creature still moved forward, still fought for life and understanding. Although the battlefields were evident in the scars on its flanks, the tough little soldier kept on fighting forward.
Lysander let his gaze rise from the pony to the winding cart path ahead and then upward still more. He realized that they had climbed a great distance on this meandering back and forth trail. Already he could see far down the dale, so far that the sloped, emerald pastures cut by grey-brown dry-stone walls began to haze in the distance. A patchwork quilt tumbled upon an unmade bed.
The pony stopped and Lysander’s gaze dropped back to the path before them. It had narrowed even more so and there was simply no managing the cart from this point.
"Will anyone come?"
Gemma blinked at him. "Oh, I shouldn't think so. In fact I would think that this is the first cart to make it this high. I'd expected we would walk the last mile or so." She waved a hand up the slope.
When Lysander stepped down from the cart he absentmindedly flipped down the step he'd created for Topknot. The dog scrambled joyfully down and followed at his heels as he walked around the cart to help Gemma down. Then he began to unhitch the war pony.
"You're setting him loose?"
Lysander nodded and continued to efficiently unbuckle the rigging of the harness. "Have to. Can't turn it by himself."
She walked up to regard him across the pony's rough mane.
"The cart! Oh dear, I hadn't thought of that. I'm glad you did. I suppose you think he'll stay nearby."
This time Lysander noticed that she did not phrase it as a question. How long had she been doing that? It was true that he felt much less tension when not trying to answer a specific question. She was very clever to realize that, when he had never clearly understood it himself. Clever and understanding and generous.
He saw her eyes widen and her lips part slightly as if she had seen something startling. Except she was only looking at him. He raised a hand to his face in curiosity and found the remains of a smile disappearing.
IT WAS GEMMA'S TURN to be frozen in place by a smile. It might have been described as a poor effort by anyone else's standards but on Mr. Worthington it was miraculous. It entirely shattered her perception of him as a broken soul. How astonishingly handsome he was!
For a moment, she mused upon the probable character flaws such a powerfully attractive smile would bestow upon a young man. He'd been a charmer, she decided. Wickedly and carelessly unleashing devastating smiles on unwary female hearts. She decided quite firmly that she would not have liked him at all, that young wastrel. Except possibly if he had made her laugh. She had little defense against a genuinely attractive sense of the absurd.
Edmund had had an acerbic sort of humor, a rare but truly witty view of the world and humanity upon it. She'd seen little of it after his years as a battlefield physician, but she remembered it well. It was what had made the difference in their ages and their station disappear, that meeting of humor and wry understanding of the way of the world.
She laughed out loud now, for Mr. Worthington's expression was priceless. He actually looked down at his own hand as if it had somehow betrayed him by detecting a smile upon his somber features. She tried to cover her gust of laughter with her gloved hand but it only made matters worse, for now she was decidedly snickering. She clasped her hands before her, swallowed hard and pressed her lips together. One ought not to laugh at one's patients.
Except he was smiling again, the same rusty half smile that lit his face with a charming flash of white teeth and brightened his eyes. There was a wonder in those eyes as he gazed at her. Wonder and an awakening awe.
At her? Himself? At being able to smile again after everything he'd been through? Perhaps all three.
UNHARNESSED, BAD PONY HAPPILY stumped over to the grassy verge and plunged his oversize jaws into the greenery.
"I hope he will be all right. I shouldn't like him to harm himself." Gemma herself was puffing somewhat as they continued up the grassy path cut through the low mounds of vegetation around them.
"He's a steppe pony. Independent. Cossacks expect them to do for themselves."
Gemma eyed her personal war pony with a new feeling of satisfaction. "Edmund never explained that. I have no idea where he obtained him. I thought perhaps he took pity on his abnormality."
"He is a soldier," Mr. Worthington said with finality.
Gemma nodded agreeably and looked ahead on the path. "See? We're coming up on the first two cairns."
Two oddly shaped stacks of stone reaching several feet high lay on either side of the path at the crest of the hill they now climbed. Gemma turned her head to see Mr. Worthington looking supremely unimpressed. She supposed that to an outsider the cairns looked rather like a fallen jumble of children's stacking blocks. But to the people of the dales the cairns were an ancient treasure.
"When we walk a little higher you'll see the rest of them."
