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Considering recent events, it would be easy to retreat to a bitter, dark place and stay there, ruminating over her fate. What happened in the coldly handsome vicar’s past to have him hide behind a curtain of chilly indifference?
     

Chapter 6
     
    The trip to Hawksgreen took longer than Tremain anticipated, but the warm sun melted the snow enough to allow him to plow a path toward the village. During the entire journey he could not tear his thoughts from Eliza standing in his parlor in her colorless governess garments with her bruised and swollen face. She looked quite alone, at a loss and uncertain. Much like he acted and experienced of late, though he fought to suppress his emotions, revealing them to no one. But the memory seared on his brain was her finding him washing last night. The air between them had crackled with heat and life, and a good thing her gaze never lingered below his waist for he’d been as hard as oak beneath his trousers. It took all of his restraint not to cross the floor and pull her into his embrace. Instead he retreated behind the wall he’d constructed for himself.
    He hadn’t always been cold and remote. When did the exact change take place? Almost three years to the day at the Battle of Rorke’s Drift in South Africa. Even thinking of the Anglo-Zulu war caused a blast of white hot pain to shoot up his leg and settle in his upper thigh, tearing at his damaged muscles and cartilage with insistent claws. No, not today. Tremain banished the horrid memories from his mind as he pulled on the reins until the horse stopped in front of The Rusty Cockerel, the only inn and pub in the village.
    The proprietor, Jonas Tompkins, a squat, jolly man, hurried out the front entrance to greet him, wiping his large hands on his apron. “Well now, Vicar. Didn’t expect you in the village so soon after the storm. Unless poor Ruth Payne has taken a turn for the worse.” Tompkins snapped his fingers toward the young lad standing nearby and instructed him to care for the horse and gig.
    “That is my next stop.” Tremain followed Jonas through the front entrance. Thick pipe smoke hung heavy in the air. Warm, boisterous laughter filled his hearing and the odors of beer and baking meat pies filled his nostrils. His mouth watered. Removing his hat and gloves, he passed them to Jonas, who set them on a shelf. “If I could have a quick word with you and your good wife?”
    Jonas’s bushy eyebrows furrowed in question, and after showing Tremain into his small office he hurried away to fetch his spouse. The innkeeper returned with his wife and they closed the door behind them. “Good day, Vicar. What can we do for you?” Mrs. Tompkins smiled. She was a plain woman whose bright, friendly personality made her the ideal hostess for The Rusty Cockerel.
    The Tompkinses never acted put out by Tremain’s brusque manner and treated him with kindness regardless of his moods. Because of it, he allowed the granite mask to slip a bit when he was alone with the couple, and treated them with as much warmth and benevolence as he could muster. “I am hoping you might have a position and a small room for a young lady. I found her two nights ago at the height of the storm. She’d been beaten, robbed, and thrown from a carriage.”
    Mrs. Tompkins gasped, raising her flour-covered hand to her mouth. “Good heavens. How terrible. Jonas and I were just speaking about needing an extra hand in the pub. There be a wee room in the attic she could use, consider it part of the employment.”
    “Excellent. Miss Eliza Winston was previously a governess.”
    The couple exchanged dubious looks. “Well now, Mr. Colson. Pulling pints in a pub is a bit of a step down from a governess,” Jonas said.
    “To some, but considering her dire situation, I do not think Miss Winston would look down her nose at an honest job.” Damn his damned leg. Wincing in pain, he leaned on his cane to alleviate the agony caused by sitting too long. Tremain