Praise indeed from Lady Halifax.
“Yet you’re thrifty. You save every ha’penny. You dress plainly, without a hint of furbelows.” Lady Halifax peered at Enid from beneath wild graying brows. “What are you saving for?”
Enid glanced at Lady Halifax out of the corner of her eyes and thought, Why not? “I want land.”
“Land? Like . . . an estate? You want to marry a rich man?” Lady Halifax tsked in disbelief. “You’re an intelligent girl, but you haven’t the looks or the youth for that.”
“Pah! What would I do with two husbands? I want land. An acre or two, that’s all, but it has to be the right acres. A little marsh, a little mountain, with good soil and sunshine.”
“What are you going to do with your acres?”
“Have neighbors who’ll visit occasionally. Go to a village church built five hundred years ago and listen to the same vicar for the rest of my life. Grow herbs. Make ointments. Potions. Sell them and never work for someone else again. Have a home.” A superstitious shiver worked its way down Enid’s back as she expressed her deepest desire. Was this like wishing on a star? When she spoke aloud the dream of her heart, was she setting the furies on her trail . . . or had they already discovered her when they’d happened upon her husband?
“You’d be smarter marrying a rich man,” Lady Halifax declared.
“I’m already married.” Enid hadn’t wished for MacLean’s death—she wasn’t so far gone into acrimony—but she had dared to dream that someday freedom would be hers. “If I should be widowed, I see no reason to repeat the wedded experience.”
“You young girls these days have no sense of propriety.” Lady Halifax’s mouth puckered as if she’d sucked a lemon, and the wrinkles on her upper lip cut like ravines into her skin. “Make ointments, indeed. Silly plan.”
“Not so silly. I would be the master of my own fate.” Enid’s chest tightened as she contemplated the facts. “I fear when I discover the true extent of MacLean’s debts, I will find myself impoverished again.”
“You worry for nothing. You’ll be compensated for doing the right thing, if not here, then in heaven.”
Enid had heard those promises years ago from the charity workers who’d urged resignation to her fate, and she rejected resignation just as vigorously now as she had then. “I’m a poor, wretched creature of the flesh who wants to reach heaven, but not yet, and not by starving to death.”
Lady Halifax risked a brief pat on Enid’s hand. “I promise that won’t happen. You’ll get that land of yours.”
Enid imagined herself walking through her gardens, scissors in her gloved hands, basket on her arm. “Yes, I will. I just hope that MacLean—”
“There’s no use worrying about it now.” Lady Halifax moved restlessly on the pillows. “You’ll discover the truth soon enough.”
Enid saw the shadows under Lady Halifax’s eyes and smoothed the covers in a futile effort to bring comfort through tidiness. “My lady, I don’t want to leave Halifax House.” Enid realized her voice quivered and realized, too, that she had formed an attachment not only to this place but also to its mistress.
“Yes, well, needs drive.” Lady Halifax wouldn’t allow for pity, not for Enid, not for herself.
Yet their attachment had developed from wakeful nights and pain-filled days, and for Lady Halifax, too few of those remained. Enid would probably never see the old woman alive again. Both of them knew it. This was the hell Enid feared. The pain of separation, the heartbreak of unwelcome duty.
Enid blinked the tears away. Lady Halifax wouldn’t thank her for coming maudlin. “I’ve left you a jar of the rosemary cream. Have your new companion rub it on your back every night, and make sure she frequently turns you.” Lifting her hand, Enid pressed a farewell kiss on the bony knuckles. “God grant you peace, my lady.”
“Don’t be so sloppy and sentimental, MacLean. It’s not attractive.” Lady Halifax turned her head away, but not before Enid saw the shadows under her eyes.
Quickly, before Enid could allow the doubts to stop her, she hurried from the room and left Lady Halifax alone.
Chapter 2
A black wrought-iron gate with the initial T worked into the metal in ornate curlicues guarded the entrance to hell. Hell’s coach was well sprung, with padded velvet seats and matching curtains, which Mr. Kinman had insisted remained closed throughout most of the journey. Only now, as they waited for the gatehouse keeper to approach, did Mr. Kinman allow Enid a glimpse outside.
