water basin, the Reverend startled them both by rapping on the bedroom door. Mai Lin let him in and stepped aside. He did not seem to notice the old woman. Grace knew he had been terribly preoccupied since Wesley's kidnapping with his travels and attempts to find the boy. But she wished he would be kinder to the one person who had been kindest to her in the aftermath. Given her delicate condition, Grace felt certain that her current pregnancy could not possibly have lasted into the fourth month if it had not been for her skilled amah. The Reverend needed to appreciate that.
He strode into the room with remarkable haste and stopped at her bedside. He rattled as he walked now, the several pouches and bags he had begun to acquire on his summer-long trips making him sound altogether too much like Mai Lin, who wore similar belts of accessories. Grace started at the sight of him bedecked in his amulets but then quickly began to pat down her flyaway hair. She was glad that she had changed into a fresh gown that morning.
"My dear, this won't do," he said abruptly.
She looked down at her hands.
"People are beginning to wonder about us," the Reverend continued. "I would like you to accompany me to chapel tomorrow morning. The natives need our example."
She nodded. Of course she would. He was right. In so many ways, he was right.
"We must carry on, mustn't we?" he asked.
She lifted her chin and attempted a smile.
He pushed aside his long coat and the belts with the pouches hanging down as he sat at the side of her bed. The sack with the twin golden dragons was most handsome and bulged as if it held some sort of orb. She had meant to ask him about its contents, but she had seen him so rarely in the past few months, she did not wish to distract them from more pressing matters.
"My dear," he said, more softly now. He took her pale hands in his own rough, red ones. "I am so sorry. So terribly sorry."
His high, usually erect head bowed, and then suddenly, he fell forward and pressed his face against her breast. The metal of his wireframed glasses dug into her soft skin, but she did not complain. She placed her hand on his head. She let herself feel the actual touch and texture of his fine, thinning red hair. He was no apparition.
"It isn't your fault," she said. "Please, don't blame yourself."
He groaned as if she had struck him a blow. "But it is, and I do."
She pushed her fingers through his hair more firmly now. Then she touched around his unshaven cheek and rough jaw and lifted his face to hers. "The baby inside me will also help us to heal. This one is going to make it. I know he will."
The Reverend must have seen the doubt in her eyes, or heard the quiver she tried to keep from her voice. He looked at her with a tender expression, and she felt tears rise up behind her eyes. He brought her to him and kissed her on the lips. Grace thought she might faint, she was so happy to be in his embrace again. She had feared she had lost him forever.
But his lips were dry, and they did not press for long against her greedy ones. He pulled back and looked away out the open window.
"I have a sermon to prepare," he said. "You will come with me to chapel tomorrow?"
"Of course I will come with you."
"Bless you, my dear." He turned and began to leave the room. Then he paused and stepped back, closer.
Her heart could not help fluttering with hope that he might bestow upon her another kiss.
But he simply added, "Do not be surprised to see that our ranks have swelled. I seem to have sparked a revival of sorts. Most strange, but positive for our cause, I believe."
She looked at him, waiting for more, but he bent quickly and merely kissed her on the forehead before stepping away.
Seven
G race cherished the Reverend's firm grip on her elbow as he steered her up the aisle, but she hated the moment when he placed her in her seat in the front pew and moved away. It took all of her self-control not to turn to him before the assembling congregation and beg him to hold her a moment longer. She watched him rise to the platform behind the simple