A Search for Refuge

by Kristi Ann Hunter

  The idea of marrying again threatened to send Margaretta right back to bed, where she could cry herself into oblivion. Where she had once welcomed the security of an emotionless marriage, it had lost a great deal of its appeal in the past month. She’d learned that relationships could be different, and it was difficult to go back to thinking otherwise.

  “Will you take a boy to the foundling house then?” Katherine’s question was quiet. So quiet Margaretta wasn’t sure she simply hadn’t thought it.

  Because she’d thought it before. Thought it often.

  “I can’t.” Margaretta’s throat seemed to swell. The words she knew she needed to get out felt thick and syrupy as they slid through the thin passage, fighting for space with Margaretta’s shallow breaths. “I thought maybe I could, but I can’t. I didn’t love John, but this child is from a marriage that, however short, happened. I can’t leave him on the doorstep, to be scorned and treated like an unwanted blight on the world.”

  “No child should be left to think that of themselves,” Daphne added with a look toward the cradle in the corner. A look that said she loved her son more than anything, more than the tough road she’d been forced to walk to get here, more than the mountains they would still have to climb.

  Margaretta looked back and forth between the two women at the table. “How are you going to do it? Mrs. Lancaster isn’t going to live forever.”

  Katherine nodded to the basket she’d dropped by the door. “We take in some sewing. A bit of mending, some work for the church, making clothes for the people in the workhouse. It’s all arranged through a local seamstress, a friend of Mrs. Lancaster’s. All those years of embroidery mean I can sew a pretty straight stitch. We’ve enough to purchase a house when it comes time. As long as we make money for food, we should be able to survive, possibly even thrive eventually.”

  Daphne splayed her fingers across the table and then curled them into fists. “Mrs. Lancaster said that once the baby is weaned, she’d find a way to make sure he was taken care of.” Her gaze shifted again to the quiet baby in the corner. “But I can’t do it. I can’t spend these first months with Ben and then give him up.”

  Katherine reached a hand over and wrapped her fingers around Daphne’s fist in a show of silent support.

  There was no way Margaretta could mimic their plan. She hadn’t the funds or the help. But another idea crept into her mind.

  “I could send money.”

  She winced. That wasn’t how she’d meant to broach the idea.

  Both women looked at her with raised eyebrows.

  Margaretta cleared her throat and forged ahead. What was the worst that could happen? They would say no and kick her out of their house? She’d be no worse off than she was right now, except that she wasn’t sure how to get back to Mrs. Lancaster’s store. “I’ll get pin money. I could send some. To help.”

  “Help who?” Katherine asked.

  “Help you. If the baby is a boy . . . If I left him with you, could you keep him? . . . Could you give him a good home?”

  Chapter Nine

  Nash hadn’t slept. Ideas and inclinations had run through his head, distracting him to the point he’d nearly cut himself while shaving. He was drowning in the very thing he’d spent nearly a decade determined to avoid: emotion so crippling that he couldn’t live his daily life.

  Behind him, his desk was strewn with work, but he hadn’t done any of it. Despite the fact that he was considerably behind, he stared out the window.

  Not that he saw much beyond the glass. He was too busy remembering the look on Margaretta’s face as she’d let her hand trail over his arm while Katherine led her away. She’d been pleading for something, using those bottomless dark eyes to try to rip his soul from his body with the claws of her dripping tears. But Nash had left. Even before Katherine had closed the door to the bedroom, he’d fled the cottage. Nothing would ever be the same for him. Or for her.

  Recognition of two of the men walking through the morning hustle and bustle of High Street broke through Nash’s ponderings. Mr. Fortescue and Mr. Albany were walking down the street, presumably in the direction of Nash’s office. The older man’s face was set in determined lines while the younger man curled his lip in distaste. Whether his disdain was for the early hour or the town itself, Nash couldn’t tell. Nor did he care. After everything he’d learned over the past twenty-four hours, Nash wasn’t inclined to like the man.

