Catherine Archer - Lord Sin

But she was not soothed. She could not stop thinking about the way Ian Sinclair had kissed her and how she had reacted to that kiss. Why, oh, why did she feel this strange, unfortunate attraction for the blackguard? Why had she no more control over her own emotions and feelings?

A lush hawthorn hedge ran the length of the laneway. She followed it to where it ran past the church that sat beside the vicarage. Greeted by Matthew Brown as he used a pair of hedge clippers to trim the new growth, she raised a hand and smiled. The elderly gentleman had been looking after the church grounds for as long as she could recall. But Mary did not stop to chat with him as she usually did.

At the end of the hedge she paused and looked up at the church. It was a welcoming-looking structure, deceptive in its simplicity of design. No expense had been spared in the quality of the stained glass windows that ran the length of the building, nor in the highly polished woods, beautiful statuary and tastefully used gilt trim inside.

But it was not to the inside of the church that her thoughts turned today. It was to the bell tower. The enormous silver bell that pealed so purely every Sunday morning was silent and glistening in the sunlight far above her.

Just looking up at it caused a knot of tension in her stomach.

It had not always been that way. She had loved that bell tower as a child. She had felt that she could get just a little closer to heaven and thus to her mother by going up there. Yet that had all changed when she was seven and two older boys from the village had discovered her up there alone. They’d teased her and said she was nothing but the lord’s daughter’s live doll. When she’d replied, haughtily telling them they were only jealous, they’d held her at the very edge of the tower platform, threatening to throw her off if she didn’t retract her words. Pride had not allowed her to do so.

Luckily Victoria’s father had come along. The boys had been punished, but Mary had not been able to go up into the tower nor to any other high place since. In all the years since that event, Mary had forgotten neither the fear nor the feeling of comfort she’d known as the gentle duke had carried her home. Not until yesterday when Ian Sinclair had taken her into his arms had she known those feelings again.

But she did not want to think of Ian Sinclair.

As she looked up, she felt frustrated and angry with herself for allowing someone else to rob her of the comfort she had known from being in the tower. And now that both her mother and father were gone from her, she was doubly cheated of any comfort she might find there. Why should she let anything, especially something that had happened so very long ago, to keep her from being close to her parents?

Just as she had allowed Ian Sinclair’s presence at Briarwood to rob her of Victoria’s company. Wasn’t she made of sterner stuff?

Pushing her anxiety down with an act of will, Mary entered the church. Before she could change her mind she went quickly to the doorway that led to the tower.

At the bottom of the stairs she stopped. Her breath was beginning to come more quickly as she looked up at the seemingly endless curve of the circular staircase. Dragging her gaze back, Mary took a deep, calming breath. She would not live in fear.

She closed her eyes, telling herself not to look, not to see how far it was. Taking hold of the bottom of the railing with shaking hands, she kept her eyes closed and put her foot on the first tread. Over and over again with each step upward she told herself not to think of where she was going, to pretend she was only walking up the stairs at home, that there was nothing to be afraid of.

And her determination might have worked, might actually have gotten her to the top. But she did not find out, for her foot caught on the hem of her dress and she stumbled. With a cry of fear she opened her eyes, at the same time clutching frantically at the railing.

Her horrified gaze lit on the floor so far beneath her. Vertigo swept her in sickening waves. Her heart pounding in her chest, Mary held on to the rail in abject desperation. Completely paralyzed by her terror, she could now move neither up nor down. The rail seemed the only stable force in a continually shifting world.

With a sob of self-defeat, she sank down, closing her eyes on the reality of her overwhelming fear. She’d solved nothing, proved nothing to herself.

How long she stayed there she did not know. Time felt as if it had melded to a pinpoint of fear, and paralysis. Forever she would be here frozen in this one moment of terror.

And then through the haze of her anxiety she heard the sound of a voice. It was a deep voice, rich and filled with concern.

Ian—where he had come from she had no idea, nor did she care. “Mary, what is it?”

She could not look up, could not speak, merely shaking her head in anguish. She was past even being ashamed that he should see her this way.

“Mary,” he prodded softly. “You must tell me what has happened.”

Without lifting her face from the crook of her arm, she whispered, “Too high, this is too high.”

The next thing she knew she was being lifted, her hand being pulled from the security of that rail with gentle but unshakable insistence. It seemed the one thing she could do was cling to the only other stable object in her world.

Ian. His arms closed around her even as he pressed her face to his chest. Her own arms found their way around the solid strength of his shoulders and she clutched at him desperately as he started down the steps, the motion making her head spin anew even though she did not look.

Mary tried her very hardest to think of nothing, to make her mind a cloudless blue sky where the fear could not control her. It was not until Ian paused and lowered her to some soft object that she realized they had stopped.

She then heard him move away from her. For a moment Mary simply lay there with her eyes closed, making certain the feelings of vertigo had passed. As indeed they seemed to have done. Her head did not spin, nor her stomach.

At last, telling herself that she was quite safe now, Mary opened her eyes, and saw the cream-colored ceiling of her own sitting room. She saw also a decidedly anxious Ian Sinclair standing over her, his compelling dark eyes troubled.

He reached toward her with a glass in his hand. “Drink this,” he told her.

Automatically Mary sat up and took it and drank the water it contained. She was not entirely surprised to see how badly her hands were shaking, but now that the terror had passed she was beginning to feel a certain amount of embarrassment over what had occurred.

Why, of all people, had it been Ian Sinclair who had found her like that? How indeed had he found her?

Avoiding his gaze, Mary swung her boneless legs over the side of the settee. Still without looking at him, she put the glass on the table with exaggerated care. Taking a deep breath, she spoke, being not at all pleased at the huskiness of her voice. “How did you find me?”

He answered with a sigh. “I had come to the rectory looking for you. The man who was trimming the hedges told me you were in the church.”

She glanced up at Ian, unable to keep from seeing the sheer masculine strength of him. In spite of her fear, Mary had felt so safe in those arms. Determinedly she kept her attention focused on the conversation. “Why were you looking for me?”

He scowled. “I was in the foyer when the footman was telling Victoria that you would not come to dine.” His brows moved even farther together. “I had the distinct feeling that you had refused because of me. I could not allow you to do so.”

Her incredulous reaction to this statement seemed to wash away the lingering traces of anxiety. “You would not allow, sir? How dare you!"