by Liz Tyner
‘You best not have touched her,’ Fillmore said, jumping to his feet. ‘She’ll pay dearly for it. And so will that scrawny gnat of a sister she has.’
‘She’s not returning to you.’
Fillmore smiled, the kind that would make the hair on a dog’s back stand. ‘Tell her that her sister will be in a madhouse, if Katherine doesn’t come home to me.’ Then he smiled, let out an ale belch and said, ‘When her father tells the magistrate his daughter’s been abducted, Katherine won’t be able to defend you. Not if it means her little sister pays for it—in one form or another.’
Katherine would never let the child be put in a madhouse. And Brandt couldn’t either. He couldn’t let a child Nathan’s age be locked away.
Fillmore strode to the door. ‘Tell Katherine to return now and she can have the gnat. I’m a generous man to those I care about, and those I don’t care about I’d like to roast on a pit. Sadly, there’s laws against it and we have to make do with a noose.’
‘We’ll be talking again soon.’
‘I’m looking forward to it.’ Fillmore eased his shoulders through the doorway.
*
Brandt told Harlan he’d returned and Harlan had faded back into the woods, letting the dogs keep watch.
‘Open up, Katherine. It’s me.’ The moments ticked into an eternity while he waited for her to unbar the door.
The door opened, a lamp behind her making her hair halo into frazzles around her face, and sleepy, innocent eyes stared at him. His throat caught. He took the bar from her hand and put it back into place on the door.
He touched her arm, moved inside and took her fingers.
Brandt waited, spending this last moment with her before everything changed. ‘Fillmore still plans to marry you.’ He couldn’t tell her about Gussie or what Fillmore had said. She’d sacrifice herself for her sister.
Her hand tightened on his.
He put his other palm to his forehead. ‘I felt concerned—leaving you so long.’
‘All is well,’ she spoke, the words a mix of statement and question while she studied him.
‘No. It’s not. Fillmore knows you’re with me and he knows where my family lives.’
The words fell into the air.
‘I’ll go somewhere else.’ She moved back, touching his shoulder. He froze in place. ‘I just need funds. Money does everything a person needs. And Mrs Caudle will bring Gussie. You can help her get to me. Or I’ll hire someone else.’
He turned his head so she couldn’t see his face.
She sat on the edge of the bed, putting her feet on the floor. ‘When will I have the funds?’
‘Funds?’ he asked.
Katherine couldn’t think of what to say. She had to have the money. Had to have it.
Another man had misled her. The suitor who’d proposed had wavered, but remained firm when the manure was delivered to his door, but when she’d said she couldn’t leave Gussie behind, he’d laughed in her face. And now, Brandt—perhaps her last hope—had failed her.
‘You can stay here,’ he said.
‘I do not want your charity. I want a life away from my stepfather and I want my sister. I will pay you and I will need money to do that and to live on. You could marry again. Your next wife will not take well to a woman living in her house.’
‘I am not going to marry.’
Holding out her right hand, she used her left forefinger to tap her palm. ‘Ransom. Here. I want to take the money my stepfather married my mother for. My grandfather’s. It’s rightfully to take care of Gussie and me.’
Only the width of a cloth separated them.
He spoke as if he hadn’t heard her. ‘You must give up your so-called criminal mind. And no plans to murder anyone, ever again. Or kidnap your sister.’
‘Brandt. I cannot promise such. I’ve too many years left in front of me.’
Determination flashed from the set of Brandt’s jaw, the lift of his eyebrows as he looked at her. ‘You don’t need his money.’
She did. Death had taken her father when she was young. Her mother had been in the grave for four years and she still missed her. Even Gussie had not filled the void completely, but she’d helped.
For her, the world lay in front of her. For Brandt, everything shadowed behind him and each day took him further from the memories of his loved ones. And he refused to release them.
