Page 87 of The Pursuit of Lord Kit Cavanaugh

“I honestly don’t think I’ll be having any nightmares about Nunsworth.”

Kit let his gaze linger on her face, on her increasingly serene expression. For himself, he wasn’t so sure.

“Around to the left,” Sylvia said as they approached the village’s High Street. “Then take the first turn to the right, and the vicarage is the first house along.”

She accepted that the tale Nunsworth had spun about her father being at death’s door was all lies. Nevertheless, she wanted to see her father with her own eyes. Only then would she be completely cured of the anxiety Nunsworth had provoked.

Kit turned into the vicarage drive as the last of the light faded from the sky. Looking ahead, Sylvia saw lamplight filling her father’s study, the welcoming glow spilling through the mullioned windows onto the neat path that circled the house.

Kit drew the horses to a stamping halt level with the front steps. Ollie dropped to the ground and raced to hold the horses’ heads, crooning to quiet them.

Smiggs descended more slowly, joining Kit on the gravel as he stepped down. Accepting the reins Kit held out to him, Smiggs glanced at Sylvia. “Is there a stable out back?” He tipped his head at the horses. “After the afternoon they’ve had, I really should rub them down and give them some feed.”

Taking the hand Kit offered, Sylvia climbed down and smiled at Smiggs. “If you walk them around to the back of the house, you’ll find the stable. The stableman, Egbert, will probably be there—he’s a curmudgeonly old soul, but he’ll love to help with horses such as these.”

Smiggs grinned. “I know the sort—I’ll be like him one day. We’ll get along.” To Kit, he said, “I’ll take the lads with me. They can help.”

Kit nodded. “Settle the horses and leave them in the stable until we know what we’re going to do next.”

Sylvia met his eyes and realized what he meant. This would be the first time he would meet her father, who Kit hoped would eventually be his father-in-law. She let her smile deepen and looped her arm through Kit’s. He set his hand over hers where it rested on his sleeve, and together they walked toward the door while Smiggs and the boys led the horses and curricle away.

As, beside Kit, Sylvia climbed the shallow steps to the porch, she glimpsed movement through the nearer window of her father’s study. She didn’t try to suppress her smile; she wasn’t sure she could have. She’d caught sight of two faces as their owners—her father and his close friend Deacon Harris—had stood at the window and, with open, not to say avid, curiosity, watched the action in the forecourt, and now, both men were making for the front hall.

Kit halted before the door and reached for the bellpull.

“Don’t bother.” Sylvia smiled at him, grasped the doorknob, and opened the door. “It’s never locked.”

That was one of her father’s dictums—that he was always available to his flock.

“Trusting,” Kit murmured, as he pushed the door fully open and ushered her in, “but admirable in a vicar.”

Sylvia thought so—and then she saw her father standing in the middle of the hall with Deacon Harris beside him. With one swift glance, she confirmed that Nunsworth’s tale had been a complete fabrication; her father’s lean figure appeared as sprightly as ever, with the soft tufts of his white hair framing his face, and his blue eyes alight with the curiosity concerning all God’s creatures and their doings that had marked him throughout her life.

Her smile deepening—indeed, wreathing her face—she went quickly forward, hands outstretched. “Papa!”

He opened his arms, and she went into them, and they closed, enveloping her in warmth and the faint scent of tobacco—his secret vice.

She hugged him back, ineluctably relieved to feel muscle and bone so strong beneath her palms.

Clearly recognizing the unusual intensity of her greeting, he eased his hold, then patted her shoulder. “My darling Sylvia, is everything all right?”

She uttered a short laugh and drew back from his embrace. “It is now.” She went up on her toes and pressed a kiss to his cheek, then turned to Deacon Harris—who looked every bit as curious as her father. She put out a hand. “Uncle William—it’s lovely to see you as well.”

William took her hand and patted it. “It always does my old heart good to see you, my dear.”

Smiling still—she couldn’t seem to stop—she squeezed the deacon’s fingers, then drew her hand from his clasp.

With a swish of her skirts, she half turned and held out her hand to Kit; he’d remained just inside the front door, which he’d closed. “Papa—allow me to present Lord Christopher Cavanaugh.”

Kit came forward and offered his hand. “Reverend Buckleberry.”

Kit had an easy smile on his lips and a relaxed expression on his face, but Sylvia was now sufficiently attuned to the nuances of his behavior; he was just a tad nervous over meeting her father—and that lurking vulnerability only made her love him all the more.

Beaming, she watched as her father welcomed Kit “to his humble abode,” then introduced William Harris.

As Kit and William shook hands, Sylvia’s father looked her way, brows arching in interested query.

Kit saw Sylvia hesitate, but this was not a subject on which to spare her father distress; he would be more distressed if she didn’t tell him of Nunsworth’s motives. “There’s been an incident,” Kit said, catching Sylvia’s eyes as she looked at him, “and although we would have been heading this way shortly, that incident is why we’re here today.” Succinctly, he related the facts of Nunsworth’s actions, concluding with, “We left him trussed inside the mill. The foreman—Gibson—is watching over him until we can return with the authorities.”