“Fine,” he agreed, though his tone was morose. He did more chores than most boys, Kit reflected. He had little time to play and she’d allowed herself to grow lax about his studies. But they had no money for a tutor and asking Patrice to provide one would only result in conversations about the workhouse. Attending school in the village was impossible as whenever he did go, the kind of trouble that led to bruises and black eyes always seemed to find him. Too many people had reveled in their epic fall from grace. They had lost their home, their fortune and now existed in less than poverty, scraping by on the thin, grudging charity of a woman who was cold at best and cruel more often than not. And to add insult to injury, all of this occurred with in full view of the people her mother had once snubbed. Kit knew that it wasn’t the worst possible thing that could have happened to them, but at times it certainly felt like it.
“How did Papa die?” Joseph asked thoughtfully, batting at dried grass with a heavy stick as they strolled past the home that had once been theirs.
“He fell and struck his head,” Kit answered. There was no need to tell him the truth. She didn’t doubt that Joseph was perfectly aware of the circumstances that had left them orphaned. There was simply no way that the people of Lofton on Wick would have allowed that juicy morsel to pass them by. Their father had committed suicide after he lost his fortune and left his children to fend for themselves.
“Did we live in a house like this then?” he asked, pointing toward the empty manor house.
“Not quite. We had a townhouse in London, so it was taller and narrower… but large and spacious inside. It was very fine,” Kit replied evenly, trying not to let her own misery seep into her voice. The Wexford townhouse and the genteel life they’d led there seemed to be a million miles away. Her life, before scandal and poverty, had been a blissful dream she could only appreciate now that it was gone. Reading whatever she chose from the library, bemoaning music and dancing lessons, protesting because she didn’t want to paint another watercolor or embroider another pillow, debating endlessly which party or ball to attend. Now she spent her days cooking, drawing baths for her cousin, scrubbing floors and mending clothes finer than she could ever hope to wear again. She hadn’t time to be bored and if she did complain about her lot, there was no one to hear her who wasn’t in the very same pickle she was.
“I hate living in that house!” he said, “And I hate Cousin Patrice! And I hate that dark little room she’s put us in! It’s too small. It’s always cold. The roof leaks and the chimney smokes and you can’t even take a piss without everyone knowing it!”
“Joseph Selby Wexford, you will not speak that way!” Kit knew she was all but shouting, but no matter how far they’d fallen, she would not allow him to forget that he’d been born a gentleman. “We may live in a more common way now, but that does not make us common people. You will not speak that way ever again. Is that understood?”
“Then I hate this house!” he shouted back. “I hate it because it sits there empty while we’re miserable – hungry and cold all the time! We’re no more than slaves!”
Kit had no idea where the anger was coming from, only that Joseph seemed to have suddenly been overtaken by the misery of their lives. He didn’t really understand or remember their life before and she’d thought that might spare him some of the pain. It was a struggle for her every day not to let the bitterness and regret seep out of her in just the way it was now bubbling out of him. Before she could stop him, he stooped and picked up a large stone. With a strength and accuracy that surprised her, he sent it sailing toward the house. It landed against the plate glass window that should have been boarded up.
As the glass shattered, Kit wondered at that. All of the windows had been boarded, but now a good portion of them were uncovered. She had grown so used to the house in its abandoned state that she hadn’t truly looked at it until that moment to note the change.
As if in response to her vague musings, a light suddenly flared inside. The house was not uninhabited after all. That thought brought a dozen horrifying emotions whirling to life inside her. Had the Hadley family returned to take up residence there after all these years? Immediately, she dismissed that thought. The last Lord Hadley had died without issue and the trustees of the estate had been searching for an heir for decades, since long before she was born. It was highly unlikely that they’d finally found one. It was probably a much more simple explanation that the trustees had let the house. And that meant that they were trespassing and that Joseph had just destroyed their property, whomever it was.
“Joseph,” she said, “Run! Run back to the house now and let me deal with this!”
He squared his thin shoulders and lifted his chin. “I’m a man, aren’t I? I’ll not be a coward and leave you to whatever fate I’ve courted!”
She didn’t roll her eyes though the urge was strong. He was a boy with a man’s pride and wounding it would do neither of them any good. Instead, she cupped his cheek and pressed a kiss to his forehead. “You’re not a man. Not yet, though you’re far closer than I like to admit. Please, Joseph, just go! You head toward the village and I’ll lead him the other direction!”
“Kit—.”
“Joseph, I can handle this! I’ll be along shortly. I’ll simply tell whoever it is that it was a terrible accident.”
His face crumpled. “But it wasn’t. I did it!”
The door to Rosedale Hall was opening and Kit knew they’d run out of time. “Go! Go now!” she ordered.
Chapter 2
Kit watched Joseph as he made his escape. He ran to the edge of the woods and then turned to look back at her. She waved him off and then he vanished, just as a dark, cloaked figure strode through the front door and moved toward her with a menace she’d only seen once before. Years earlier, she’d been invited to see Lord Bamford’s menagerie while in London. She could easily recall the pacing of the panther in its cage. The man who now moved toward her reminded her a great deal of that beast. So much so that she took an involuntary step backward.
