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  Gail hung on Garth’s arm, chatting with fiery excitement, and Garth watched her with such affection Sylvan’s heart was touched. Maybe Garth was her father. The more Sylvan came to know Garth, the more she accepted the possibility that he might have indulged in a moment of frivolous passion in his youth and then gravely taken responsibility. He certainly enjoyed Gail and treated her as a father should, but was he doing so because James would not or Rand could not? Every time Sylvan thought she had settled the matter, something occurred to change her mind.

  When Sylvan and Rand came up, Garth shushed Gail gently. “Let’s show Miss Sylvan our mill.”

  “Oh, yes,” Gail said enthusiastically. “It’s a great plant. It’s not in full operation yet. We can only spin the thread, but when we get the weaving machines set up, we’ll make the finest cloth in the country and we’ll help support the families of Malkinhampsted. A family like ours has a responsibility to its people, and this is the best way to fulfill it.”

  She recited the phrases as if she’d heard them many times, and Garth smoothed the hair out of her eyes. “I’m prejudiced, of course, but she’s unusually clever, don’t you think?”

  “Very clever,” Sylvan agreed, and thought surely Garth must be Gail’s father.

  Rand watched them with poignant melancholy. “You spoil the child.”

  “Who better?” Taking Sylvan’s arm, Garth explained the process by which cotton was turned into thread and thread became cloth. As he spoke, Sylvan marveled at this duke who cared for that which he might easily leave for an overseer.

  With tact and a stifled curiosity, she’d also sought Gail’s mother, but without success. Yet that lack seemed unimportant. This family, these Malkins, showed more compassion for their people and their children than any noble family in England.

  Gail broke in. “It’s the Malkin family salvation. With this mill, we’ll make enough money to support Clairmont Court forever. At the same time, it’ll keep our people home and away from the cities.”

  Garth’s face lit with enthusiasm. “Yes, the men can work the fields, and the women—”

  A shriek pierced his complacency, and Garth shoved Gail against the wall. Sylvan looked wildly around. Rand yelled at the machine operators, and in the center of the plant, a cluster of women raced to one of their own. Loretta ripped at the spinning threads around Roz, whose eyes bulged as she screamed. A patch of red appeared at her feet, splattering her shoes, the floor, the threads.

  Sylvan froze.

  Not now. Please not now. No more blood. No more pain. No more useless death and helpless terror. Please not—

  Sylvan jerked herself free of the horror and ran to Roz.

  Her hand had tangled in the spinning threads and the flesh had been sliced to the bone. Blood spurted, and Sylvan grabbed Roz’s arm, applied pressure, and wrapped the hand in her skirt. “Get me some place to sit her down,” Sylvan shouted.

  Garth gently lifted Roz into his arms, and with Sylvan still holding her arm, he started toward the corner of the plant. They entered a small room with a desk spread with papers, and he lowered Roz into a massive leather chair.

  “Water,” Sylvan said tersely, unwrapping the cut. “And needle and thread.” It looked bad, with shreds of muscle and tendon showing.

  “Will I lose my thumb?” Roz shook in massive tremors. Her lips were blue and her skin turned chill and moist.

  “Your Grace, have you got a blanket and a place this lady can rest while I fix her thumb?” Sylvan smiled at Roz. “This looks like the hundreds of saber cuts I treated after Waterloo.”

  “Ye can fix it?” Roz shivered as Garth threw a blanket over her shoulders.

  “I’ll do my best.”

  Garth swept the paperwork off his desk and helped Roz onto it, and Sylvan went to work.

  “Miss Sylvan!” Gail ran from Rand to Sylvan’s side when Sylvan stepped out of Garth’s office. “Will she be all right?”

  Sylvan had never been around children much. She didn’t know how to respond to them, but right now, the sight of Gail’s fresh, bright face fed a need in her. Gail was whole, untouched, as far from the reek of death as it was possible to be. Reaching out with one trembling hand, she smoothed Gail’s cheek. “She’ll be fine.”

  “Is her hand going to work again? ’Cause she has eight children and her husband fell ill six months ago, and he wasn’t ever worth much anyway. If Roz can’t work here, I don’t know what she’ll do.” Gail peered up at Sylvan. “But you fixed her, didn’t you?”

