Muddy tracks marred the floor, left by the soles of his boots.
“What have you done to your shoes?” she chided, dropping to a knee.
“I was playing at the river.” Frederick folded one leg behind the other in a bid to escape her questing fingers. “It is just mud.”
“Sit,” she urged, giving him a light tug.
He hesitated.
Most everything had changed, but Martha was still and would always be a mother. “I said sit, Frederick,” she said with a look that sent him promptly down to a seated position in the middle of the floor. Martha wrested off one sopping boot. She went to set it down.
Her heart sank.
“Oh, I… got a hole in one.” Frederick ducked his head with uncharacteristic sheepishness. Martha relieved him of the other. “And mayhap the other, too,” he mumbled under his breath.
Oh, blast… There had been a time when they’d worried not at all about the cost of shoes and shirts and trousers. But… everything had changed. Everything. There weren’t funds for… anything, let alone a new pair of boots.
“You’re angry.”
“I’m not.” He should be free to run the countryside as she once had, chasing rainbows and running after tomorrows. “I do want you to have a greater care, though.”
He leaped up. “I will,” he promised and started to dart off before abruptly stopping. “You aren’t working anymore for the day, are you?”
“Just a bit.” He worried after her when he shouldn’t have to. When he should know only a child’s pleasures and joys. “But only because I enjoy it.”
“You need someone to help here so you can work on your sketches. No one ever responded to your notices?”
And no one would. They no longer had the funds for that. “I’ll add another post to the next mail,” she lied. Her weekly trek that represented the fledgling hope she had for a future of respectability with her son wouldn’t include a post for employment, but rather, a request herself for work.
He lingered. “We will find someone.”
With that, he darted off. As soon as he’d gone, her shoulders slumped. The struggle to be everything, when life had given them nothing, was drowning her, the waves battering at her, sucking her under, and leaving behind an empty panic.
The walls of their circumstances were closing in all around. Should there be no funds, Martha well knew what future awaited them…
She shivered.
For Martha knew all too well the evil that drove men’s souls… and how easily that evil could, and would, destroy a woman’s life.
And she’d be damned if she would erroneously place her trust in any one man again.
Chapter 3
There had been a time when Martha had enjoyed nothing more than the long, silent walk to the White Stag Inn. The two-mile journey represented some of her favorite times. The birch-lined path, quiet and untraveled, had offered her stolen moments where she lived solely in her head. During those times, there were no responsibilities or obligations. There was no livestock to feed and care for. There were not four people alternately asking questions or ordering her about.
And most of all, there’d been no thoughts of the husband who’d periodically come to High Town, exercised his husbandly rights, and then, thankfully, left. Or the regrets at how life had turned out.
For along with those sentiments had also come a mother’s guilt… for both stealing that time away from her three children and, worse, for having wanted that time for herself.
And yet, just as her existence had changed, so too had those simplest aspects of her life.
Now, her journeys to town were made with reluctance and born of necessity. Those visits invariably resulted in stares and whispers and, even worse, the shouts of harlot.
“You folded the page correctly?” her son was asking as Martha latched the fraying wool cloak that had seen better days two years ago.
“I did.” The folded sheets would eventually be wrinkled in the mail. The hope was that the creases had been made in such a way that they at least minimized the damage and allowed those who’d eventually view them to see the potential there.
“And you are certain it was dried enough?” he persisted with his dogged determination.
“I finished it before I went to bed,” she assured him. Which had only been two and a half hours prior to the completion of that sample piece.
Her son frowned. “You went to bed late. I heard you enter your rooms—”
Martha laid a fingertip against his lips. “I’m sure it is dried,” she promised, hating that Frederick had come to worry after her… and their future. Dark circles marred his face, heightening the anxiety in his expressive eyes.
“It is going to be fine.”
Did he seek to reassure her or himself with that? The thought of either caused a rending in her heart. “Do you know what?”
“What?”
She leaned down and bussed his cheek. “It is going to be better than fine.”
Wrinkling his little nose in boyish distaste, Frederick made a swipe at the place her lips had landed.
“While I’m gone, you need to tend the—”
“Stables. I know, I know,” he muttered.
The problem with that chore, however, was it wasn’t a task suited for a child alone. It required the work of a grown man, with the height and weight to heft bags of feed. Martha started to leave, but with a finger lifted, she quickly turned back. “And don’t—”
“Get my boots wet again. I have it,” he groused. He gave her a little push. “Now, go, or you’re going to miss the post.”
Mayhap that was even now why she procrastinated, going over daily instructions for tasks Frederick had undertaken long before his grandfather had been sent to prison. Because each post she sought, and then was subsequently rejected, represented the slow death of hope and options for the both of them. Drawing her hood up, Martha accepted her father’s leather satchel that Frederick held out.
A short while later, she found herself walking the now barren path to the White Stag Inn. The tiniest snowflakes fell around her. Martha shivered. Had she really loved the snow? It was cold and wet and required more wood to burn. She huddled deep within the folds of her tattered cloak and forced her feet along the snow-dusted path. The gravel crunched loudly under her heels, the moisture coating the ground penetrating the thin soles of her boots.
