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The Arrangement. Lyn Stone
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Kathryn took her time approaching Timberoak Manor. Moonlight did nothing to disguise the ragged condition of her new home. Half-dead vines hugged the stones as far up as the second-floor windows. The ivy appeared to be all that was holding the place together. Paint-peeled shutters hung precariously, threatening to drop to the ground with the first strong breeze. Knee-high grasses probably concealed all manner of debris around the weed-infested gravel of the driveway. Still, one could clearly see the ghost of former grandeur. Perhaps, with care and a hefty portion of her inheritance, she could resurrect that ghost.
Kathryn clung to the newly realized ambition. Such as it was, she now had a home to call her own. She had always craved a home, a family and a husband. Timberoak, Jon Chadwick and Pip weren’t exactly what she’d had in mind during all those wishing sessions, but at the advanced age of almost twenty-five, she could hardly hope for much more.
After she located the stable and fed Mabel, Kathryn walked around front again. The heavy door swung open at a touch. She strode down the entrance hall and entered the littered ballroom with forced confidence and determined hope. She had always heard it was best to begin as one meant to go.
Pip sat on the floor with his back to her, humming along with the small harp he strummed. His tattered green robe was bunched around his hips, and his outstretched legs were bare. “Pip,” she called softly, afraid she would startle him. “It’s Kathryn.”
He turned with a wide, vacant smile. Simply beautiful, she thought with a catch in her breath. And beautifully simple. Regret and sympathy streaked through her, leaving in their wake a need to do something, anything, to improve the quality of his life.
“May I join you?” she asked as she knelt beside him.
“Want to play?” Pip handed her the child’s harp.
She pushed it back into his arms. “I don’t know how, dear.”
“I play. You sing,” he ordered, and began to pluck a folk tune she vaguely remembered from childhood.
“‘Winnowing Away,”’ she remarked as the title came to her. Her mother had sung it to her when she was little. Before...
“I don’t sing. Ever,” she said. The words came out more sharply than she had meant them to. His mouth drew down in a pout.
Before she thought what she was doing, Kathryn reached up and brushed his hair back, uncovering the dark bruise on his temple. He had scrubbed it nearly raw. The whole of his face and neck looked freshly washed, his sun-kissed hair still damp around it.
She wondered whether he shaved his own face. Perhaps Jon or Grandy did it for him. At least he made some attempt at cleanliness on his own. She caught a faint whiff of cologne and smiled. He must have dabbled in Jon’s things out of curiosity.
“Sing to me,” he mumbled, stroking the harp strings.
Kathryn sighed. She hadn’t sung in thirteen years. The last time had gained her the only beating her father ever gave her. After that, even humming had drawn dark scowls from him.
“My mother used to sing,” she said, almost to herself and noticed Pip’s head cock to one side as though he were interested.
Kathryn realized then that she now had a confidant. Pip could listen to all her woes and would promptly forget them. She had talked to her cat when she was small and had no one else to listen. Whiskers had probably saved her sanity after Mother left and Father grew morose and distant. Come to think of it, Pip’s curious expression had a certain similarity to her feline friend’s.
She smiled and clasped her hands together in her lap. “Mother sang like a nightingale, Pip. Still does, I expect.”
“Mother died,” Pip said bluntly, catching a bass string with one fingernail. The note bonged and then faded to silence.
“Your mother died? Mine went away. Sad, isn’t it?” Kathryn leaned against his shoulder, and Pip grunted softly in assent.
He began to play again, this time a piece she didn’t know—one of his own, she suspected. The soft music soothed as a maternal caress was meant to. Perhaps Pip had invented his own consolation for the loss of his mother and was sharing it with her. What a lovely thought that, despite his disability, he possessed such sensitivity, such natural goodness.
She lay back on the chilly floor and covered her eyes with one arm. Pip’s sweet, comforting sounds enfolded her, warmed her, and eventually lulled her to sleep.
Chapter Five
Strong sunlight and the smell of coffee greeted Kathryn when she woke. She blinked and rubbed her eyes, groaning as her corset bit into her rib cage.
She was in Pip’s room. Or at least the one she had assigned him when she saw the pigsty he usually occupied. The covers lay tangled half about her, half on the floor. Otherwise, the place looked much as it had the last time she was in it. The dust was more evident, and the furnishings seemed a bit more faded than she recalled. How in the world had she gotten here?
Searching her memory, Kathryn vaguely remembered strong arms beneath her, the shifting movements of being carried like a child. She lay back and sighed. So Pip was looking after her. The future didn’t look half so bleak as she had expected it would this morning.
Once she had her money, she would restore his home and make it livable. Maybe even as beautiful as it had been in its glory days. And she would give him a life of comfort and ease. Her Pip would have no worries at all other than what note to play next. Her Pip. Nathan. She remembered the name Jon had written on the marriage certificate, but she could never think of Pip as Nathan. He probably wouldn’t answer to that name, anyway.
So what if Pip wasn’t her ideal husband? Not likely she would ever have found the man she’d envisioned anyway. She had imagined a somewhat older fellow. Handsome, naturally. Virile and experienced, worldly, sure of himself, the master of all situations. And rich. Well, now she didn’t require a rich man. Love had never been on her wish list. She’d seen what love did to her father when he lost it. She wasn’t even certain what love meant; passion, supposedly, coupled with obsession. She would gladly settle for a different, safer kind of affection with Pip.
She couldn’t deny that she felt a strong physical attraction to her brother-in-law, Chadwick. But then, she had experienced a stirring toward Pip that proved nearly as strong. The failing was one she’d have to combat until she got over it. Desire might be new and unsettling, but she could deal with it until she got used to the near proximity of two extremely handsome men. Once they became familiar in a family setting, she would surely come to think of both in .a sisterly way.
They could live a pleasant life here at Timberoak. Jon would come periodically, of course, to get the music Pip wrote. They would make him welcome and be a real family. Even old Grandy might fit in, once Kathryn set her straight about showing Pip the respect he was due. Just because a childhood accident had stolen some of his reason, that gave the woman no call to grump at him the way she did. Everything would work out beautifully. Kathryn meant to see that it did. They were all her responsibility now.
She listened to the steady thump of footsteps on the stairs and the firm knock at her bedroom door. “Come in,” she called, fully expecting Pip.
“Good morning, Kathryn,” Jon said as he entered. “You slept well, I trust?”
Kathryn shifted uncomfortably in her wrinkled riding habit. He looked too wonderfully decadent, still in his evening clothes. Powder lay thick on his face, its pallor interrupted only by his dark brows and lashes, and the natural color of his expressive mouth. Most of his dark, wavy hair had escaped from its