  The noise of the machines assaulted Sylvan. The air stifled her. Fragments of cotton floated like a blizzard of unwoven cloth. Windows on high illuminated the threads spinning in a constant, dizzying motion. “I did what I could. The rest is in God’s hands.” Looking at her own hands, her incompetent hands, she saw blood under the fingernails. It sickened her.

  “But think of her children,” Gail said. “You had to have made her better. You just had—”

  “Gail.” Garth stood beside Sylvan. “Don’t nag.”

  Rand said, “I’ve arranged transport for Roz, and Loretta will ride with her and care for her tonight.”

  Garth nodded. “Good. I’ll pay them both, of course.”

  “It’s not your fault.”

  Rand spoke so gently, Sylvan thought he was speaking to her. But before she could reply, Garth said, “I know, but it seems this endeavor is plagued with accidents. Are we cursed by heaven?”

  “More likely, we’re cursed by inexperience,” Rand said.

  “I hired the best set-up men in England.” Garth rubbed his eyes with his hands and left two oily rings.

  “We’ll get better,” Rand assured him. “We’re just too new to all of this, as are all our workers, and when we’ve been at it longer—”

  “We.” Garth stared at his brother. “Does that mean you’re coming back to help?”

  Rand looked around at the anxious women, the concerned machinists, and at his brother, worn with worry and struggle. He didn’t say no, and he didn’t commit either. Instead he promised, “I’ll help while I can.”

  “Miss Sylvan.” Gail pointed to Sylvan where she leaned against the wall. “You have blood all over your skirt.”

  Sylvan picked it up and stared at the fine lawn fabric. Crimson smeared the material with the weight and wet of the blood, and for some reason, that seemed more than she could bear. She glanced wildly at Garth and Gail and Rand, seeing them through a shifting red mist. She saw Rand’s lips move, but heard only a buzzing.

  Then the floor came up to meet her.

  6

  Leaning forward, Rand tucked the carriage blanket tighter around Sylvan’s waist, then pushed Gail closer. “Cuddle up,” he instructed. “Keep Miss Sylvan warm.”

  It wasn’t really cold, only the chill of a spring evening by the ocean, but Sylvan cherished the heat of the child and the blanket, and it was only pride that made her object. “There’s nothing wrong with me. It was just a reaction to the excitement. I’ve certainly seen worse wounds than that.”

  Rand ignored her, as he had each time she protested. Jasper had arrived with the closed traveling carriage that had been especially outfitted for Rand. The door had been widened, and the backward facing seat had been removed. Straps held Rand’s wheelchair securely, and he seemed quite comfortable as he said, “We’re almost back at Clairmont Court.”

  Sylvan glared at his shadowy figure in resentment. She hated to have anyone see her in distress, and she had been in distress back at the mill. That whole plant was an accident waiting to happen. In reality, it hadn’t been the noise or the moving parts that made her ill, but the potential for injury that she saw existed at all times.

  Since Waterloo, she had seen danger everywhere. She was like a mother whose child had just learned to walk, imagining the worst possible mishap in every instance—and she seemed to be mother to all the world. It made her sick to think of all the blood spilled without reason, because of war or carelessness.

  But Ra
nd offered solace. “Garth took Roz and Loretta home in one of the other carriages, and he’ll stay until they’re comfortable. The cook’s sending a basket of food. Mother’s sending blankets, and Loretta promised to do just what you said to treat Roz.” She saw the flash of his teeth in the dark. “Loretta thinks you can work miracles, so she told me. Do as I’m told, she said, and you’ll cure me, too.”

  Sylvan gave a laugh that sounded remarkably like a sob. She hadn’t ever cured anyone. She’d just bandaged them and prayed, and usually they died anyway.

  “So you can eat and go to bed. Everything’s taken care of. No arguments, and no brooding over ghosts.”

  “Ghosts?” Her mind flew to the corpses she’d seen at Waterloo, to the once vibrant men who walked in her dreams. “How did you know about my ghosts?”

  He hesitated, then said gently, “I wasn’t talking about your ghosts, but about the ghost of Clairmont Court.”

