Elizabeth Beacon - Redemption Of The Rake

Despite her mass of golden hair and bluest of blue eyes, she reminded him of Hebe’s little daughter Amélie. The defiant determination not to cry and admit how frightened she was put him in mind of the poor little mite he’d smuggled out of Paris at the behest of Hebe’s mother. The Terror had taken her husband and sons, now treachery had robbed her of her daughter, but she was still brave enough to part with her grandchild. Now it was up to him to see that the child had a better life than her mother and the responsibility felt terrifying at times.

‘We argued,’ he admitted, although it wasn’t exactly true. The problem was he and Luke hadn’t even had the heart to argue, they just let each other go and that was that.

‘Me and Jack argue all the time,’ the girl said matter-of-factly.

‘Is he your only sibling?’ he said with a warning glance at the one he wanted to know about least right now.

‘What’s a sibling?’

‘A brother or sister.’

‘Oh, no, but Nan’s only a baby and can hardly walk yet. I’m next, then there’s Jack, he’s two years older. Sophie is fifteen; Josh is at Oxford. Joanna is quite old and she’s getting married in November. Rowena has been grown up for years and years; she lived with her mama-in-law for ages but she’s home now. I hope she stays with us. She’s really old, but much more fun than Sophie. It’s nice to have one big sister who doesn’t scold all the time.’

James couldn’t spare a glance at Mr Finch’s eldest daughter to see how she’d reacted to that quaint summary. ‘Your parents must be busy with such a large and enterprising family,’ he managed coolly.

‘Oh, Papa and Mama are always busy. What with Papa’s pupils and all those services, Mama says it’s a wonder we ever see him.’

‘You must be Reverend Finch’s daughter, then?’

‘Why do people always say that as if it’s a surprise?’ the girl grumbled.

‘I really can’t imagine,’ he said wryly.

His breathing went shallow as the child stretched a grubby bare foot to find her next precarious hold. At a crash of unwary movement behind him he turned his head to bark a furious command at Mrs Westhope and saw a gangling stripling stumble into the clearing. Shock at the sight of his sister perched halfway up the wretched tree was written all over the boy’s ashen face. James drew breath to shout out an order to be silent just too late.

‘Good Lord, this time she’ll kill herself, Rowena,’ the boy shouted furiously.

The girl in the tree started, snatched at a much-too-slender branch to steady herself and screamed when it snapped off. This time there wasn’t another close enough to grab and save herself. She did her best to stumble on to another slender branch and shuffle her way back to the relative safety of the trunk. James’s heart seemed to jump into his mouth as he tried to calculate where best to stand to break the child’s fall, at the same time as briefly snatching off a prayer she wouldn’t need him to in the first place, since it was so hit and miss. The force of even her slender little body made the fine branches whip away or break as she grabbed at them. He winced for the scratches and bruises they would cause even as he reminded himself far worse would happen if he didn’t get in the way and stop her fall.

‘Stay back, you’ll do no good,’ he ordered the boy who looked about to dash forward and get in the way.

James had to forget him and hope his elder sister would stop the boy. She must have dragged her brother away, because James could pick the best spot to try and catch the child. He braced himself against the impact of the solid little body now hurtling towards him in a flash of flailing arms and grubby petticoats. A pity she couldn’t grow wings like the buzzards he’d been watching earlier, he found time to reflect as stalled time passed sluggishly. He did his best to second-guess gravity and snatch the girl from the shadowy arms of death by adjusting his stance as she fell. An image of this intrepid child lying lifeless and broken if he failed flashed in front of his eyes to truly horrify him, even as he stepped back to compensate for a little flail she managed, as if trying to slow her flight on the way down. He couldn’t quite think her a hell-born brat as every sense he had was intent on saving her from as much harm as he could.

Time flooded back in a rush. The girl’s speed crashed into him with all her slender weight behind it. He frantically closed his arms and caught her close. In the flail of limbs and hammer of his own heartbeat he knew he was between her and the dry, hard-packed earth. For a long moment it seemed they would escape winded and a bit bruised. Then he felt his foot slide on the smooth bark of an outstretched tree root, as if the wretched thing was reaching out to claim them even now he had the girl safe. Unable to flail about and get his balance because of the child in his arms, he had no hold on solid ground. He twisted and turned as best he could to save the girl injury and fell heavily to earth with a bone-jarring thud and actually heard his own head slam against the next tree root with a vicious crack. Almost at the same time a harder, sharper slap of sound rang through the wood like a death knell as James fought hard to hold on to his senses.

Chapter Four

‘Oh, Lord, Hes, what have you done?’ Jack Finch yelled.

Rowena let go and they dashed to the dark-haired stranger who still held Hes, despite a blow to his head that still seemed to echo round the clearing. Perhaps he’d been mortally wounded by the shot that followed his fall so closely it might almost have been one sound.

‘Be quiet, Jacob Finch,’ she ordered, knowing shock and his full name would silence him while she took her little sister from Mr Winterley’s arms and willed air into her lungs. ‘You can let her go now,’ she told the all-but-unconscious man. Her little sister was whooping for air with dry little groans that terrified Rowena that she’d never restart her much-tried lungs without wiser help than she had right now. ‘Let her go!’ she demanded this time.

He did one of those terrifying saws for air that echoed Hester’s and she wrested her suddenly frighteningly small sister out of his grasp. She spared a preoccupied moment to be relieved his much-more-powerful lungs were forcing air into his labouring chest now they were free of the slender weight.

‘Come on, Hes, breathe,’ she shouted desperately.

‘How could you, Hes?’ Jack shouted, terror making him sound so furious he could hardly get the words out. ‘How could you?’ he repeated on a sob.

‘Hush, Jack,’ Rowena managed to say as calmly as she could when her own nerves were stretched almost to breaking. ‘Sounding as if you’d like to strangle her won’t help her recover. She’s alive and breathing, so leave her to me now and run for help as fast as you can. We must get her home and get help for Mr Winterley. We owe him our sister’s life,’ she reminded him when Jack shot Mr Winterley an impatient look, as if he was the last thing on his mind.

‘I startled her and made her fall in the first place, didn’t I?’ he said, an agony of self-reproach in his eyes.

‘And did you make her go up the tree she’s been expressly forbidden to climb time and time again? You know you didn’t, so just run to Raigne as fast as you can now, love, and we’ll worry about who did what later. Tell the grooms to bring a hurdle or the best sprung cart they can find, but go now, love, and hurry. They need a doctor and Raigne is closest.’

‘I suppose someone has to fetch him, even if Mama and Papa are home and I don’t suppose they will be.’

‘No, go to Raigne and tell Sir Gideon what happened. He’ll know exactly what to do and which order to do it in.’