What a Woman Desires

by Rachel Brimble

  Cecil reached beneath the counter and brought out a leather-bound ledger and pencil. He noted down the purchases and met Thomas’s eyes once more. “So what you going to do if Miss Monica does come back?”

  Thomas stilled. “What do you mean?”

  Cecil grinned. “You can stand there glaring and spitting sawdust as much as you want. You were sweet on her from the moment you started working for the Danes family until the day she left. I remember you skulking and scowling about the village when that beau of hers started calling, all puffed up like he had the right to court any woman he saw fit.”

  Thomas shook his head and snatched the bullets from the counter. “I’ve no idea who you’re talking about.”

  “Surprised she didn’t marry him, the way Mrs. Danes used to boast about their nuptials. What went wrong there? Do you know?”

  Revulsion swept through Thomas on a hot wave as the image of Malcolm Baxter filled his mind’s eye. “How the hell should I know? I’ve got no idea what crawled into your ear and started eating your brain, Cecil, but you’re way off the mark. Monica Danes has always had her nose so far in the air she wouldn’t notice the likes of me unless it was to help her get on her damn horse.” Thomas swung the ax onto his shoulder and glared. “And for God’s sake, take that stupid smile off your face before I do it for you.”

  Spinning around, Thomas headed for the door, letting it slam shut on Cecil’s laughter.

  Muttering under his breath about old men and their stupidity, Thomas approached Jake and patted the horse’s neck. “Cecil Carpenter is nothing but a jackass, Jake. A big, hairy-eared jackass.”

  Walking to the horse’s flank, Thomas slid the ax through the loops on a carrier attached to the saddle and shoved the bullets into the saddlebag. Tensions had always run at 110 degrees between him and Monica Danes, but they weren’t of the loving kind. Her and her sister had been brought up with privileges Thomas and his younger sister could only dream of. Mr. Danes owned more land in Biddestone and the surrounding countryside than any other man in the village—including Mr. Danes’s father and grandfather before him. Monica knew absolutely nothing about hardship or responsibility.

  He untied the reins from the hitching rail. If he ever saw fit to settle down with a woman and propose marriage, it would be with a strong lass willing to work side by side with him to build a good life for them and their children. Monica Danes would never be that kind of woman.

  Scowling, Thomas swung onto his horse and with a click of his tongue, walked Jake on. Barely glancing at the group of young ladies smiling his way, dipping their heads and lashes, Thomas cussed at the world and headed out of town. The rumors around Biddestone were that Mr. Danes had cut Monica off without a penny when she refused to come back from Bath, but what did that prove? He was pretty sure there would’ve been some financial handouts to her. How could a girl used to money survive alone otherwise?

  The society papers claimed Monica was now Bath’s darling. Well, if she came back and saw the decline in her mother, the house, and her sister, her acting career would mean nothing. She’d need to get her hands dirty, or else her inheritance was likely to go down the drain before the millennium rolled around.

  Marksville House and its land was his family’s livelihood, but whether Monica appreciated that, and would do as much for Thomas and his family as her father had, remained to be seen. He had a horrible feeling she would want rid of it. No doubt toss her mother and sister out onto the dirt track without as much as a backward glance, if it suited her.

  Then why did you see her cry so often? Why did you find her in the stable that summer holding her hands to her face? And when you coaxed her to drop them, the look in her eyes was enough for you to risk everything for a single kiss? A kiss she returned with more passion than you have ever felt in another kiss before or since?

  Cursing, he dug his heels in again and Jake stepped up into a canter. Thomas rode out of the village and into the country lanes. Needing speed in order to vent his frustration, he steered Jake into the open fields that would ultimately lead to Marksville House. Urging the horse into a gallop, the fresh air whipped through Thomas’s body, opening his lungs and cooling his racing heart.

  Chapter 2

  Three days later, Monica heaved the last of her and Stephanie’s suitcases onto the gig and planted her hands on her hips. The July sky was azure blue and empty of even the smallest cloud. By her reckoning, they would reach Biddestone before nightfall if the weather stayed as it was. Her letter to Jane advising of their expected arrival time should’ve reached Marksville yesterday.

