With him focused on that task, Martha freely observed him at work.
Had she truly doubted that he sought work as a stable master? After his first day on her family’s property, she’d conceded he possessed a greater skill and mastery around the farm than any of the servants previously employed by her father.
Martha had been wrong about so very much.
So much so that, after her husband’s death and father’s imprisonment, she’d been mired in self-doubt, questioning her judgment and each decision she made or did not make. Because of that, she had very nearly sent Graham Malin away.
And that would have proved another mistake.
Graham had been here with them for nearly ten days now.
And each morning, Martha awoke dreading the day, fearing that each would be the day when he thanked her for the temporary shelter and went off to find paying work. As he should. With his skill and capabilities, his talents were entirely wasted on the Donaldson farm.
When he did leave, this place would be, for the first time since her father had been carted off to prison by Mr. Nathaniel Archer, Lord Exeter, put to rights.
But for how long?
Martha glanced around her kitchens. The bread was baked for the day, the laundry done, and this room and all the others were neatly ordered, while the grounds and stables had also been perfectly tended.
They wouldn’t remain that way, however. They couldn’t. Not with only her and Frederick here seeing to the tasks that the powerfully built Graham Malin completed in less than half the time.
Your tidy cottage and property are not the real reason you’ll miss him, though, a voice taunted in her head.
Unbidden, Martha looked out the window.
Side by side, Graham and Frederick worked together grooming Guda.
She stared, riveted on an exchange that did not involve her, and yet, at the same time, had everything to do with her.
Graham said something to her son and stepped aside.
With a masterful touch that hadn’t been there eleven days before, Frederick collected the mount’s left foreleg and, using a metal pick, he pried out the dirt and debris lodged there.
As he worked, Graham spoke, and Martha stood at the window, hanging on the ease of that exchange. Taking in all of it. The way her son’s shoulders came back in a proud carriage. The flush of happy color on his cheeks.
Martha longed to know what words of praise were passed on. She ached to know just what compliments Graham bestowed on a boy who’d never even known those simplest of gifts from his own father. Tears stung her eyes, and this time, in the solitude of her own kitchens, with Graham and her son none the wiser, she let them fall. This was the relationship she’d longed for her children to know with their father.
While Martha’s own father had been endlessly devoted and proud of her to a fault, he’d not imparted lessons that would have seen her grow, the way Graham now did with Frederick. Instead, her father had placed her upon a pedestal, and the inevitable fate for anyone on such a high platform was the eventual fall.
As if he felt her eyes on him, Frederick glanced her way. He waved and then returned all his focus to the man he looked upon with an idolatry that scared the everlasting hell out of her. That same man now doffed his hat like he was a gentleman and bowed his head like she was a respectable widow and not the bigamist she was.
It is because he doesn’t know. It is because you haven’t told him.
No doubt, if he knew the truth, he’d have never even sought the post.
Gathering the bottom of her apron, Martha swiped the remnants of tears from her cheeks.
This game of pretend, this world of make-believe where Frederick spent his days with a man who saw his value and respected him and cared for him, would not last. It couldn’t.
He would leave upon his discovery of her past—because eventually it would come to light, just as it had for the people of High Town—or he would move on to secure a true position as a nobleman’s stable master.
“And then what?” she whispered into the silence.
What would it be like for Frederick when Graham one day left? He’d been an unsmiling, somber child. He’d only just begun to find his voice and let go of his anger, because of the questions he had for Graham. But what happened when he lost all of that?
Do not think of it… Do not think of it…
Graham’s leaving was a decision beyond her control. Martha would have no say. Just as she hadn’t had a say in so much of her life these past years.
The pragmatic reminder playing in her head did nothing to ease the tightness in her chest that came at the prospect of him leaving.
Do not be a fool. Martha caught the inside of her cheek. “You were pathetically weak before.” In every way. She’d not be that emotional, helpless figure again. She might have been lied to and publicly humiliated, but she had survived the scandal. She drew in a breath, taking strength in the reminder of what she’d overcome. When Graham left, she and Frederick would be fine. They always were.
We are not fine.
Frederick’s charge had reverberated around this very room when he’d hurled that pronouncement.
How was it she’d failed to realize just how much she abhorred silence? Because before, she’d known only three chattering children and a garrulous father. As such, she’d not properly appreciated the sounds of other human voices until most of them had been taken from her.
Compelled forward, Martha gathered her cloak and quickly shrugged into it.
Letting herself outside, she glanced around the back gardens. The empty back gardens.
She frowned.
Nothing.
Or rather, no one.
A wind pulled at the slight gape in her cloak, and drawing it back into place, she wandered out. The snow crunched noisily under her boots as she walked.
“Frederick?” she called out. “Graham?” Her voice, however, carried on the winter still. Squinting in the bright afternoon light, Martha raised a hand to her brow, shielding the glare as she searched.
For the first time in the more than a week since Graham had been here, a shiver of apprehension dusted her spine. “Frederick?” she shouted, franticness adding a high pitch to her voice. Letting her arms fall to her sides, Martha sprinted off.
