by Jaye Peaches
He said nothing as he emptied the contents of one pocket.
A dozen pretty buttons. Exactly the same ones she had chosen.
“How did... oh.” She stepped away from the table. “I’m making pie—”
The attempt at changing the subject was foolish.
“You’ll be pleased to know I’ve set up an account for you. In the name of Prudence Denzel. For obvious reasons. I’m protecting your reputation from scandal, as I thought you wanted.”
She swallowed hard. “Thank you,” she said quietly.
“But you know that would not be necessary if I hadn’t spotted you enter and leave the shop. In fact, nothing you’ve done today would need my attention if you had done as you were told and stayed here.” He banged his fist on the table. “You foolish girl. You were seen.”
“I know,” she whispered. Her heart was pounding. “Did he know it was me, do you think?”
“The footman? He suspected, but he was convinced otherwise. I overheard them talking in the street.”
She sighed, deep in a state of relief. “Thank heavens.”
“Thank heavens?” he growled. “If he’d recognised you, then your deceit is revealed, your husband recalled from his travels, and your family informed. Your name would be dragged through the filth of the worst kind of gossip and your reputation ruined. Even if my name isn’t linked to yours, nobody would believe you spent this time apart from Lord Coleman as anything other than an attempt at abandoning your duties.”
She rose up, her back snapping straight. “May I remind you, sir, that is exactly what I have done. I have left him to his own devices, as he has with me. I care not what he thinks or does. He neglected his duties before I chose to forgo mine, and once he is back home, I shall perform them begrudgingly for the sake of my family, not his. As for my visit to town, you advised me—”
“I did more than that—”
“Not to go and I chose to do as I wished. I am not your prisoner, as you pointed out, Matthew. I am a lady of rank, and I choose to stay with you because you offered me respite from a loveless marriage, and you have taught me many things a young lady might not know, and for that I’m grateful, but you cannot expect me to bow to you unconditionally when I am not your wife.”
He briefly clenched his fists, then released them, sighing heavily. “I can’t protect you, Dara, if you chose to flout my wishes and skedaddle off to town on your own.”
“I did not skedaddle.” However, her chin sank lower and she felt a pang of guilt; she had offended his sensibilities more than she realised. “Protect me?”
“Aye.” He scooped up the buttons. “That’s all I wish to do. You’re precious to me, I suppose. I hadn’t realised how much until I overhead them talking about you in town, thinking you’re a pretty maid for the taking. I wouldn’t share you with anyone, Dara. I dread your leaving, but know it has to be done, or both of us will be ruined if they find you here.”
She moved around the table and touched his sleeve. “You mean to punish me? Spank me for going?”
“I had.” He puffed out his lips. “But seeing your shame, hearing of what happened in the shop, for a lady like yourself, the humiliation is punishment enough. I’ll not do any more. Say you’re contrite, though, Dara.”
“I am,” she said firmly. “I did not think things through properly or have set in place any plan for dealing with my mistake.”
He nodded. “Good. That’s enough for me. If you do wish to visit the town, perhaps it is best you go with Maggie and her daughters, hide in their shadows, and say as little as possible. It was bad luck that you timed this visit with the butler’s trip.”
She smirked. “I know Paul saw me so I left straight away. I hoped he’d poor eyesight.”
“Or is easily persuaded otherwise by his betters.” He dropped the buttons into her open palm. “Sew them onto something pretty. Then I can enjoy unbuttoning them later.”
A flutter of heartbeats reminded her that whatever happened in the future, for now, in matters of a carnal nature, she was entirely his and that was all she wanted.
Chapter Eight
Three weeks left. If only time could be stretched eternally. Dara twitched Mary’s reins and turned her around. They were on the brow of the hill, near the boundary wall of Matthew’s expansive estate. It seemed ludicrous that a common man could have all this land and no title, nothing that raised him to a higher status that meant he was eligible for marriage with her class.
Tipping her hat forward, she shaded her eyes from the sun.
The dry summer had brought an early harvest and the men had been out since dawn with the scythes cutting the barley. Yesterday, Matthew had taken a wagon load of fresh cabbages to market. He had returned happy with the money he made, although she noticed very little of it was in his purse. She concluded he had a bank account, which again was an odd choice for a farmer. Why had he not spent his earnings on improving the property?
The second-floor window of the cottage was boarded up. To have that extra space and not use it puzzled her. There wasn’t even a set of stairs to access the floor.
She cantered down the hill, along the paths that skirted the fields until she reached the farm. The lads were making haystacks in a distant field. The sun was baking hot and she ventured they might fritter away some of the day in the shade waiting for the sun to lower in the sky.
Tying up Mary—a much leaner horse now that she was ridden every day—Dara entered the cottage.
Matthew was seated at the table, his head resting on his folded arms, and apparently asleep. She tiptoed closer, expecting him to lift his head up from the table and greet her. However, his soft snore told her she was right—he was sleeping, which during the day was very unusual. By his elbow was one of the books from the chest.
