A Lady Unrivaled

by Roseanna M. White

  “You want honesty?” Catherine leaned forward, closing the space between them. “I want nothing to do with those jewels anymore. They have taken everything from me. Everything. Perhaps I once thought they were worth it, but . . .” Tears clouded her throat and her eyes. “Your sister-in-law is right. The curse is more than a fable. And if I could end its hold on my family by letting this buyer kill me, I would. If it would settle the debts, settle the score, put an end to it all . . .” She shook her head, nostrils flaring. “But it wouldn’t. Nothing will. He’ll not stop—he’ll never stop.”

  Ella’s throat went tight. “The buyer . . . or your brother?”

  A little snort of breath, a little closer in her lean. “Both, I daresay. You don’t understand, Lady Ella. You can’t understand. It’s his only way out of this prison our father made for us. Me, I can get away through marriage, I can distance myself from the name. He can’t. He is trapped there forever, in that horrid little house with all the terrible memories.”

  Ella’s stomach went as tight as her throat. “How will the Fire Eyes change that?”

  Now sorrow drenched Catherine as she sat up a bit, but with stooped shoulders. “It won’t. But he cannot see that. I couldn’t either, before. They would bring so very much money, you see. He thought if he could just use it to leave England, to get away from all this . . .” She shook her head. “I thought that was the answer too. But it follows you. It will always follow you, until it takes every single blessed thing you ever loved and destroys it.”

  Ella reached for her tea again, took another fortifying sip, and prayed for wisdom. For the right words. For insight. “If his goal is to leave England, why does he not just . . . go?”

  Catherine tilted the pot over her cup with a sigh. “With what means? He just spent all our spare funds on that ridiculous trip to Paris—I told him we oughtn’t to have, but he . . . It is my own fault, I suppose. I used to say how much I longed to go there. He thought it would help—as if anything can make me forget my empty arms.”

  The tea trickled warm and soothing down Ella’s throat. She drew in a careful breath and noted the lady’s clothing—well made, in the height of fashion, if a bit loose on her frame. “Forgive me, my lady, but . . . neither of you seem to be what one would call shabby.” They were both, however, what one would call loose with the truth. How much of this was just a story designed to ignite pity?

  It didn’t feel that way. Which was either proof of the insight she had prayed for . . . or of the bad judgement she desperately prayed against.

  Catherine added a cube of sugar to her cup and stirred. “Let me try to explain this to you. My great-grandfather committed the ultimate crime in the eyes of society—he let his debts get so far out of hand that he lost the family estate. He was forced to sell it to cover those debts and had barely enough left over to purchase the miserable little box we’ve called home since.”

  Ella set her cup back down. For an earl to sell his familial lands—that was terrible, especially in the century past. “I imagine that made things difficult for your family.”

  Catherine set the spoon on its rest but didn’t lift her cup to drink. “They could only dig in. Tighten the purse strings. Live a quiet country life.”

  “There are worse things. North Yorkshire is beautiful—”

  “A place can only be as lovely as the people with whom one lives.” Green eyes going distant, Catherine wrapped her arms around her middle. “And my family never cared for anything but regaining what they’d lost. At whatever cost. Father was . . .” She paused, muscle ticking in her jaw. “There are no kind words to describe him. I daresay he was never a nice man, but after Uncle Henry came home with those cursed diamonds, after Pratt’s father was killed when he had to renege on the deal he had struck with a buyer, when Henry ran off again . . . That is the only father I ever knew. Cold, cruel, and entirely fixated on how he’d been cheated.”

  Only when she felt a prick of pain did Ella realize she was digging her fingernails into her palms. “He sounds a bit like Rowena’s father.”

  “I know. She came to me last year, thinking to commiserate—but thinking it Crispin who was the cruel one.” Catherine shook her head, though her eyes remained hazy. “He is the only reason I did not spend my childhood bruised. He always took the punishment for me. Always. He protected me.”

  “I daresay that explains why he is so distressed now at seeing you close yourself off.”