Hell much resembled Suffolk. Summer flowers blazed on the undulating hills, and a rural sense of isolation clung to the road before them. Suffolk—and hell—had a reputation for remoteness, for the fens to the north and Epping Forest to the south made rails difficult to build and roads scarce. If Enid was capable of surprise—and at this juncture she didn’t believe herself capable of any marked emotion—she would have marveled to discover hell was difficult to approach. After all, she had always heard all roads led there.
As the gatehouse keeper walked to the carriage, Mr. Kinman lowered the window. “Greetings, Harry.” His voice contained faint traces of an east London accent. “I’ve got the wife.”
Enid thought that sounded ominous, almost as if she were a parcel, wrapped neatly in brown paper and tied in string.
Harry leaped onto the footman’s perch and peered inside. He was handsome, young, with a hard face. He scanned the corners of the vehicle, but the floor of the carriage contained nothing but four feet and Enid’s pocketbook, so he nodded and in an educated accent said, “All right, then. Go right to the garden.” His gaze lingered on Enid, on her neat brown traveling costume, her straw bonnet and her tan kid gloves.
Mr. Kinman stared at Enid, too.
Their mixture of wariness and hope gave her a queasy feeling—not that she wasn’t feeling queasy anyway at the thought of seeing Stephen once more.
Harry jumped down. “Drive on.”
“A very odd sort of gatekeeper,” Enid said, making conversation as they rumbled through a small pine wood and up over a hill.
“Harry’s a good man. You can trust him.” Mr. Kinman’s meaty face was heavy with sincerity. “Anyone I introduce to you will be a man of good faith, but please, Mrs. MacLean, don’t put your trust in strangers.”
“How many strangers will I meet?” Enid asked.
Mr. Kinman’s starched white collar apparently strangled him, for he ran a finger around it in a half-circle. “None, ma’am. You should meet none at all.”
Except MacLean, and he was the strangest of all. She feared that, like a runaway train, he would once again rush over her, crush her, and leave her writhing in the destruction of her life before he rolled on to another adventure, another conquest.
The thought of seeing MacLean again gave her a pain in the gut, and that, combined with the rolling motion of the coach, made her wish that the journey would be over, and soon.
As they passed a hill topped by a ruined castle covered by ivy and honeysuckle, Mr. Kinman said earnestly, “Blythe Hall is a lovely spot, close to the coast and on the banks of the River Blythe.”
“I would have sworn it was the River Styx,” she said.
Mr. Kinman’s broad forehead puckered as he struggled to comprehend her enigmatic reference to the river that flowed through hell. “No, ma’am, I don’t know why you would think that. It is the River Blythe. The estate is Blythe Hall. Your host is Mr. Throckmorton, a gentleman of substance and one of Her Majesty’s loyal subjects.”
“He will tell me the details of my husband’s injury?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
Her questions and comments made Mr. Kinman frankly uncomfortable, and at any other time and in any other circumstances, she would have taken pity on him. But not here, and not now. She had left a dying woman to come here and see Stephen MacLean. This had better not be one of MacLean’s tricks, or she would personally see that he was given an injury.
“Mr. Throckmorton has commanded that you be given anything y
ou want, anything at all,” Mr. Kinman continued. “We—all of us who serve Mr. Throckmorton—will do our best to provide for your needs. We’ll see that your stay here is at least tolerable.”
Tolerable? She turned her head away and stared out the window. No, this duty would not be tolerable. The marital mistake of her youth would haunt her forever.
The drive turned and twisted through groves of trees and handsome gardens, and once she caught a glimpse of the manor, tall and glorious in the late afternoon’s summer sunshine. Yet they drove to a walled garden. There the carriage stopped, and a gentleman stepped from beneath the arbor. Tall, dark and raw-boned, he wore authority like a second skin.
“Mr. Throckmorton’s a straight-shooter,” Mr. Kinman told her as the footman opened the carriage door.
But Enid didn’t move. This wasn’t a moment she wanted to rush to embrace. No, not with Mr. Kinman nudging her from behind and Mr. Throckmorton looking grim as death as he advanced to offer his hand.