Another memory crept forward in her mind. Two of the other young women present had squealed and drawn back from the caged animal, prompting it to charge at them, to reach its large, wickedly clawed paw through the bars to swipe at them. The rough spoken man who’d handled the animals for Bamford had warned them not to show fear, that it only heightened the animal’s predatory instincts. With that in mind, Kit squared her shoulders and forced herself to stand her ground on knees that trembled.
When he neared the gate, her courage failed her. He was large, intimidating, and she was alone. It was as if she’d woken up from a dream. Remembering that she was supposed to run, to lead him away from Joseph, Kit found the strength to force her limbs to move. She took off, heading toward the woods in a different direction than the one Joseph had taken. She didn’t think for a moment that she’d outrun him. If he chose to pursue her, he would catch her. She could only hope that she’d buy enough time for Joseph to be well away.
As she entered the woods, she could hear his footsteps behind her and they were far closer than she would have liked. Ducking between the trees and beneath low hanging branches, she hoped that would at least slow him down.
“Stop!”
His voice boomed out, the limbs near her rattling with the force of it, or so it seemed. Kit ignored the directive and kept moving. The distance between them was actually growing she realized. Her strategy, ill thought out as it was, of using his height against him in the narrow confines of the woods was actually working.
No sooner had the thought occurred to her than the unthinkable happened. Her toe caught on a root. She tripped, nearly righted herself, but then slipped in a patch of melting, mud speckled snow and tumbled forward. It seemed as if the ground was rushing toward her rather than she toward it. Putting her hands out to break her fall, she braced for the impact. It never came.
Instead, a pair of strong arms snagged about her waist and tugged her up and back. The momentum was too much for he
r rescuer, however, and rather than upright, he wound up on the ground and she, much to her mortification, wound up atop him. It might not have been so humiliating had he not let out a great ‘oomph’ at the force of the impact.
One would think that as miserly as her cousin often was with food that Kit’s figure might have trimmed significantly while living in her household. Her would-be captor and now rescuer would clearly be able to differ on that score.
Kit scrambled away from him quickly, squirming to get off his lap and to be free of him before he regained his faculties. If nothing else, perhaps her excess weight might have finally served some purpose in her life and knocked him senseless. But alas, it was not to be. Before she’d even made it fully to her feet, he’d snagged her wrist, one of his large hands closing over it with a bruising grip that she had no hope of escaping. As his hand tightened further, she let out a soft cry of pain. Instantly, his hold gentled, but remained firm and unbreakable.
“If you struggle,” he warned, his voice a deep growl, and his accent was distinctly American, “You will only injure yourself.”
“And I’m to trust then that meekly accepting the yoke of your captivity will spare me?” she snapped back at him.
The hood of his cloak had fallen back, revealing a shock of dark hair and heavy whiskers that concealed a good portion of his face. But they did not conceal his eyes which narrowed and glittered with anger. “You’ve a sharp tongue. I daresay you can do as much damage with it as you can with the stones you put through my window!”
“Stone!” Kit corrected. “There was only the one.”
He smiled then, the dark and heavy beard parting to reveal gleaming white teeth. “So there was… Thank you for the confession.”
He’d tricked her, Kit realized, and she’d fallen for it completely. “Yes, I broke your window! It was an accident. I will happily pay for the damages.” Of course, she had no notion of how she’d pay for them. She hadn’t two pence pieces to rub together and even if she managed to scrape together enough to pay for the window, she’d have to explain to her cousin why she needed to go into Birmingham to sell everything they had left to a pawnbroker. Anything but that, she prayed, anything but that woman’s cold, disapproving gaze sweeping her from head to toe and reminding her of all the ways she’d failed.
Kit felt his gaze roam over her, taking in her worn clothes and the patched hem of her dress. Her boots were so old that they couldn’t even be resoled anymore. The leather itself was beginning to wear through.
His snort of derision enraged her. “It wasn’t an offer intended to amuse, sir! Unhand me!”
He laughed outright then. “Oh, it’s quite amusing from my vantage point. You haven’t got a penny to your name! How the devil will you pay for the damages to a double paned window in a house such as Rosedale Hall?”
Kit was about to tell him, but then she saw something flicker in his gaze. Then his eyes traveled from her face, down to her bosom which tested the already strained seams of her pelisse. The garment had been made for her when she was still little more than a girl, and try as she might, there was only so much that could be done to make it accommodate a woman’s figure. But the heated look from him, the carnality of it, might have been lost on some women. Fortunately for her, being utterly ruined meant she wasn’t in complete ignorance of what had crossed his mind. Awareness did not equal amenability, however.
“Unhand me!” she demanded.
“You’ll run,” he protested.
Of course, she would. “Unhand me or I’ll scream!” she threatened.
“Go ahead… You’ve run to an isolated section of woods where there isn’t a cottage for miles and no one to hear it,” he said with a smile. “Scream all you like, but I’ll be damned if I mean to chase you down again.”
It wasn’t the fact that they were at an impasse that prompted Kit’s actions. It was the slight frisson of fear that had crept over her when he reminded her that they were alone and she was completely vulnerable. Lifting her foot, she brought it down hard on his shin. Abruptly, he let her go as he cursed mightily. Had she not been so intent on escape she might actually have been impressed with his unique vocabulary.