  Catherine blinked and focused her eyes again—on the table. “The best day of our lives was when our father died. And yet, we still couldn’t escape. Crispin was then Lord Rushworth, forever tied to that miserable estate. To the stain on the family name. He cannot escape it, not so long as he’s in England.”

  Ella forced her fingers to relax. “And so, he wants to leave. Why not do it then? Sell the estate and go?”

  No hint of amusement brightened the breath of laughter. “Sell our estate for the second time in so few generations? It would bar England to him forever, yet not fetch enough to make a good enough life anywhere else. He needs more than it would bring, a windfall.”

  He could settle for a smaller home, a quieter life—but that was obviously not an option in Lord Rushworth’s mind. And she supposed she could understand that. If he had received the brunt of his father’s anger, all over their lack of means, then the last thing he would want would be to slide further into poverty.

  Not noble motivation—but understandable. Ella drew in a slow breath, released it. “What if I can find them—the jewels? Should I give them to him?”

  Brook would have screamed at her in three languages. Brice would have looked at her with horror and forced her from the room. But she had to know how Catherine would respond.

  She shook her head wildly. “Are you daft? I’ll not lose him too. I won’t. He is all I have left, but—even seeking these awful diamonds has destroyed us. What would touching them do?” She leaned close again, voice hushed but feverish. “I’ve lost my husband. My . . . my child. I’ll not lose my brother to them. I won’t. You must promise never to tell him if you know where they are. Don’t ever let them near him. Please. I know I have no right to ask you for anything, but please.”

  Not a game. Not a trick. As Ella looked into Catherine’s desperate green eyes, she was entirely certain that this woman everyone assumed to be the driving force behind the search for the Fire Eyes was genuine right now. This woman who had been willing to turn their lives upside-down last year had seen how wrong she’d been.

  This woman could be the strangest but truest ally they had. Ella pitched her voice low. “But what if he thinks I’m his best chance at getting them?”

  The life, the energy that had lit Catherine’s eyes during her plea drained away into dejection. “No.” She rose from her seat, stumbling a bit on her first step. “Excuse me. I-I can’t.”

  “Lady Pratt, wait.” Ella paused only to toss money on the table to cover their unenjoyed tea and then hurried after her. She didn’t catch up until she had emerged into the weak, watery spring sunshine. Catherine was trudging along the quiet village street, aimed not at the borrowed Stafford car that had driven them there through the afternoon drizzle, but rather back toward Anlic Manor, whose chimneys were just visible at the top of the rise. Ella hurried after her, waving away the chauffeur who had come to attention. She touched a hand to the lady’s elbow as she drew near. “What will he do?”

  Catherine didn’t look at her, just shook her head. “Anything. You had better pray he is more than fascinated with you—if he loves you, perhaps you have a chance. Otherwise . . .”

  Otherwise what? Though Catherine’s pace increased, Ella matched her. “Catherine. What will he do?”

  Strange how well the shaky laugh paired with the tears Catherine wiped away. “You don’t know him. No one really knows him. My brother . . . he can be anything. He can be the kindest, sweetest man in the world, and if he loves you . . . If he loves you, he will give up his own life for you. You could
be happy by his side if he loves you, Lady Ella. He would make himself into exactly what you needed. He would give you quiet when you needed quiet, laughter when you were down, he would take you to the grandest balls if you craved a crowd. He would do absolutely anything to make you happy, and doing so would make him happy. He would be a good husband.”

  Ella sidestepped a puddle, knowing her mouth was agape. “Are you quite serious? After warning me that he would do anything to get the diamonds, you try to convince me to marry him?”

  “It is your best hope. Love him, and you’ll be saved from hating him. Saved from fearing him.”

  It was a good thing she had taken no more than a bite of the scone—it may have threatened to abandon her stomach otherwise. “Do you fear him?”

