“Yes, it’s a risk,” his father informed his wife before he trapped her between two potted ferns of prehistoric dimensions. “But Nathan has ambition.”
“He is obsessed with wealth.”
“Obsessed. Driven. With his ruthlessness and my connections in India, we stand to make a king’s ransom.”
“Nathan has always envied you,” Marceline said with uncharacteristic rancor. “I wonder sometimes if he has a human heart. He didn’t mourn when his wife and their unborn child died.”
“Some men hide their pain.”
“Others cause it.”
His father said to the woman he worshiped, “I’ll buy you scented fans and carved tea caddies—”
Colin could hear Maman’s low, wonderful voice in his mind. “What use will scented fans be to me if my husband isn’t home to take me to parties? I know you, Joshua Boscastle. You can’t abide sitting still for two hours straight. You’ll sail off for months and the boys and I will be alone. I hate being alone. And I’m French. I prefer coffee to tea.”
“Marceline—”
“I don’t even want to go tonight. Colin is carrying on with that pretty girl in the village. He’s entirely wild, and his younger brothers are following under his bad influence. Unless you want us to become grandparents soon, you’ll have to find another school to accept him. Colin needs a strong hand.”
“Or a strong woman. Trust me, Marceline. I’ve even shown the statements of profit to Ramsey Hay, Nathan’s solicitor, and he offered his services on the spot.”
Colin had often wondered whether his mother had felt a premonition that night. And yet he’d put it from his mind in his hurry to meet Georgette.
He shook off his reverie.
“Sir?” a disembodied voice said from the flame-tinted darkness of the blacksmith’s yard. “I’ve been expecting you. I had the farrier shoe your horse. I heard you had quite a night. Will you be leaving soon?”
“That all depends,” Colin said. “Despite your warning, I was not as prepared for the young vandals as I should have been.”
The blacksmith rose from his forge. “It wasn’t always like this. I remember a time when I didn’t know what the word ‘corruption’ meant. Perhaps it is good that you have come, sir. Perhaps you were brought here for a purpose other than what you intended.”
Chapter 11
Kate trudged back upstairs, her conscience appeased, her thoughts unruly. She should have known it would take more than a poorly aimed arrow to fell a man of his physical stamina and strength of will. Any gentleman who had spent thirteen years pursuing justice was not one to be easily discounted.
But what had happened to her will?
A stranger’s kiss in the dark, followed by his wicked flirtations, and she had come undone. It had been her first genuine kiss, too, and he had meant it for another woman.
The flaming arrows hadn’t helped her nerves, of course. And how unkind of him to infer that Stanley had not stood his ground against the ruffians. In the first place, Stanley would lose his job if the apothecary found out he had brought a tonic to the house, even though it would be added to Mason’s account and eventually paid.
Really, how many men were stouthearted enough to battle against a group of unknown bullies and emerge the winner?
Only two, not counting the reverend. Lovitt and Sir Colin.
She undressed in the dark, as usual. Not since her first employer, Lord Overton, had sexually assaulted her in London had she felt comfortable looking at her naked body. There were still faint scars where he had bitten her on the breast, and underneath her upper arm stretched a scar that reached behind her shoulder from the bottle he’d used as his weapon. One of her bottom teeth had chipped when he’d hit her in the face with the sherry decanter he’d broken in his rage when she had refused to lift her skirts. Georgette promised her that nobody would ever notice the marks unless she pointed them out, but Kate knew they were there. How would she explain them to her husband if she ever married? Who would love her enough to overlook her imperfections?
Lady Overton had caught the governess in the act of seducing her husband, and so had three other servants standing in the door behind her. Kate hated to think back on the scene, but it was never far from her thoughts.
“The little slut was working her wiles on me,” Lord Overton said, smoothing his neckcloth. “When I told her she would be dismissed, she tore open her bodice and started screaming that I had assaulted her. She’d been drinking sherry. She broke the bottle to attack me and I had to wrestle it from her hands before she injured me. She reeks of drink.”