But she had no choice, and with a sigh and a wince she climbed from the carriage.
The muscles of her thighs ached. Ever since they’d left London, she’d been digging her heels into the floor in a vain, compulsive attempt to stop the onward rush toward her fate.
“Mrs. MacLean, it’s a pleasure to meet you.” Mr. Throckmorton bowed formally, his gray eyes seeming to appraise her. To Mr. Kinman, he said, “Stay with the carriage. We’ll be back soon, and you can take her to the cottage.”
Mr. Kinman touched his forehead like a soldier to his commander, then, to Enid’s surprise, gave her a like salute.
Mr. Throckmorton led her into the garden, where vivid yellow daisies nodded beside the paths and tall lavender stocks bloomed against the ivy-covered walls. “Kinman likes you. That’s good; he’s a fair judge of character, and knowing of your estrangement with your husband, I had qualms about contacting you.”
“How did you know of our estrangement? How did you find me? Is MacLean a friend of yours?”
“Your husband? Yes, a friend and colleague.” He indicated a bench beneath an arbor. “Won’t you sit down?”
“I’ve been sitting.” Obviously, Mr. Throckmorton knew much about MacLean. Therefore, he knew about her, and she didn’t like that. Anonymity, she had discovered, beat notoriety any day. “With your permission, I prefer to stand.”
“As you wish.” Taking her arm, he walked her along the small circle that made up the path within the garden.
“I imagine you found the news of MacLean’s injury unsettling.”
“It was the worst possible news.” She had left Lady Halifax. “Mr. Throckmorton, how long do you foresee I will be here? I left a beloved patient who is near her moment of crisis, and I would like to be back at her side as soon as possible.”
Mr. Throckmorton lifted a haughty brow. “The Distinguished Academy of Governesses arranged for another nurse to care for her, did they not?”
“Lady Halifax is failing badly, and I know what she needs, how she thinks.” Enid’s heart ached as she thought of the old woman who had so bravely sent her on her way. “I would like to be with her.”
Mr. Throckmorton observed her closely, then passed judgment. “You are a good nurse.”
“I am.”
“Your husband needs a nurse now.”
Her skirt swirled over the tops of the nodding flower heads, and in her present mood she would just as soon have ground them beneath her heel. Poor flowers, to be a substitute for that rotter Stephen MacLean! “What did MacLean do?” she asked caustically. “Crawl into the wrong bedroom window and get shot by an irate husband? Wager he could race his horses along the turnpike and overturn the carriage? Get drunk and tossed by his erstwhile companions?”
Her bitterness didn’t shock Mr. Throckmorton. On the contrary, he answered as if her censure was the most natural thing in the world. “He was involved in an explosion.”
Enid thought she should be ashamed of her accusations. She was not. They weren’t unreasonable, not where Stephen MacLean was involved. “An explosion. He was playing with fireworks?”
“It was a bomb. He was in the Crimea. At the wrong place at the wrong time. A Russian agent set the explosive. MacLean’s companion was killed.”
“A Russian agent?” She halted, and, wide-eyed with comprehension, she stared at Mr. Throckmorton. No wonder he carried with him such a sense of authority! No wonder he had so easily discovered the state of her marriage and her direction! She had never actually met anyone like this before; after MacLean she had assiduously sought the quiet life. But tabloids and newsprint had fired her imagination with stories of spies at home and abroad. Now she stood next to just such a man. Then it occurred to her—“MacLean was spying?”
Mr. Throckmorton started, and cleared his throat as if her acuity displeased him. “No. The other man . . . but I can’t say more.”
Her brief hope collapsed. “It was too great a thing to hope MacLean had performed an honorable service for Her Majesty’s government. Yet I would have thought such a hazardous activity would appeal to my husband.”
“He was an innocent passerby,” Mr. Throckmorton assured her. “Nevertheless, he needs you now.”
“You don’t understand. My husband would not wish for me to come and care for him. He wishes never to see me again.” Enid drew a careful breath before adding, “Nor I him.”
“Yes, we do understand, but MacLean is in no condition to refuse.” Mr. Throckmorton stopped walking and took her gloved hand in his. “Mrs. MacLean, your husband is dying.”
