When the carriage stopped for what would likely be the last change of horses before reaching their destination, he said to Rosamund as she descended, “Might I have a word with you, Miss Gorse?”
As usual, her fingers lay across his palm as he handed her down from the coach. This time, he let his grip tighten. Neither incidental nor meaningless. She did not pull away.
“Looks a respectable place,” he announced as he glanced around the inn yard. “Perhaps it would be best to dine here. While we’re waiting, we can stretch our legs.” Not once in his life had he been enthusiastic to arrive in London, and this time was no exception. He nodded toward a path leading into the center of a small village, on the edge of which stood the posting inn.
The girls, eager for even a moment’s freedom from the coach, did not need to be prompted a second time. Rosamund let him thread her arm through his and hold it there. “We can walk and talk, Miss Gorse. Let the girls run ahead.” As they strolled along behind them, he told her, “I wrote to my family and told them to expect us by tonight.”
Above them, the tree limbs were still bare, though dotted with the promise of leaves; the air was sharp with the scent of new growth pushing aside the old. She breathed deep before responding. “We will all be glad to be done with our journey, I’m sure.”
Once his sisters were out of earshot, almost out of sight, he asked, “When we reach London, what then?” An awkward foray into uncovering the deepest desires of her heart.
“I suppose I will try again to do what I intended to do in Dublin: hire a lawyer, someone who can help me challenge my brother’s guardianship.”
He stopped walking, the better to take in what she’d said. “You mean, when I met you on the King’s Inns Quay…”
“That’s right, Mr. Burke. Ironic, isn’t it? You’ve brought me all this way, when I’d already found just the man I wanted.” And with that, her fingers released his arm, one by one, and she dropped her hand to her side.
Good. She ought not to rely on him. He could not be the one she needed.
She seemed to know it, too. “You intend to return to Dublin, I assume. The case that took you to Kilready sounds desperate indeed.”
Would she—could anyone—understand these feeble attempts to make amends for his past mistakes?
“My father is an excellent lawyer,” he assured her. “And my brothers-in-law are powerful and well-connected men, with experience on both the field of battle and the field of honor. More than capable of standing up to your brother. They will know what is due a viscount’s daughter.”
Her head dipped in a sort of nod. “Then I must hope I can enlist them to my cause. Though I fear there’s nothing anyone can do. More than anything, I want to be able to return to my home in Berkshire and see that all is well taken care of.” The brim of her bonnet hid her expression from his gaze, though if he leaned forward slightly, he could see her soft, trembling lips. “But Tavisham isn’t really my home, is it? And little as some of its people have, I have nothing to add. Nothing to offer them at all.”
Had her father left nothing for her maintenance, made no provision for her dowry? Was that why her brother was so determined to see her wed Dashfort?
They walked a few steps more in silence before she said, “I suppose I shall have to take a post as a lady’s companion instead. Or perhaps a…” She swallowed the word on a quiet gasp.
“A governess?” he finished for her.
“At least I now have some experience. Oh, I am sorry for deceiving you and your sisters,” she confessed in a rush. “I convinced myself that my charade would do no real harm. And,” she added after the slightest hesitation, “I knew it was the very last place my brother would think to look.”
No, Setterby had some other misery in mind for her. But Paris’s search for someone to care for his sisters had taught him how poorly the world treated the impoverished gentlewomen responsible for girls’ upbringing and education. It could be lonely, difficult, even demeaning work. On one hand, Rosamund already seemed inured to the isolation. He had no doubt she could survive it. But survival…well, sometimes, it was a punishment all its own. Daily, she would be surrounded by someone else’s family, taunted by what she might never have, like a mirage appearing to one dying of thirst in a desert.
“You are good with children,” he murmured. So far removed from their earlier banter, what else could he tell her? That her presence in his home had dusted off old memories and teased laughter into his veins and made him remember that once, his family had been his sanctuary, his joy? That he wanted, somehow, to make her part of it, though she was English and needed something not within his power to give?
She made no reference to his mock proposal, nor gave any indication that she either expected or would welcome a real one. “You are kind to say so. Very few will be as eager to learn as your sisters, I’m afraid.” They rounded a bend in the path and the girls came into view once more, walking on the low stone wall surrounding some sort of monument, arms extended to keep their balance. The kitten was perched on Bell’s shoulder, tail in the air.
He shook his head at the sight. “Or as eager to risk their necks.”
Beside him, Rosamund mustered a quiet laugh.
As they approached the center of the village, the girls spotted them. Holding hands, with Eileen tucked securely in the bend of Bell’s free arm, they jumped off the low ledge and came running across the hard packed dirt of the roadway that passed through the little town.
Their impending interruption prompted Rosamund to turn toward him and lift her face to his. The startling blue of her eyes was still marred by clouds of uncertainty, though he knew now the part of herself that she had been hiding behind them. Or thought he did.
“I cannot hope to repay your kindness in bringing me all this way,” she said.
“I could not do otherwise, Miss Gorse.”
“Indeed, you could. Some in your position most certainly would.”
