A Sinner No More Read online

  Did his own servants display the same type of loyalty toward him? Mr. Bowen had mentioned two of his men had died protecting him from Pengrin’s attack. He supposed that was encouraging. He stopped mid-shovel. Well, except for the part where they had died, for that he felt a rather immeasurable amount of guilt. He was not entirely certain, from everything he had heard, that he was worth giving one’s life for.

  He tossed the stench-filled muck into the cart and leaned on the handle. Once he had cleared the disgusting layer of hay and manure, he swept out the stalls then lay down fresh hay as Cosgrove had instructed, before trundling outside to dump the contents of the cart. The only chore that remained before he could return to his room and soak his sore, tired muscles in a hot bath was to retrieve the horses from where they were corralled and return them to their stables.

  Mr. Bowen had a relatively large stable of horses, each one more beautiful than the next and all in possession of very pleasing natures. Re-stabling them proved an easy enough task until he reached the last one. A large chestnut stallion with black socks and a matching mane. The beast nipped at him every chance he got and snorted and pawed the ground whenever Hawk drew near. How the hell was he was to catch the beast and put him in his stable? The stallion had made it clear with his snorting and pawing that he had no interest in returning to his stall. Attempting to lead him there against his will would not be a pretty sight.

  As it turned out, his estimation in that regard had landed on the conservative side.

  Twenty minutes later, Hawk wiped a splatter of muck from his chin with the sleeve of his shirt. His head pounded and his arse fared no better as the damnable beast kept knocking him onto it whenever Hawk managed to grab its halter.

  “Bloody hell!”

  He stared up at the darkening sky. The cold snow beneath him seeped through his shirt and underclothes. Cook promised to have a hearty stew waiting for him when he returned and the thought of it made him salivate. But Cosgrove had given strict instructions that he was not to return to the main house until his assigned tasks had been completed. The steward had not indicated what would happen if he disobeyed this dictate. Likely he would be sent to his room without supper or some such horrific fate.

  Hawk could not shake the feeling that Cosgrove took pleasure in seeing him brought so low. Not that he was an unkind man or even an unjust one. In fact, he struck Hawk as unusually fair. He explained the work he wished done in clear terms and gave praise upon its completion. At the end of the day, Hawk received a firm pat on the shoulder that he discovered pleased him immensely.

  Which was ridiculous. The man was a steward and he, almost an earl. What did he care for Cosgrove’s good opinion?

  And yet he did.

  “Are you hurt, my lord?”

  The urgency in the voice behind him, and the instant recognition that jolted through him upon hearing it, made him jump to his feet. A miracle in itself as every muscle screamed in protest with the sudden movement.

  “Miss Cosgrove!” Cripes, he must look like a lowly stable boy. He straightened, a vain attempt to project a more lordly appearance. Difficult to do when a mix of snow and dead grass and dirt clung to a shirt made of paltry quality. He brushed at the offensive debris.

  “You are fine then?” She took a step toward the wooden fence that separated them.

  “Yes. Yes, I was just—” He glanced back at the horse behind him, a little surprised the beast hadn’t taken the opportunity to trample him while he lay prone on the cold ground. Was it smirking? He scowled at it then turned back to face Miss Cosgrove. “I am to stable the horses. I have one left.”

  “He’s being rather obstinate, is he?”

  “An understatement,” Hawk said, offering the horse another glare. The animal remained wholly unaffected.

  “Shame on you, Ares,” she scolded and the horse actually lowered its head like a repentant child. What the deuce?

  “Ares? He’s named after the god of war and bloodshed? How appropriate,” he muttered, his observation coaxing a smile from Miss Cosgrove that robbed him of breath. Sweet heaven, but he could not see that smile enough. How was it such a small expression could awaken everything inside of him?

  “Ares can be rather temperamental at times, I’m afraid, but in truth he’s a big baby. Here, hold this.” She handed Hawk the basket draped over her arm and gathered her skirts to slip between the rails, putting her on his side of the fence.