Chapter 3
“Dying?” Enid covered her mouth. Funny, for all of Mr. Throckmorton’s descriptions, she hadn’t thought MacLean could be dying. Possessed of a child’s energy and a child’s carelessness, MacLean never walked, he ran. He never talked, he yelled. He never smiled, he rolled with hysterical laughter. Death to him would be the ultimate adventure. Sometimes she thought he had wished nothing more than to embrace death in a final, dramatic coup de théâtre.
“The accident happened four weeks ago.” Mr. Throckmorton led her to the seat she had previously scorned.
She sank down upon it. “What’s wrong? Has he lost limbs? Why . . . dying?”
“The broken glass sliced his face and his chest. He’s suffered a broken leg. The bone, they tell me, stuck through the skin.”
She winced. Compound fractures usually killed a man. “How did he get back to England?”
“A ship transported him, a terrible journey through rough seas. He returned to consciousness at least once a day, but now . . . he’s so weak, those moments are less frequent.” Mr. Throckmorton watched her steadily. “Unless we can give him sustenance, there’s no hope. We aren’t asking you to do the heavy work. He has a nurse, and the doctor comes once a day.”
“Then why am I here?”
“We hope the sound of your gentle voice might bring him back.”
“From the brink of death? There’s little chance of that. I’m telling you the truth. He has no fondness for the sound of my voice.” But Enid fought a losing battle, and she knew it.
“I refuse to give up hope. All of us who know him refuse to give up hope.”
“Of course.” She understood hope. She’d been blessed, or cursed, with a soul wherein, regardless of her travails, hope sprang eternal. No matter how often she scolded herself, no matter how frequently she demanded good sense of herself, she always believed in a better life . . . tomorrow. Her vicar in London had told her she had an unending capacity for faith. She told herself she suffered a relentless supply of folly. “But, if as I suspect, I can’t help him—”
“If you cannot help him and he’s condemned to a death he doesn’t deserve—if that is the case, the family will wish the body transported back to Scotland. As his wife, you, of course, will accompany it.”
Worse and worse. Raising her voice in furious defiance, Enid said, “Lady Halifax needs me. And . . . and the clan MacLean wants nothing to do with me.”
“Steph
en MacLean might have left you a legacy.”
Livid with the insinuation that greed drove her, Enid rose and faced off with Mr. Throckmorton. “I was wed to Stephen MacLean, and I assure you he more likely would leave me a load of debt.”
Mr. Throckmorton acknowledged that by saying, “The MacLean family is wealthy. They might be willing to help you.”
“And I would take any help, Mr. Throckmorton, for I supported my husband during the three months of our marriage. It would be nothing more than a repayment long in arrears. But I don’t look for help from the MacLeans. After the wedding, their laird made it clear in the letter he wrote—my husband had no money of his own, and Kiernan MacLean would rather I rot than support such an opportunistic creature as I am.”
For the first time in their conversation, Mr. Throckmorton appeared nonplussed. “I’m sure the laird didn’t mean—”
“He meant exactly what he said. No, Mr. Throckmorton, I am a single woman with nothing standing between me and starvation but my own hard labor, and I’ll not trouble his Scottish relations.”
Mr. Throckmorton drew himself up to his full height and stared down his nose at her.
She stared right back. “If we are done with our discussion, Mr. Throckmorton, I would like to go assess my patient. The sooner he’s returned to health, the sooner I may leave.”
Settling back to his normal size, Mr. Throckmorton observed, “Mrs. MacLean, you don’t intimidate easily.”
“No.” She walked toward the garden entrance.
Mr. Kinman paced beside the carriage, an overgrown, shambling bear of a man who wore clothes as if they were small, uncomfortable and restrictive. His face lit up when he saw her, and he leaped to assist her into the carriage. “I told you Mr. Throckmorton would explain everything,” he said proudly.
“He certainly did.” Enid settled herself in the carriage.
The carriage dipped as Mr. Kinman swung his great bulk inside. “Do you think you can help MacLean?”
“I’ll have to examine him first.” Furious and upset, she stared straight ahead.
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