A Heart So Wicked (The Dark Regency Series Book 6)

by Chasity Bowlin

  “Speak your peace, Lord Hadley,” Mrs. Hampton instructed. “I’ve wasted enough of my day on this nonsense already.”

  Chapter 9

  Kit was still trying to come to terms with the fact that he’d actually kept his word. He’d come to her cousin’s home to get her blessing. In doing so, he’d publicly proclaimed their relationship. He’d even defended her to Ned and to Patrice which she had not expected. How long had it been since anyone, other than Joseph, of course, had dared to defend her?

  “Are you agreeable to marrying this man, Katherine?” Patrice demanded.

  Kit opened her mouth to answer.

  “Think carefully, girl! If you say yes then you’re bound to it! You’ll find no succor in this house should you abandon your husband,” her cousin added before Kit could speak.

  If there had been any doubt, it was effectively staunched. “I am agreeable, cousin.”

  Patrice let out another heavy sigh and rolled her eyes heavenward. “Then you shall speak to the vicar and have the banns read this Sunday, Lord Hadley. You’ll be married two weeks after, as is custom. There is enough about this situation that is unorthodox already without adding to it with a hasty ceremony!”

  “Katherine will need a trousseau,” Lord Hadley stated. “And in the interim, she will not be worked to the point of exhaustion.”

  “You make a great deal of demands,” Patrice pointed out.

  “I can speak for myself,” Kit interrupted them. “I do need a trousseau and I will need at least two days to go into Birmingham and obtain appropriate clothing. Beyond that, everything in this house shall continue as it always has until we are married, my lord.”

  “And young Joseph will remain here with me,” Patrice stated.

  “Young Joseph,” Lord Hadley replied, each of them continuing as if she hadn’t spoken at all, “Will attend the school of his sister’s choosing, or he will reside with us at Rosedale Hall.”

  Patrice stood then, banging her walking stick against the floor. “I will not have that child living in that house with the evil that permeates its walls! If you send him to school, certainly I will grant my consent for it. But he will reside here or in the dormitories. Not ever in that house! Is that understood?”

  “You are not his guardian,” Kit pointed out to Patrice. “But I do intend for Joseph to go to Eton. Our father went there and it’s only right that he should attend, as well. His time at Rosedale Hall will be limited.”

  Patrice’s jaw tightened, her eyes narrowed, and the fury that washed over her at having her authority questioned was intimidating to behold. “Very well. Take him. In fact, both of you will leave tonight. I’ll not have either of you under my roof for a moment longer!” With that, the woman whirled and marched toward the door. There, she stopped and turned back to them for just a moment. “You’ll need one of the other servants to supervise your packing. I’d hate to have to bring you before the magistrate for thievery!”

  When she was gone, Kit let out a breath she hadn’t even been aware she was holding. “Well, that certainly ended poorly.”

  “Did you expect that it would end any other way?” Lord Hadley asked. “That is a woman who likes to control everyone and everything around her. You and I, Katherine, have one thing in common… neither of us likes to be controlled by anyone.”

  “I don’t know what to do. We’ve nowhere to go.”

  “We will go to Birmingham and get a Common License,” Lord Hadley replied. “I spoke to my solicitor this morning as I expected that we might encounter some difficulty from your cousin. We shall take your brother with us. No doubt his wardrobe is as deficient as yours.”

  “I still don’t understand why you’re doing this… clearly you have no need of the inheritance as you seem to be quite set on your own!” Kit protested. He confounded her.

  “I have funds, but they are limited. If I am to set Rosedale Hall to rights, it would take everything I currently possess and then some. But with the inheritance, I can restore the estate and still live comfortably until it is once again producing an adequate income,” he explained. “Go, pack your things and your brother’s. I will await you here.”

  Kit turned and headed for the door that her cousin had so recently made her grand exit from. There, she stopped and turned back to him. “I haven’t thanked you. I am grateful, my lord. Whatever happens between us and whatever becomes of me, I trust that you will do right by Joseph and for that I am very thankful.”

