The Outcast's Redemption. Sarah Mallory

I am no villain, Miss Duncombe.’

      He placed his hand on her knee as if in reassurance, but it had quite the opposite effect on Grace. Her linen skirt and several layers of petticoats separated them, but the gesture was shockingly intimate. Waves of heat flooded her, pooling low in her body. Her alarm must have shown in her countenance, because his hands dropped and he stepped away.

      ‘Perhaps you should ride on, if you are afraid of me.’

      Afraid? Grace’s head was full of chaotic thoughts and feelings. He unsettled her, roused emotions she had thought long dead, but, no, she was not afraid of him. Quite the opposite.

      ‘I should,’ she said, gathering her reins and her disordered senses at the same time. ‘I shall!’

      And with that she set Bonnie cantering away.

      * * *

      Wolf watched her go, the skirts of her russet riding habit billowing and accentuating the tiny waist beneath her tight-fitting riding jacket. He had to admit it was a fine image. He had thought when he first saw her that her hair was the colour of pale honey, but out of doors, with the sun glinting on her soft curls, it reminded him more of ripe corn. And those eyes. They were a rich, deep blue. Dark as sapphires.

      With a hiss of exasperation he took off his hat and raked his fingers through his hair. Bah, what was this, was he turning into some foppish poet? And, confound it, what had come over him to talk to her like that? He had said he was a lowly traveller, he should have touched his cap and kept a respectful silence.

      It might be wiser to eat in the kitchen this evening, but Wolf knew Mr Duncombe would be able to tell him more about his family. Ten years was a long time and Wolf wished now that he had kept in touch, but it had been his decision to cut himself off. He had thought he would never return to England, but that was changed now. He had a daughter, a responsibility. Settling his hat more firmly on his head, he set off once more for the vicarage. As the good parson said, the past was gone. He must look to the future.

      * * *

      Grace was determined to wear her most sober gown for dinner that night, but when Betty came up to help her dress, she rejected every one pulled out for her as too tight, too low at the neck, or too dull. In the end she settled for a round gown of deep-blue silk gauze with turban sleeves. Its severity was relieved with a trim of white silk at the neck and ankles and a run of seed pearl buttons down the front. She found a white shawl with blue embroidery to keep off the chill and, throwing this around her shoulders, she made her way downstairs to the drawing room.

      ‘Oh.’

      Grace stopped in the doorway when she saw their guest was alone. She had deliberately left her entrance as late as possible to avoid just such a situation.

      ‘Do come in, Miss Duncombe. Your father has gone to his study to find a book for me. He will be back immediately, I am sure,’ he said, as she came slowly into the room. ‘I hope you will forgive me dining with you in my riding dress, but I am...travelling light. And I had not noticed, until I changed for dinner, that this shirt is missing a button.’ Again that dark, intense look that did such strange things to her insides. ‘I hope you will forgive me. It hardly shows beneath the cravat, and at least, thanks to your housekeeper’s services, it is clean.’

      Her training as a vicar’s daughter came to her aid.

      ‘If you will give it to Truscott when you retire this evening I will see that it is repaired. I will have your other shirt laundered, too.’

      ‘Thank you, ma’am, but Mrs T. is already dealing with that.’

      Mrs T.! She bridled at his familiarity with her servants, but decided it was best to ignore it. She turned thankfully to her father as he came back into the room.

      ‘Here you are, my son.’

      He held out a book and Grace’s brows rose in surprise. ‘The Mysteries of Udolpho?’

      ‘Mr Peregrine wanted something to amuse him if he cannot sleep,’ explained her father. ‘And he is unfamiliar with Mrs Radcliffe’s novel.’

      ‘I do not see how you could have failed to hear of it. It was a huge success a few years ago,’ remarked Grace.

      ‘I was out of the country, a few years ago.’

      Heavens, thought Grace. It gets worse and worse. Are we harbouring a spy in our midst?

      ‘Ah,’ cried Papa. ‘Here is Truscott come to tell us dinner is ready. Perhaps, Mr Peregrine, you would escort my daughter?’

      Grace hesitated as their guest proffered his arm, staring at the worn shabbiness of the sleeve.

      Oh, do not be so uncharitable, Grace. You have never before judged a man by his coat.

      And in her heart she knew she was not doing so now, but there was something about this man that disturbed her peace.

      ‘Do not worry,’ he murmured as she reluctantly rested her fingers on his arm. ‘I shall not be here long enough to read more than the first volume of Udolpho.’

      ‘I am relieved to hear it,’ she retorted, flustered by his apparent ability to read her mind.

      His soft laugh made her spine tingle, as if he had brushed her skin with his fingers. When they reached the dining room and he held her chair for her the tiny hairs at the back of her neck rose. He would not dare to touch her. Would he?

      No. He was walking away to take his seat on her father’s right hand.

      * * *

      Wolf wanted to ask questions. Coming back here had roused his interest in Arrandale. His eyes drifted towards Grace, sitting at the far end of the table. It would be safest to wait until he and the parson were alone, but after ten years of resolutely shutting out everything to do with his family, suddenly he was desperate for news.

      ‘So Arrandale Hall is shut up,’ he said.

      ‘But it is not empty,’ said Grace. ‘A servant and his wife are in residence.’

      Wolf’s mouth tightened at her swift intervention and the inference that he wanted to rob the place. He kept his eyes on the parson.

      ‘Do you hear anything of the family, sir?’

      ‘Alas, no, my son. I hear very little of the Arrandales now.’

      ‘There was something in the newspapers only last week,’ put in Grace. ‘About the Dowager Marchioness of Hune’s granddaughter, Lady Cassandra. She was married in Bath. To a foreign gentleman, I believe.’

      Wolf laughed. ‘Was she indeed? Good for her.’

      Grace was looking at him with a question in her eyes, but it was her father who spoke.

      ‘Ah, yes, you are right, my love, but that can hardly interest our guest.’

      ‘No, no, of course I am interested.’ Wolf hoped he sounded politely indifferent, as befitted a stranger. ‘I take it there are no Arrandales living in the area now?’

      ‘No. The house was closed up in ninety-five. There was a particularly bad outbreak of scarlet fever that spring and old Mr Arrandale and his wife died within weeks of one another.’

      ‘Is that what they say killed them?’ Wolf could hardly keep the bitterness from his voice.

      ‘It was indeed what killed them, my son.’ The parson turned his gentle gaze upon him. ‘Nothing else.’

      ‘There had been some trouble earlier that winter, had there not, Papa? At the end of ninety-four,’ remarked Grace. ‘I was at school then, but I remember there were reports in the newspapers. The older son killed his wife for her jewels and fled to France. It was a great scandal.’

      The old man shook his head. ‘Scandal has always followed the Arrandales, my love. Not all of it deserved.’

      ‘You say that because your living is in their gift,’ muttered Wolf.