Of Dubious Intent

by J. A. Sutherland

  The house looked immense from outside and the grounds did as well. Emma told her that “only” four acres or so of land made up the grounds inside the estate’s high walls and outer fences. Outside those, some distance away, was a fair-sized village and another, larger, estate house.

  “They’re proper lords of some-such,” Emma said. “This were theirs too, at one point, but the master he bought it outright, he did.”

  Cat nodded. She was a bit in awe already of what Emma had said was inside the estate’s walls. Kitchen gardens, a formal garden, a quarter acre or so of wooded land, along with a small carriage house and barn. They’d left by the kitchen door and along a cobbled way for deliveries to the kitchen garden Cook kept.

  “I come from a farm, meself,” Emma said as they walked through the rows of plants.

  “Whyever did you leave?” Cat asked. She couldn’t believe that someone would leave a place where food simply came out of the ground for the taking.

  “It were a small village,” Emma said, looking away. “Not much to choose from fer a husband there. And didn’t much want one, come to that.”

  Cat frowned. She had a sense there was more to it, but didn’t want to pry.

  They continued walking and chatting. Cat was astounded to learn that nothing from the estate was sold for profit. She’d expected that this Mister Roffe kept it for that purpose. To learn that he kept something so expensive and rarely used it made little sense to Cat.

  “Why does he keep the place?” she asked. “If he so seldom comes here?”

  Emma shrugged. “No tellin’ what them with enough coin’ll do.”

  “Is your work hard here?”

  “Easier than most, I ‘spect. With none in residence much of the time.”

  Cat frowned. “Do you really think he’d offer me a place, then? With so little work here?”

  “He might need help at the house in the city.” Emma shrugged. “Maybe plans to bring you there, or me, and have you take over here. Who’s to say?”

  Cat thought for a moment. “Perhaps.”

  They walked in silence for a time and then Cat stumbled and shivered. The day was sunny, but cold, and she shivered again with the chill.

  Emma stopped and grasped Cat’s hand.

  “Yer cold as bone, girl, why’d you never say some’at?”

  Cat shivered again and wrapped her arms around her middle. “I didn’t notice …”

  “Let’s get y’back to the house,” Emma said. “A bath to warm y’an bed to rest, I think.”

  “I could grow quite used to this,” Cat said, easing herself deeper into the hot water.

  “Enjoy it while y’can, yer ladyship,” Emma said with a teasing grin. “Afore yer down with us servants. I’ve never had such as this meself.”

  “I thought this house had hot water to spare?” Cat asked. “How can you not have?”

  “Oh, there’s hot water a’plenty,” Emma explained, “but no bath like that below stairs. We’ve a hip bath, but naught like that’un.” She held a hand at her midsection. “About t’here’s the best, not all soakin’ neck-deep like that.”

  Cat frowned. “With so many of the baths in the house — three, did you say? And this Mister Roffe never at home, why can’t you just use the ones upstairs?”

  Emma shook her head. “Not done,” she said. “Not done a’tall. Even if the master’s not in residence. Cook and me, we keep to our place, we do.”

  Cat frowned. With so much to the house and so many luxuries, why shouldn’t the staff make use of them when this “master” wasn’t at home? To have such a thing as this tub lying idle and unused seemed a shame.

  “Well, if I’m playing at being a lady, then I shall give you permission to use this one,” Cat said. “In fact, I order it. So there.”

  Emma looked shocked, then bit her lip.

  “Well,” she said and grinned. “If her ladyship orders it …” She began unbuttoning her smock.

  “I …” Cat started to protest. She’d meant for Emma to use the bath another time, not right this minute — certainly not for Emma to join her. But her voice trailed off as she watched the other girl.

  Emma slid into the bath at the other end and Cat jumped, startled, as their legs touched beneath the water. Cat froze, uncertain of what to do and equally uncertain about what she was feeling.

  “Oh, this is nice,” Emma said, leaning back and closing her eyes. “It’s like being right inside a fire, it’s so warm.”