Kate had been shaking so badly she couldn’t rehook her dress; three of the eyelets had been torn off, and what was she supposed to use for evidence? Show the cuts and bite marks on her breast to Lady Overton? None of the other servants would stand up for her for fear they’d lose their jobs. What could she do? A governess’s word wouldn’t stand against an aristocrat’s. She could be sent to gaol.
She had run out of the house and into the street, not knowing where she could go or where she could hide. A small barouche had almost run her over, and when the passenger stopped the vehicle and saw the condition of her victim, she had insisted she take Kate back to her town house to hear her story.
Kate blurted out everything.
And Georgette believed every word.
“I’d wager that you weren’t the only servant he has abused,” Georgette said.
“I’ll never know. I wasn’t allowed to talk to them again. I couldn’t even say good-bye to the little girl I watched. I won’t be able to find work anywhere. I left all my belongings behind me.”
“I am in desperate need of a governess and a companion for myself.”
“You, madam?” Kate asked, dry-eyed and drained of tears.
“I want a girl who is clever, patient, and charming. I don’t want my son raised by a dour-faced prune, although his governess must have the backbone to discipline him. Are you strong willed enough for a young boy who won’t obey me? I will probably conceive another child before the end of the year. It appears that I have a talent for conceiving children and none at all for raising them. I know my son is young, but already I see rebellion in his ways.”
Kate felt a surge of hope. At the time she hadn’t understood that Brian wasn’t Mr. Lawson’s natural son or the nature of Georgette’s profession. It wouldn’t have mattered to her decision, anyway. She needed this position or she might find herself in the same position as Georgette.
“I’ll teach your son to treat you with respect, Mrs. Lawson. He’ll be so proper after a month with me, you won’t recognize him.”
Georgette smiled at her, doubtful but compassionate. “As far as serving as my companion, I’ve no desire to be made proper at all. It’s far too late for that. I’m a fallen woman, and I have scant chance of redeeming myself in society, which does not mean that I can’t become a wealthy or popular figure.”
Kate had tried to appear composed, even though it was obvious that Georgette sensed how desperate she was. “What would my duties include as your companion, madam?”
“I am illiterate and uneducated,” Georgette replied. “I know my way around a gentleman’s body. I could pleasure a marble statue if I set my mind to it. But hand me a book, and an iron door slams shut in my brain. I would at least like to achieve a certain level of literacy. I need my companion to answer my letters with wit and verve.”
It was a position that sounded like heaven to Kate. She could have believed that Georgette was her guardian angel in the disguise of a beautiful courtesan.
“I love reading and writing, madam. I could die happily in a library. Or at a desk.”
Georgette laughed. “I doubt that I shall ever ask you to sacrifice your life to cover my deficits. But you have been truthful with me, and I will keep your confidences. Will you keep mine?”
Kate almost wept in gratitude. “You won’t be sorry that you hired me.”
Georgette rewarded her with one of
the smiles that few gentlemen could resist. “You might be sorry one day that you have pledged your loyalty to a whore.”
“I won’t,” she said with feeling.
“Yes. Right now you are furious at the male sex. Long after the scars on your body heal, you will lock the pain away in your heart. Perhaps one day you’ll even meet a man who holds the key.”
“I don’t care about my heart. I don’t even care about the wounds on my body. I need a roof over my head and a house in which I am safe.”
Georgette nodded in understanding. “I choose my lovers with great care to their character, but even so, once in a great while, I am deceived. Woe befall the man who harms my child or my servants.”
Kate lowered her head. “I’ll never be able to repay you.”
“Nonsense. But there is a price to your acceptance that you ought to consider.”
“Madam?”
“It’s unlikely that you’ll ever find employment in a decent house again.”