Katherine knew she would have a family. A family of her own making, but none the less people who cared about her. She would make friends with dowagers and women who had no prospects, and maybe she would find an orphan to raise. She would find some skill to augment it and take care of Gussie. It didn’t matter to Katherine whether Gussie would speak much. She could talk. She just wouldn’t around Augustine. She hid from him and he knew it. And he would make Mrs Caudle bring her to him sometimes in the evenings, question Gussie and rage at her for not speaking.
‘I’ll make sure your father can’t get near you.’ He touched her arm in reassurance. ‘I’ll be there to keep you safe and get you married.’
She took in a breath and held it, so she could move forward enough to look into his face safely. The shadows were coming back. He’d been back to London and it showed on his face. She was certain he’d been at the tavern. She could sense him pulling away and taking himself back into the life he’d had.
She reached up, an excuse to touch him, and let her fingertips brush down the unruly bit of hair just curling at the side of his neck.
Katherine swayed closer, inhaling. ‘You’ve done so much for me. So much, Brandt. And I want you to know I appreciate it.’
His hand reached to her waist, stilling her, and holding her back from him. This time, she felt her insides tremble at the contact, fighting the swirls of warmth and the awareness of him which radiated out from his touch.
‘I have to return to London and convince Fillmore I’ll never marry him,’ she said.
‘I’d planned to get my brothers and go back and discuss it with him.’ Brandt sat at the table, twisting a shred of hemp in his hands, the strands of rope invisible in the darkness. ‘It will be no sacrifice to risk the noose. If that is what it takes to save a woman and a child, then so be it.’
A cold shudder racked Katherine’s body. A moment passed before she could breathe again.
Chapter Sixteen
The sound of Katherine’s gasp filled the room. Even in Augustine’s care, she’d been protected somewhat. She wouldn’t fare the same with Fillmore as a husband. He couldn’t let him have her.
‘Brandt…’ Her voice whispered into the room. ‘Tell me what your brother meant about your courtship?’ she asked. She moved away, lowering herself to the pallet.
He looked to the bed, only able to make out the barest outline of her body.
‘Mary worked for my family, and Adam discovered I was leaving my room in the night and visiting Mary’s. He pretended illness so he could stay home from Sunday services and, while the house was empty, he nailed Mary’s window shut from the inside with enough nails to build a small house.’ Brandt looked at the motionless mound on the bed. ‘I pretended the same illness the next Sunday so I could pry them loose.’
‘Your parents suspected nothing?’
Her voice reminded him of the way a woman might speak to a frightened animal to calm it, but he didn’t need the compassion. It wouldn’t change anything of his memories.
Stretching his legs, he leaned against the chair back. ‘They were concerned with making sure Adam conducted a proper courtship. Adam had fallen in love with Ione. He was chaperoned every moment he was near Ione and could not as much as steal a kiss. He endured endless conversations with her grandmother. I wasn’t courting and, since I was younger, my parents weren’t concerned because I hadn’t shown interest in attending any events to dance or speak to women. I spent a lot of time dozing in my room. My parents thought I was reading constantly and might be interested in the clergy.’
He stopped twisting the rope and let it
fall to the table while he remembered the stolen moments with Mary. ‘After a picnic, Adam was being chided for sitting too close to Ione and I snickered. He didn’t take it well. My parents were shocked at what he said. If I hadn’t charged across the room, trying to punch him senseless, they might have believed my innocence.’ He shook his head, remembering the tussle and his father shoving them apart.
His father had furiously forbade any more night-time trysts and Brandt became determined to wed Mary.
‘Mother said if I waited until I was nineteen, and Mary was seventeen, and courted properly, she would see if she could convince Father we should marry. They didn’t want my wife to be a servant, but didn’t feel right not letting me marry her—especially when they guessed I’d spent a considerable amount of time in her bed.’
Her head turned and her voice faded. She sounded far away.
‘You obeyed your father?’ she asked.
He shrugged again. ‘Not willingly. In the wintertime, her window froze shut. It was a cold winter except for the few times she managed to get past the others and make it to my room.’
