“I am so clumsy,” she said, moistening her lips. She glanced back nervously at the two little boys chasing each other around her cart. “Please don’t trouble yourself. I’ll manage.”
She bent, offering him a tentative smile and a glimpse of her full breasts straining against a worn bodice.
“It’s no trouble, ma’am,” he said as he gathered her fallen goods. “There. A good wash and all will be well.”
She blushed. “Are you new to the parish?”
He glanced at Kate from the corner of his eye. She met his gaze in faint disdain and looked away. “Yes—what—I’m sorry—you were saying?”
She followed the direction of his stare. “Do you work for Mr. Earling?”
From the corner of his eye he spotted a young man swaggering up behind Kate. “No,” he said briskly. “I don’t work for Earling. Mrs. Lawson has employed me, ma’am.”
One of her boys pushed her against Colin’s arm as she spoke. “My name is Rachel Pleasance. It’s difficult to make friends in the parish, but your master has been kind to my family.”
His master? Hadn’t she listened to what he’d said?
He didn’t bother to correct her this time. He was more concerned that the young man on the sidewalk was practically breathing down Kate’s neck. He saw her shoulders tighten. She seemed intent on refusing to acknowledge his existence.
The widow sighed. He forced his attention back to her. What was her name? Had she admitted it was hard for her to make friends? “Yes,” he said. “I imagine it is. Perhaps time will help.”
“It can be lonely,” she answered in a clear effort to prolong the conversation. “But perhaps when one lives and works in a large house with others, there isn’t much time for longings.”
Longings. The woman had just told him that she had longings. If that wasn’t an emblazoned invitation to her bed, he didn’t know what was.
“Do you have a name, sir?”
He looked at her then. “My name is Castle,” he said distractedly.
“Castle,” she said, her eyes searching his shadowed face. “The name suits you. No one builds strong fortresses anymore.”
“I wouldn’t want to live in a castle,” he said to be polite.
“I live off the lane up the hill from the old granary.”
He turned his head, manners now the last thing on his mind. The man harassing Kate had drawn a group of supporters, who crowded on the corner to cheer him on.
“Damn them to hell. That swine stepped on her cloak on purpose.”
The widow retreated from his fury, one hand reaching out to grasp her wriggling son by the collar. A spool of black lace fell from her basket beneath the carriage wheel. Neither she nor Colin retrieved it this time. “I suggest you go to her rescue,” she said in resignation. “A woman alone is easy prey for a young man’s wrath.”
* * *
Kate might have pulled her pelisse free and escaped without further intimidation had Colin not jumped onto the sidewalk and strode up behind the man in palpable anger.
She made a half turn, forcing an unfriendly smile at her offender. “I would remove your foot from my person before you regret your actions. The gentleman behind me doesn’t quite know his own strength.”
The pedestrian appeared to be about nineteen; his friends gathered closer to leer at Kate. She was aware the oaf hadn’t stepped on her cloak from clumsiness. He meant to humiliate her in public.
“Take your shoe off me this instant,” she said in a louder voice, tugging at her pelisse to no avail.
He stepped down all the harder. “If a whore sells herself in this village, I say it’s only fair that we view her wares.”
She wrenched herself free. The hem of her pelisse bore a filthy footprint. “Hurry into the carriage, Nan. Take the basket.”
But Nan stood frozen, a smile breaking across her creased face. Colin touched his hat in taunting respect to the man trapped in his shadow. “You’ve dirtied the lady’s cloak. That isn’t nice.”
“Lady?” The younger man glanced over his shoulder, seeking another show of support from the group, which had begun to disappear into the street. “She’s a harlot. Perhaps you are new to the parish, coachman. Perhaps you do not understand polite society.”
“I’m not the coachman,” Colin said, gently inserting himself between Kate and the aggressor.
“Are you the village idiot, then? Our last one drowned in the stream. We were too late to pull him out. It happened on a day like this, right before a storm.”
