by Rose Lerner
He’d always been lucky, hadn’t he?
He couldn’t even laugh. He curled up on the cold floor. The minutes didn’t pass like hours. They passed exactly like what they were, one after another—second after second piling up, empty of any meaning or poetry at all.
It was Christmas morning when Jamie raced them into Kellisgwynhogh. Everyone was in church, even the local tavern shut for the morning. There was nowhere to change clothes or get hot water. Ralph cursed Christmas fluently.
“It’s all right.” Lydia was gripped by a curious calm that she suspected wasn’t really calm at all. “Church will be over soon.” She pulled down her hair in the coach and repinned it carefully, tying the ribbons of her cap into a new bow and settling a fresh, uncrushed bonnet on top of it. Then she sat and thought sad thoughts. Terrible thoughts. She thought about her father. She thought about last year’s Christmas, how happy they had all been roasting chestnuts in the fireplace. She thought about Mr. Cahill and how much she missed him, and how he must think she’d abandoned him.
By the time the church doors opened and people streamed out, she was ready. She hummed her father’s favorite ballad quietly to herself. Jamie threw her an unsettled glance just as her face crumpled and she began to cry.
Ralph grinned. “Good girl.”
“I’m older than you,” she sobbed. “Come on.”
Jamie hesitated. “Maybe you should wait in the carriage,” he said to Ralph.
Ralph’s brows lowered.
Jamie squared his shoulders. “I promised him I’d keep you out of it.”
Lydia winced, and Ralph’s lips turned white. “I’m going to kill him.” He swung himself down from the carriage.
Lord Prowse turned out to be a boy about Jamie’s age, short and dark and rather square. His apprehension when he saw Lydia sobbing struck her distantly as amusing.
“I’m sure he’s well.” Ralph drew her gently away from Lord Prowse (who looked relieved) and let her sob against his shoulder. The beautiful thing about tears was that once started, it required no effort at all to keep them going. She could barely speak by now. “Wheatcroft, can’t we see him?”
Jamie pulled Lord Prowse into the empty doorway of a closed shop and spoke in an undertone. They’d agreed he would tell Prowse the truth, so the viscount would understand the need for absolute secrecy.
“Ma’am, we’ll find somewhere to stable the horses and drink your health,” called the coachman. Lydia trusted him and, seeing no alternative, had partially confided in him. But the groom she trusted with horses, not secrets. The coachman had promised to keep him occupied until Mr. Cahill could be produced, pronounced “well enough to travel”.
The boys’ conversation was lengthy. Lydia’s tears dried, eventually, but she stayed huddled beneath Ralph’s arm. It was stiff as iron against her. She was suddenly sorry she hadn’t spoken to him more on the journey. He was her brother too, now, and she ought to look after him. “Soon,” she whispered. “We’ll see him soon.”
Ralph nodded. “I know. Because we walk the earth at the pleasure of folk like you.”
There was nothing profitable to say to that, and it hardly indicated a great desire to speak to her. She waited in silence until Jamie and Lord Prowse approached. “I apologize for any distress I may have caused you, Mrs. Cahill,” Prowse said dubiously. “We believed ourselves to be acting in your best interests.”
He was clearly still unconvinced, and annoyed besides. Lydia knew she ought to make a pretty speech and make him feel good about this. But she had no more patience left. She’d do it later. “Can we see him?”
“This way.”
The gaol occupied one corner of the town Guildhall, a centuries-old granite building that appeared completely deserted. Lord Prowse let them in with a key, leading them up the stairs and through a timber-framed hall that looked as if it served half a dozen administrative functions. Their footsteps echoed. Could Mr. Cahill hear them coming? Why did Lord Prowse walk so slowly?
The gaol was through the back of the hall, a small room with four barred doors whose heavy oak muffled any sound that might have come from within. A fire burned low in the fireplace, but there were no guards. For a terrible moment Lydia felt sure that he wouldn’t be there, that he was gone and she would never get him back.
“What if the building catches fire?” Ralph said. “What if he takes sick?”