Brandt remembered trying to keep snow off his boots so he wouldn’t leave tracks in the house, trying not to leave tracks in the snow and still not being able to get the window open.
‘After I married,’ he continued and felt himself smile, ‘Adam told me he’d overheard our parents and they knew I’d changed the time of my visits to Mary. I crawled in her window before first light and she pushed me out when she had to start the fires. Father agreed to the marriage because he was tired of Mother asking him if Mary looked to be increasing.’
She sat, tucking the covers tightly under her arms. ‘You loved her a lot.’
He didn’t speak right away. And he didn’t feel the need to. Because he felt Katherine understood. Or at least, understood as much as someone could who hadn’t been in the same situation.
‘I cannot imagine loving anyone else as much as Mary.’
‘Did she know it?’
He let her words rest in his mind a moment. ‘I suppose she did.’
He waited, thinking she wouldn’t speak again, and then she said. ‘I almost envy her.’ She spoke with more force. ‘I do envy her the love she had.’
‘Mary deserved more.’
‘She would be angry with you for staying in the sadness.’ The words were soft—not accusing. ‘And the way you’ve spent your time in the tavern.’
She spoke in such a gentle tone, he felt nothing but an awareness of her thoughts. No blame.
‘Where else can I go late into the morning?’ he responded, not feeling the need to justify himself, but to explain. ‘When all I can think of is her face, and Nathan’s laughter? And how I let her down. I long for the touch of Mary’s hand so much I feel the hunger as pain. She has nothing of her left behind.’
This time he filled the silence. ‘The tavern folk don’t care about my problems. They laugh and cry about their own woes. Their voices drown the thoughts in my head and, with ale added, I usually don’t think of the past. Better than being alone where all I can hear is the memories.’
He’d fallen into his words so much, he didn’t realise she’d crossed the room until her hand touched his shoulder. ‘You have brothers. A whole family. And they care for you. Doesn’t that ease anything?’
He put his fingers over hers. ‘No.’ He gave a dry chuckle. ‘It doesn’t. Because I had something else. Something golden. Separate from them.’
He stood and, with one arm, pulled her against him, letting his face rest against the silk of her hair, smelling of lavender. Comfort flooded into him.
‘When you were gone, I went into the house.’
His body tightened. ‘You did not.’
She turned, moving away, and pulled out the tattered book she’d taken and put it in his hands.
Then the fury clogged his mind. Part of him distanced itself and felt amazement Katherine had managed to get into the house. She’d looked into the upper floors. Rooms he’d not been in since he’d left for London with Mary. She’d walked in Mary’s house.
He’d had his brother handle the servants and close up the house. Board it, so no one could go inside again. The house was Mary’s. Her castle. Their happiness.
And without a by-your-leave, the moment his back was turned, the uppity duke’s granddaughter had somehow found a way into the house and looked at the world Mary had left. ‘I can’t believe you did such a thing. I can’t believe you would betray me so.’
She stepped back, palms flat against the door behind her. ‘Yes.’
He slapped the book on to the table and she jumped a step back. ‘What right did you have to go to the upstairs?’
‘None,’ she said.
‘You had no right to touch this book. You went to the family rooms. I didn’t leave the servants’ quarters,’ he sputtered. ‘How dare you? I was going to have all her things removed before I let anyone step foot in it.’
He heard his voice and heard the anger. And pain. ‘I built it for her. Mary and Nathan. And the little girl Mary wanted so badly.’ He turned his back to her. ‘I should never have brought you here. Never.’
‘I shouldn’t have done it,’ she said. ‘I wish I hadn’t. But I saw inside her heart and saw how much she loved you.’
‘There’s never been any question on that.’
‘Marry me,’ she whispered. ‘Please. I can’t let the man Mary loved die for me. I can’t.’
He stood. ‘Don’t follow me.’
*
He’d been gone for a time when she heard the first creak.
She crept to the outer door, looking about. Nothing moved, except a few rustles from Apple and Hercules. They were both in their stalls, so Brandt remained.