Kate felt a sick fascination grip her. It was like watching a wolf toy with a wounded rabbit. She knew what would happen. She knew she ought to intervene. But the primal anger on Colin’s face kept her at a distance.
“That was good of you to try,” Colin said as if he were too dense to understand he was being threatened.
“Wasn’t it? We could take you to the place where he fell.”
“Could you? Perhaps we should join hands and pray for the poor fellow.”
“Join hands? Like we was ladies?”
Colin made a show of flexing his black-gloved fingers. “Or I could save time and just crack your heads together in his memory.”
“I can take care of this,” she whispered, thinking not of herself but of Colin, his desire to hide his true identity.
Colin gave no indication that he had heard her. “You will apologize to the lady, and we will send the bill to your house for the replacement of the garment you have ruined.”
“Come, Kate,” Nan said in a worried whisper. “Into the carriage now.”
The young aggressor looked down at Kate’s tattered hem. “She’ll be naked on her back tonight. Why waste good cloth, coachman? Tumble her and let us know if she rivals her employer’s reputation. If the price is reasonable, we can all have a turn at her.”
Colin’s fist flew through the air. At first Kate thought he had controlled his punch merely to glance a blow. In the next instant she saw blood gushing from the other man’s mouth, splattering on her sleeve. “Oh,” she exclaimed as Colin hit him again. Nan dragged her to the carriage, the footman fumbling to lower the steps.
The man reeled back against the shop-front window, tears of fury and pain in his eyes. Colin touched the tip of his hat again. “I trust you will be lying incapacitated on your back tonight. It was a pleasure breaking your acquaintance. Good afternoon to you.”
Colin’s gaze cut toward her. How much he reminded her of Brian. She had always blamed her young ward’s temper on Georgette. But that fire in Brian’s blood clearly flowed from both his parents. It was rather enough to send a beleaguered governess to the couch.
“I think it’s time to go home, don’t you?” Colin asked, recovering his aplomb so easily she could have hit him. “We’ve had a full day.”
“Indeed, we have,” she said, and gave the footman her hand. “I enjoy humiliation as my daily fare. Mockery and insult add spice to life, I always say.”
She clambered into the carriage, not looking back even as Nan spoke behind her. “Am I seeing things?”
Kate dropped onto the seat and closed her eyes.
“Kate, who is that walking up to the solicitor’s office?”
“I don’t know,” she said with a deep sigh, “and I don’t care. I have blood on my sleeve. I want to go home and wash until this stain disappears.”
Nan subsided into thoughtful silence. Kate knew she would have to apologize later. But not now. Not with Colin Boscastle’s furious face emblazoned across her mind as he had come to her defense.
No. Not now.
She wanted to savor in private the wicked pleasure of his protection for as long as she could. He acted as if he owned her, as if he would allow no one to mistreat her. There were definitely advantages to accepting a dangerous man as an escort.
* * *
“It couldn’t have been him,” Nan muttered a half hour later as the carriage approached the manor’s drive and Lovitt sprinted forth to unlock the gates. “He’s
right there. My vision is going bad from witnessing all this sin.”
Kate shook her head. She’d no idea what Nan was blithering about. She kept picturing Colin flirting with that pretty widow and then flying off the handle to punch the bully in the face. Not that a man who accosted a woman did not deserve it. Kate decided the heavy-footed oaf might even have been one of the garden marauders. Who could say how far their hatred would go? Perhaps they should take a cottage in another village.
The clouds broke to flood the hills and wash out the road to the manor house with waves of mud. Kate wished the rain would dilute the bloodstains on her attire before she went inside so that the children wouldn’t ask her what had happened. She had never lied to them before, although she had evaded the truth about their mother’s profession, their status in society, and what they could expect once they left the dubious security of their childhood. Not arsonists and vengeful lovers if she had any influence on their future. It would be a blessing for the children if Georgette could settle down and lead a stable life.