Lord Overton was killed in a duel a week before Georgette moved her household from London. By then Kate had learned from a courtesan that decency meant nothing without compassion. And though many times during her employment she’d threatened to leave, she had never gone farther than packing her bags.
What an unbelievable irony it would be if Colin Boscastle, of all Madam’s lovers, would be the force that drove Kate back into the world.
Chapter 12
Georgette felt so groggy that at first she imagined that Mason was sitting at her bedside. “It’s not even dawn yet,” she said. “I must be dreaming. Leave me alone.”
She dragged the pillow over her head only to feel it gently tugged away. “I’m asking a lot, I know. But we will need to set a trap for Mason, as soon as possible.”
“A trap? Oh, God, this isn’t a dream. It’s you again. What do you want from me, Colin?”
“A little cooperation, that’s all.”
“What sort of trap? I’m not about to lure Mason to my carriage on a dark country road so that you can do him in. I’m not chasing him down in a disguise, either.”
Colin laughed. “Not even if I buy you a black hat with a veil?”
“And I’m not meeting him in a rat-infested tavern where you can hire returned convicts to pummel him into confessing while I hide behind a dressing screen.”
He scratched his cheek. “Are you finished?” She nodded. “All I want you to do, undramatically, please, is to insist he return home. Make up the most compelling excuse you can.”
“So that you can take his life the instant he enters his home?”
“I’ve no intention of killing the man without observing formalities. What if he pulls a gun on me first?” He scowled impatiently. “He deserves a chance to be heard, and that is all I can promise. Presumably I will challenge him afterward. I do not intend to kill him in cold blood.”
“Couldn’t you meet him at another neutral spot?” Georgette suggested.
“You know as well as I do that he runs at the sound of my name.”
“I might, too,” she said crossly. “Do you realize it isn’t even light outside yet? I’m not coherent until noon. I might not be responsible for whatever I have agreed to. I may not even remember this conversation tomorrow.”
He laughed as he stood to leave. “Ask your companion for help. She appears to be a resourceful woman.”
She frowned, staring at him through the shadows of her room. “Why are you all dressed up at this hour, anyway? I thought you had been wounded.”
He paused at the door. “I left my horse and other clothing at the smithy. The blacksmith helped me, and I mean to repay him. When I return to the house I do not wish to be known as Sir Colin Boscastle. I will assume the name . . .”
His voice receded. Nobody kept Georgette awake at this hour unless for professional reasons. He could wait until tomorrow to repeat whatever he had said.
* * *
It was Kate’s habit to arise early in the morning. Today was an exception. As he had done too often to Georgette in the past, Colin Boscastle had given Kate a restless night. There was no sign of him, however, as she walked downstairs. She could only hope that the rogue had vanished from Madam’s life again.
He couldn’t stay. His claim about Mason was impossible. Mason was mild-natured to a fault; Georgette had complained on countless occasions that she had to goad him to stand up for himself. His father had bullied him, and now he was a marionette in his solicitor’s hands. It took practically an Act of Parliament for Georgette to get her purchases approved.
Mason would not return to the house if he discovered his enemy was here. He would die of fright before he faced Colin on a dueling field.
A housemaid, bustling past with a flannel cloth and furniture polish, paused at the sight of her. “You’re up late, miss.”
“Why is the house so quiet?”
“The staff is giving our new head groom a welcome breakfast, miss. If you hurry to the hall, you might find a few bites left. Or at least a drop of tea. You look like you could use it.” The maid shuddered. “After all the horror last night, I’d be unsettled, too. But now we have Castle to take care of us. I’m so happy I could sing.”
Kate couldn’t find the words to express what she felt.
Our hero.
Our new head groom.
Castle.
She walked slowly to the servants’ hall and stood in the doorway, unnoticed in the excitement. It seemed to her that everyone at the table was talking at once, until Colin started to recount how he’d lost his horse during the war.
“How, sir?” Brian asked.
“She shielded me from cannon fire.”