While he cupped his injured leg, Kit turned and ran as her life depended on it. It might very well, she reasoned. She knew nothing of him. While it was true that he hadn’t tried to harm her physically, Kit knew only too well that many men hid their poisonous natures beneath a charming smile or a guise of gentlemanly behavior. She wasn’t about to be fooled again
Chapter 3
Lying on the cold ground, cursing his own high handed ways and his idiocy in spooking the girl, Malcolm closed his eyes. By god, he thought, she kicked like a mule. He grinned in spite of the agony of his bruised shin and his bruised pride. She’d put him flat on his ass twice. Getting to his feet, he was proud of himself for not limping though it stung like the devil.
Carefully, he made his way back to Rosedale Hall. It wasn’t the window, and having chased her down, he knew full well she wasn’t the culprit. If she’d been capable of throwing a rock far enough to break a window, she’d have thrown one and bashed his head in right there in the woods. No, she’d clearly been covering for someone else and he meant to find out who. But first he’d need to find out who she was and why a woman who had clearly been raised as a lady was dressed in little better than rags. There was a story there, and if there was one thing he dearly loved, it was unraveling a mystery.
When he reached Rosedale Hall, he entered through the front door which he’d left ajar, but that was now firmly closed. Lytton had gone into Birmingham to hire servants and obtain supplies. He would not be back until the following morning. It could have been the wind, he thought, but he knew it hadn’t been. In the few days they’d been in residence at Rosedale Hall, there’d been any number of strange incidents. Mooney had been quite upfront about the presence of spirits.
The woman was temporarily forgotten. There were mysteries enough inside the walls of his new home to keep him occupied for some time. He wouldn’t say that he didn’t believe in ghosts. There’d been too many things in his life that defied explanation for him to ever completely dismiss the possibility, but he was a reasonable man, and it there was something other than spirits to be blamed for the strange goings on at Rosedale, he’d damned well find out. And if not, well, then he’d figure out what to do about the other.
“If you’re here,” he called out, “Show yourself! Don’t be a damned coward!”
In the upper floor of the house, he heard a door slam. It wasn’t the first time. He also knew that by the time he reached the second and third floor every door would be standing wide open, daring him to enter. That didn’t stop him though. He climbed the stairs two at a time until he reached the upper floor. The faint scent of roses hit him then. He’d smelled it before in the house, and in those times when he hadn’t been able to convince himself that the presence he felt wasn’t real, it had seemed feminine to him.
To hell with it, Malcolm decided. Between the wild hellcat in the woods and the banshees or ghosts inhabiting his house, the fairer sex could all go straight to hell, especially the already dead ones. He needed a drink and he needed to put his damn leg up before he went lame from being kicked by a hellion of a girl who dressed like a pauper and spoke like a queen.
Servants, he reminded himself as he made his way down the stairs. He needed servants. He could only pray that Lytton would be successful in obtaining them beyond the confines of the village as their inquiries at the local inn had been met with laughter and immediate dismissal. Perhaps, he thought, with a houseful of people, slamming doors and strange noises wouldn’t seem quite so menacing.
In the meantime, he’d turn his attention to unraveling the other mystery that had presented itself to him. He needed to know who she was, and gossip flowed freely when ale did. He’d purchase a few rounds at the local tavern and find out what he needed to about his mystery woman. Going into town and socializing with the locals did no
t appeal to him, but if it afforded him some opportunities to inquire about a genteelly impoverished young woman with a wealth of dark hair and a pair of breasts that could make him forget his own name, so be it.
Once in his study, the room still shrouded with Holland cloths and a heavy layer of dust, Malcolm seated himself at his desk. It and the bed in the master suite were the only pieces of furniture he’d bothered to uncover since his arrival. Lytton had worked in a few other rooms, but Malcolm had yet to inspect them. He’d focused instead on touring the tenant farms and discovering what tasks on the estate needed to be attended to first.
Looking around at the once grand room, he vowed that it would be restored. For most of his life, he’d been too poor to afford anything more than a pallet on a floor with a thin blanket for warmth. Now he sat there in his once fine country estate, literally a lord of the manor. Through some strange circumstance of birth and a series of unfortunate tragedies befalling distant and unknown relatives, he found himself in possession of a title. Malcolm Bryant, Lord Hadley of Rosedale Hall. He chuckled as he retrieved a bottle of brandy from the desk drawer. What a mouthful that was! And with his quaint colonial manners, as one fine lady in London had put it, he’d be bound to set any local society that entertained him on its ear.
After a health swig of the brandy, his grin broadened. Maybe that was the way to find his rag-clad queen. He’d become the toast of the local gentry and she’d have to turn up sooner or later.
Kit slipped through the kitchen door of her aunt’s home and ignored the suspicious whispers of the maids and the glare of the stone faced housekeeper.
“Where have you been?” Mrs. Farrelly demanded, eyeing Kit’s muddy skirt with disapproval.
A Heart So Wicked (The Dark Regency Series Book 6) Page 2