you for his vicar.’
He nodded, more with his eyes than his head.
‘He’s such a good-hearted man. Kind. Caring. We’re all so lucky to have him.’
No need to let her know her hero wasn’t perfect. His father was a kind man.
A boring but kind man. The most boring man on the face of the earth. Sanctimonious, too. Proud in his austere life. As if he thought the things he could turn his back on made him stronger. When his daughter had died, he’d even turned his back on the whole of London.
He’d not taken well to a son who didn’t turn his back.
Rebecca’s voice interrupted his thoughts. ‘Oh, dear,’ she said. ‘You’ve a spot of blood on your nightshirt.’
‘How can you stand to look at this?’ He forced out the words, this time willing to ignore the pain.
Now she huffed out a breath. ‘I’ve never seen you any other way. That’s just how you look to me. And it’s the inner person...’ She paused. ‘Yes. It is.’
He shut his eyes. At least his eyelids didn’t hurt. And his inner person chuckled, stoked the irritation with a pitchfork and gave a spit shine to its horns.
‘And all things happen for a reason. Perhaps this is meant to give you time to spend in contemplation. And compassion for others in similar circumstances. We can never have too much compassion. Think of what is important in life.’
At that point, Fox’s inner person stuck out its tongue and made a fluttering noise. His outer person was older, however. ‘Ale.’ He held out his hand.
She stepped forward and softly slapped his fingers. ‘That’s not what is important.’
He pushed and threw one leg from the bed, and remembered he was in one of those nightdresses. He’d never worn such a garment in front of any woman. Ever. His inner person might have lacked modesty, but it did have some pride.
He reached up, flapping the neck of the nightshirt. ‘Cose...’
He looked around the room, searching for his trousers.
‘They’re put away.’
As soon as he moved his arm to fling back the covers, her eyes squeezed shut and her mouth went so tight her lips almost disappeared. A hand went over her face and she whirled around, her back to him.
He jarred his face and the pain nearly knocked him back to the bed, but he shoved himself forward. ‘Cose...’
‘You don’t know where they are.’
He grunted, three little grunts.
He swung his legs around. His head took a moment to catch up, so he sat while his view straightened again.
He could focus on the back of her head. Her elbows still stuck from the sides. They moved a bit. She reached for the basket. ‘I’m going outside and I’m going to pray until Father returns. I need to gather some apples for tarts.’
‘Uh-un.’ He spoke softly. He was certain he could find them on his own. ‘Cose...’
‘Your clothes are in Father’s room,’ she said. ‘On a peg. I washed them for you.’
‘...’ank...’oo.’
And then she swirled out the door, scenting the air with lilacs.
He watched her leave. Miss Prim and Proper who believed the inside of a person mattered. Only when it had enough ale to sleep like a babe.
Holding the iron bed frame, he put his weight on his legs and stood. His head swam, but then strength returned to his legs. His feet burned in spots, like small, fierce coals jabbed at his soles. But the tingles felt good and strength shot into him.
He strode to the inner door. Inside the other room, his eyes stopped on the shirt hanging over the peg. Two garments on one peg. Under the shirt, his trousers. He shut his eyes, relieved.
He stripped the frippery of a nightshirt from his shoulders, taking deep breaths and moving slowly while he finessed it around his jaw. The pain angered him. He tossed the shirt to the floor.
He dressed, finishing by leaning against the wall, using his strength to control the pain.
Putting on the clothing wasn’t too difficult, but the cravat was the loosest one he’d ever tied and his jaw ached afresh.
He might not be dressed well enough for callers, but he definitely preferred the apparel over the nightshirt. It lay under his feet. He scooped it up with one hand, crushed the cloth within his grasp and tossed it on the bed. No valet would be along behind him. The mistress of this house was also the housekeeper, cook and scullery maid.
The mirror on the wall had a crack running the length of it, but the nails at the edge held it together.
It beckoned him. The scarred mirror.
He walked to it. Even the eyes that stared back at him didn’t seem his own. He had all the organs necessary to make a man. At least the appearance of a man.
These people thought him a vicar. A man with a caring heart. A person who fit in his father’s world. The exact opposite of who he was.
Well, he could play that game. It was perhaps the only one he hadn’t tried. They wanted him to be a vicar. Until the man his father chose arrived, then Fox would be the vicar. A pretence to see how it would be to live as a man who saw someone behind the soulless orbs.
If he wasn’t going to be able to smile his way into people’s good graces, then perhaps he could... No, he couldn’t. He could never go back among the people who knew him and be anything but Foxworthy.
Now he touched the swollen cheek, his skin feeling leathery. The left side of his jaw looked the most swollen and the thin cut line along it showed the remnants of the club’s mark.
He moved his head to one side, and then the other, still not believing the image followed his movements.
He put his hand over the glass, feeling the coldness where the eyes stared back at him. He spread his palm, covering the image.
He could not smash every mirror in the world. He could not hide away for ever. But he could not let anyone see him. Some of the swelling would have to recede. The colour would have to return to a semblance of human skin.
Someone would answer for this.
He returned to the main room of the house. His conscience was not sitting in her sewing chair.
Rebecca walked into the house and instantly her eyes moved to the empty bed. She stilled, except her heart doubled in speed. She wanted to call out his name, but realised she didn’t know it. ‘Vicar,’ she whispered.
He dipped his head to walk under the door frame from the bedroom. An unshaven man, dishevelled, except for his hair. In bed, he’d taken up the size of the mattress. In the doorway, he completely filled her eyes.
She didn’t speak and she took a tiny step back.
‘Th...ank you for washin...’ he said. ‘Shirt...’aistcoat...’
She rushed to the table, putting her basket down, not looking his way, watching the apples. She took one from the top and put it on the table. She reached for a knife to peel the apples.
‘The boots.’ She indicated the footwear her father had brought back.
He looked at them and nodded, but he didn’t get them.
The man moved to the chair and sat at her table as if it was his own. All the men of the village did the same occasionally. Even the earl had once or twice. But the vicar sat with his bare feet apart, his mangled head high and his eyes staring straight ahead. And he sat on the