  “Madalene, no!” He reached out a hand to stop her as she stepped closer to the horse.

  She turned toward him, surprised. “You called me Madalene.”

  He could not tell if there was censure in her voice or not. “Forgive me. I did not mean to.” Hawk hesitated. “Have I done so before?”

  She sent another small smile his way and it touched his heart like a gentle kiss. He pulled back the hand he’d held out to stop her and placed it over his chest, as if he could hold the feeling there, for safekeeping. “Once or twice,” she said, but he’d forgotten the question and his mind was filled with the vision of reaching out and pulling her into his arms, tasting her mouth and losing himself in the moment.

  Ares snorted and pawed the ground as if the beast could sense his inappropriate thoughts, quickly reminding him they were not alone and the middle of a Northill’s stable yard was no place to share a kiss. Not that any place was fit to share a kiss with Miss Cosgrove, given he had no business kissing her at all. No matter how much he wanted to or how many times he had thought of such a kiss over the past few weeks.

  “You should stay away from that animal. I do not wish to see you hurt.”

  She tossed a glance over her shoulder, the moonlight skimming across her skin. “It will be fine. He is more bluster than beast, I assure you.”

  As if to prove him wrong, Ares walked over to her, stopping short by several feet then stretching its long neck outward to accept the nose rubbing and sweet words she offered as if they were manna from heaven. If the deuced animal had been a cat, it likely would have purred.

  Not that Hawk blamed the beast. Had she offered such sweet words to him and touched him with a gentle hand, he would have done the same thing. He added jealousy to his list of grievances against the stallion.

  Miss Cosgrove offered a quiet laugh that filled Hawk with a ridiculous amount of joy. “He’s like most men. All puffed up for show when there’s another gentleman about, but perfectly sane and amenable underneath.”

  Was that directed at him? Had he once been puffed up for show? Full of bluster? How utterly embarrassing to think he’d behaved in such a manner. He would have liked to think he’d been more dashing than that.

  Miss Cosgrove made a clicking sound and headed toward the stable. Ares followed along behind her like a faithful hound. Further proof the horse was kin to the Devil. Hawk glared after the animal, determined to short change the beast on its oats the next morning. He followed along behind them, keeping well out of range of the horse’s back legs. Miss Cosgrove’s basket swung from his arm and he glared at that too.

  “There you go, my handsome boy,” she said. Normally her sweet voice would have been a balm to Hawk’s wounded pride. Unfortunately, the compliment was paid to the horse and not to him. Another strike against the beast. “Now stop being such a vexation to Lord Hawksmoor.” She gave the horse one last pat on its rump and swung the stall door closed. She turned to him and held out her hands for the basket.

  Hawk did not immediately relinquish it. “Where is it you are going?”

  It was usually much later in the evening, well after he had turned in for the night, before Miss Cosgrove left the main house. Did she plan on going into the village? He had heard one of the maids whisper to another when they thought him asleep that a Mr. Greene from town was sweet on her. Was she going to visit him? He glanced up to the sky. The winter sun had already sunk to the edge of the horizon. Soon it would be gone, leaving the landscape pitched into darkness, with only a half moon available to light her way. Surely she had better s
ense than to travel to town at this hour.

  “I am returning home.”

  Hawk breathed a sigh of relief. Though whether the feeling was due to the fact she had no intention of traipsing around in the dark or that she was not meeting Mr. Greene, he did not dwell on.

  The steward’s house was visible in the far distance through a brief copse of trees, connected to the main house by a well-beaten path. Her leaving now meant he would not see her this night and the realization hit him he was not yet ready to say good-bye.

  “You cannot walk about in the dark.”

  She gave him a surprised look. “I’m quite certain I can, as I do it every day.”

  Right. Of course she did. Still, he continued to grasp at straws. “It cannot be safe.”

