by Danice Allen
For a small lass, she molded the dough with considerable power. Slap, slap, pound, pound … roll, knead, and turn. Slap, slap, pound, pound… roll, knead, and turn. Very rhythmic, she was.
“What can you be thinking of, Kate, to put such energy into your kneading?”
She looked up, a smile instantly lighting her face. There was flour on her chin and on the eyelashes of her right eye. “I was thinkin’ of you, Wickham, and how I’d like t’ slap some sense into ye.”
“My, how domestic you sound! Just like a wife!”
She made a pout. “I am a wife. And I begin t’ wish I could see me Douglas.”
Zach walked to the table and began to idly trace letters in the flour. “I thought we agreed that it would be best if you waited till after the babies were born. Then he’d be invited here to see you—provided he’s sober and Charlie stands guard during the interview—whereupon you’d deliver him an ultimatum. He must sober up, or you won’t go back to him.”
“Aye, but how’s he t’ do it on ’is own? He needs help, Wickham, just like I did when I first come here. Who’s goin’ t’ help me Douglas?”
Kate’s voice shook with emotion. Zach looked up and saw the tears in her eyes, ready to fall. She started to reach for the apron hem to wipe them away, but he pulled out his clean handkerchief and gave it to her. “Here. You’ll get flour in your eyes if you use that apron.”
She dabbed her eyes and stuffed away the handkerchief in her pocket, to be laundered, pressed, and returned at a later date. Besides, she might need it again. As Zach had learned over the years, pregnant women were apt to be emotional. “Well, Wickham, what d’ ye say?” she prompted, resuming her vigorous kneading. “Ye said ye’d think about it. Have ye reckoned a way t’ help me Douglas? Is there such a place like this in Edinburgh where Douglas could go?”
“I’ve looked into the matter and have come to only one conclusion. It’s against my usual policies,” Zach began, having also returned to his previous employment—tracing letters in the flour. “But perhaps we could bring him… here.”
“What?” Kate stopped kneading, a disbelieving frown lining her usually smooth forehead. “Here, Wickham? But ye said the shelter was’na meant fer men, jest fer women. Ye said—”
“Yes, I know what I said. Mind you, we’d only be able to keep him here through the first bad days. From the start he’d have to fully understand how wretched and miserable he’s going to feel while he goes through withdrawal, then he’d have to consent to giving himself completely into our care and under our authority, enduring whatever we are forced to do to keep him from drinking.
“We’d have to lock him in a room for a time, and Charlie and Blake would be the only people allowed in to bring him food, clean up his sick messes, and all, because I’ve no doubt he’ll grow rather desperate and wild. It will be a disturbance to the other women, but Blake and I will have a chat with them and ask them to tolerate the situation for your sake. You’ve made friends here, Kate. They’ll support you.”
He looked up again, but this time the tears weren’t just standing in Kate’s eyes, they were streaming down her face, making wet stripes in the light film of flour on her cheeks. Zach smiled. “Don’t say I’ve left you speechless for once?”
“Why, Wickham?” she asked him in a hoarse whisper. “Why are ye bein’ so good t’ me?”
“Do I have to have a reason? I care about you.” He felt a bittersweet rush of memory. And you remind me of someone I used to know.
“Oh, Wickham! Thank you! Thank you so much!” Kate skipped around the table and flung herself into Zach’s arms, squeezing her large stomach between them. Because of that very prominent part of her anatomy, she couldn’t get quite close enough for a satisfactory hug. Her hands barely met behind his neck. She couldn’t rest her cheek against his waistcoat, so made do, instead, with pressing the kerchiefed crown of her head against him. It was a laughable, touching moment that culminated when one of the twins decided to object to being crowded in such a manner, and gave Kate a stout kick in the ribs.
Zach also felt the movement of the unborn child, stirring up all sorts of yearnings. He wanted to get Gabby with child, as big in incipient pregnancy as Kate was. Bursting with child. His child.
Despite the uncomfortable treatment of her ribs, Kate continued in good spirits and was full of conversation as she fixed a late breakfast for Zach and got all the bread dough in pans, covered and set out near the fire to rise. Mrs. Stark and some of the women came in and out, and Zach asked them about themselves and listened to what they said, occasionally throwing in a word of praise or encouragement. An hour and a half passed in this manner, and Zach was just about to bring up his own concerns when Charlie once again entered the kitchen. He held out a scrolled-up square of dirty parchment, tied with a bit of string.
“What’s this, Charlie? Something for me?” Zach took the odd-looking missive and undid the string, shaking out the parchment so it could be read. “Did it come just now?”
