He opened his arms, and she went into them, and they closed, enveloping her in warmth and the faint scent of tobacco—his secret vice.
She hugged him back, ineluctably relieved to feel muscle and bone so strong beneath her palms.
Clearly recognizing the unusual intensity of her greeting, he eased his hold, then patted her shoulder. “My darling Sylvia, is everything all right?”
She uttered a short laugh and drew back from his embrace. “It is now.” She went up on her toes and pressed a kiss to his cheek, then turned to Deacon Harris—who looked every bit as curious as her father. She put out a hand. “Uncle William—it’s lovely to see you as well.”
William took her hand and patted it. “It always does my old heart good to see you, my dear.”
Smiling still—she couldn’t seem to stop—she squeezed the deacon’s fingers, then drew her hand from his clasp.
With a swish of her skirts, she half turned and held out her hand to Kit; he’d remained just inside the front door, which he’d closed. “Papa—allow me to present Lord Christopher Cavanaugh.”
Kit came forward and offered his hand. “Reverend Buckleberry.”
Kit had an easy smile on his lips and a relaxed expression on his face, but Sylvia was now sufficiently attuned to the nuances of his behavior; he was just a tad nervous over meeting her father—and that lurking vulnerability only made her love him all the more.
Beaming, she watched as her father welcomed Kit “to his humble abode,” then introduced William Harris.
As Kit and William shook hands, Sylvia’s father looked her way, brows arching in interested query.
Kit saw Sylvia hesitate, but this was not a subject on which to spare her father distress; he would be more distressed if she didn’t tell him of Nunsworth’s motives. “There’s been an incident,” Kit said, catching Sylvia’s eyes as she looked at him, “and although we would have been heading this way shortly, that incident is why we’re here today.” Succinctly, he related the facts of Nunsworth’s actions, concluding with, “We left him trussed inside the mill. The foreman—Gibson—is watching over him until we can return with the authorities.”
“Great heavens!” Although understandably deeply shocked, with the evidence of his daughter’s continued good health before his eyes, Reverend Buckleberry quickly came about. He looked at Harris. “We’ll need Quigley and Jenkins.” To Kit, the reverend explained, “Our local magistrate and sergeant. Both live just along High Street.”
Harris filled his lungs, then grimly nodded. “I’ll go.” He started for the door, then turned and asked, “Shall I bring them here?”
Reverend Buckleberry thought, then shook his head. “No. We’ll meet you at the mill.”
What followed was far more fuss than Kit had anticipated. For a start, the vicarage butler, Henley, had been standing in the shadows of the front hall and had heard their story; he, in turn, informed his wife, the housekeeper, who came sailing into the hall to reassure herself that all her charges—in which category she plainly included Sylvia—were coping with the shock and, Kit suspected, to cast her eyes over the gentleman-lord her chick had brought home.
From Mrs. Henley’s slowly evolving but ultimately approving smile, Kit surmised he’d passed inspection, but reassuring the redoubtable housekeeper that Reverend Buckleberry and his daughter were truly bearing up required the good reverend’s focused attention.
Sylvia tugged Kit’s sleeve. As he moved with her down the hall, she called to her father, “We’ll harness the gig and wait for you in the stable.”
They reached the stable to find that a similar chaos had taken hold there, courtesy of the boys’ colorful retelling of their tale. Apparently, several ostlers from the local inn had been visiting the old stableman, and they were all avidly drinking in the drama. Thinking of poor Gibson waiting alone in the gathering dark—and who knew what reaction Nunsworth might provoke from a man he’d left nursing an aching head—Kit quickly put the ostlers to good use, setting them to help Smiggs reharness the bays to the curricle and Egbert to put a neat chestnut between the shafts of the reverend’s gig.
Kit hadn’t intended for the boys to return to the mill, but they rebelled and insisted, and Sylvia pointed out that it would be better for them to tell of their parts in her rescue—and the facts about Nunsworth that they had ferreted out—to the magistrate and sergeant now, rather than having to remain in Saltford overnight.
She glanced at Jack and Ned. “Your mother,” she said, looking at Jack, “and your aunt and father,” she said to Ned, “will be wondering where you are.”
Kit saw both boys’ faces fill with sudden consternation and not a little guilt and took pity on them. “After we return from the mill, Smiggs can drive the three of you home in the curricle.” Smiggs could return with the carriage for Kit and Sylvia tomorrow. Given they were at the vicarage, given the events of the past hours and their outcome—the impact of Nunsworth’s scheme on Sylvia and him—Kit saw no reason not to take advantage of where Fate had landed them.
Then Reverend Buckleberry came hurrying from the house, and they sorted themselves into the two carriages. Jack and Ned squeezed in beside Sylvia’s father, and with the others following in the curricle, the reverend led the way back to the mill.
They drew up in the clearing outside the mill, with the magistrate and the sergeant in the magistrate’s gig on their heels. After securing the horses and exchanging greetings and introductions, they walked in a group to the mill’s open door.
Gibson, the foreman, had lit several lanterns inside the mill. They entered to find Nunsworth exactly where they’d left him, the pail still on his head; at the sound of footsteps, he started to thrash and call for help.
Seated on a narrow bench along the inside wall, Gibson had recovered some of his color. He snorted. “He’s been silent until now. Not a peep, even when I asked him what he’d planned for me.”
When Reverend Buckleberry inquired as to Gibson’s state, Gibson gave a gap-toothed grin. “I’m on the mend. Can’t wait to tell the wife that there’s benefits to having the hard head she’s always bemoaning.”
The reverend smiled and patted Gibson’s shoulder, then turned to where the magistrate and sergeant had halted on either side of Nunsworth. Reverend Buckleberry sobered.
Nunsworth, accepting that whoever had come in was not going to help him, had fallen silent, although his arms still tensed and shifted as he strained at his bonds.
The following minutes were an exercise in futility. At a sign from Quigley, the magistrate, the sergeant cut the rope connecting Nunsworth’s bound hands to his feet, then hauled the miscreant up to sit, at the last, removing the pail from his head.