  Not that Monica expected a nicer welcome if her mother and sister had a month’s warning rather than a few days. She drew in a shaky breath. No doubt Mama is dreading my coming as much as I am returning. The best I can hope for is a quiet, if cold, greeting. Monica clenched her jaw. Even that would be preferable to a loud and heated reprimand from Mama’s acid tongue, telling me everything I did wrong before and after I took permanent residence in Bath.

  A shuffle behind her jolted Monica from her thoughts and she turned. Stephanie held out two folded blankets. “Just in case it turns colder as the sun sets.”

  Monica forced her shoulders to relax and smiled. “Good idea. God willing the journey will be straightforward and we’ll make good time, but we’ll have to see.” She took the blankets and trod upon the step of the phaeton, flicking out the blankets for her and Stephanie to sit on. “We will be very squeezed, I fear, and most likely have to stop a while so Wilson can have a rest and drink.” She turned and dropped onto the cobbles. She raised her eyebrows. “Are we ready?”

  Stephanie glanced behind the phaeton seat, her gaze lingering on one suitcase in particular. “I’m so sorry your father has died, Monica. I know you didn’t—”

  “Well, what is done is done. The mourning clothes are packed and we’ll be wearing them soon enough.” She inhaled. “We need to make the most of this journey and be in the best spirits possible. Lord knows, when we get to the house we’ll be thrown into a strict regime of propriety over feelings soon enough.”

  “And you’re certain you wouldn’t prefer to take the train?”

  “Absolutely. I need Wilson and some modicum of independence once I get home. If I have no means of transportation on top of everything else that will be out of my reach . . .” Monica smiled softly and slumped her shoulders. “Come now, maybe things won’t be as bad as I fear.”

  Stephanie glanced a second time toward the case containing their mourning clothes. “Do you not think we should have worn the clothes to arrive? I’m concerned about your mother’s reaction.”

  “Let me worry about that.” Monica took a deep breath and forced a smile. “Are we ready?”

  “I’ll just lock the front door.”

  Monica stared at Stephanie’s turned back. No matter how much Monica might dread going home, she would see it through to whatever end materialized. There was no other choice. Her heart chilled when she thought of her mother, but she would not leave Jane to deal with her alone and risk tainting her sister’s heart as their mother had Monica’s.

  Pulling herself up into the driver’s seat, she reached along its side to check for the presence of her rifle for the umpteenth time since she’d stored it there an hour before. Her fingers touched the cold metal and Monica released her held breath, satisfied all was well.

  She glanced over her shoulder at Stephanie to check she was duly occupied. Seeing that she was, Monica slipped her hand under a small shelf beneath Stephanie’s seat. Again, the touch of cold metal reassured and comforted. Stephanie abhorred the small hand pistol Monica insisted she learn how to shoot, but it would be with them at all times regardless. Their journey exposed them to risks that were terrifying if Monica dwelled on them long enough.

  Choosing not to take the train wasn’t just about her independence. She enjoyed her localized fame and didn’t want her career ruined by gossip and speculation. Sooner or later, the public would learn of her sudden ab
sence, but at least by then she’d be in Biddestone where no one would find her. Not that it would stop the papers from writing their fiction, but the longer she could delay their tittle-tattle, the better.

  The carriage swayed as Stephanie boarded from the other side. She clasped Monica’s hand, her pretty green eyes shining. “All will be well. We are prepared for this. We’ve made ourselves prepared. We are not the same women who left Biddestone five years ago. We are nothing like those women, and our capability to take this trip alone will prove it.”

  Monica smiled, noticing the tremor in Stephanie’s voice despite the fervor of her words. “We’re my mother’s worst nightmare.” She laughed. “Women who are self-sufficient, live alone, rent property, own a phaeton and horse? My Lord, she will no doubt collapse in a dead faint as soon as she discovers the truth of our circumstances.”