She had known so few kindnesses, his Roisín. He wanted to reach out for her hand, to hold it in his, to share one last time the touch they both craved. But he would have to make do with words. “I do not always do what is right. My mistakes have caused real harm—especially to my family. But I think even Daphne and Bell would be willing to admit I am not so far gone as to abandon a young woman, penniless, hundreds of miles from anyone who could offer real help.”
For a moment, she said nothing in reply. When at last she parted her lips to speak, he was not entirely sure what to expect.
He could not have anticipated what came next.
“Your mistakes…” She seemed to be mulling over the possible meanings of the word. “Your involvement with the United Irishmen, do you mean?”
He managed, only just, to prevent a sharp intake of breath. “That is a matter best not discussed in public, Miss Gorse.” He tried to keep his voice light, relaxed. “Nor in private, to be quite honest. Molly told you, I gather?”
She shook her head. “Daphne and Bell.”
He hadn’t even realized his littlest sisters knew. But then, it had always been nigh on impossible to keep a secret in that house. If his private business had stayed private, Galen would never have found out, would never have gotten involved, would never have…
“Come on, Paris.” Bell grabbed his hand, the one that had started to reach for Rosamund, and began to pull him back in the direction of the inn. “I’m starving.”
“How far are we from London?” demanded Daphne.
“If all goes well, we should be there by teatime.” There would be a great deal of fuss over their arrival. Worry about their health and clothes and whether the kitten had fleas. Already he found himself wishing for an excuse to hold himself apart from it. Perhaps this had all been a dreadful mistake.
“Ooh! Look at that, Miss Gorse.” Daphne pointed toward an elegant equipage thundering into the inn yard, sw
eat flying from its quartet of prime goers and from the brow of the coachman as well. A crested carriage, he saw when it had slowed enough to be more than a blur of black and gold.
Rosamund’s fingers bit into his upper arm. “No.”
Her whisper ought not to have been audible above the pounding hooves and rattling wheels and jangling harness. But he heard it, nonetheless. Or felt it, perhaps, as if in spite of his best efforts, she’d become a part of him.
With her other hand she snagged Daphne and dragged them all backward, into the meager cover of the trail. “No. Oh no,” she was muttering, her eyes never leaving the carriage.
Even without recognizing the crest on its doors or hearing any explanation from Rosamund, he could guess that the coach held her brother. Confirmation was shortly supplied when Setterby opened the door and descended, followed closely by Dashfort. Rosamund was reduced to a low, anxious moan at the sight of the two men.
“What is it, Miss Gorse? Who are those—?” His arm slipped free from Rosamund’s grasp as his hand shot out to muffle the rest of his sister’s words. Bell’s tiny fingers dug into his other palm and Eileen gave a squeak of protest as the girl clutched her closer.
Despite the spectacle he felt certain the four of them must make, neither Dashfort nor Setterby glanced their way as they strode across the inn yard. How had Setterby found them so quickly? Followed them so precisely? With so little to guide him, how could he possibly—?
The coachman reached behind to toss down a satchel from the roof of the carriage. Similar, but not identical to the one Paris had carried with him to Kilready. The one he had left behind in his hired gig, labeled with a calling card bearing the address of his old Henrietta Street lodgings. From Kilready Castle, it would have been an insignificant detour, a few moments’ diversion, on the way to discovering his family home and the identity of his sisters’ governess.
If not for the unforgiving waters of the Irish Sea, the two men would have found them before now. Thanks entirely to his carelessness.
Frozen in her crouched position, Rosamund watched them through wary, hunted eyes as they disappeared into the inn’s public room. She’d feared just this moment, and Paris had imagined it impossible.
An hostler came from the stables, struggling under the weight of a yoke across his shoulders, bearing buckets of water for Setterby’s horses. They were to be rested, not changed. In other words, there would be no interval in which that carriage would be rendered immobile and he, Rosamund, and his sisters could get away in their own, which stood a few yards away, with fresh horses already hitched.
But Setterby’s coachman was distracted—someone from the inn had brought him a pint—and the postilion had wandered off to water the shrubbery. Now or never. With a sharp look for Daphne, whose wide-eyed nod showed she understood his wordless command, he lifted his hand from her mouth to clasp Rosamund by the elbow and urge her to rise.
She started and turned to look at him in abject terror. Her brother might be to blame for the fear in her eyes. But this? This was Paris’s fault. He’d led Setterby right to her.
“Walk toward our carriage,” he ordered them, his voice low. “Do not dally, but do not seem to hurry, either. Draw no attention.”
They were almost past Setterby’s carriage when Eileen, who’d grown larger and stronger in the course of a week, managed to squirm free of Bell’s stranglehold and darted away. His heart stuttered, but he nudged his youngest sister forward. Rescuing the kitten could mean losing Rosamund. “For Miss Gorse’s sake,” he whispered, “we must go on.” Tears sprang to Bell’s eyes and her lower lip wobbled, but she clamped it between her teeth and gave one quick nod. Brave, Rosamund had called her. How had he never realized it himself?