  In fact, his inclinations veered much closer to running Samuel Albany out of town than ensuring his welcome to the local stables and coaching inns.

  There was nothing he could do, however. Nash’s opinion of the situation didn’t matter. In the eyes of the law, the man had done nothing wrong. If possessing ambition and desiring to inherit a title were criminal offenses, quite a bit of England’s aristocracy would be rotting in Newgate.

  Margaretta’s husband had died nearly four months ago, based on all the information Nash had put together over the past few weeks. That was more than enough time to know if she’d gotten with child during her short marriage, and the fact that she was running, hiding, would only serve as evidence to Samuel Albany if he was, indeed, as crazed and obsessed as Margaretta believed.

  As the two men crossed the street, Nash could see that they were arguing, with Mr. Fortescue looking nearly ready to explode into a tirade. Whether that would manifest itself as a physical or verbal assault on the younger man remained to be seen, but it settled some of Nash’s fear that Margaretta’s father was somehow betraying the safety of his daughter.

  The two men stopped outside the door to Nash’s office, but his position at the window allowed him to hear their hushed, angry voices.

  “One has to wonder how well you can control a business if you can’t control your daughter, Mr. Fortescue,” Mr. Albany snarled.

  The threat didn’t seem to do anything to fluster Mr. Fortescue’s composure. It was easy to see where Margaretta had gathered the strength to set out on her own.

  The older man flung open the door to Nash’s office and strolled in. “A business is ever so much more predictable than a woman.” He sent an inquisitive look in Nash’s direction. “Wouldn’t you agree, Mr. Banfield?”

  Given that Nash’s ability to guess what a woman was about was essentially nil, he had to agree. He nodded. “Of course, sir.”

  The younger man grunted and narrowed his eyes in Nash’s direction. “You didn’t come to dinner.”

  Nash turned, maintaining his position by the window. “Urgent business arose with another client. As only a few of the men you requested to speak with were interested and none available until today, I decided to wait until this morning.”

  “We wish to speak to them all, Mr. Banfield.” Mr. Albany’s lip curled. “If you can’t make that happen, I’ll find a solicitor who can.”

  There were only two other solicitors in Marlborough, one of whom was nearly seventy and wrote simple contracts at a small desk in the corner of his drawing room, so Nash wasn’t incredibly worried about the threat. What did concern him was getting Samuel Albany out of reach of Margaretta as quickly as possible. Yes, he felt betrayed that she’d kept such a secret from him, and the discovery left his chest feeling like it had been hollowed out with a cricket bat, but he still wanted to make her happy, keep her safe.

  “Perhaps, gentlemen,” Nash settled himself into the chair behind his desk and steepled his fingers underneath his chin, “I could be of better service if I knew more about what you were actually looking for.”

  Mr. Fortescue’s eyes narrowed, but Mr. Albany’s gaze became hazy and unfocused as he paced across the room to the window. “I intend to make my name known across the country, Mr. Banfield. My grandfather may have started our racing stable, but I intend to bring it into the nineteenth century. We will be the stable that everyone talks about, the one that the Arabian princes come to visit. And I intend to be the one who makes it so.”

  A fiery passion rode his features as he turned back to Nash an
d braced his hands against the desk to lean forward. “One day, the Albany racing stables will be mine, and then—” His words broke off, and he hung his head, taking a deep breath as if collecting his thoughts. “The Albany racing stables are an important part of my family legacy, Mr. Banfield, and I will be a part of it.”

  Nash glanced at Mr. Fortescue, noting the paleness of the man’s skin behind the determined set of his jaw. Thoughts tumbled over each other in Nash’s head, the foremost of which was that Samuel Albany didn’t seem to be in complete control of his faculties. He was a man obsessed with power and prestige, none of which he could expect to gain as a third son unless he took it for himself. And that made him dangerous to Margaretta.

  A niggling thought tickled Nash’s mind, a vague memory prodding an idea. Was there any chance Samuel’s passion could be redirected? Was it possible Nash could point him in a direction that would let him make a name now instead of waiting to inherit control of the family stable?