  The unreasonable anger that filled him at her mention of gratitude left him puzzled. Still, it was there. It angered him beyond reason that she should thank him. He didn’t want her gratitude. But that left him struggling to identify precisely what it was he did want from her. Fire, he thought. He wanted the fire he’d seen from her that first day in the woods, when she’d kicked him like a damned horse and then run away. He wanted her to lose any air of subservience and be as haughty and proud as she was born to be.

  She was still standing in the doorway, clearly wanting to ask a question but hesitating to do so. “What is it?” he demanded.

  “There’s a woman employed by my cousin. Vera Webb. I’d very much like to offer her a position at Rosedale Hall… as my maid if that’s possible or as a maid of all work if that’s all we can manage.”

  Malcolm nodded. “She’ll be a maid of all work until the place is livable but once we have the servants Lytton has requested from the agency in London, she’ll work strictly as your maid.”

  She ducked her head again and he could see the intense relief that filled her at his answer. Was it because she wanted to free the woman from her cousin or because she feared being alone with him without another ally? Did it matter, he thought?

  “You’d best hurry,” he said. “I don’t trust your cousin not to call for the magistrate anyway.”

  “Yes, my lord,” she said and rushed from the room.

  When he was alone, Malcolm rose and walked over to the large window that looked out over the fields and the woods. He could see the roofline of Rosedale Hall rising above the trees. A dozen fortunes had passed through his hands during his lifetime, one or two of them his own, and while he’d never gone entirely broke, he’d never managed to hang onto anything of significance. There had never been land or a home of his own in America that spoke to him the way that crumbling ruin of a manor did. From the moment he’d crossed the threshold he’d known it was meant to be his. It didn’t matter to him that it was inhabited by something he could not fully understand or explain.

  It would be his home. And Katherine Wexford would be his wife. Money was a fleeting thing, easily won and easily lost. But the kind of possessiveness he felt for Rosedale Hall and these strange proprietary feelings he had for Katherine were entirely new to him.

  Mrs. Hampton had stated that Cavendish was the man who’d ruined Katherine. He’d know the truth of it and he would know it from her lips.

  Kit was shaking as she entered her small room. Mrs. Farrelly was already there, waiting for her with her lips twisted into a hard, ugly line. “You’ll take nothing from this house that you didn’t enter with!” the housekeeper raised her fist in the air in a threatening gesture.

  “There is nothing in this house that I would wish to take with me beyond what I brought,” Kit snapped back. She was no longer required to bow and scrape to the termagant. “And you’ll not threaten me, Mrs. Farrelly. You may be a housekeeper to my cousin who is an esteemed member of this community… but after today, I’ll be Lady Hadley. You will do well to remember your place and mine!”

  Mrs. Farrelly glowered at her, but said nothing more. Instead, she perched in the corner of the room like a great, black crow to watch as Kit gathers all of their meager belongings. They no longer even had a valise to pack them in. She’d sold it. Taking one of her few remaining gowns, she formed a pack of sorts to tie everything up in. It was a sad testament to just how far they’d fallen that everything she and her brother owned between them could be tied up in one of her gowns.<
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  When it was done, she gathered the small bundle and stepped out into the hall. Vera stood there wide eyed and holding a bag of her own.

  “I said I’d go, and so here I am,” the other woman uttered. Her voice trembled a bit.

  Kit reached out and clasped her hand. “Will you collect Joseph from the stables and meet us out front?”

  “You’ll not come back here a-begging, Vera Webb!” Mrs. Farrelly shouted. “You’ve cast your lot and you’ll stay in that devil’s home or make your own in the streets! ’Tis where loose women like the two of you belong anyway!”

  Kit whirled on the housekeeper. “And where does a vicious, black hearted witch like you belong? Our sins may see us in hell, Mrs. Farrelly, but rest assured, you’ll burn beside us for having not a shred of charity or kindness in you!”