  “I assure you I am perfectly safe here at Northill.”

  Something in her tone caught him. An underlying insinuation? She was safe here. She had not been safe while under his family’s employ at Raven Manor. There, she had lived with a madman and a murderer in her midst. And now, that same murderer stood not two feet away from her.

  Except that he did not feel like a murderer. And he could not imagine any circumstance in which he would ever do her harm. If anything, he possessed an overwhelming need to protect her. A need he could neither explain nor deny.

  He reached for his borrowed coat where it hung on a peg in the stable and shrugged into it. “I shall see you home.”

  He offered her his arm. She raised an eyebrow, her gaze steady upon him. She did not shy away from confrontations, he’d noticed. Many servants dipped their gaze in deference to their supposed betters, but Miss Cosgrove did not. She looked you squarely in the eye, shoulders back and expression held in check. He could no more read her thoughts than he could his own memories. Her bravado both fascinated and irked him.

  She made no move to take his proffered arm.

  He raised his own eyebrow to match hers. “You realize I will hold my arm thusly until you take it.”

  “You will not,” she stated simply. “You have yet to regain your full strength and you have been working all day. Your arm will tire shortly and you will be forced to lower it.”

  He hated that she knew this about him. His weaknesses. His foibles. His darkest secret. Yet, intuition told him all of those things could not be in safer hands.

  She had witnessed him murder his own brother. Yet she did not cower from him. She did not run away. Even when, in the throes of a nightmare, he’d grabbed her wrist and brought the two of them tumbling to the floor, she had stayed with him. Held him and comforted him. Was it possible he was not as heinous as he believed? Could the context surrounding his brother’s murder alter the gravity of what had happened?

  Likely she would know.

  Perhaps soon he would find the courage to ask her. But today was not that day. Today, he only wished to see her home safely without disturbing any unwanted remembrances of things neither of them could change. As for disturbing feelings he could not control, that was something else altogether. A smart man would take her reticence as a chance to excuse himself and let her be.

  But he could not remember if he was a smart man, and so he didn’t.

  “Please, Miss Cosgrove, will you allow me to escort you home? I promise to behave the consummate gentleman. Besides, your father has indicated regular exercise will hasten my recovery.”

  Her shoulders lifted in a sigh and she gave a small shake of her head. “Very well, then. Far be it for me to subvert Father’s plans. But I do not require an escort.”

  She turned toward the steward’s house, without taking his arm. He watched her back, the way her skirts swished about her ankles where they poked out from beneath the wool coat she wore. She dressed simply given her position, lacking the adornment ladies in his world draped themselves in. Yet, if anything, the lack of such only drew more attention to her staggering beauty and in his humble opinion, no jewel or frippery would have been able to compete with her either way.

  Hawk grinned, then hurried to catch up with her.

  Madalene had hoped Lord Hawksmoor would soon realize the walk uphill to her home would be too taxing. Unfortunately, the man was stubborn as a mule in this regard. Worse still, the narrow pathway forced them to walk closely together with little room left over. His nearness proved most vexing.

  For the past week, she had made a habit of checking in on him before she left to return home for the night. Unlike the past evenings when he’d spent the day abed, he’d been fast asleep. The effect had a startling effect on her. A fierce protectiveness had filled her, making her incapable of leaving. She’d sat on the edge of the bed, watching the rise and fall of his chest through the soft linen of his nightshirt, staring at the scar near his temple now that the bandage had been removed. She had almost lost him. The thought seemed inconceivable.

  More than once, his sleep had become agitated as if his mind wrestled with its demons. When that happened, she would reach out and place a hand lightly over his heart, mesmerized as her touch calmed the beast within. Much like it had all those years ago when his family would attack him with their unfair censure and harsh words. His anger had been barely contained afterward, with nowhere to release itself, leaving it writhing inside of him. It was then he would seek her out, ask her to read to him, claiming the sound of her voice quieted the rage inside of him.