Martha stopped, and resting her hand on a narrow tree trunk, she lifted her foot. Her heart promptly sank.
“No,” she whispered. Mayhap it was a stain. Mayhap it was merely mud stuck to the bottom. Except, even as she prodded that small spot, she knew. She sighed. In fairness, they owed her nothing. They were the same boots she’d worn the day Lord Exeter had escorted her father off, leaving Martha behind with a new future to sort through.
Knowing that she’d had several years of use from those boots, however, did nothing for her in this moment. She let her foot fall and resumed her walk.
This was what her life had become.
She’d gone from the life of a viscountess—granted a viscountess tucked away in the country with her three children and an absentee husband, but a viscountess nonetheless—to this, the village bigamist with holes in her boots, making a two-mile trek each week in the hope that this might finally be the day when she’d receive word from London about her artwork.
Her teeth chattered, and she rubbed her gloved palms together in a bid to bring warmth to the chilled digits.
Her father had always wanted more for her. The best. And she’d so unfailingly trusted his judgment that she’d let herself believe marriage to Lord Waters represented her best option. That, however, was a mistake she could not lay at her father’s feet. Just sixteen, she’d been a young woman who’d ultimately agreed to the proposed match.
Marching down the middle of the barren path lined by an endless row of birch trees, Martha kept her gaze forward. She did not allow herself to look directly at those proudly erect trees devoid of greenery
.
Do not look… Do not look…
Except, unbidden, her gaze locked on one of the towering white trees, its thick trunk split into a perfect horseshoe shape.
Martha slowed to a stop, keeping ten paces between her and that one birch.
It’s called a merrythought bone, poppet. The English got it from the Romans, who got it from the Etruscans. It will predict your future…
Of her own volition, her legs carried her forward, and then she stopped before the tree. She stared vacantly at the tiny row of slash marks carved upon the trunk. Wishes were for children. She’d once deluded herself into believing wishes could come true, that she would have a life outside of Luton. That she would have a happy home, with a devoted husband and an even happier child. A bitter smile formed on her lips, and Martha trailed the tip of a gloved finger along the last notch that had been made.
A fool. She’d been a fool in so many ways.
Nay, for all the times she’d been upset with her father, the guilt belonged only to Martha.
From the moment she’d met the paunchy, balding lord, she’d ignored every instinct that had urged her to reject any of the gentleman’s interest in her.
Never again. Never again would she ignore those instincts that would save a person, if one let them.
A strong wind whipped down the narrow path. The gust parted the fabric of her cloak and sent snow slapping at her face. Martha let her arm fall to her side and drew her wool garment close. With her resolve strengthened, she made the remainder of the long trek.
Over the top of the birch trees, white smoke spiraled up to the gray, cloud-filled sky, signaling a lone establishment in the distance. At the end of the path, Martha quickened her steps until she reached the White Stag Inn.
As she approached the inn, a woman pressed her forehead to the dusty windowpane. The shadowy figure rubbed a circle, clearing a space. Mrs. Lowery. The innkeeper’s mother stared back at Martha. Then with a pinched mouth, the older woman ducked from sight.
Martha slowed to a stop as her courage faltered.
Yes, everything had changed. Even the people who’d been warm and friendly to her father and late mother. She briefly contemplated the path over her shoulder. But then fury roiled in her stomach. To hell with them. To hell with all of them. Aside from believing a nobleman’s intentions to wed her were real, she’d done nothing wrong.
Forcing herself to walk the remaining way to the inn, Martha stamped her boots to dislodge the mud caked in the soles. Before her courage deserted her, she entered the tavern.
Plastering a smile on her lips, Martha reached back and drew the door shut. As she pushed her hood back, she did a quick, visual sweep of the establishment.
When the village people had discovered the circumstances surrounding her ‘marriage’, of all the things that changed from that point on, Martha had marveled at one peculiar detail: how her entrance had the power to fill a room with a tense energy, much like an empty field right before a lightning strike.
She, a woman whose life had previously been so mundane as to attract barely a look, found herself, of a sudden the town’s obsession. Of course, in this forgotten corner of Luton, a scandalous tidbit such as a bigamist living amongst them—a woman whose children were therefore illegitimate and whose father had arranged the murder of her late husband—would only ever attract the rabid curiosity.
Martha loosened the fastenings at her throat and looked around. Nearly all the tables were filled with local villagers.
Not even the warmth cast from the fire could chase off the chill that spilled off the occupants in the inn. You have nothing to be ashamed of. Get your business done and be gone.
Reflexively, she curled her fingers. Her gaze briefly collided with an unfamiliar patron. Dressed in the same coarse garments as the other men present, he was of a like station, and yet, there was a directness to his clear, ice-blue eyes that cut through her.
She braced for the familiar lascivious stare that inevitably met her arrival.
But the stranger merely met her gaze with a bored disinterest.
Bored disinterest. Who could have imagined the sentiment should be so… glorious, and so very welcome? It was, of course, because the man was a stranger. He didn’t know the details of her past, the shameful seeds of her story scattered by some unknown villain. Because, invariably, when a person discovered her scandalous past, the bored disinterest always faded. The stranger forgotten, Martha hurriedly sought out the old innkeeper. “Good morn, Mrs. Lowery. I trust you are well this fine winter’s day?”