Then something collided with her chest.
She gasped, staggering back under the unexpected affront and the shocking cold of it.
Martha stared down at the snow on her chest. In stunned disbelief, she touched the ice-flaked remnants. Why… why… she’d been hit with… a snowball.
No sooner had that thought registered than another ball hit her square in the shoulder.
The perfect strike was met with a pair of laughs, a deep rumbling one and the other lighter, belonging to a child.
Martha swiveled her gaze and found the offenders. She narrowed her eyes.
Both males were smug and entirely too pleased with themselves. Martha shook out her skirts. “I take it you’ve overseen the—”
Graham tossed another snowball. This one hit her lower belly and knocked the remainder of that perfunctory question from her lips. Martha gasped. “You… You…” His grin deepened. And then, slowly, he winked. “…hit me,” she brought herself to finish.
“With a snowball,” Frederick piped in with a child’s glee.
Martha bent down and gathered snow, packing it into a tight ball. When she straightened, she registered the brief surprise in her son’s eyes before she charged ahead and launched that missile.
Frederick’s rich, snorting laugh filled the grounds as her expertly aimed snowball knocked Graham’s old hat from his head.
Graham widened his eyes. “You have deadly accurate aim, madam.”
With a pleased little smirk, Martha tossed her head. “I—” She jumped out of the way as another snowball was launched, but it landed a square hit upon her midsection.
And this time, it came from the unlikeliest of the pair.
Frederick stare
d back with mischief glimmering in his brown eyes.
“Not another step, Mr. Malin,” Martha warned, holding up an index finger, staying any interference from the stable master hovering close to her son.
His palms held up in mock surrender, Graham backed slowly away from Frederick.
“Mr. Malin!” her son exclaimed, taking a step closer to the retreating man. And all the levity briefly lifted as she stared across the stable yard at them. They were so perfect together that one might have imagined a different life for Frederick. One might imagine a life where he’d had a father like Graham and—
Her son’s smile dipped. “Mother?” he ventured.
“Traitor,” she called. She dropped to her haunches once more, assembled another snowball, and raced forward.
Laughter shaking his little frame and pealing around the glen, her son took off running. “Truce. Truce,” he cried playfully, his words leaving little puffs of white in the early afternoon air.
Martha stopped abruptly, and Frederick continued on for several strides before glancing back and finding her rooted to the cobble walkway. “Truce,” she agreed and then surged forward with the Donaldson snowball battle cry.
Her frosty missile hit him square in the back, ice and snow fragments spattering upon the wool garment.
Her triumph was short-lived.
Graham gathered up another snowball.
With a breathless laugh, Martha gathered her skirts, and bolted back toward the cottage.
“Never tell me you’re admitting defeat,” he called after her, and despite the ache of the winter cold stealing the air from her lungs, her chest shook with a breathless laughter that felt so very good. So wonderful. She’d not remembered what it had been like to frolic in the snow and run about for no purpose other than joy and pleasure.
You’ll never catch me, Mama.
Martha stumbled as Creda’s bell-like giggles pinged around her mind, so tangible they seemed to linger in the High Town air. Her heart squeezing, Martha stopped, her back presented to Graham and Frederick.
A wave of desolation and grief battered at her, its immense pull threatening to drag her under.
She stared blankly down the remainder of the cobbled path, at the dry stalks where flowers had grown that summer. Deadened flowers that at one time had been picked lovingly and handed over.
Oh, God…
Absently noting Graham’s vague query behind her, Martha ripped her gaze from the gardens and forced it downward to stare at the ice and snow upon her wool skirts.
Her throat moved painfully from the emotion stuck there. She hadn’t been hit with a snowball or thrown one since before her father had gone, back when her daughters were here. In their absence, she’d not allowed herself those pleasures. Because where was the fairness in that? Where was the rightness in a mother moving on and finding any happiness after her family had been torn asunder by mistakes she had made? And yet, how easily she’d allowed herself to just… forget. To play snow games with Graham Malin and her son.
“Mother?” Frederick was saying.
She forced herself back around. “I’ve work to see to,” she said, fighting to steady her voice. Fighting to not think of those two little girls she’d sell her soul ten times to Sunday for. But hadn’t she already? Hadn’t she when she’d sent them away to preserve their reputations and save them from the mire that Martha had made of their existence?
“I have work to see to, Frederick,” she said again, her voice flat to her own ears. “As does Mr. Malin,” she added for the man responsible for her momentary lapse, in guilt, in focus.
Her son’s face fell.
Even with the distance between them, Martha detected Graham’s thick, black lashes sweeping down, obscuring his piercing gaze.
Frederick let the snowball in his hand drop to the ground, where it broke apart noiselessly. Jerking his head forward, he dashed off, retrieving his previously abandoned shovel.
Martha caught the inside of her cheek, wanting to call out to him. Wanting to redo the moment so it didn’t end with Frederick’s usual sadness. Wanting to be everything she should be, not just for him, but for all her children.