Lord Prowse looked uncomfortable. “It’s Christmas morning. Someone will be back later, I’m sure.”
Lydia clung tightly to Jamie’s arm. She tried to call to her husband, to warn him that they were here. “Mr.—” She didn’t even have the breath to get through his name.
Lord Prowse went to one of the heavy oak doors and unlocked it. It swung outwards, exposing a tiny room with a single barred window near the ceiling, narrower than a man’s shoulders. A chamber pot and a pallet on the floor comprised its only furnishings. It smelled strongly of mildew and weakly of human waste. Mr. Cahill had only been there one night, thank God; Lord Prowse had traveled slower than they had.
He sat on the rough wooden floor, knees pulled up to his chest, looking at the sky. He didn’t move when the door opened. The window did not admit enough light to see more than his four days’ growth of beard, but she was sure that closer, she would find he hadn’t slept.
“Cahill,” Lord Prowse said. “You aren’t going to be prosecuted.”
Mr. Cahill frowned absently, looking up at Prowse as if he’d lost the ability to understand human speech.
“Ash,” Ralph said, his deep voice cracking on the word.
Mr. Cahill stiffened. Slowly, he turned his head, taking in Jamie and Lydia and Lord Prowse. His eyes passed over his brother without recognition. “I’m sorry, I think there must be some mistake. Are you looking for someone you know?”
“I’m going to kill you,” Ralph said, and threw himself at his brother, kneeling and burying his face in Mr. Cahill’s shoulder. It was a disconcerting sight, as he was easily half a head taller than Mr. Cahill and possessed of half again as much muscle. But somehow there was nothing funny about it. “You son-of-a-bitch, I’ll murder you while you sleep.”
Mr. Cahill put his arms around his brother. Lifting his head, he looked directly at Jamie. “We had a deal.” Beside her, Jamie drew in a nervous breath. Mr. Cahill’s voice was very cold, and there was a clear threat in it. Lydia had never heard that before.
But it was his voice, and it brought her own back. “Leave my brother alone.” The words trembled, half playfully and half with tears. “Do you suppose Jamie could have stopped him? What did you feed him growing up, anyway, magic beans? Don’t worry. We’ve come to get you out.”
Mr. Cahill put a hand on his brother’s hair and sighed as if recognizing the futility of further remonstrance. “Thank you. I didn’t want you to—how did you even know?”
Oh, how Lydia wished she could say, I guessed, or even, Jamie confessed when he saw how unhappy I was.
“I had an eye on you,” Ralph said. “Have you been eating? You never eat in prison.”
Mr. Cahill laughed. “There’s no one here needs bribing with my dinner. Of course I’ve been eating.”
Lydia didn’t believe him for a moment. “Well, come along. We’ll get you Christmas dinner.” But when she tried to take a step towards him, her knees gave way and Jamie had to catch her.
Mr. Cahill disentangled himself from his brother and rose, gripping his shoulder hard as he did so. He came forward, making as if to reach out his arms to her—then put his hands in his pockets and rocked on his heels. “On second thought, you’d better not touch me.” His eyes shone as if this was a simple, happy moment, as if he hadn’t put her through Hell. As if she hadn’t believed one of his lies above everything she knew of him. “I must smell awful.”
He did, but she didn’t care. She threw herself at him, her sobs entirely spon
taneous this time. He took her weight easily, his beard tickling her cheek, his chest more familiar and comforting than the heated wall of the greenhouse. For a moment it was hard to remember that he had been the one alone and in danger. “You promised not to leave me. You promised.”
“I’m sorry,” he said, holding on to her tightly, but she didn’t think he sounded sorry at all.
Lord Prowse soon took his leave. His mother was expecting him for dinner and he clearly had no intention of introducing Mr. Cahill to her. Lydia slipped out after him and found him waiting for his carriage on the granite sidewalk.
He looked a little apprehensive when he saw her, though whether because he thought she might be angry with him or because he thought she might cry again, Lydia couldn’t say.
“I hope you’ll allow me to apologize again for all the trouble we’ve put you to. You’ve been a good friend to my brother.”