  The woman raised a hand to her chest and stepped back, as if the words themselves had somehow propelled her. Rather than give the vile wretch another moment to recover and counterattack, Kit spun on her heel and, with Vera’s hand clutched in hers, quickly made her way down the stairs. At the bottom, they parted—Vera to collect Joseph and Kit to once again face her betrothed.

  As she entered the drawing room, he turned from the window where he’d been staring out into the distance. His gaze raked over her, taking in the high color in her cheeks undoubtedly. She refused to be embarrassed when he glanced at the small bundle of her possessions. There was a flash of something in his eyes that might have been sympathy, but she refused to even acknowledge it.

  “Vera is fetching Joseph from the stables. They’ll meet us out front and then we can go.”

  “Where is your cloak?” he asked.

  “I only have my pelisse, my lord,” she replied. Her cloak had been one of the first garments she’d sold. Wool with an ermine lining, it had bought enough coal to supplement the meager supply from her cousin to get them through their first winter there.

  His frown deepened. “We will have to remedy that. It’s too cold to be without one.”

  It bothered her. No, she thought, it humiliated her. She’d tolerated the gossip and the lowering, menial tasks she’d committed at her cousin’s home under the watchful eyes of petty, vicious servants who gloried in her fall from grace. But his kindness toward her, his concern for her comfort when no one else had bothered to care in a very long time, made her want to weep. She needed her pride. It was the only thing that had kept her going, though she’d certainly had to swallow enough of it.

  “It isn’t necessary, my lord. My pelisse will do well enough,” she said firmly.

  He laughed. “I’ve seen your pelisse. It will not. But if it soothes your pride, I’m outfitting you for my own sake. I’ll not have people looking at my wife dressed in rags left from her youth and think it’s because I’m too tightfisted to see her dressed properly.”

  He didn’t care what anyone thought and they both knew it. Still, Kit appreciated his generously offered self-deprecation for the sake of her already tender ego. “Very well, then. I will have the new cloak. But I only need a few other gowns. I doubt we will be much in society, even by Lofton standards. Vera can help me make others.”

  “We will get what you need and what your brother needs. For now, we need to go. We’ll be lucky to reach Rosedale Hall before dark at this rate.”

  “I thought we were going to Birmingham?” Had he changed his mind?

  “Initially I had thought so too, but it’s begun to snow heavily. It would be too dangerous to attempt the journey in such conditions. We’ll go to Rosedale Hall for the night and if the roads are clear enough head for Birmingham in the morning.”

  She wanted to protest. It was not what they’d initially agreed to. Spending the night under his roof when they were not yet wed—well, her reputation was already completely ruined but that would be the proverbial nail in the coffin for it. Opening her mouth, she started to speak, but in truth there was nothing she could say.

  “Where else would you go, Katherine?” he asked gently, as if he’d plucked the thoughts right from her head.

  “There is no where else for us to go, my lord, as you well know.”

  “I will be more of a gentleman than any of the gentleman of your acquaintance have been,” he assured her.

  “Given that you’ve met Mr. Cavendish, you know that’s hardly comforting.”

  “Come, Katherine,” he said, holding out his hand to her. “Let’s collect your brother and your new maid and see if we can’t make Rosedale Hall habitable for us all for the night.”

  It wasn’t foreboding exactly, more a knowing. Kit felt in her bones that accepting his hand would change her life irrevocably. It was more than simply agreeing to marry him. It was placing her trust in him, a commodity missing in so many society marriages. But again, what choice did she have? Kit reached out reluctantly and placed her hand in his and allowed him to lead her from the house.

  Chapter 10

  As they approached Rosedale Hall, all of them crammed into the small gig with Joseph sitting half upon Katherine’s lap and half upon Vera’s. Malcolm imagined they made quite a sight, packed in as they were, and all of them shivering with the cold. It wasn’t simply snow that fell, but ice. The stinging pellets buffeting them made the narrow roads treacherous. The horse slipped numerous times, only just avoiding disaster as they finally eased the vehicle to a stop just in front of the manor.