She heard the creak. Boards being removed from the house in the darkness. The thuds as they hit the ground.
Katherine crawled back to her bed, imagining the grief he carried with each step. Wishing he would return. Leaving the lamp on.
When she heard the door open, she didn’t move, but then the silence engulfed her.
He stood by the pallet, his back to her, and unbuttoned his shirt. He slipped it from his shoulders and tossed it lightly on the back of the chair. ‘I took the boards from the door away.’
She heard the thump as he tossed his boots to the side.
‘If I were in London,’ he spoke, ‘I would not even be thinking of bed. Half the night is gone, but I would not be any more ready to sleep than if it were afternoon.’
He leaned back, resting his head on the wall. ‘I would probably be at the Hare’s Breath and the boy who plays the piano would have played a song he calls Brandt’s Buttons.’
‘The tavern sounds entertaining.’ She kept her words gentle, willing them to work as a balm to Brandt and to keep him talking.
‘Sometimes by morning I have dozed a bit at the table. Then one of the women would wake me. When I walk home, I can see the sunrise and, for some reason, I often am irritated at the sun shining through the fog. I am thankful there are so many foggy days and so much soot in the air.’
She didn’t think he’d have spoken so easily except for the darkness.
She heard a sound which could have been called laughter. ‘I am alone. Or at least I consider it so. Yet I surround myself with people. Even as I’m walking in the morning, others are about their business. I may not know the name of the rag men I see, nor the coal boys or the pickpockets, but we often share greetings when the air is clear. Sometimes I help with their work—except the pickpocket, of course. He just tells me of the things he learns about the people he steals from.’
He reached to straighten his boots, standing one beside the other, lining them up just so.
‘After I lost those I cared about most, I couldn’t have silence about me. Every time I was alone, I could hear memories of their voices, taunting me with what was gone for ever.’
‘You could find other ways to hide from your thoughts besides a tavern.’
‘Surely there are more important things for you to do than to spend your nights with dissolute people.’
‘No. I am fond of them—even Rose. Except when she gets a few drinks—she has the most vile mouth I’ve ever heard on a person.’
He stretched out on the pallet, clasped his hands behind his head, the muscles of his forearms showing in the darkness and a darker shadow under his arm.
He took in a deep breath.
‘We were in London,’ he spoke. ‘Nathan had wanted to ride in the coachman’s seat and I let him. But he stood and the horses bolted and he fell, hitting his head on the cobblestones. He died the next morning. Wednesday morning. My wife died on a Thursday night, two days before her twenty-fourth birthday. One day after she watched her son die.’
She heard the sound of his breath expelled. ‘I’d had the modiste make her a new ball gown, with ribbons to match Mary’s eyes. The dress arrived Friday morning when I was getting the box to bring Mary back home. Wednesday.’ He raised his fingers, tapping his thumb against a finger with each word. ‘Thursday. Friday.’
He pushed his fingers through his hair. ‘She hadn’t been able to sleep a moment since Nathan’s accident. I had the physician treat her. But the medicine made her ghastly ill and she couldn’t catch her breath. He gave her something to ease her breathing, but it only made it worse. Too much worse. She’d always been susceptible to fits of gasping for air, but this time, she couldn’t ever catch her breath.’
She shuddered. ‘When Mother died, I sent a maid to wake my stepfather’s valet so he could be told.’ She shrugged. ‘I didn’t hear from him until after his morning meal, when I heard the crash of him throwing her chair at the window. He was furious she’d left him.’ She met Brandt’s eyes. ‘He felt no grief, only fury. His wife had found a way to escape.’
Brandt spoke, his voice rigid. ‘He may have felt the sadness in a deep place he couldn’t show.’
She couldn’t let her stepfather be found innocent. ‘I would believe such grief of you, of almost anyone, but I saw what I saw and it wasn’t any kind of melancholy. He raged so many hours, but showed only a few moments of mourning, and those when callers arrived.’