“Thank you,” he said warily.
“I… My husband got in among bad people very, very young,” she said at last. “He never knew another way, or thought to look for one, until recently. But he has a good heart, and I love him, and I hope—I hope you’ll find it reconciles with your principles to keep his secret. I’ve always been taught that God treasures the lamb who was lost better than all his well-behaved flock.”
Lord Prowse didn’t reply right away. She didn’t know him and couldn’t read him. His face would one day be weighty and full of character, but on such a young, quiet man the heavy Cornish brow and long nose gave him the look of an unfinished carving, unformed and uninformative.
She didn’t try to smile at him, or look pretty, or do anything except let him see how much his answer meant to her.
“These explanations would have saved Wheatcroft and me a good bit of time, money and embarrassment a week ago,” he said.
She flushed at being scolded like a schoolgirl—and with justice—by someone a decade younger than her. “I know.”
“And I’ve always thought that was pretty hard on the well-behaved flock. But I gave Reeve—Wheatcroft, I mean—my word that I would keep silent, and my word is my bond.” He looked at her, sober as a judge. Of course, he was a judge. A justice of the peace at twenty-one! She wondered how she would feel when she was eighty, and everyone conducting all the business of the world was her junior.
“You ought to know that your husband has conducted himself well through this whole affair. He could have made it very unpleasant for Wheatcroft and myself, and he didn’t. Nor did he attempt to slip away on the journey here, when I don’t think he would have found it too difficult. I believe he wished to honor his promise to Wheatcroft that he would not. His crime was black, of course…but I watched him with Maddaford, and I think he felt the weight of that.” He twisted his signet ring on his finger. “They say love is blind, but I’ve rarely found that affection made me less aware of the faults of others, only led me to forgive them. Do you really believe he has reformed?”
“I do,” she said without hesitation. “I will admit, when I found he had left me with no explanation, I doubted—but now I know he had a reason, and I would give surety for him as I would for myself.”
Lord Prowse nodded. “Then I wish you joy.” He broke into an awkward but genuine smile. “And my best hopes that your children will resemble you and not your husband.”
Lydia thought that was an impolite and unwitty jest, but she laughed obligingly and thanked him, offering him her hand.
“Shhhh!” Ash caught sight of Lydia returning from her bath, wearing a fresh dress. “Don’t say that!” He had bathed too, and shaved. If the inn aired its sheets and she was forgiving, they’d have a clean, sweet-smelling night of it. He didn’t think about what would happen if she was unforgiving.
She frowned in good-humored suspicion. “Don’t say what?”
Rafe turned a blank face on her. “Pardon?”
It was too much. He was free, and his brother and his wife were in one place, being themselves. Ash was lucky, but not this lucky.
“Mr. Ralph said his favorite food in the world was tipsy cake,” Jamie said, “and if he was going to sit through Christmas dinner, he wanted one.”
Lydia looked at Ash. “What are your other favorite foods, Mr. Ralph?”
Rafe looked at Ash too. Ash threw his hands up. “You might as well.”
“Roast duck,” Rafe said slowly. “Roast fowl of any kind, really. Potatoes, cabbage, cooked fruit. Without cinnamon.”
Ash shrugged sheepishly at Lydia. “I’m sorry. I don’t know what came over me.”
“And what are your brother’s favorite foods, Mr. Ralph?” she asked.
“Pasties, mostly. All kinds of pasties.”
“Pasties are the perfect food. Delicious, filling and portable.” It was perfectly true, but Ash didn’t feel much of the insouciance he put in his voice. He didn’t feel any of it.
“This is a very embarrassing conversation I’m going to have to have with the servants,” she said severely. She was smiling, but Ash couldn’t help but think he’d embarrassed her a great deal with everyone she knew. There were shadows under her eyes, and he’d put them there.
Had she met Fred Maddaford?