Charlie nodded.
“Who brought it?”
Charlie indicated the size of the messenger by lowering a hand to the height of his hip.
“A child who was paid a penny to run it up the stairs, I expect.” Zach bent to the task of perusing the note, which would have been difficult to read even if the paper it was written on had been clean and of better quality, because the writing and grammar were crude, the ink uneven and blotched. But the manner in which it was written become unimportant as Zach deciphered the substance of the message. He felt the blood drain from his head as if it pooled in the very soles of his boots. Oh, dear God, Gabby…
Kate watched as Zachary Wickham grew pale as a ghost. Her smile fell away. “What is it, Wickham? Who’s the note from?”
He hastily stuffed the parchment scroll into an inner waistcoat pocket. She watched him arrange his face into a neutral non-expression. “I have to go.” His voice was edged with urgency.
Kate’s heart flip-flopped with fear. “No one’s died, have they, Wickham?”
“No,” he said, moving toward the door. “Don’t worry, Kate. It’s nothing I can’t handle. I’ll see you tomorrow.” He turned and threw her a vague, unconvincing smile, his mind obviously occupied with sober thoughts.
With a few quick strides down the hall he reached the parlor. She heard the brassy sound of locks being briskly and efficiently undone and the slam of the door echoing through the apartment. He was gone. She and Charlie looked at each other, one worried face reflecting the other. Then Charlie went and rehooked the chains and redid the bolts and locks.
The house still smelled clean and freshly scrubbed. The other women still hummed like contented bees. But fear replaced the happiness in Kate’s heart. She had an awful feeling that Douglas was involved in this note business. He was up to something. She couldn’t imagine what, but she couldn’t dismiss the uneasy feeling, either. She’d heard that he was seen frequently in Carruber’s Close. She’d even seen him herself once from the window, their eyes meeting for an instant before she drew back, overcome with mixed feelings of love and fear. But he’d never actually come to the door. Maybe he’d heard about Charlie.
Kate knew Douglas must be furious with her. She knew he was probably consumed with rage at her audacity in actually consenting to be locked up and kept away from him.
Kate leaned against the table as an achy pressure in her lower stomach made her legs go weak as water. She braced herself with her hands on the tabletop and waited for the sensation to pass. She busied her mind by remembering how she and Douglas used to be. Oh, how she’d loved him! How she wished him back the way he used to be! Wickham said he’d help, but Douglas would have to be willing to help himself, too. Without Douglas’s complete cooperation, any attempts to change his destructive habits would be doomed to failure.
Poor Wickham had his own troubles. She saw how he’d watched that pretty blond girl in the “coat of many colors,” gliding over the ice with a lightness and grace Kate cou
ld scarcely remember owning herself before the pregnancy … before the drinking. Wickham loved that girl, and he must trust himself to confess his love to her and begin a life together. Kate wanted Wickham, who’d done so much for her, to do as much for himself.
As the pressure eased and the achiness diminished, Kate opened her eyes and glanced down at the tabletop. There, written in neat letters in the flour was the name … Gabby.
As per the instructions in the note, Zach rode to the cottage without the company of either servant or friend. It was a simple enough demand on paper, requiring minimal wordage, but it really took quite a bit of doing to accomplish. First he’d had Malcolm drive him back to Charlotte Square, and there, without changing his clothes or giving his servants any sort of explanation, he’d instructed the stableboy to saddle a horse.
Zach had not brought his dapple gray with him to Scotland, and he suspected that the big fellow was eating to his heart’s content in the stables at Pencarrow and growing quite stout. He’d have to borrow one of the Murrays’ steeds. He chose a powerful roan stallion, a horse that looked as though he could easily carry two people over a considerable distance without getting winded. As soon as this was done, Zach rode off, leaving Malcolm and John scratching their heads in bewilderment.
The cottage was just outside Edinburgh, distantly attached to a little village called Dirleton. From a small snow-crested hill above it, he could see the cluster of stone houses with smoking chimneys, and the kirk with its square of graveyard and its crooked rows of tombstones. He descended the hill, keeping wide of the village, not wishing to draw any attention to himself. If the inhabitants of Dirleton knew the cottage was supposed to be empty just now, they might feel bound to investigate if someone appeared to be heading there.
Though why anyone would want to stir from their fireside on such a bleak afternoon was more than Zach could fathom. The pleasant morning had given way to an early, growing darkness. In the last hour the wind had risen, and naturally the temperature had dropped. He could feel the icy breath of the Firth of Forth through the thick of his redingote and hear its keening howl slice through the shivering trees. The storm was nearing.
