Make Her Wish Come True Collection. Ann Lethbridge
have got the girls out in time.
He glanced around the little courtyard. There were footprints in the snow, small ones, his larger ones, and some he could not identify. Lamp held high, he walked out of the back gate. He could see where he had run into the yard. And he could see where the other prints came and went from the direction of the village, not from Thornton House. They’d appeared since it stopped snowing some time after dusk. He’d bet his now-ruined best boots that this fire was no accident.
Mrs Melford had an enemy.
Perhaps he would not be leaving in the morning after all.
He doused the remains of the shed and the burnt part of the parlour wall with several more buckets of water before returning to the chilly comfort of the smoky kitchen.
Cassie glanced up, her eyes full of despair.
‘Is it out?’ Diana asked, her eyes huge.
‘Yes.’
‘It stinks in here,’ Lucy said.
‘I know,’ Adam said. ‘You are all going to come with me to Thornton House.’
Cassie stared at him. ‘We couldn’t possibly trespass—’
‘You cannot stay here.’ He didn’t want to scare her, but he would if he had to make her see reason. ‘What if the fire starts up again?’ Or whoever set the fire came back.
She blanched. ‘Very well. We will stay at Thornton until the morning. At which time we will be leaving as planned.’
It was then he noticed the valises on the floor in the corner. He narrowed his eyes. ‘You never mentioned you were leaving so soon?’
Her gaze slid away. ‘I decided we should go after you informed me Thornton is to be sold.’
A lie. She was afraid for some reason. That settled it, he was going to get to the bottom of the fire and find out exactly what Cassie feared.
Realisation swept through him. For the first time in years he felt tenderness, the need to protect, the longing to care for someone.
Something he’d never expected to feel again.
Not that he expected or deserved that she should care about him. He didn’t. But he would do everything in his power to make sure she was safe.
While she’d made the beds in Thornton’s guest chambers and put the girls to bed, Adam had lit fires in the bedrooms and the kitchen. And now he had tea sitting ready for her when she came downstairs to bid him goodnight. She sank onto a chair with a sigh.
He put the teapot in the middle of the table with an understanding smile. ‘Your daughters are as courageous as their mother.’
He was trying to bolster her spirits and she could not help but once again be struck by his kindness. ‘They are good girls,’ she said, hoping he would put the roughness in her voice down to the smoke from the fire and not her overwrought emotions. It wasn’t until she had put the girls to bed moments ago that she had realised how few choices remained. The fire had destroyed any hope she might have had of supporting herself and the girls until the bees were ready to give up their honey once more.
The sharp glance he gave her let her know her hope was in vain, but at least he left her with her dignity by not commenting. He sat down beside her on the bench far closer than a man who was not a relation should sit and she took comfort from his large warm presence. It wasn’t as if they were strangers. They had kissed after all.
‘Is there someone who might seek to injure you and the girls?’ he asked, pouring tea into their mugs.
Her breathing hitched. She tried to hold his searching gaze. ‘Why would you say such a thing?’
He added cream and sugar and stirred for them both, pushing a mug at her. ‘Cassie, the fire was no accident.’
She closed her eyes briefly, fighting for composure, for calm. If she told him the truth, that she had stolen two little girls from their legal guardian, he would likely be horrified. Any man would. ‘Why would you think so? I must have spilled some wax. Or burning soot fell from the chimney after I damped down the fire.’
His lips thinned and he shot her a disbelieving glance. ‘Someone deliberately tossed a lit lamp through the window. I found glass outside and footsteps in the snow.’
A feeling of panic threatened to swamp her. Herbert could have burned them in their beds. She could not believe that had been his intention. He’d merely meant to frighten her into going back. But with Herbert’s accusations of theft, did she dare tell Adam the whole story? She had no proof of her innocence and everything she had done since leaving Nottingham spoke to her guilt. ‘It might have been lads from the village playing a prank. A group of them let Mr Driver’s bull in with his cows this summer.’
He sipped at his tea thoughtfully. ‘If so, it was a prank that could have had far more serious consequences than a few gravid cows.’
She wanted to sip at her tea, too, but feared her hands were trembling too much. ‘Boys are extremely foolish when they get together in a gang.’
‘Then I will have a word with the local magistrate first thing in the morning.’
She swallowed. The local authorities were the last thing she needed at her door. ‘I can do it if you wish.’
He looked angry, but also sad. ‘I think not. The cottage is my responsibility.’
She ducked her head, avoiding that penetrating emerald gaze. ‘I beg your pardon. I am used to looking after my own affairs…it is kind of you to care.’
‘Strange you had already decided to leave though, hmm?’ His voice was a low growl.
Her heart stumbled. He suspected her of something. ‘A coincidence.’
Scepticism coloured his expression. ‘Where do you go from here?’ He took a breath. ‘I know it is not my business, but I need to know you and the girls are not wandering the highways and byways in the middle of winter without a destination in mind.’
He was not going to let her go without assurances she would be all right and something like tenderness stole through her at his caring. While she could give him nothing else, she should at least give him the assurances he seemed to need.
‘I have friends not far distant who will give me shelter until I can find a new property to rent.’ Lies upon lies. But it was the best she could do right now.
His fingers tightened around his mug and then relaxed. ‘What friends?’
She shook her head. ‘Adam, we have to end this. Now.’
His face shuttered. ‘Then there is no more to be said.’
‘I would ask you for something,’ she said softly. ‘I would request that you ask Lord Graystone to have someone care for my bees in the spring.’ Her voice broke. ‘I am more than sorry to have to leave them. They have been good to me.’
‘I will do what I can,’ he said, his voice gruff, diffident, perhaps even disappointed.
Having given his word, he would do his very best, she knew. He was that sort of man.
Adam hated the idea someone trying to harm Cassie and her daughters. He also hated the idea of her travelling alone to these vague friends she had mentioned, but there was little he could do if she refused his offer of aid.
He put his arm around her shoulders, drew her close against his side. And thank all the heavenly beings she leaned against him as if drawing from his strength. Warmth flooded his deepest reaches, gratitude that she would accept this small token