  “Passion for a family legacy is admirable.” Nash cleared his throat and rose, walking slowly to a stack of magazines on a low table. The article he was remembering was a couple of months old, but if he could find it . . . A copy of Sporting Magazine lay at the bottom of the pile, its edges curling around themselves. “Perhaps that could be better found in making a mark on the sport as a whole.”

  Nash’s heart threatened to pound out of his chest as he took the magazine back to his desk and settled into his chair once more. He had to tread very carefully through this conversation. He couldn’t give away that he knew anything about Mr. Fortescue’s daughter or Mr. Albany’s family situation. One word, one slip could be a disaster. The safest thing would have been to remain quiet, but he’d just introduced a suggestion that required he drive the conversation.

  Oh well. In for a penny . . . “There’s a new style of racing in Ireland.”

  He plopped the magazine on his desk, open to an article entitled, “A Curious Horse-Race.” Mr. Albany scooped up the paper and settled into a nearby chair to read, but Mr. Fortescue remained focused on Nash, his eyes assessing and thoughtful.

  Nash swallowed. “I’m not much of a sportsman, gentlemen, but it seems to me that the right leadership could take the idea of this idle wager and turn it into a horse racing empire.” That was possibly laying it on too thick, but Nash couldn’t back off now.

  Mr. Albany looked up. “They had jumps in the race?”

  “Yes.” Nash looked at Mr. Fortescue out of the corner of his eye. “And if someone were to make a special saddle for just such a race, it would no doubt be to the racer’s advantage.”

  “No doubt,” Mr. Fortescue murmured. “It would be quite a coup to be the first to introduce such a novel thing to England’s shores. Surely not something an Irishman would be capable of.”

  Mr. Albany slapped the magazine down onto his leg. “Fortescue Saddles will not take the credit for this. Any saddle you make for this will be for Albany use only.”

  “Of course.” Mr. Fortescue cleared his throat. “But I’d need to study how this racing is done.”

  Nash shuffled some blank papers on the surface of his desk. “We could draw up an agreement now, if you wish, that any development in saddles made for this new style of jump racing will be for the exclusive use of the Albany stables.”

  Mr. Albany seemed to preen under the idea of exclusive rights to anything. “Yes. We could even name the saddle after us. It would need to be a priority development.”

  “Of course.” Mr. Fortescue seemed to sink into his chair with a sigh of relief. Perhaps this was the first time he’d relaxed in weeks. How long had he been following this madman around the country?

  “We need to take control of this soon,” Mr. Albany declared, then paused. “But we cannot neglect our . . . current project.”

  Mr. Fortescue tightened back up in his seat. “Nothing will change in the time it takes us to travel to Ireland and study this. We can address the issue when we return.”

  Nash knew the man was hoping that by the time they returned the issue would have settled itself, and Margaretta would have either had a girl or found a safe place to hide the baby if it were a boy. The alternative, that Margaretta or the baby didn’t survive the duration of their absence, was probably eating through Nash’s thoughts alone. No father would want to consider such an end for his daughter.

  “I suppose.” Mr. Albany looked back at the article in his lap before nodding at Nash. “Draw up the papers.”

  Margaretta was placing small, neat stitches in the ripped shoulder seam of a rough white shirt when Mrs. Lancaster came through the door around midday. The women were still seated at the table, discussing the possibilities open to Margaretta, though Katherine had declared that they at least needed to do something worthwhile as they talked.

  Where Margaretta’s cleaning skills were decidedly lacking, her sewing was almost as accomplished as her cooking. She’d already set a pot over the fire to heat a stew for their supper.

  Conversations stumbled to a halt as Mrs. Lancaster let herself into the tiny cottage. She beamed at the three of them. “Look at you ladies. Making the most of life when the devil would rather strike you down. I’m proud of you.”

  Daphne blushed but didn’t look away as the old woman came forward to look at the bundle in her arms.