  “Yes. Yes, it is.”

  Chapter 7

  Cat spent the next fortnight living in luxury she’d never dreamed possible.

  As her strength returned, she spent her days walking the grounds of the estate and even took the short walk to the nearby village, though there were more than a few stares and whispers. Her close-shorn hair made her quite the oddity, she knew. She stopped going to the village and limited herself to the Roffe estate when three of the village boys taunted her over her lack of hair and threw clods of dung at her. Cat resisted the urge to chase them down and make them pay for that, not wanting to jeopardize her chances for a place in the Roffe household by brawling in the village.

  Emma took her opportunity to play at being a lady’s maid quite seriously, waking Cat with toast and tea every morning and helping her dress, and Cat spent her days learning the ways of a housemaid from Emma. She thought that knowing the work might help her chances of Roffe truly offering her a place in the household.

  Neither set of tasks took all of their time, especially with Cat helping at the cleaning tasks, and the two girls spent hours each day simply talking or walking the paths of the estate. For Cat it was, indeed, heaven itself. She was safe, warm, fed, and, for the first time in her life, she felt she had a friend she didn’t have to lie to every day.

  Still, though, she could not shake the man with the iron-filled purse from her thoughts. Without him, she would certainly never have been rescued by Mister Roffe and would never have the hope of a place in this household, but still he’d cheated her, struck her, and even tried to … what had he been trying to do with her when she’d been rescued? Kidnap her? Murder her?

  No, there was a score to settle there, still, and even if she were offered a place here, Cat knew she’d be on the lookout for that man all the rest of her days. And when she next met him, she’d be surer of her strike.

  Then the word came that Mister Edward Roffe, artificer and master of the house, would be arriving the next day.

  At noon, Cat was sitting beside a small brook that ran under the estate’s wall and through the patch of woods. She looked up as she heard Emma calling her name from nearer the house and saw the other girl waving to her. She rose and made her way back.

  “There’s word come,” Emma said. “Mister Roffe’ll be here fer supper, but he’s sent a package fer you.”

  “A package?”

  Emma grinned as they walked toward the house. “Boxes an’ such, Cook said. Look t’be the master’s finally thought of you having no clothes o’ yer own an’ sent some’at fer you.”

  “That will be a relief.”

  They returned to the house and upstairs to Cat’s room. Cat stopped in shock at the sight of the packages on the bed. Boxes and paper-wrapped parcels covered it, far more, and of finer quality, than could be accounted for by a maid’s uniform.

  Cat went to the bed, hand at her mouth. She opened the largest box first. The packaging itself was a work of art. Bound not with twine as she’d expected, but with ribbon, and of a heavy, expensive stock. She untied the bow and carefully pulled the ribbon aside, then lifted the top. There was something dark beneath the white tissue paper in the box and she pulled that aside as well, then gasped at the sight.

  The dress was exquisite. A deep, emerald velvet that seemed to sparkle as it caught the light, trimmed with black that only made the greens more vivid. Cat reached out a tentative hand to touch it, then pulled it back.

  “This can’t be for me,” she whispered. “It’s a mistake
. Emma, this can’t be for me, can it?”

  When Emma didn’t answer, Cat turned and found the other girl frozen in the doorway, eyes wide and one hand to her mouth. She was staring at the open box as well.

  “Emma?”

  Emma stared at the boxes, then at Cat. “I’m sorry, miss.” She ducked her head and stared at the floor.

  “What?”

  “I’m sorry, miss,” Emma repeated. “I should’a known.”

  “Should have known what?” Cat asked. She stepped toward the girl. “Emma, whatever’s gotten into you?”

  “Should’a known,” Emma repeated, not looking up. “But y’said y’ had no people, miss, that y’were no one in particular.” She pointed at the boxes. “But I should’a known. Y’talk all proper-like and —”

  “Emma, what are you saying, what do you mean?”