  Lytton was there, opening the doors wide and ushering Joseph and the women inside. Battling the elements, Malcolm made his way to the stable to tend the horse and put the small vehicle away. He might have become a lord, but he was still seeing to his own needs just as he had when he’d been trapping furs in the wilds of America or earning his living at a card table. It seemed that his inheritance had changed little about his life thus far.

  Struggling back to the house, he entered through the kitchen where he found Vera heating water for tea. She had fared better than Katherine in the cold, as her clothing was more appropriate to the weather.

  “Where is she?” he asked.

  “Mr. Lytton has her in the study, my lord. The fire was already laid in there,” the maid answered with a bobbed curtsy.

  “Thank you, Vera,” he answered and left her staring after him in surprise. It wasn’t an uncommon thing to thank servants, according to Lytton. Apparently Mrs. Hampton had not felt the need to be so gracious to anyone in her employ.

  He could hear voices in the study, but they were most assuredly not Lytton. It was Katherine and her younger brother.

  “Why are we here, Kit?”

  Malcolm had been prepared to simply barge in to the room, but the boy’s softly uttered question stopped him in his tracks. He wanted to hear what was said between them. It might, he hoped, give him some insight into her because she was still an enigma to him.

  “Joseph, I told you last night that Lord Hadley had asked me to marry him and I accepted, but Cousin Patrice… well, she was quite upset by the whole thing. She insisted that we leave immediately.”

  Malcolm wondered at her reasons for not telling the boy of the true cause of their disagreement with Mrs. Hampton—that she’d insisted upon keeping Joseph with her. Perhaps it was because of the rumors about Rosedale’s ghostly inhabitants. It would simply create an opportunity for questions that she undoubtedly did not wish to answer.

  “Why would you marry him?” the boy demanded, his tone rising as he was clearly upset. “You don’t know him at all! It’s because of the window isn’t it? It’s my fault!”

  “No.” she answered firmly. “The window was simply the circumstance that brought Lord Hadley and I together… he is not forcing me into this, Joseph. He made an offer and I accepted it because it’s what’s best for all of us!”

  “And what does he get out of it?” the boy fired back angrily.

  Katherine was silent for a moment, then he could hear a soft laugh escape her. “Really, Joseph? Me! He gets me out of it!”

  “You know what I mean, Kit! We’re
poor. Our father killed himself, we haven’t a penny to our names and half the town calls you a—.” He stopped abruptly, cutting short what Malcolm could only imagine would have been a very hurtful statement.

  “They call me what?” she asked softly.

  The boy’s voice was soft, contrite when he replied. “It’s not true. We both know that. But they think it is and they’ll never let either of us stop paying for it.”

  “They will, Joseph… It’s much harder to bully someone when they have a title,” she replied briskly. “Now, run along to the kitchen and help Vera.”

  “Where’s the damned kitchen?”

  “Joseph! You’re not in Patrice’s stables anymore! You will watch your language, young man!”

  His muttered “yes, ma’am” was almost too faint to hear. Nonetheless, Malcolm stepped back from the door to allow the boy to pass. He ignored the vicious glare the boy tossed his way as he stomped down the corridor. It would take time and patience to bring him around. It would take time and patience to bring his bride around as well.

  With that thought foremost in mind, Malcolm knocked briefly and then entered the library where she sat before the fire. Her clothes were still damp from the mix of snow and rain that had pelted them on the ride home. Suggesting that she change would be pointless, as she would resist on principle. Instead, he moved toward the hearth and added another log to the fire.

  “You didn’t tell him that he could have stayed with Mrs. Hampton,” he said. “Why?”

  She glanced up at him through her lashes, her dark eyes suspicious. “Does it matter?”

  “No. But if you’ve a reason, I’d like to know, simply so that I don’t put my foot in it later on.”

  “Oh,” she said. “He takes so much on himself… and I fear that he thinks he is a burden to me. I didn’t want him to think staying with Patrice was an option that might free me from the responsibility of him. He cares too much for what others think of us and their opinions have colored his vision of our situation too much already.”