Etta and Charlie waited inside the front door for the cakes she had brought home. Brian, for some irrational reason, stood outside on the step in the lashing rain and stared at Colin helping her down from the carriage. The boy’s empty look struck an unfamiliar fear in her heart.
“Brian.” She jumped over the puddles on the steps to guide him back into the house, “why are you standing here in this deluge?”
He stared past her to watch Colin and the coachman drive the carriage around the house. Brian’s expression suggested that he had been expecting something.
“Go inside now,” she said firmly. “Etta is sick and you will fall next if you linger in the damp.”
He wavered, more an angry boy on the verge of adolescence than a child. “I thought Lovitt would bring it home today.”
She frowned down at her basket. “Lovitt didn’t come with us today. But I bought the fresh muffins that you like.”
He backed away from her. “But I wanted a horse. I told you and Castle that I wasn’t going to ride a pony again. Lovitt promised me he would get a horse from the gypsies.”
“And how would Lovitt, who doesn’t have a guinea to his name, manage to buy your horse?”
“He said that Mr. Earling’s solicitor managed all his and my mother’s money. I overheard Mr. Earling ask her not to buy anything on credit. Lovitt said he knew how to make a deal.”
Rain blew through the door into the hall. “Lovitt has no right to pry or make promises he can’t possibly keep.”
“But the head groom my mother hired because he’s handsome has the right?”
“Do not speak of your mother as if—”
“—she were a whore?”
She stared at him in unflinching anger. Some of his defiance receded, but she did not fool herself into believing this was the end of the matter.
“Please, miss, if I had my own horse, I would be happy to teach Etta and Charlie to ride it when they’re old enough.” At that, he stomped upstairs, pausing once to call over the railing. “If you don’t say yes, I’ll run away.”
“Another problem?” Colin asked as he sauntered up behind her.
“Everything is fine, Mr. Castle.”
“Is it?” He peered over her head to the empty staircase. “Where do you want me to take this basket?”
“You—if you expect to pass as a servant, then deliver it to the servants’ door behind the house.”
“Ah.” He nodded as if they were sharing a private joke. “It’s a good thing you reminded me of my place. If we were alone I’d explain where you belong.”
“Mr. Castle?” she called when he was halfway down the hall.
“Did you need me for something, miss?”
She could see only his profile until he turned his head toward her. The sultry heat in his eyes could have turned every drop of falling rain outdoors to steam. “Please change your clothes before dinner. And be aware that no one is allowed to discuss upsetting events at the table. It hinders good digestion.”
He looked away with a laugh. “There’s not much else left to talk about, is there? The only pleasant thing I’ve experienced since I came here is you.”
“Me?”
“Sorry. That just slipped out.” He tapped his temple. “It goes to show what’s on my mind, doesn’t it?”
“I can’t say that your motives are exactly a mystery. However, as long as you keep those thoughts to yourself and dress appropriately, you will be welcomed at the table.”
Chapter 20
Her words would soon come back to haunt her. When Colin appeared for dinner at seven, he looked so vital and crisp in his muslin shirt and gray trousers that even the butler complimented his appearance. “Now, that is how one should present oneself at the table. Very well turned out, Mr. Castle. The rest of the staff could learn a lesson or two from you.”
“Oh, couldn’t we, though?” one of the housemaids whispered, but dropped her gaze when Kate gave her an exasperated look.
“Are you going to eat your pudding, dear?” Cook asked. “I made it especially for the mistress. She fancied something sweet to settle her stomach.”
“She’s got the worst of Etta’s cough,” Nan said. “It’s a miracle we all aren’t dropping like flies. Good thing we’ve got Castle here to guard the house. Didn’t he draw the cork this afternoon? I hope that bloodstain comes out of your sleeve, Kate.”
“Nan.” Kate gave her a tight smile. “Why don’t we talk about current events?”
“It only happened today,” Nan said, buttering her peas.
“I was thinking more of Queen Caroline’s affair.”
“Nobody gives a toss about Queen Caroline’s woes,” Nan said. “We’ve enough trouble of our own.”