  “Them’s no servant’s clothes, them. Yer some kind’a lady, miss,” Emma said. “I should’a seen it. I’m sorry I was so familiar, miss.” She looked up and Cat saw real fear in her eyes. “Please don’t see me put out, miss?” She ducked her head again. “I’ll behave as I should, I will. I swear it!”

  Fear shot through Cat as well, but for a different reason. She realized suddenly just how much she cared for the other girl, how much she relied on her friendship. Something she’d not had before.

  “Emma!” she cried. She grasped the other girl’s hands, holding them tightly. “I swear to you, I have no people. I grew up on the streets, for goodness sake! I’m certainly no one in particular. This —” She jerked her head at the boxes. “This has to be some mistake.”

  Emma raised her eyes and Cat saw that they shone with tears. Just as her own did, she felt.

  “Emma, please,” she said. “You’re my only friend here. Anywhere. You’re … the only friend I’ve ever had. I could not bear to lose that, please.”

  “Do y’mean that, miss?”

  Cat released Emma’s hands and cupped the other girl’s cheeks. “Don’t you dare!” she said. “Don’t you dare call me ‘miss’ like that. I am Cat and you are Emma and nothing in those boxes, mistake or no, will ever change that, do you hear?” Emma still looked uncertain, so Cat took her hands again and squeezed them forcefully. “I swear it, Emma.”

  The older girl’s face cleared and she smiled. “All right, then, Cat,” she said and bent forward to kiss Cat on the cheek.

  The knot of fear in Cat’s middle dissolved and as Emma straightened Cat darted her own face forward and gave her a quick kiss on the lips with a playful grin. That caused Emma to smile again, and Cat marveled for a moment at how important the other girl had become to her. Not since Mother Agnes died had Cat truly cared about another person. The feeling was odd, and a bit frightening.

  “Y’should see what’s in the rest o’them boxes,” Emma said, pulling her hands from Cat’s and moving to the bedside.

  Cat stared at her empty hands for a moment, then raised one to touch her lips.

  Cat waited with equal parts eagerness and trepidation for Roffe to arrive. He was due before supper, but as the day grew later, she began to wonder if he’d appear at all. She was waiting in her room with Emma, dressed far more elegantly than she ever had before.

  Over the past days she’d settled in her mind that this Roffe was as Emma described him. A kind sort of man, who’d chased off her attacker and brought her here to be cared for when he discovered she was ill. Someone likely to offer her a servant’s position as a further kindness. But the sort of clothes he’d sent …

  “Emma, what do you suppose these clothes mean? They’re certainly not the sort one gives a servant, are they?”

  “No, miss, they’re not.”

  “Emma …”

  “Sorry,” Emma said with a shy grin. “Cat, then.”

  “I’ll not be his doxie,” Cat said firmly. She was young for that, and hardly filled out, but some men had those appetites, she knew. “Not for anything.”

  Emma shook her head. “None of that here. Never since I’ve been here. The master’s never even had a lady to supper here.”

  “But you say he’s seldom here at all. There’s no telling what he does in the city.”

  “Mister Roffe’s a good, kind gentleman, he is. He gave me a place here when … well, he’s a good, kind gentleman is all I can say. You’ll see.”

  Cat was unconvinced. She was a girl straight from the streets with no talents beyond the cutting of purses and being light of foot on rooftops — neither of those was anything a gentleman might have an interest in. “If not that, then what explanation could there be?”

  Emma frowned. “Maybe yer some sort’er lost heir? Like in the tales.”

  “Tales aren’t real, Emma.”

  “Well, they’re gilded some, sure, but has t’be some truth to a tale, don’t there?”

  “And how would your Mister Roffe know if I were?” Cat asked. “I’ve no great birthmark like the lads in a tale.”

  Emma frowned again. “No, that’s for certain. Maybe, the master, he knows that fellow what attacked you? Knows him fer a villain and all, somehow? Followed him on that street and when he saw you attacked like that he just knew it?”

  “I think we’ve gone far afield now,” Cat said. She shook her head and sighed. “I know you think this man’s kind and generous, Emma, but where I grew up there’s no such thing. No one does a thing without there’s something to be gained.”