She picked it up. It was the first volume of French poetry, mainly love poems, and some were very risqué and unlikely to be approved by Miss Bramhall or her parents. She smiled, turning the well-thumbed pages. She wasn’t the first to appreciate the nuances laced between the lyrical lines. The poems were almost like songs. It was odd that Matthew had the book to hand. Since he couldn’t read French—she never seen him with any book other than the ledger of his accounts—she had concluded his education was rudimentary and pertained to what he considered useful.
He stirred his head, then jerked awake. She quickly put the book down.
He blinked several times before acknowledging her presence with a smile. “Good ride?”
She nodded. “Very. Mary is both sprightly and obedient.” She smiled back.
His smile broadened into a grin, but only briefly. He snatched the book up and carried it over to the chest, lifted the lid, and dropped it in without a care for how it landed. The lid slammed shut. Dara jumped.
“I’ll be taking the barley to market tomorrow,” he said.
She hovered, slightly perturbed by the shadows around his eyes. “Are you ill, Master?”
“No,” he said curtly. Then, seeing how she was hurt by his tone, he softened his voice. “No, I’m not, lass. It’s a busy time of year, little time for sleep and...”
He didn’t use the word, but she knew what he meant. He had been too busy to spend much time with her, and other than a frisky coupling when she had returned from her stay with Maggie, he had barely touched her in three days.
“I shall make supper, then,” she said, removing her bonnet.
“I’ll go check on the lads,” he said. He paused by the door. “Don’t wait for me at bedtime.”
For the third day in a row, she was a little disappointed by his lack of interest in her.
* * *
The following day, he left early with the three men to deliver the barley. Threshed and tied up in sacks, the barley harvest was bountiful and likely to fetch a good price. She waved goodbye to the men at the door of the cottage.
By lunchtime, she had performed many of her daily tasks. She took a break from her chores and opened the chest of books. The book
of poems lay abandoned at the top. She opened the front cover. There was no bookplate, like the others. She noted it had been printed in Paris by a French publisher. How Matthew had come by it was a mystery. She checked the other volume, and thought she saw a faint wording on the first page. The lettering had faded, the ink smudged slightly. There were no further clues.
She lay for a while on the bed and dozed. Outside, the birds squabbled and the cows mooed occasionally. She opened her eyes and stared up at the timber ceiling. Unlike the painted ones of her father’s house, Matthew’s cottage had simple plain boards tacked across the beams. Sitting up, she spotted the broken line of boards. Why had she not seen the anomaly before now?
She fetched the stool, positioned it under the shortened boards, which were by the wall, and reached up. She pushed upward with the flat of her hands. There was a creak, the low groan of wood that doesn’t want to move, then the boards lifted in unison. She had discovered a hatch, an opening to the forgotten upper storey.
She needed a ladder. The smallest one was in the barn. She dashed from one side of the yard to other, and brought back the small ladder used to access the mezzanine in the barn. She rested it against the wall and climbed up a couple of rungs. Now she had the leverage to push the hatch up and to the side. She grunted with effort and nearly slipped off the ladder. Finally, after one last nudge, the boards shifted and slid across.
A huge bloom of dust flooded the room below.
She sneezed violently and repeatedly. Eventually the grey cloud settled and she wiped away the grime from her face. Nobody had moved the hatch in years. She poked her head up nervously, as she was not keen on encountering vermin or bats. However, whoever had boarded up the window had ensured not a crack of light entered the space. There was very little to see.
She lit a candle, carefully carried it up the ladder and left it by the side of the square hole. Slowly, so not to catch the flame with her skirts, she climbed up through the hatchway and clambered to her feet. Dust billowed still, stirred up by her movements. She raised the candleholder high and waited for her eyes to adjust to the dim light.
There was a bed. A colossal four-poster bed with drapes, but no mattress. By its side was a closet built from oak and covered in cobwebs. There were spider webs everywhere, hanging from the ceiling and between the posts of the bed. She inched forward, shivering in the coolness, wondering if there were ghosts in the gloomy corner of the room. She touched the door to the wardrobe. It started to swing open of its own accord. Startled by the motion, she stepped back.
Inside, hanging from a pole, were gowns. Not the fine ones Dara might have in her wardrobe back at Willowby Hall, but ones similar to what she wore about the cottage. Plain, functional, and suitable for all seasons. She pushed the door shut with the tips of her fingers.
On the other side of the bed, she nearly stumbled over something solid and no higher than her knees—a tiny crib.
Like the bed, it was empty. Unused.
Dara covered her mouth. Poor Matthew. He had been married and there had been a child, too. And now, they were both gone. Given he had abandoned the room, boarded it up, and removed any means to reach it, he must hate the sight of it. All the extra space needed for comfort, and he chose not use it, or even mention it.
She climbed down the ladder, blew out the candle, and carefully replaced the wood hatch. After she had returned the ladder to his rightful place, she stared out the window for a while, wondering why Matthew had never told her about the bed and the crib. Was he ashamed of his past? What had happened that caused him to hide it away?
The light was fading fast. A storm was brewing, probably similar to the one that had heralded her arrival at the farm. Summer would end soon, and so would her time with Matthew, and she still knew so little about him, and why he had taken her under his wing.