  “Ah, such a sweet little one.” The shopkeeper looked up and smiled. “And our other sweet little one? Have we settled things there?”

  Katherine and Daphne looked at each other for a long moment. While many potential details had been discussed, an actual agreement had yet to be reached. Finally Katherine gave a little nod. “We’re keeping Margaretta’s baby.”

  Mrs. Lancaster’s smile fell as she looked straight at Margaretta. “You’d leave your baby behind?”

  Until that moment, Margaretta hadn’t really let herself think of it that way. She’d thought of it more as taking care of someone in need. Like a charity that could be done impersonally with a bit of separation. But at that moment, with the sadness and possibly even disappointment on Mrs. Lancaster’s face, her baby became just that. Hers.

  It didn’t change the facts, though. “I haven’t a dowry to bring or anything to start my life with. If I go home, marry, seek the life I was born for, I’ll have money that I can send back to help. If it’s a girl, I might be able to keep her. Otherwise—” she lay her hand over her middle—“it’s simply not a risk I can afford to take.”

  Katherine sighed. “For what it’s worth, I think you should tell John’s family. I think they would protect you.”

  “Samuel is the only son they have left living on English soil. I can’t take the chance that they’d believe him over me.” Margaretta paused so she didn’t stab herself with the needle. “And they’ll insist I come live with them, under their roof. Hiding from Samuel wouldn’t be an option anymore.”

  It was a great risk she was taking, not telling John’s family about the baby. If it turned out to be a boy, if he was in line to inherit, would they believe her when she claimed it was John’s? Or was she dooming her child to a life without his birthright?

  Mrs. Lancaster came around the table to hug Margaretta tight. “Don’t you worry none. God’s not surprised by one bit of this. Mark my words, my dear, He’s got a plan big enough for everyone. And sometimes”—she pressed a kiss into Margaretta’s hair—“those plans are hard to understand.”

  Margaretta didn’t know what to do with the open affection of Mrs. Lancaster, but it felt like a balm on her aching heart. Daphne and Katherine reached their hands across the table and twined fingers with Margaretta. The moment was solemn, like a vow between the women to do the best they could with these lives that they’d been entrusted with for whatever reason. Emotion overwhelmed her, led by fear that they were doing the wrong thing.

  These babies needed so much guidance, so much education, so much of everything if they were going to make their ways in this world. Could four ladies who didn’t know what they were do
ing manage it?

  It was enough to make her want to slink to her bed and not come out for a week.

  Then Benedict peeked around his blanket, blinked at her, and burped.

  As the most basic of noises broke the solemn silence, the four women gave into laughter instead of tears, and Margaretta knew that Mrs. Lancaster was right. No matter how lost she felt, none of this was a surprise to God.

  Working out the contract took the better part of the day, but by the time evening rolled around, both men were smiling. Well, Mr. Fortescue was smiling. Mr. Albany looked like a smug cat who’d stolen the cream.

  Nash promised the men he would make clean copies of the agreement and have it messengered to London, as well as to Newcastle, Ireland, where the men were intending to travel.

  Hands were shaken all around, and Mr. Albany made noises about whether or not it was too late to catch the stage. He eventually decided they would wait until morning. Neither Nash nor Mr. Fortescue offered a thought while Mr. Albany discussed this decision with himself. They simply nodded in agreement.

  Mr. Fortescue never stopped eyeing Nash with a bit of skepticism before saying quietly, “I’d still like to discuss those travel arrangements some time.”

  Nash debated how to answer. He knew that traveling to Ireland and abandoning his daughter had to be a difficult prospect for the older man, but he would do it to keep her safe. Mr. Albany currently didn’t seem to care about anything, having been convinced that his name would become synonymous with this new style of horse racing within a year. Nash wasn’t willing to test that new fascination, though, by speaking in anything other than vague terms with her father.

  “I’m sure I can be of service in that area when the time comes.”

  Mr. Fortescue’s eyes narrowed, probably trying to read Nash’s hidden meaning. Then his eyes widened as he took in something beyond Nash’s shoulder.