  Emma gave her an odd look. “Not even fer love, then?”

  Cat thought of her gang and others on the street. The closest thing she’d seen to what the tales called love was what she’d had with Mother Agnes, and even that she doubted.

  “Especially not for that.”

  They heard horses in the drive and Emma rushed to the window.

  “He’s here!” she called.

  Cat went to the window as well, but all she could see was the roof of a carriage and a hat-covered head hurrying to the house’s door. Cat smoothed the front of her dress and skirts, then checked herself in the cloudy mirror. The dress was fine, she had to admit, but her newly short-cropped hair did nothing for her appearance.

  “What should I do?” she asked. “Do I go down and greet him? Or do I wait here?”

  “It’s so close to time fer supper, you should be going down,” Emma said after a moment’s hesitation.

  Cat nodded. “Very well, then.”

  The two girls left Cat’s room and had no sooner made their way to the top of the stairs than a man appeared at the bottom.

  “‘At’s Clanton,” Emma whispered. “The master’s valet.”

  Clanton was a thin, dark man with greasy hair. He reminded Cat instantly of any one of the pimps or fences she’d seen on the streets and she paused, wary and uncertain.

  “Mister Roffe’s in the dining room,” Clanton said, gesturing impatiently for them to come down. “Hurry up now, it’s been a long ride from the city and he’s no desire to wait on supper for your sake.”

  Cat hurried down the stairs, Emma behind her. Though she’d taken an immediate dislike to the valet and distrusted him instinctively, she didn’t want to keep her benefactor waiting.

  She followed Clanton to the dining room where he nodded to her and opened the door.

  Cat paused outside the dining room and ran her palms down her skirts. She looked to Emma, who gave her a grin and a nod of encouragement, then steeled herself and stepped through the door to meet this Mister Edward Roffe, artificer.

  He stood at the room’s far side, near the sideboard, back to her, pouring himself a glass of wine.

  “Well, girl,” he said, and Cat froze at the voice. He turned and she could see his face. “You look better than last I saw you, at least.”

  It was him.

  The man with the iron-filled purse. The man who’d struck her.

  The man she meant to kill.

  Chapter 8

  Wine?”

  Cat was unable to move, frozen in place like her namesake caught in a lamp’s be
am with no shadows in reach.

  Stupid, she thought to herself. She’d never considered that the man she’d been following and the owner of this house, her benefactor, might be the same person. She’d accepted without question Emma’s repetition that her “master” had come across Cat being attacked by someone else, not that he was the attacker himself. She’d allowed herself to be lulled by Emma’s friendliness and forgotten the first rule of the street: No one, no one, could be trusted and now she was trapped with this stranger and no telling what he wanted of her. All those days here when she might have looted the house of portable valuables and been safely on her way — all wasted because she’d believed the fairy story of a man, anyone, being kind.

  Stupid, foolish girl!

  The man raised a different decanter. “Brandy, then?”

  Cat stared at him. He hadn’t moved from the sideboard except to turn. Perhaps she could escape. She edged backward, but the door had been shut behind her. She reached back, never taking her eyes from the man, and grasped the knob. When she found it locked, her worst fears were realized.

  “To drink, girl,” the man said. “What will you have?”

  Cat’s eyes darted about the room, sliding over anything that might be used as a weapon. There were bottles on the sideboard, but the man stood before it. She dashed forward to the table and grasped a knife from the nearest place setting, then put her back to the wall. She started to sink into a crouch, knife held loosely in her hand, but straightened. Better to have him think she didn’t know a thing about how to fight. She held the knife with both hands, close to her chest.

  The man took a drink of his wine and shook his head.

  “I suspect you know more of knives than that, girl,” he said. “Enough to see that one’s useless for all but butter.” He snorted derision. “Better to have grabbed a fork. Now this —”

  Cat jumped as a knife thunked into the wall beside her head. She’d barely even seen him move. The knife had appeared in his hand, been thrown, and he’d resumed his casual stance before she was even aware of it.