  “Oh.” She laughed shortly. “That ghost. No, it’s not your ghost who frightens me. It’s the madman who masquerades as the ghost and attacks the women.” She broke off when Gail wiggled. “But I have great faith that he’ll be caught soon.” Infusing her voice with false cheer, she added, “Really.”

  “Are you afraid of the ghost, Miss Sylvan?”

  “No!” Sylvan could have kicked Rand for opening the subject, and kicked herself for speaking on it. She wasn’t used to having to watch her words, but Rand was. Didn’t he worry about scaring the child? “Big girls aren’t afraid of ghosts.”

  “There’s a reasonable explanation for this nonsense about the ghost.” Gail’s voice took on strength and depth as if she quoted one of the adults. “We’ll catch the ghost and we’ll see an end to it.”

  The carriage jolted to a halt, and Sylvan almost didn’t hear Rand murmur, “That’s the truth. That’ll be the end.”

  Jasper jumped down from his perch and flung the door back so vigorously, it shook the carriage. Sticking his ugly, worried face inside, he asked, “Mr. Rand, are ye still well?”

  Servants stood up and down the terrace stairs with lanterns, which they protected against the ever-present breeze. “I’m fine,” he said. “Help the ladies out.”

  “But, sir…Aye, sir.”

  He offered his hand to Gail, but she leaped out without help. When he grasped Sylvan, the tremor in his fingers shocked her.

  “We heard all kinds of rumors about the accident and who was hurt.” Jasper squeezed her hand a little too hard. “I couldn’t stand it if anything happened to Mr. Rand while I wasn’t hard by.”

  He reached in to help Rand free the chair from the restraining straps, leaving a shaken Sylvan standing on the steps.

  Jasper was jealous.

  She knew he didn’t like her taking Rand out every day, for every day he had given his help more grudgingly. But the sensation of menace he emanated startled her and left her staring at the servant’s broad shoulders. Could he have been the ghost in the hallway?

  No, surely not. Why would Jasper want to frighten her? What reason would he have for perpetrating this kind of hoax? Besides—she relaxed—he didn’t look like Radolf. Once again, she was seeing danger where none existed.

  A cry from the top of the stairs had her whirling, her heart in her throat.

  “My son!” Lady Emmie rushed down, her hands outstretched. “Are you well?”

  Sylvan closed her eyes and took a deep breath. Yes, she’d better calm herself before she surrendered to screaming hysterics.

  “I’m fine.” Rand suffered her hug. “Mother, I’m fine.”

  “Your mother was worried about you.” Aunt Adela descended the stairs in a dignified manner, leaning on James’s arm. “Convinced that you were hurt in the mill, she was. I told her that Malkins were tough and strong, but would she listen?” Rand passed her on the stairs, carried in the arms of Jasper and the footmen and accompanied by a softly babbling Lady Emmie. Aunt Adela began to ascend again. “No. She invariably frets about that mill. It’s a constant worry to all of us, and a shame that you and your brother insist on continuing construction of a project which can mean only our ruin.”

  Sounding desperate, Rand interrupted. “Mother, it’s Sylvan who’s not well.”

  Lady Emmie stood at the top of the stairs and looked back. “Sylvan, dear, what’s wrong?”

  She started down, and Sylvan held up her hand. “A footman can help me up.”

  “Gail can help her up, too.” Betty stood at the top of the stairs, her hands wrapped in an apron so wrinkled she must have been wringing it. “You do it, Miss Gail.”

  Gail snapped to attention. “Yes, ma’am.” She took one of Sylvan’s arms and a footman took another, but Lady Emmie still bore down on her with Aunt Adela and James in her wake.

  “You poor dear.” Lady Emmie got a good look at Sylvan, and her eyes widened. “You’ve got blood on your dress. Were you hurt?”

  “No, Lady Emmie.” Sylvan negotiated the first few steps. “I only cared for the woman who was hurt.”

  “Thank heavens! I would hate to have to explain to your father you’d been injured in our service. You got a letter from him today, and so did I. Here, Gail dear, let me do it, you’ll hurt your beautiful straight back helping Miss Sylvan.” Lady Emmie nudged Gail out of the way and took Sylvan’s arm.

  “I got a letter from my father?” Sylvan could have groaned. “And he wrote you, too. Was he obnoxious?”

  “He cares about your reputation a great deal. It’s obvious from his missive.”