  Catherine looked over at her as though thinking she were daft. “Were you not listening? I don’t have to fear him—I love him. We have shared the same horrors, the same hopes. It is just—losing a nephew is apparently not quite like losing a son. He cannot grasp that pain. He cannot understand where it has led me, but . . . but he is still my brother. My protector. And now . . .” She sniffed, lifted her skirt an inch or two, and sped up still more. “Now I must protect him. I can’t let him destroy himself with the Fire Eyes. I can’t.”

  “Catherine.” They were slogging up the hill now, along the road, the sidewalk having ended three steps back. Mud sucked at Ella’s shoes—not the ones she would have chosen had she expected a walk through the countryside—and the pale green of her tea gown would surely be brown at the hem before they reached Anlic. “What. Will. He. Do?”

  Catherine sped up still more. “Unleash the monster. And no one wants that—trust me. We have to stop him. Convince him that you don’t know where they are, that you cannot help him find them. Make him fall in love with you, distract him from this. It could work. I’ve never seen him take such interest in a young lady, and if anything can make him forget the diamonds, it is love. You’re the type not to care about trappings, are you not? You won’t care that our estate is struggling.”

  She may be their strangest, truest ally, but Ella was beginning to question Catherine’s sanity. “You seem to be overlooking one vital bit of information—if he was telling the truth about this buyer to whom you owe money, he will not stop, no matter what. Even if he did fall in love with me”—an absolutely terrifying thought—“it would certainly not replace his love for you, and his need to protect you from this man. Unless he was lying. Unless there is no such man, that there has been no threat.”

  Catherine’s step faltered. Her profile showed eyes squinting in thought, quivering lips. “I . . . I don’t know. The buyer is certainly impatient—he has long been so. That is why last fall we . . . but since then, everything has been such a blur.”

  “He said that Pratt accepted money from the buyer—a good faith deposit—but that he sank it into Delmore.”

  Catherine’s expression went even more thoughtful. “It sounds right. I don’t know. If he did receive funds, they would have gone straight into the estate, everything did. Cris hated that. He hated Delmore nearly as much as he hated Rushings, but it was all Pratt thought about. He intended to use his portion of the money from the diamonds to finally finish renovating the place. Cris thought him a fool for that. Thought me one for wanting to marry a man just as obsessed with his estate as our father had been, but . . . but I loved him. I’d always loved him.”

  The wind brought a sweet, flowery scent to Ella’s nose. The mud sucked at her shoes, and a bird twittered from the trees. She gripped her skirt, trying to make sense of it all. But her mind kept going back to those three words Catherine had rushed over. “Unleash the monster.”

  Cayton was obviously right—Rushworth was dangerous. The kind of dangerous that hid itself behind an unobtrusive personality and polite smiles. The kind kept carefully reined in until it suited him to let it loose. The kind that never showed itself in the man’s eyes.

  What was she to do? He knew more than that she knew the location of the diamonds—he knew she had them. What was to keep him from kidnapping her as Pratt had Brook? Threatening to kill those she loved if she didn’t hand them over?

  Anlic Manor stood sentry at the crest of the hill, near enough now that she caught the bite of smoke from its chimneys. Inside those honeyed-stone walls, Rushworth no doubt waited for his sister’s return, eager for an update on how tea went. And what would he say, what would he do if his sister returned in her current state, muddied and obviously distressed?

  The breeze was cool but not responsible for the shiver that stole up Ella’s spine. She moistened her lips and settled her gaze on the bare traces of a path into the woods. “Would you walk with me a little longer, my lady? I cannot help but think it would not serve us well to return to Lord Cayton’s home upset.”

  Catherine sucked in a breath, huffed it out. “I suppose you have a point. Where shall we go? I am unfamiliar with the area.”

  Ella nodded toward the path. “Onto that path through the wood for a bit? I daresay it winds back around to the manor.” Or to the river. Or perhaps even to the castle a mile distant, how was she to know? But the trees were not so dense that they would get lost in them, and the hour was early.

  Catherine sent her an arched look. “That is not a path. It is at best a deer trail.”

