Practical Widow to Passionate Mistress (Transformation of the Shelley Sisters 1)

The beauty seduced, calmed, but even so, her hand was rigid on the butler’s arm as they went into the little church, the servants from the Court after them, filling the back pews.

The choir shuffled into place, small boys uncannily well behaved under the eye of the older choristers. A plump woman bustled up to the organ, which had been wheezing for the past ten minutes while another small boy pumped at the bellows. She played a chord and the congregation winced, but with the air of long familiarity and acceptance. The vicar emerged from the vestry, tripped on the edge of his cassock and took his place.

‘Dearly beloved, we are gathered here today…What?’ The tallest chorister was hissing from the stalls. ‘Oh. Yes, not a wedding, of course. Dearly beloved brethren, the Scripture moveth us, in sundry places…’

‘He’s a good man, but given to muddles, is Mr Hawkins,’ Heneage murmured in her ear. ‘Much loved, hereabouts. And Miss Hawkins, his sister, for all that she murders that organ.’

The sermon, once Mr Hawkins had found his papers in the vestry and then dropped them as he climbed into the pulpit, was all about lost sheep and the joy of their finding. It was to give thanks for the safe return of one of the fishing boats, thought lost a week since, that had limped into harbour the day before. But it was also about Ross, Meg sensed, as the vicar’s mild blue gaze swept over his congregation, pausing for a moment on the front pew.

Meg swallowed the lump in her throat. This was what a vicar should be, she thought, looking at the happily weeping fishermen’s wives in one pew, Ross’s bowed head, the earnest, scrubbed faces of the choir.

When she came out into the sunshine Mr Hawkins was waiting, shaking hands with his flock as they dispersed. He kept hold of her hand. ‘Welcome to our parish,’ he said, smiling kindly at her. ‘You need some peace, my dear. You will find it here. My lord, have you shown Mrs Halgate our holy spring yet?’

‘No.’ Ross, hat in hand, was being fussed over by Miss Hawkins. ‘Do you mind a longer walk back, Mrs Halgate?’

‘Not at all.’ His arm in the fine broadcloth, another of Perrott’s victories, was steady under her hand. Behind them the chattering congregation took the path up out of the valley.

‘Did that help?’

‘The church?’ So, he had realised how difficult it had been, how much she had dreaded the memories. ‘Yes, it did. Mr Hawkins is a good man. That sermon was for you as much as for the fishermen, was it not? He is glad you are home.’

Ross did not question her use of the word. ‘I thought I was past praying for.’ But he smiled.

‘Where is your brother’s grave?’ she asked and his arm became rigid under her palm. ‘I should like to see it.’

‘I—’ He stopped and Meg saw he had gone pale.

‘It must have been a comfort, to see it in this beautiful place,’ she persisted gently.

‘I have not been. His killer should not stand at his graveside.’

‘It was an accident. He knew it was an accident. You know that, you know in your heart that you did all you could, that there is nothing to forgive. Giles would want you to go.’ She stood her ground when he would have walked on, trembling a little at her own presumption. ‘Is it in the church or here?’You could hardly describe this mossy, flower-studded slope as a graveyard.

‘There.’ His face like granite, Ross jerked his head towards a little terrace on the slope above them, away from the main path down. ‘My grandparents’ graves are there. Giles always liked the view from up there. Go and see, if you like.’

‘I would, very much. But with you.’

‘I have no wish to. It will do him no good.’

‘Not for him, although he would have wished it, surely. But for yourself,’ Meg persisted, not moving towards the steep little path.

She felt the tremor that went through the big body so close to hers, then he turned and strode up the mossy steps, leaving her behind. Meg followed and found him standing, hat in hand, beside the group of three stones, two lichen-covered, leaning a little, the other crisp still, despite the humid air. As she watched from the edge of the little clearing Ross knelt, dropping his hat, and ran his hand over the mound as though caressing a body beneath a green velvet coverlet. He was speaking, she could hear the murmur of his voice, although not the words.

When he fell silent Meg turned and went back down and along the path they had been following at the edge of the creek. If he needed her, he would find her.

She heard it before she saw it. Water bubbled out of the ground in a rough circle of grass and wild flowers, ran over pebbles, vanished again and emerged in the creek a few feet away. Metal glinted from its bed and someone had tied a child’s bonnet to a branch. There had been ancient magic here long before the Christian saints had come to Cornwall. A blackcap started to sing in the thorn bushes, heartbreakingly lovely.

Tears were sticky on her cheeks and she dipped her hands in the water and washed her face, then waited until she heard his step on the path behind her. He stopped beside her, but she did not look up, giving him the privacy she suspected he needed.

‘Thank you,’ Ross said. ‘I had expected pain and grief and I found peace there.’

‘That was what Giles would have wanted you to find,’ she suggested.

‘Yes,’ he agreed. ‘You did not know him, yet you understood far better than I.’

Ross stripped off a glove, bent and scooped water into his palm, offered it. It was cold in her mouth and his hand, as her lips touched it to drink, was warm. He drank after her, their eyes meeting over his cupped hand, then he shook it, droplets flying in the sunlight.

‘A steep climb now,’ was all he said and by the time they had climbed to the road they were speaking of practical, safe subjects, but the feeling of tranquillity went with them.