  That was no answer, and Sylvan knew it. She cringed at the demands her pushy father must have made on this lady.

  “You got a letter from a doctor, too.”

  “Dr. Moreland?”

  “I believe that was his name,” Lady Emmie conceded. “I only glanced at the post. So rude to read other’s letters.”

  “And one of my father’s favorite pastimes.”

  Lady Emmie excused him as she helped Sylvan up the stairs. “Every parent has his own methods. Tell me if you feel faint, so I can catch you.”

  Sylvan looked down on the diminutive figure.

  “I’m behind you, Miss Sylvan,” Gail piped.

  “I feel quite secure now,” Sylvan answered.

  “So dreadful that your illness occurred while you are our guest.” Lady Emmie kept her arm wrapped around Sylvan’s waist in what felt like a gesture of affection. “Of course, you’re the nurse and you were probably right in the middle of this tragedy.”

  Aunt Adela did an abrupt about-face when they passed her, and she proclaimed, “I always said women weren’t strong enough to handle the sight of blood and whatnot, but young persons nowadays don’t listen.”

  “Adela, dear, that’s not strictly true.” Lady Emmie steered Sylvan to the top of the stairs and past Rand in his wheelchair. “Think of all the years when women were midwives and healers. You must admit women are stronger than men give us credit for.”

  Betty caught Gail to her in a powerful hug, then said, “If you don’t have further need of me, Your Grace, I’ll put Miss Gail to bed.”

  “Excellent.” Lady Emmie broke away from Sylvan and planted a swift kiss on Gail’s cheek. “Sleep well, child. You’ve been a brave girl today.”

  “Women nurses are scandalous! They are required to look upon”—Aunt Adela swooped in to take Lady Emmie’s place at Sylvan’s side, and lowered her voice—“men’s parts. You know you agree with me.”

  “Mother!” James stopped beside Rand and glared, embarrassed by the direction of the conversation.

  “Oh, I might have once, but that was before I met Miss Sylvan.” Lady Emmie rushed up, ordered the footman away, and took Sylvan’s now free arm. “She’s such a lovely woman, so charming, with such exceptional manners. And so brave!”

  “But there’s something wrong with her now,” Aunt Adela said triumphantly. Together, the women urged Sylvan through the door and into the study. “So she must not be equal to the tasks.”

  “I’m fine.
” Sylvan felt like a hank of bone between two small, feisty dogs as they tugged her cloak off. “And I assure you, Lady Adela, that while I have seen men’s parts, one doesn’t notice them when blood is spurting.”

  “No,” Aunt Adela said, “I suppose not.”

  “There you have it, Adela.” Lady Emmie brought Sylvan a sherry. “Although I do think you’re making light of your illness, Sylvan, or Rand wouldn’t have brought it to our attention.”

  “Rand just likes having everyone concerned about someone else for a change.” Sylvan sipped the sherry and sighed. The Malkins served very good sherry, and she treasured its restorative properties right now.

  “Our Miss Sylvan seems fine.” Aunt Adela poured two more sherries, handed one to Lady Emmie, and they both studied Sylvan. “When one thinks of the difficulties and…er…body effluents associated with childbirth, I think it’s surprising that so many persons consider women unfit for nursing.”

  “We are the weaker sex,” Lady Emmie said.

  “But you can’t leave these matters in a man’s hands.” Aunt Adela frowned at Rand and James as they entered the room, treating them as if they were personally responsible for the vagaries of the male gender. “Why, my dear husband, the late duke’s brother, quailed when James scraped his knee, and I know your husband, the dear late duke, did the same.”

  “That’s true, but Roger was happiest when he fought and drew blood. No, dear, I’m afraid women aren’t fit to be nurses.”

  “Dear, they are.”

  Sylvan’s head spun in confusion, and from the expressions Rand and James wore, she thought they were experiencing the same sensation. But they, obviously, were used to it, for Rand diverted the ladies with one simple statement. “Miss Sylvan swooned.”

  The ladies paused in midquarrel.

  “Garth caught her,” Rand continued. “But I think she should be put to bed at once.”

  “When I’m ready,” she snapped. He smirked, and she realized he really did like transferring the attention to someone else. It was a sign that he was healing, and she relaxed another degree.