As she had predicted, a few more steps brought the next hilltop into view and the seven remaining cairns marched like soldiers along the crest.
Now Mr. Worthington was looking at the cairns with more curiosity. "How old?"
Gemma laughed and shrugged. "I haven't the foggiest idea. I've heard some people claim they are thousands of years old. I've heard others say that they date from before the days of Robin Hood. Did you know he was rumored to originate from Yorkshire?"
Mr. Worthington was not to be deterred. "What for?"
Gemma inhaled deeply of the sweet spring air. "I don't believe anyone really knows. The story I've heard most often is that these stones mark the exact boundary between Swaledale and Westmorland. Apparently, it boils down to a matter of cheese."
"Cheese."
She nodded happily, enjoying the small absurdity of it. "A defined boundary would be necessary, you see, so that cheese made on the east side of the cairns cannot be labeled with the same origin of the west side of the cairns. There is a long and fervent history of competition."
"Which cheese is better?"
"Why, Swaledale, of course!" Her loyalty was staunch, although she was laughing by then. "To be sure, cheese is a very important local industry."
"They stacked rocks?"
Gemma smirked at him. "Just wait until we get closer. It's a bit more significant than simply stacked rocks."
LYSANDER ENJOYED THE WALK. The steepness of the slope kept his usual furious pace to a more normal stride and he found that he had the time to look about him. High grass and low growing vegetation surrounded them rolling over the undulating landscape. They must be getting higher now. The wind had an insistence not found on lower ground, with trees and structures to block its force. The sky was a deep and clamoring blue. One never saw such as sky in London.
The perfect air filled Lysander's lungs with every inhalation, and when he exhaled it was as if the purity of the air was cleansing him. Of what? Grief? Anger? Helplessness?
There was something about this place. He felt drawn to it, to being still for a while, to allow his endless battle vigilance to ease, to take the peace where he could.
He slid his glance to the woman who walked sturdily beside him. Her head was bent slightly to watch her footing and her good hand gripped fistfuls of her skirts so that he could see her practical boots stomping upward with energy. With her bonnet on she could not tell he was staring at her. Lysander looked his fill. As she walked, concealed by her blue coat and practical straw bonnet, he was shielded from her breathtaking beauty. That helped a bit. Freed from that distraction, he looked at her not as a stunning woman but as a person.
She was an astonishing woman by any account, beauty or not. Lysander had never been a victim to the lure of beauty alone. Even in his younger days he had been immunized by close association with his own lovely sisters and even Iris, who wore her own slightly faded glory with an effortless serenity, confident in her husband Archie's adoration.
It was not merely the arrangement of lips and cheekbone, nor fortuitous distribution of ample and lithe feminine parts. Mrs. Oakes was beautiful because she what she did was beautiful. She lived beautifully.
She took instant and selfless action on behalf of others. He'd never heard her speak ill, not even of the frustrating war pony she had been burdened with. Her eyes saw truly and easily into his own swirling inner turmoil. She saw beautifully.
Perhaps of all the women he knew she was most like his sister Calliope. Callie had once carried that hint of sadness in her eyes, although Lysander had not noticed it until it was gone, a shadow of isolation most effectively brightened by the flaming love she'd found with Sir Lawrence Porter.
Gemma is lonely.
Lysander took that thought and turned it in all directions, examining it for accuracy. This was a woman who was rarely left alone. She was constantly called out to serve her community. She had the sturdy devotion of Bing and although she did not realize it, Bad Pony and Topknot as well. That shepherd's wife, Mrs. Gosling, also seemed a stout and stalwart friend.
Yet Mrs. Oakes had evidenced, through the merest of comments and expressions, a wistfulness whenever Lysander mentioned the massive pile of Worthingtons he was usually surrounded by. His family felt like a securely tied burden upon his back, or rather an encompassing swath of suffocating blankets. Or perhaps a tiny closet with nails protruding from every wall so that no matter which way he stepped their need pierced him with his inability to be who they wanted him to be.
But Mrs. Oakes had not known him before. She had no expectation that he ought to return to some former cheerful and easy-going state. Mrs. Oakes didn't want him, Lysander, to be anything other than calm and at ease with himself. He thought he was managing that fairly well — aside from that earlier contretemps with old Goose-Gogs. That hardly been his sole fault.