Just before Eileen scampered beneath the terrible hooves of Setterby’s beasts, the coachman reached out a hand and snatched her up. “Wot’s this?” The burly man looked about him; there was no escaping his gaze. How long before he realized he was staring right at the very party of four he sought: a fair-haired Englishwoman, a dark-haired Irishman, and two young girls?
But the man showed no sign of interest, no suspicion. Was it possible? Had neither Setterby nor Dashfort described to his coachman the people they trailed? “Yourn?” the man asked, holding out Eileen. The tiny kitten was nearly lost in the man’s enormous hand.
Paris gave the other three a gentle push toward their carriage and turned back. “Yes, thank you.” Just to be safe, he swallowed his pride and erased every trace of Dublin from his voice, speaking the King’s English as if he’d been born to it. “My daughter”—after all, they’d passed as a married couple with children before on this trip—“would have been devastated to lose her.”
“I got a girl, meself. Hate to see ’er cry.” The coachman chuckled and handed over the little troublemaker. “Some cats is right skittish around ’osses. Tell your little one she’d best get a bit o’ string if’n she means t’ keep ’er.”
“I’ll do that, sirrah. Thank you.” With his free hand, Paris touched the brim of his hat, turned, and walked calmly to his waiting coach. Five strides, three, two…
With a nod to his driver, he swung into the carriage, and the wheels were rolling before he had collapsed onto the forward-facing seat beside Rosamund. Both Bell and Daphne had tears streaming down their faces as they took the kitten from him, fussing over her and petting her and scolding her.
Rosamund, however, made not a sound. If she wept, she did so silently. Her face was turned toward the window as she watched the road behind them, her spine so rigid he knew instinctively that if he dared to touch her now, she would simply snap in two. If she weren’t already broken.
Could he get her to safety in time? Or was it already too late?
Chapter 19
When they reached the outskirts of London, Rosamund allowed herself to turn away from the window and slide back on the seat. No point in looking behind her when the road was clogged with coaches of every variety and horses beyond number. Any one of them might have been conveying Charles in his relentless pursuit.
Still, she held every muscle clenched to the point of pain, afraid of collapsing in a shuddering, sobbing heap. She’d let herself imagine, for a few hours, a few days at most, that her brother had given up. He didn’t really care what became of her after all. She’d never forget his chilling words to Lord Dashfort: Rosamund will be yours to deal with. However you see fit.
All those years, she’d been nothing to him. Nothing more than a means to an end.
But it was the end that mattered to Charles. And for that very reason she had known, deep down, that he wouldn’t let her escape.
Although Paris going to Kilready had made it easier to trace her first to Dublin, then to England, and now to London, it had been by no means impossible before. The metropolis might have promised some anonymity, but Paris’s family was her only security now, and they had not exactly lived shy, retiring lives. Even Rosamund, living in near total isolation in Berkshire, had heard of his famous sister, the novelist, and her notorious husband, whose home they were soon to reach. It might take Charles another day to uncover the connection between Paris Burke and Lady Ashborough. No more. What then?
Despite her best efforts, a shudder escaped at last, rattling through her shoulders, down her spine, along every limb. Thanks to the heavier traffic, the carriage happened not to be in motion at that moment, so there was no disguising it as another of the endless jostles and jolts of travel, wood and iron wheels over rutted roads or unforgiving bricks. She gripped the edge of the seat to keep herself from sliding onto the floor as the tremor passed out of her body, like lightning striking the ground.
No one saw. Bell and Daphne were looking out opposite windows in open-mouthed awe punctuated by occasional squeals of astonishment or delight. Even Eileen stood watching with her paws on the window frame, her basket prison once more abandoned.
Paris
too kept his gaze fixed on some point beyond the glass, though his posture was that of a man whose thoughts were far away. He showed no sign of having felt Rosamund’s jerky movement, though it had surely shaken the bench they shared. The cushions of even the most well-appointed carriages were never as plush after several days as they seemed at first.
Then his hand, which had been lying on the seat between them, moved. Slowly, he crossed the inches between them—a journey somehow longer and more perilous than the one they had just undertaken—and covered her gloved fingers with the gentle pressure of his own.
Daphne, having turned in response to her sister’s command to observe something marvelous out the opposite window, watched it happen. Rosamund expected an exclamation, a tart remark. The girl’s lips curved, but to Rosamund’s surprise, their expression was neither sly nor cynical. It was pleasure that turned up her lips. Happiness. And oh, yes, just a hint of triumph.
Another shiver was building, somewhere in the vicinity of Rosamund’s ribcage. Her heart, perhaps, though she refused to think in such nonsensical terms. Hearts beat, fast or slow. They did not ache, neither with joy nor sorrow. They certainly did not quiver with anticipation, with awareness that in a moment, something had changed.
She wanted to linger on the edge of that sensation, to hold onto it, fearful that any movement might cause the fragile connection between them to collapse. But once she’d given in to her body’s determination to tremble—with fear, and with something that, inexplicably, wasn’t fear at all—she seemed to have lost all control. Again, the tremor passed through her, along her arm and into her hand.
Paris tightened his grip. “We’re coming into Mayfair now. Not much farther to Finch House.”
The Lady's Deception Page 19