  Stephanie smiled. “Better she passes the time unconscious than filling your mind with nonsense.” She released Monica’s hand and faced front. “Onward, driver.”

  Monica laughed again and with a final glance at the house, snapped the reins against Wilson’s rump. With each mile they traveled across town, the more Monica’s heartbeat steadied and the more determined she grew that the trip home would at least provide a teaching to take back to Bath.

  Positivity could be found in every situation, and this one would prove no different. She lifted her chin. It was a case of looking for God’s guidance in your life’s lessons, rather than fearing the path itself.

  As the smart architecture and regimented lines of residences diminished, the sun shone brighter across the emerging fields, highlighting the grazing cows and sheep in the pastures either side of the rutted lane they traveled. She and Stephanie jolted back and forth upon the hardened, sunbaked mud.

  When they hit a particularly bad rut and the carriage jerked violently to one side, Stephanie let out a cry and Monica gritted her teeth, drawing on every skill she had as a horsewoman—which didn’t feel nearly as accomplished as it had when she’d driven herself through the less arbitrary streets of Bath.

  She glanced at Stephanie and pulled tighter on the reins. “Don’t even think about faltering at this early stage, my fellow adventurer. We have several miles to go before we get to Biddestone, let alone the house.”

  “Don’t you fret about me. It’s you and your handling of Wilson that matters.” Stephanie glanced ahead. “I assume these roads will get worse before they get better?”

  Monica steered the horse on. “Yes, but it’s not that which concerns me.” She exhaled. “We need to be on our guard as the lanes become more remote once when we pass through Biddestone and out to the other side. Trouble more often than not comes in the form of poverty, and these lanes are often lined with men and women willing to do anything to feed their families.”

  “And your insistence we arm ourselves begins to make sense.”

  “It’s just a precaution, nothing more.” Monica inched to the side, and when the rifle nudged her knee, her breathing relaxed a little. “The irony is, when I paid a man to teach me to shoot it was for an entirely different reason than preparing to travel alone.”

  “Malcolm Baxter?”

  Monica glanced at her trusted and most beloved friend. “Has there ever been anyone else from whom I feared for my life? Malcolm has played a bigger part in my independence than he’ll ever realize.” She smiled and tipped Stephanie a wink in a bid to calm her clearly increasing fears. “And the thought of him discovering as much fills me with immeasurable happiness.”

  Stephanie shook her head, her eyes clouded with worry but a smile twitching her lips. “You are wicked to gloat so when the man is where he is.”

  “He’s exactly where he belongs.” Monica snapped the reins in a bid to move Wilson on as fast as she dared to push him.

  Time was passing and it was imperative they reached the little village of Biddestone as close to dusk as possible. That way they would be near Marksville before nightfall and their musings of potential danger would be nothing more than a memory.

  The hairs on the back of Thomas’s nape prickled. Something was wrong. He stared around the stables at the back of Marksville House and narrowed his eyes as he gauged his surroundings. He moved along the four stalls. Each of his late master’s horses was bedded down for the night, their nets full of hay and their water troughs filled. Yet, still he glanced uneasily toward the open stable door.

  The day’s sun was setting and its weakening rays cut a faint path of light from the door to where he stood. Duly beckoned outside, Thomas strolled through the double wooden doors and pulled them firmly shut behind him. Clenching his jaw, he slid a bar into its iron brackets, securing the horses inside for the night. He stood still and waited for the foreboding stealing up his spine to subside. It only grew stronger.

  He turned around and frowned. Although Jake stood in the same position Thomas had left him over an hour before, he now shook his head and lifted his hooves upon the ground, disturbing and shifting the dirt.

  The way his devoted horse’s flanks tightened and relaxed hitched Thomas’s unease up another notch. He glanced toward the house. Maybe it would best if he checked on Mrs. Danes and Miss Jane one more time before he turned in for the night.

  “Come on, boy. There’s no harm in taking a look.”

  Untying Jake, Thomas walked him from the small courtyard to the back of the house. Just as he’d secured the horse to a branch of the ancient apple tree outside the kitchen windows, Mrs. Seton, the family’s cook, came lumbering through the door, her cheeks aflame and her arms moving like pistons at her sides.