  That she could do such for him had given her purpose and filled her with a need to do more, much as it did now. She walked a dangerous edge back then, and even more so now, for now she was no longer an innocent girl with silly dreams. Now, she was a woman, with a woman’s needs, and somehow Lord Hawksmoor’s presence had awakened every one of them.

  “Might I ask you a question, Miss Cosgrove?”

  His voice startled her from her thoughts and she hesitated. His arrival at Northill had her emotions teetering on that dangerous edge and she feared one misstep would send her falling over. She could not risk it. Nothing could ever come of this thing between them, whatever it was, save for heartbreak and regret.

  “I see no reason for it.”

  Her answer appeared to surprise him if the expression she caught out of the corner of her eye was any indication. She preferred not to look at him directly. Doing so caused her to waver in her convictions. It made her wish for things she could not have.

  Once again, silence descended but Lord Hawksmoor’s curiosity did not allow it to prevail for long. “Your father mentioned to me that when you worked for my family you considered me a kind man.”

  Madalene gritted her back teeth. What in heaven’s name would have possessed Father to tell his lordship such a thing? Heat flushed her face despite the winter chill that filled the evening air.

  “Did he?”

  “He did, and I wondered—what made you think so?”

  The question took her off guard, even more so than the admission that her father had shared her opinion of him all those years ago. But how did she respond? Her feelings now were tangled up in how things had ended, twisted and imbued with all that had happened, making it difficult to discern where her original feelings had begun.

  “Please, Miss Cosgrove.” He reached out and rested his hand on her forearm, the layers of clothing no barrier to the flash of heat that swept through her at his touch. But before she could pull her arm away, he lifted his hand, as if he too had surprised himself with the contact. “It is just that everything I have heard about who I was before Lord Pengrin tried to end my life has been less than impressive. That you once thought me kind gives me hope that perhaps I was not all bad. Was I?”

  She sneaked a quick peek at him then wished she hadn’t. The desperation in his clear green eyes was too much to bear and she answered before she could think better of it, wanting nothing more than to erase his torment.

  “No, you were not all bad.”

  “And how did you come to this conclusion?”

  Where to start? There had been so much about him that spoke to the goodness that lived beneath
the handsome face and charming manners. A goodness he did not always project, as his family did everything they could to beat it down. They had made him their scapegoat for everything that was wrong in their lives, yet heaped praised on their heir, who deserved none of it. They had continuously turned a blind eye to the true monster in their midst, refusing to acknowledge the madness Lord Hawksmoor tried to warn them of. His parents had refused to listen, berating him for even suggesting such horrible things. Did they think if they ignored their eldest son’s predilections that they would go away? They had been fools in that regard and she and Lord Hawksmoor had paid the price.

  “Miss Cosgrove?”

  “Yes, forgive me.” Her memories had a way of crowding her mind when he was near. He wanted to know what good she had seen in him. There was a long list, but she decided to begin at the beginning. “My mother was the daughter of a baronet and, as such, she received a proper education that she then passed on to me, even though by then her father had died and her circumstances were somewhat reduced from those she’d been raised in.”

  “Your grandfather was a baronet?”

  She nodded. “Yes. And while I never met the man, I was always thankful for the education he gave Mother and that she shared it with me before she died. Her encouragement created in me a voracious appetite for learning and when my family’s situation changed for the worse, it was this education that I missed the most.”

  She paused and took a breath. It had been a dark time for her family. Mother had become ill while Father had been away at war, after she had passed away, Madalene’s aunt had helped out, though she too had since died. After the war ended, Father had been let go from Lord Walkerton’s employ after standing up for a maid he felt had been wrongfully accused of theft. Given her father’s war injury, finding work had been sporadic and their once comfortable lifestyle had diminished, leaving them in near squalor. Once Madalene was old enough, she was determined to do her part to help Father, but it meant leaving her education behind. Or so she had thought.