Instead, as he let himself into the stables, closing the door behind him, she was presented once again with the reminders of all her own failings where her children were concerned. Unable to protect them. Unable to see them all simultaneously happy. Unable to feed them.
While I play. While I engage in a child’s games, the same ones I had with not only Frederick but Creda and—
There was a faint whirring in her ears.
Splat.
Martha jerked in startled disbelief.
Her mouth moved, no words coming out as she stared at her snow-covered cloak. “I said we are done here, Mr.—oomph.” Another snowball killed the question, this one grazing the top of her hood, sending it falling back so that snow landed in her eyes. Sputtering, she blinked the blurred remnants back. “It is time we both return to our work,” she gritted.
She gasped and, this time, ducked out of the way in time as Graham sent another missile flying. It hit the wood panel, exploding behind her. Martha straightened. “That is quite enough.”
Apparently, he was of a dissenting opinion. She jumped out of the way just as Graham hurled another snowball at her. What in blazes was he doing?
“Have you gone mad?”
Chapter 12
The charge of madness was not a foreign one, as it had been aimed at Graham many times before.
As a boy of ten, he’d listened in on his parents’ late-night conversation in which his father had spoken with the duchess about his fears that Graham was not right in the head. That had been the first time he’d heard the word madness voiced aloud to describe him.
The moment had frozen him outside His Grace’s bedchamber doors. He’d been riddled with the terror that came with that nervous query from a duke who admitted weakness to none, coupled with Graham’s own worries for having possessed a like fear.
In this instant, with Martha snapping her skirts free of the snow residue clinging to them, a different type of madness held him in its grip.
“What are you doing, Mr. Malin?” she demanded. Her voice dissolved into a little squeak as he stalked over.
“Mr. Malin?” he countered. “I hardly think given our embrace that—”
She slapped a finger to her lips. “Hush,” she ordered.
With furious steps, Graham lengthened his stride. Martha staggered away from his approach, and her back knocked against the door, rattling the oak panel.
Graham expected her to turn on her heel and disappear inside.
He should have known better where the stubborn minx was concerned.
Placing her hands on her hips, Martha met him the remaining distance and braced her legs in a wide, battle-ready stance. “I already indicated I have work to see to.”
“In case it has escaped your notice, madam, you are always working.”
The winter air had stained Martha’s cheeks with bright red splotches. “I assure you,” she said in crisp tones that the queen herself couldn’t manage, “I know precisely how I spend my time.”
Tending to the laundry. Cooking. Caring for the grounds and stables. She did more work than any man ought, let alone a young widow on her own. And his fury only burned all the deeper at the Brethren for failing to see her cared for. Graham, however, focused on the easiest source of his ire—the woman who stood before him.
Graham folded his arms at his chest. “I trust you’ve also noted how much time your son spends working.” It was not a question.
Her cheeks fired all the more red. That effectively silenced the minx. For a moment. “How dare you? I don’t need you informing me on how my son spends his time, Mr.—”
“Someone should,” he shot back. He’d been that boy, stealing moments of pleasure where he could, escaping the reality that was his existence. Only to have his father crush those all-too-fleeting pleasures.
If looks co
uld burn, she’d have cleared the whole of High Town of its ice and snow-covered grounds. Martha shot a glance past his shoulder to the stables Frederick had rushed into, and when she trained those green-blue eyes back on Graham, she dropped her voice to a low whisper. “I know precisely how Frederick spends his days.”
He spends his days doing nothing of value, Caroline. He needs to be more serious like his brothers… Not everything is about his pleasure…
Graham narrowed his eyes. “If you know that, then you wouldn’t begrudge him a few stolen minutes of fun in the snow.”
Her features crumpled.
Oh, bloody hell. He’d preferred her snapping and hissing… to this.
He’d never known what to do with a woman’s tears. Even as he’d known his past lovers had employed them like methodical warfare meant to secure a bauble or sympathy or something that had been all too easy to give to make it stop.
This, however… was different.
Then, as quick as that weakening had come, it fled. Martha closed the last bit of distance between them with quick steps, and stopping a handbreadth away, she angled her head up and met his gaze squarely. “Yes. We do work all the time, but it’s because we have to. I have to. This farm, you saw what it was like when you arrived. What do you believe it will be like when you leave?”
Graham’s gut clenched. When he left, her only hope for salvation would lay with the nameless member of the Brethren doing right by her. And Martha Donaldson wouldn’t be his business any longer. Graham’s stomach muscles twisted all the tighter. But before he left, he’d have her realize she needed to allow moments of joy for her son, and herself.
“There is nothing wrong with finding happiness in life.”
She jerked like he’d struck her and fluttered a hand to her breast, where melted snow had turned the fabric a shade darker. “I would never begrudge my son that,” she whispered.
“No. Not intentionally. But you would intentionally withhold those sentiments from yourself.” Graham brushed his knuckles down her cheek in a fleeting caress. “You are the example Frederick sees, Martha. He—” The stable doors creaked open, announcing the little boy’s presence. Graham let his arm fall to his side.
The Rogue Who Rescued Her Page 13