  Thomas inwardly grimaced and halted. When Mrs. Seton wore the kind of anger she had on her face right then, everyone was best prepared to be verbally battered and left out to dry. He pulled back his shoulders and touched a finger to the brim of his hat. “Everything all right, Mrs. Seton?”

  She started and glared. “All right? No, everything is not all right, Thomas Ashby. Miss Jane has just informed me Miss Monica is due any moment. Any moment! Yesterday she said she’d be here tomorrow morning at the earliest.”

  Thomas’s stomach tightened and he glanced past her toward the house. “Is that right?” Trepidation at seeing Monica flowed through his blood, turning it red hot. Whether from anger at her selfish absence or dread at seeing a woman he once thought he might love, he couldn’t be certain. He cleared his throat. “Well, I’m about finished for the day, so I’ll leave—”

  “That’s it? That’s all you have to say?” Mrs. Seton’s eyes widened. “Well, that’s just wonderful. You go ahead and get your head down for the night while I try to bake up some bread, chop and dice vegetables for the soup Miss Jane has just requested, bring bacon from the larder . . . My God, you all think these things happen on a whim and a wish.”

  “I’m not someone you want in the kitchen, you know that. The only time I should be near food is if I’m eating it. I’ve been told enough times by my ma that I’m more of a hindrance than a help in that department.”

  Mrs. Seton opened her mouth to say more when Jane Danes came through the kitchen door, her skirts clutched in her hand and her cheeks flushed as though she’d run clean through the house. “Thomas, oh thank goodness you haven’t left yet.”

  Thomas strode forward. “Is there something I can help you with, Miss Jane?”

  She clutched his bicep and then immediately snatched her hand away as though realizing what she’d done. “It’s Monica. She’s in trouble, I just know it. She needs help and I can’t possibly leave Mother. You have to go to her, Thomas. Please.”

  His heart picked up speed and his blood heated at the severity of her implication, and the fact he felt something amiss too. How could he have not known his unease was about Monica? He forced his expression to remain somber. He could not allow Miss Jane to veer into a bout of hysteria. “I’m sure—”

  “I keep imagining a gun. No, a rifle and Monica . . .” She closed her eyes. “She’s pointing it at someone and her
eyes are raging with murder. What if she kills someone? Or they kill her? It makes no sense that she should have a gun, but—”

  “Neither of us knows her anymore.” Thomas stared out toward the gates at the end of the enormous back garden that led to a dirt track into the village.

  “You sound as though Monica could’ve turned into an outlaw since being in Bath rather than a famed actress.”

  He snapped his gaze back to Miss Jane’s. “I won’t make any judgments about anything until I see Miss Monica for myself.”

  Her eyes darkened and she planted her hands on her hips. “What is that supposed to mean?”

  Cursing his stupidity at such a blatant and somewhat impolite revelation of his lingering passions, Thomas turned away. “Nothing. I’ll grab my gun and make my way into town. I’m sure your imaginings are nothing more than your mind playing tricks and Miss Monica is holed up in a fancy coach making her way along the track. I’ll find her and bring her back safely. I promise.”

  Her shoulders slumped and she smiled. “That’s all I ask. I need her here. I can’t do everything on my own anymore. I’m so tired.”

  He nodded, and she smiled at him and Mrs. Seton before lifting her skirts and fleeing back inside the house.

  “Humph. Everything on her own, indeed.” Mrs. Seton glared at the open kitchen door. “She speaks as though you and I sit on our asses all the day long.”

  Thomas smiled even as every nerve in his body screamed with impatience to get out of there and onto the road. As much as he dreaded seeing Monica, if she was in the slightest danger, his misgivings did not matter. He would not leave her alone to fight whatever—or whoever—might hurt her.

  He waved his hand. “Pay her no mind. She’s grieving and with no idea what happens next, that’s all. I’d better go and see if I can meet Miss Monica on the way.”

  “You don’t think there’s any truth in what Miss Jane said?”