“Are you sure—” He took a deep breath. “Are you sure you want me to come home with you? I—you’ve fetched me out of gaol and risked your reputation, and you don’t owe me anything beyond…”
Lydia sighed, her brows drawing together a little in concern. God, he loved her face. “I had hoped we could delay this conversation until after we’d all eaten,” she said, “but perhaps we’d better have it now. Jamie, Mr. Ralph, if you would give us the room for a few minutes.”
Ash did not quite like to let Rafe out of his sight. He felt the sound of the door shutting in his bones.
“You don’t owe me anything either.” She sounded nervous, of all things. Her hands curled tightly around each other in that way she had, as if she couldn’t hide her anxiety but refused to fidget. “I ought to have guessed the truth. It should not have required your brother to make me see what was before my eyes.”
Ash tried to decide if her nerves were more likely to be because she’d somehow managed to twist this into her fault and thought he blamed her too, or because she’d decided it would be better if he stayed away and dreaded hurting him. “How could you have guessed? I told you I had a wandering soul the first time we met. I wouldn’t have guessed myself.”
Her crooked smile was sad. “I thought you might say that. But I’m sorry, nonetheless. And you don’t owe me a thing.” She took a deep breath. “Now that we’ve agreed that we do not owe each other anything, can we talk about what we want?”
“What do you want?” Ash asked obligingly. Surely now his luck would run out. Now she would say, I’ve been thinking, and…
“You ought to know that by now,” Lydia said. “But I’d like you to go first. You left me.”
It was an easy answer, and yet the words felt like great weights torn clumsily from his throat. “I want you.”
“Me, or our life in Lively St. Lemeston, and our nice house, and our money?” she asked inexorably.
He might cost her all that if any of this came out. All but the money. He’d got her that, anyway. But she’d asked what he wanted. “You,” he said unhesitatingly. “I’ve thought of nothing but you these last days, and the way your hair smells.” He came forward, almost surprised when she let him take her in his arms. She wore a cap, but he pressed his face into the lace anyway, smelling jasmine through the starch. “Please, Lydia. You were the only appetite I had left.”
She didn’t relax against him. “If we have to leave home, I might change my soap.”
“I hope that if I disliked the new smell, you would consider altering it,” he teased, watching her for any hint of a smile.
She pulled back. “I mean it. I’m sorry I wouldn’t speak of practical c
onsiderations, before. Apparently it led you to believe I hadn’t weighed them. I had. I decided I would barter everything to be with you. I’d rather not, of course. I don’t think I’ll have to. I’m a political hostess for the government’s party. I’ve seen worse scandals hushed up. In five years, who will even remember your face well enough to accuse you? But I would do it. Without a second thought.”
She still wanted him. He should feel more relieved. Why couldn’t he ever let things be simple with her? Instead, he kept trying to be honest, and he was newborn-foal clumsy at it. “I know you’d do it. I knew it when they arrested me. You would no more turn your back on someone you loved than you would steal from the poor box—a thing I once did regularly, by the by.” She grimaced, but she didn’t pull away. Why not?
“Then why?” she demanded, and it shocked him that she really couldn’t understand, that she was angry. That she thought it was as simple as that. “You promised me you’d back me. You promised me, and you knew I wanted you to stay, and you— If you knew how unhappy I’ve been—”
That was a blow. He had promised that, hadn’t he? “I said I want you, and I do,” he told her. “But I want you to be happy more than that. I would hate to make you unhappy.” His brain caught up with his ears, then. She’d just said that very word. He’d made her unhappy already by leaving.
He’d known she’d miss him, that he was failing her. He’d been sorry for it. But why hadn’t that felt as real as making her unhappy by staying? Because he wouldn’t have to watch it, he supposed. Well, he’d never said he wasn’t selfish.
And he’d been so sure that no grief at his loss could be as bad as the damage he might do if he stayed.
She watched him, sardonic and expectant even with tears swimming in those great brown eyes. A body wasn’t meant to contain this much love, was it? He felt as if it would split him in two.
“More than being alone, I would hate that,” he said. “I make people unhappy professionally, Lydia. I never saw it, but—did Jamie introduce you to the old man I…” He couldn’t finish the sentence.