  “Nonsense. That is what all the paths look like in this wood. I have explored many of them from Ralin Castle.” She took off toward the trees with an open stride.

  Catherine followed, though she lagged a few steps behind. “I am not one of those who enjoys traipsing through the forest, Lady Ella. And we’re going to ruin our shoes.”

  “The damage is already done there, I daresay.” And plunging into the cool green beneath the trees’ canopy brought a return of peace, of hope, to her spirit. “Though that does remind me of my initial observation, which you never answered. How, if you live on such a budget, are your clothes always the height of fashion?”

  “Come, Lady Ella, think it through. What is a gentle family’s best hope of increasing their means—aside from priceless diamonds, of course?”

  There it was—that same tone everyone always used with her, as if she were a child. Ella sent what she hoped was a quelling glare over her shoulder. “Marriage, but I fail to see—”

  “And how does one attract a well-to-do spouse, if not by appearing to be well-to-do oneself?” Catherine waved a hand. “The wardrobes are an investment. Carefully calculated in order to present a certain image that is meant to result in more means. To convince society that the Rushworths have rebounded from what nearly ruined us.”

  “Right.” Why was so much of life careful calculations and masks to hide the truth? She shook her head and focused on stepping over a fallen branch without its wily fingers snatching at her dress. Then she had to pause to await Catherine, who looked for a long moment as if that small obstacle might deter her altogether.

  But at length she sighed and stepped over.

  They moved in silence for a minute or two, this one not so heavy and awkward as the one in the tea room. But this one was moderated by birds singing and the crunch of leaves underfoot, the gentle rustle of the breeze through the newly-green ones above.

  The path curved to the left, rolling gently down the hill. Ella followed.

  Catherine cleared her throat. “How is Brook this morning? My brother said that last night, she . . .”

  He had told her? Ella’s brows drew together. But her tone of voice hadn’t sounded angry or distressed. Just concerned—and trying not to be. “I was unaware that you cared about her well-being, Lady Pratt. If stories of your history can be trusted, you wish her ill rather than well.”

  “I do vaguely recall having energy for such trifling rivalries. But these days . . .” Catherine’s sigh seemed to go on forever as the wind took it and echoed it. “I handled it all so poorly, just assuming she would be an enemy, like everyone else. Assuming it would always be me and Cris against the world. Had I just t
old her at the start what we were looking for and why—she would have thought it an adventure. She would have helped. Had I not forced her to hate me, I daresay she would have handed them over willingly.”

  “She doesn’t hate you.” Not that they’d ever spoken of it outright, but Ella knew Brook. “She is still hurt by your betrayal though. She thought you the closest of her new friends, and then . . .”

  “I know.” Catherine didn’t sound remorseful or contrite, nor callous or stony. She sounded simply . . . tired. All the more so as the silence stretched again for a long moment. Then, “You didn’t answer me. How is she?”

  Ella sighed. “Poorly enough that she didn’t argue at the command to stay abed—what does that tell you?” She glanced over her shoulder.

  Catherine’s brows had knit. “Is she . . . is she in danger of losing the child?”

  “The doctor didn’t think so. He will watch her carefully, of course, but he seemed certain that this was normal, and she simply must take it easy.”

  Catherine nodded, but that news didn’t seem to ease her any.

  The slope of the path grew more distinct, and Ella faced forward again to better keep her footing, ignoring the mumbles of discontent from behind her. Just ahead the trail forked, luring a smile back to Ella’s lips. Which way to choose?

  Her feet pulled her to the left, and after a dozen more steps the gurgle of water reached her ears. She didn’t know how far this part of the river was from the one she had discovered yesterday, but she was far more ready to enjoy the view with the sun staking its dominance in the sky.

  “Mind your step. Part of the path seems to have washed away over there.” Catherine had lifted her skirts another inch, which only served to reveal that her shoes and stockings were thoroughly muddied.

  “So it has.” Ella lifted her skirts a little higher as well, and kept her eyes focused on the path in the search for drier or stonier spots.