soaped his hair, threw the soap up onto the deck, did a surface dive and swam upstream underwater to let the current from the overflow carry the soap film away.
If only it could carry away his troubled thoughts that had resurfaced. He kicked his trouser-clad legs, dug hard and deep with his arms and circled around the pond until his shoulders and arms screamed for mercy and his lungs burned for air. What sort of depravity coursed through his brother’s veins that he could look at a woman as delicately beautiful, as quiet and refined as Sadie Spencer and then—
He arched and dove deep, swam to the center of the gently rippling water, flipped over onto his back and stared up at the stars, bright against the dark sky. Peaceful evening sounds filled the night as the water lapped over his chest, but the fear he’d been carrying around for four years wouldn’t leave. Wash me clean, Lord, wash me clean. Don’t let that violence and depravity be in me.
Bats darted and swooped overhead in erratic patterns as they snatched insects from the air. An owl hooted. Another answered. Something rustled through the brush and grasses on the bank. Something big.
A she-bear and her two cubs ambled toward the water. Last year’s cubs, by the size of them. He moved his arms beneath the surface to stay afloat but stationary without causing a ripple and hoped the cubs weren’t in the mood for a swim. Mama Bear reared up on her hind legs and stared out over the pond, snuffled.
His moonlight swim was over.
He drew in air, sank out of sight beneath the water and stroked hard for the deck ladder, leaving the bears behind. If only he could outdistance the fears that plagued him.
* * *
She strolled along the path, humming softly, the basket of berries she’d picked swinging at her side.
Payne Aylward stepped out of the woods onto the path ahead, his tall, broad-shouldered frame large in the sunlight filtering through the leafy treetops. The glitter in his dark gray eyes frightened her. She stopped.
He smiled, his teeth white against his black beard. “I been watching you, Sadie.” He stepped forward, reached for her.
* * *
Sadie bolted upright gasping for air, her heart pounding, her body quaking. Moonlight flowed in the windows, bathed the objects in the dark room in silvery radiance. She stared at the blanket chest at the foot of her bed, the dark blue-and-white cross and crown woven coverlet that had warmed her every night of her childhood. “It’s all right. It was the nightmare. You’re safe.”
Her whisper trembled on the warm night air. She clutched the fallen sheet, slipped beneath it and curled into a tight ball. She wanted so desperately to believe that was true, but how could she? Cole Aylward was here. Cole Aylward. Payne’s brother.
A shudder shook her. She tugged the sheet tighter around her neck and roamed her gaze over the familiar objects in the room to hold at bay the face that hovered at the edge of her fear.
Chapter Three
Sadie left her grandmother in the kitchen discussing the day’s meals with Gertrude, carried the stack of washed dishes to the butler’s pantry, put them in their proper place on the shelves and continued through to the dining room. Her stomach was settling—not that she’d been able to do more than choke down a few bites of breakfast. But the knots from having Cole Aylward seated at the table were slowly coming undone.
To come downstairs after the sleepless hours haunted by the nightmare made more powerful by her return and to see him there...she paused and pressed her hands to her stomach as the knots twisted tight again. Cole’s likeness to his brother unnerved her. And try as she would, she could not ignore his presence—the man dominated a room. She would be thankful when he was gone, though it was clear after last night that he would defy her request. It had to be her grandfather who told him to leave. She would have to find a reason.
She lifted the lamps off the mantel in the dining room and carried them back to the table beneath the window in the butler’s pantry. She’d learned long ago that plunging into work the morning after having the nightmare was the best way to bury her fears. Being in control of something drove away the feeling of helplessness—and this morning that helpless feeling was overwhelming. And not only from the nightmare.
It pained her to see her grandfather’s efforts to cope with his infirmities and know there was nothing she could do to make him better. She removed the lamps’ glass chimneys, wiped them with a soft cloth, then turned up the wicks and picked up the silver trimmers. And Nanna...
“I’ve been studying on—” The scrape of a chair against the porch floor drowned out the rest of the words.
Cole. She’d thought he’d gone. She leaned toward the window and peered to her left. Her grandfather sat in a rocker on the porch and Cole Aylward stood leaning against the railing. She drew back lest he see her and took a breath to calm the pounding of her heart the mere sight of the man provoked.
“...best sit here on the porch. That sky doesn’t look too promising, and it smells like rain.”
Her pulse skipped. If they talked on the porch, perhaps she could discover why Cole was being so helpful and—
“What are you doing, sweeting?”
She started, jerked the trimmer handles together and snipped off too much of the wick on the first lamp. “I’m cleaning the lamps from the dining room mantel, Nanna.” She tossed the charred piece of wick into the small trash bucket on the table, adjusted the wick and replaced the cleaned globe, straining to hear the conversation taking place outside. Her grandfather’s halting words were difficult to understand, and Cole Aylward’s deep voice was hard to hear, but she dared not open the window lest they become aware that she was eavesdropping.
“What holds your interest?” Her grandmother frowned and moved into the pantry.
“Nothing, Nanna.” She quickly cleaned and trimmed the second lamp and stepped away from the table. “I’m finished.”
“What cost...buy...one?”
Buy what? She tilted her head toward the window.
“I’ll help you carry the lamps, Sadie.” Her grandmother bustled to her side, lifted one of the lamps in her small, pudgy hands and moved toward the doorway to the dining room. “Come along.”
She snatched up the other lamp and followed, wishing she could have waited to hear what her grandfather was considering buying. What had Cole Aylward suggested? What was he after?
Her grandmother set the lamp on the fireplace, turned it just so, stepped back and looked up at her. “I’m so glad you’ve returned.”
The smile brightening her nanna’s dear face brought a surge of guilt. She should have come home years ago. Willa and Callie had both written of how much her grandmother missed her, of the sadness in her eyes when she spoke of her. Yet she had let her cowardice keep her away. How selfish she was. Well, no more. She was home now and she would make it up to her grandmother. She set the lamp she held on the other end of the mantel, then tugged the bodice of her gown down into place at her waist.
“Turn it so that the knob is on the right, Ivy.”
Ivy? She caught her breath and turned.
Her grandmother looked up at her, a mild rebuke in her eyes. “I’m not scolding, Ivy. But I should think that after all these years in our service you could remember that little detail.”
Nanna didn’t know her. Something awful took her by the throat, squeezed life from her heart.
“Well, gracious! There’s no reason for tears, Ivy. I said I wasn’t cross with you.” Her grandmother reached out and patted her hand. “Now wipe the tears from your eyes and come along. We’ve the lamps in Mama and Papa’s room to tend to.”
* * *
“It’s something to think about, Manning.” Cole yanked his gaze from the dining room window—for