The old woman attended a table the way she might a lecture from the Lord himself.
“Mrs. Lowery,” she repeated, drifting over. The older woman had begun to lose her hearing two years ago. Martha knew, because she’d sat through numerous visits where she’d assured the old gossip that all would be right.
“Miss Donaldson,” the other woman said tightly, not bothering to look up. “I heard you.”
That brought her up short. “Oh.” Collecting herself, Martha drew the missives from inside her father’s old satchel. “I have mail to post.”
“Mail has gone out for the day.”
No! “What?” Her heart sank. “But… that isn’t possible.”
“Can’t help you.” Mrs. Lowery tightened her mouth. “Now, you should go. I’ve work to see to.” The older woman made to step around Martha.
Martha’s jaw went slack. Why… why… the mail hadn’t gone out. The old busybody was simply refusing to collect her notes. She hurried over, placing herself in Mrs. Lowery’s way and blocking the next table she’d been about to clean. “The mail is never picked up at this hour,” she said, proud of her steady voice.
“Well, this time it is.” The innkeeper glowered at her. “Now, go.” She flicked her sopping cloth at Martha, splattering the front of her cloak with dirtied water. “I’ve my grandson here, and I’ll not have him around the likes of you.”
As Mrs. Lowery hurried off, Martha stared numbly down at her skirts, damp from the remnants used to clean the tavern tables.
Noisy whispers filled the White Stag.
This was what her life had become. Through no fault of her own, she’d been both shamed and made a whore. She’d unwittingly lived a lie perpetuated by a nobleman, and she should pay the price for it. Turned into an outcast. Both she and her son. Nay, not just them. Martha’s heart spasmed. Her daughters. Forced away, so they’d be spared from this, when all the while, no other possible future awaited them… but this. One where the Donaldsons were reviled. Taunted and mocked at every turn, and now… she could not even post mail.
A loud humming filled her ears. It blurred and blended with the whispers of the High Town villagers. They clinked their tankards together. Their laughter blared in her mind, distorted and twisted, the warped expressions of amusement at odds with the tumult of her existence.
Martha snapped. “The mail has not been picked up,” she said softly. When the room went quiet, she shouted it. “The mail has not been picked up.” A gape-mouthed Mrs. Lowery turned back. Fury, frustration, and hurt propelled Martha forward. “I have lived here for the whole of my life, all twenty-eight years. I know when the post is taken. I know who picks up the mail and delivers it. I know Mr. Browbridge enjoys his spirits too much to ever do something as unlikely as to take the damned mail early.”
Gasps went up, and chairs scraped the floor as patrons leaned forward, riveted. “How dare you?” Mr. Lowery shouted from across the tavern.
“You can let yourself out now, Miss Donaldson,” Mrs. Lowery said, and then the older woman launched into a scathing diatribe.
Martha’s chest rose hard and fast, a tightness making it difficult to draw breath or words. The world was caving in on her. I should leave. She should stuff her notes back into her bag, turn on her heel, and march off, asking nothing from this woman… or anyone. Each time she raised her voice or defied the nasty innkeeper, Martha fed every last ill opinion the world had of her.
&n
bsp; “Now, I said, go,” the other woman said, emphasizing the last word with another flick of her cloth.
Go. Leave. Flee.
And yet, that had been the pattern of her life since her secret had been found out by the villagers of High Town. Since that moment, she’d been defeated in nearly every way. If she left now, it would be just one more failing. One more time they had won, and she’d been ground down by the truth of her circumstances.
Martha shook her head slowly. I will not. “I will not,” she said, the last vestige of pride pulling the curt rejoinder from her. Letters outstretched, she stalked forward and waved them in the other woman’s face. “Now, I’ve asked you to post my mail, and I’ll not ask again.” She flattened her lips into a hard line. “In fact, I’m not leaving until you do.” Someone grabbed her forearm, wringing a gasp from her.
“You were asked to leave,” Mrs. Lowery’s son barked. Near to her own height, and painfully thin, the slight man gripped her hard.
Martha, however, had been subject to another man’s punishing touch, and she’d never suffer in silence through it. “Do not touch me,” she spat, trying to wrest her arm away. He squeezed her tightly, and tears blurred her vision from the pain. Martha blinked back the crystalline expressions of weakness. She’d not allow him or anyone that triumph.
“We don’t need your sort darkening our establishment. You want your mail sent? Then you can walk to some other v—”
“Unless you care to have your hand separated from your person,” a cool voice intoned, “I suggest you release the young woman.”
As one, Martha and the younger Mr. Lowery looked to the tall figure towering over them both, making the most unexpected of interventions. Him. The stranger she’d seen earlier. Mr. Lowery jerked his hand back and stumbled away from her.
Martha’s heart hammered. Dark-haired, with aquiline features that could have been chiseled from stone, he had the look of that disloyal angel forever cast from the gates of heaven. The frost in his gaze sent a chill through her, and she took a step back in a reflexive attempt at self-preservation.
The Rogue Who Rescued Her Page 4