Kate nodded in agreement. “Which we can discuss at another—”
“What happened in the village today, Castle?” asked the butler, who had made no secret of the fact that he appreciated another man about the house in the master’s absence.
“It was nothing,” Kate said, rising to push in her chair. “We will not talk of it.”
“She was accosted,” Colin explained. “One of the little badgers who attacked this house last week dirtied her cloak.”
“Pelisse,” Kate said through her teeth.
Colin looked at her. “Please, what, miss?”
“What did you do to the badger?” asked Tom, who as a stable boy had to keep rodents from the feed.
The five dachshunds shot up from the hearth in a barking frenzy. Colin grabbed a knife from the table.
“Why are they barking?” he asked, rising to stare around the kitchen.
“It’s the breed. They were trained to hunt badgers,” Kate said in exasperation. “And if you repeat the word, you’ll have to take them for a walk until they’re tired out.”
“I’m not walking five dogs in this—”
The kitchen door swung open. An unrecognizable man appeared with a blanket hooding his head and driving rain at his back. Cook gave a shriek and clasped her hands to her face. The butler rose and crossed the floor to snatch a poker from the hearth.
“Don’t hit me, any of you!” Lovitt threw off his dripping horse blanket. “I might deserve it later, but we’ve a bigger problem on our hands for now.”
Colin put down the knife and came to his feet. “What’s wrong now?”
Lovitt wiped his streaming face with the towel that Cook brought him. “The pony is gone, sir.”
“Well, she couldn’t have gone far in this weather, and—how could she escape her stall by herself?”
Lovitt swallowed, meeting Kate’s eyes. “She wasn’t by herself,” he said. “I’m guessing Brian took her.”
Colin strode forward and gripped him by the shoulder. “He took her where? Give me your best guess.”
“To the gypsies, sir. It’s all my fault. I put the idea in his head. I was only half-serious. I told him he could trade in that pony and one of his mother’s diamond necklaces f
or a horse. I said—I bragged I knew how to make a deal. I didn’t think he’d act on it.”
“Then why did you do it, you great useless thing?” the head chambermaid asked.
Lovitt swallowed, casting a shamed look at Colin’s face. “I was jealous of him. Here I’ve worked for two years, and he comes prancing in the garden and all of a sudden, he’s ordering me about.”
“Where is the encampment?” Colin demanded, bending to pick up the boots he’d left drying by the fire.
“There isn’t one,” Cook said in a distraught voice. “The gypsies left days ago because they couldn’t find work in the village. I packed up a sack of food for a family who came begging at the door.”
“I’ve saddled two horses for us, sir,” Lovitt said, and drank the glass of porter that a housemaid brought him. “He probably took the path—”
Kate didn’t want to hear another word. She ran in to her small office, Nan advising her that the mistress should not be alerted yet. No one in the house was brave enough to bring Georgette unwelcome news.
“Go and make sure the other children are still in bed, Nan.” She took the time to lace on a pair of half boots and grab from a chair the satin-lined opera cloak that Georgette had bought her when they had spent a summer in Brighton.
“Why didn’t I pay attention to his threat this afternoon?” she said to herself on her rush through the kitchen and out the door.
The answer sat astride the mare Tom had saddled and walked from the stable. Kate ran through the mud to stop him.
“You aren’t coming with us,” Colin said in a merciless voice as he looked back over his shoulder.
Kate grasped hold of Colin’s trouser leg and held on for dear life. “You will either take me with you, or Lovitt and I will go alone.”
“Lovitt is in enough trouble tonight without your assistance.”
“I can help,” she said, lifting her hand to his. “Brian trusts me. Please, sir. Let me come with you.”
He relented.
A small party that consisted of two stable boys, the gardener, and the coachman followed Lovitt, Colin, and Kate from the estate. The other servants broke apart to scour the grounds, the sheds, the wagons, the places where a runaway boy might hide if he lacked the courage to stray too far.
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