When the wagon pulled up, she heard shouts. The men were fighting with the tarpaulin, trying to fold it away. The wind had picked up. The three lads retreated to the safety of the barn. Matthew came in, shaking the raindrops off his cap.
“Fickle thing, the weather,” he said. Moving into the light of the window, he stopped a few feet from her. “Good grief, lass, what have you done to your hair? There’s a bird’s nest sitting on it. Have you gone grey prematurely?” He laughed, then abruptly stopped.
Dara closed her eyes. What a fool. She had not shaken out the dust and cobwebs from her hair, nor had she... she opened her eyes and looked at the floor. Too late, Matthew had seen the swirl of dust beneath the hatch.
“What have you done?” he said softly, the anger barely concealed beneath the veneer of calm.
There was little reason to pretend. He had all the evidence he needed. “I went up there. I was curious. There’s a room up there, a boarded-up window and a bed. It seems odd that you choose not to make use of the space.” She chewed on her lip.
“That’s my business, and not yours,” he seethed with clenched fists.
“Why?” she said defiantly.
He took a step toward her. “Because I am master of this house. This farm. This land. And I choose not to speak of it. That is all the reason you need.” He spoke in a voice quite unlike his usual—devoid of rustic characteristics, it almost reminded her of her father’s severe style.
She wasn’t so easily defeated. “I have bared my soul to you, Matthew, told you my fears and desires, and you think I care not for you? That I would simply shrug of my discovery? There was a baby—”
He slammed his fist into the palm of his other hand. “Say no more!”
A spark of lightning lit up the room and his face, bringing it for a moment out of the shadows. The expression she glimpsed was confusing. Anger was there, for certain, but also sadness and something that reminded her of worry. It was that tiny glimmer that reassured her he was not lost to her. Ire might taint his thoughts now, but maybe later, he would calm down and tell her the truth. However, she needed him to understand he could not keep fobbing her off when she deserved to know.
“Perhaps I should leave, since I have upset you and you care not to tell me why.” She picked up her bonnet.
The thunder answered her first.
Matthew blurted, “Don’t go. Not in this storm. You’ll not get far, you know that.”
Her past experience would prove him right. Where should she go? The barn with young men? The cowshed? She wrinkled her nose.
Matthew provided her with a solution. He snatched up his cap and the long coat hanging by the door, and marched out, slamming the door shut behind him.
What now? She fretted, unable to sit or do anything about the house. The storm raged, lightning forked all around the farm, the thunder banged and crashed, while the rain hammered the roof. She cowered on the stool, shivering. She should not have implied she was leaving. It was a mistake. Now he would not want her at all. Overcome with confused emotions, she burst into tears. For a while, she could not think of anything but her lamentable situation.
The storm passed, pushing away the humid air and leaving behind a cool fresh one. Recovered from her spate of crying, she opened the windows. The setting sun retrieved the dregs of the day and brought a welcome burst of light back into the farmhouse. A couple more hours and it would be below the horizon. There was no sign of Matthew.
Dara walked to the barn, determined to encourage one of the men to tell her the truth. Somehow, she had to salvage her relationship with Matthew. Only Ezekiel was there. The other two had gone to calm the animals disturbed by the storm. Ezekiel was moving pails around to collect the rainwater dripping through the holes in the roof.
“I tell the master, fix this damn roof, but he says there’s better things to spend money on,” he said jovially, undaunted by the inconvenience.
“What things?” she asked, hovering by the barn door.
He shrugged. “Don’t know.”
“What do you know about him? Is he a good man, Ezekiel? Or has he done something terrible? Is somebody blackmailing him?”
&n
bsp; Ezekiel, startled by her question, nearly dropped the pail. “What? Why would you think that?”
Rattled by her improvised train of thoughts, she stuttered through her explanation. “He has money, but doesn’t spend it on the farm... And... The master found out I went up into the upper room... the bedroom, where there’s a bed... and a crib. He’s very cross with me, but I don’t know why.” She brushed aside a tumbling tear.
“Oh,” said Ezekiel. He lowered the pail. A few raindrops plopped inside the bucket.
“Has he done something bad?”
“Oh, miss, whatever makes you think that?”
“Because he was so angry.” She sank onto a bale of hay and buried her face in her hands. “I got angry, too, at his deceit, and said I was leaving. Now the storm has ended, I don’t think he means to stop me going.”
Ezekiel collected a stool and sat. He kept a good distance between them, still wary of Matthew’s warnings about fraternising with Dara. “Miss, the room you found was where he slept with his missus for five years.”
“I guessed he was married.” She sniffed, wiping her nose on her sleeve. “What was she like? Did you know her?”
“Not for long, a few months. She was beautiful.”
“I see. How did they meet?”
“Well, not as you might expect. She was begging in town, poor lass, and he took pity on her and brought her here. They fell in love and married.” Ezekiel examined his hands.
Just like how she met Matthew herself, apart from the begging part. “What became of her?”
“Nothing wicked. I don’t know why you would think of such a thing, miss. She died in childbirth. The baby was stillborn. Master was heartbroken. He boarded up the room, removed the stairs, and forbade anyone to speak of her. Ever.”
“When was this?”
“A few months after me and Lemuel came to work for him. Three years ago this week.”