“That’s sad,” Etta declared, staring down in misery at her plate of eggs.
“Soldiers don’t cry, ninny,” Brian said.
Kate was about to say, “Please don’t call your sister names, and finish your toast.” But Colin spoke first, and she was too enrapt in his reply to interfere.
“I did cry,” Colin said, addressing Brian as if he were an equal. “She laid down to cover me, and I’ll never love a horse as I did her. How many people display that much loyalty?”
Kate glanced from Colin to his son, her heart gripped by apprehension. She had noticed last night that Brian resembled his father. But to see them sitting together for the first time—no, there were scores of blue-eyed, black-haired males in England. She recognized their bond only because she knew the truth. And because she was sworn to keep it secret.
“Miss,” a voice whispered in her ear.
She turned, startled out of her thoughts. It was only Nan—Nan who would bring her back to earth, assure her she was being absurd. Besides, Colin hadn’t come here to claim a child he didn’t know was his. He had returned to fulfill a personal vendetta. Family landed in second place after his honor.
“What is it, Nan?”
Nan crooked her finger. “Come away before you are seen,” she said softly.
Kate sneaked one last glance over her shoulder. Brian was teasing his younger brother, and Colin’s interest had wandered from the table, though he hadn’t spotted her yet. Head groom. What effrontery.
Nan pulled at her hand. “Come into the morning room. There’s something you have to know.”
Kate shook off the foreboding that clouded her reason. “If it is a plan to be rid of a certain rogue, I shall be all ears.”
Nan hurried down the hall, shaking her head like a soothsayer of doom. At last they entered the musty-curtained room. It took Kate a moment to perceive the gaunt figure stretched out across the royal blue sofa. His crossed hands rested across his chest.
“Dear heaven! Is that Griswold? Is he dead or passed out again?”
He cracked open one red-rimmed eye. “Neither, miss.”
“He’s in shock,” Nan said. “As you will be once he recounts what he told me late last night.”
Kate threw up her hands. “Don’t you think we have more to worry about than a tipsy footman? Our
visitor has taken over the house—the scoundrel has inflicted another of his delusions on us—he’s named himself the new groom. Mrs. Lawson will thump his thick head when she hears this.”
Griswold sat up, his long face waxen. “Not when she hears what I have remembered, miss.”
Kate felt her nerves prickle. “I’ve a feeling I might take to drink myself after I hear this.”
Griswold fell back against the sofa. Nan stood over him, recounting what he had apparently revealed to her late last night. “Griswold worked at Mr. Earling Senior’s house as an underfootman on the evening the viscount dined there, before he died the next day. It was the shock of seeing Sir Colin, who greatly resembles his father, that brought his memory back.”
Kate wavered. “Memory of what?”
Griswold sighed. “Once I calmed down I began to remember details of the dinner.”
“What reawakened your memory?”
“It was seeing the viscount’s son opening the door last night. I’d had a drink. All right. I’d had several. I don’t deny it. But he looks so uncannily like his father that I fancied I was standing before a ghost. Poor bereft boy never would believe the viscount died of natural causes.”
Kate tried to envision Colin as a young, grieving avenger, one who had loved Georgette and his father, one whose devil-may-care life had been forever changed by the viscount’s death.
“Did anybody else believe that the viscount had been murdered?” Kate asked thoughtfully.
Griswold nodded. “Plenty of those in his service did. He was a vital, healthy man.”
“Did you believe it?” Kate asked slowly.
He gazed up at her, righteous anger flashing in his eyes. “It struck me as odd at the time that the younger Mr. Earling served the viscount wine at the table that night.”
Kate frowned. “Mason, you mean?”
“It was my duty to pour that evening, but he took the bottle from the sideboard before I had a chance. I recall it was a special vintage to celebrate the viscount’s invitation of a partnership with Mr. Earling Senior. Viscount Norwood had many business connections in India. He was willing to invest a great sum of money in their undertaking.”
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