Zach wondered if Gabby was warm, or if that villain McKeen had stowed her away in some freezing chamber without any consideration for her comfort. He knew that McKeen wouldn’t dare build a fire in the deserted cottage for fear of attracting attention to the place, but he hoped that McKeen would have supplied Gabby with blankets.
Worse than the lack of a warming fire or blankets, Gabby could have been hurt by McKeen. If he could knock about his pregnant wife, he’d probably have no compunction about doing the same to Gabby. Particularly if he had been drinking, McKeen could easily lose patience with Gabby because it was against her nature to meekly acquiesce to being manhandled and ordered about by McKeen, or anybody. Zach had a lump on his head to attest to that!
Zach thrust aside the image of his feisty Gabby, subdued, cowering, her face and her beautiful white body covered with ugly black bruises. All because of him again! If not for his involvement in the women’s shelter, Gabby wouldn’t be held hostage by Kate’s revengeful and desperate husband. But he refused to believe that McKeen had lost control and beaten Gabby. He refused to think the worst. He would think of something else, force himself to concentrate on his surroundings.
Even in the blighted dead of winter, Scotland was beautiful. It wasn’t Cornwall. Nothing was as beautiful as Cornwall, Zach decided, without feeling a trace of prejudicial guilt. But Scotland came close. It was as free and sweeping, the land not as segmented as England’s middle countries with all their charming hedgerows and privet shrubs. Here and there drystone dikes etched a pattern against the ironhard winter ground, but for the most part there were fields and fields of heather, frostbitten now, as colorless as the rest of the landscape, but with the promise of its plum-colored bloom waiting in the hibernating buds. Stands of pine, like horizontal brush strokes of black ink, were silhouetted against the white hills.
The cottage stood nestled at the bottom of one of these hills. The door was painted yellow and appeared quite new, devoid of sun blisters and other signs of age and neglect. Bright curtains the color of sunshine hung in the windows, and the garden and enclosing stone walls and outbuildings looked to be in good repair. The owners took pride in their little getaway cottage and kept it well maintained.
Zach looked about the area for movement of any kind, but saw nothing and no one. He tugged at the reins of his roan, and they cantered round to the back of the cottage toward the stable. This was the place McKeen had designated as their rendezvous point. The stable was a small stone building with a large door, which, he could see, was standing slightly ajar. He supposed this was an invitation to come inside, since it appeared that McKeen wasn’t coming out.
Zach dismounted his horse and led it by the reins to the stable door. He would take it inside with him, as well, out of the wind and out of sight of any possible passersby. The rusted hinges of the door creaked in protest as he pushed it wide enough to accommodate the girth of his horse, then closed it shut behind them.
Once inside the dimly lit building, Zach tethered his horse to a post and waited for McKeen to show himself. Zach knew he was there, because a piebald horse was munching oats in one of the stalls. When he did not appear immediately, Zach cautiously cast a look about the dark stalls, the rafters, and the cobbled floor strewn with wet hay. Lingering in the air was the scent of horses and leather and fragrant alfalfa. He saw a ladder at the far end of the stable, leading to a small, enclosed loft—minuscule, really—which was probably used to house the occasional hired hand. Still no one stirred from the quiet shadows.
Zach felt a moment’s doubt. Had he misunderstood the exact location or the time? Or had McKeen tricked him into coming out here for reasons Zach didn’t as yet understand? He hadn’t checked before he left Charlotte Square … Was it possible that Gabby wasn’t even being held hostage?
“Gabby?” he called. “Gabby, are you here?”
Near where the ladder jutted out from the stalls, the tall, lanky form of a man appeared out of the darkness. McKeen. So, this was Kate’s Douglas. This was the man she loved. This was the man who beat her black and blue. Zach didn’t know what to think of him, how to feel. His first instinct was to give back to McKeen some of the same treatment he’d given his wife.
Then he remembered all the things Kate had told him about the way she and Douglas were before he got to drinking so heavily. Happy. In love. Maybe McKeen was decent when he wasn’t awash in whiskey. Maybe, like so many of the women who came to Zach’s shelter, this man was redeemable. He’d like to believe that was true… for Kate’s sake, especially.
McKeen approached till they were separated by no more than six feet. Their eyes met across this short distance, bloodshot icy blue clashing with golden sorrel swirls. “Ye bloody bastard. Ye dinna bring ’er.”
Zach had known that McKeen would be furious with him for ignoring the most important of his instructions—to bring Kate. “No, I didn’t bring her. It’s a nasty afternoon. There’s a storm brewing. She’s better off where she is.”
McKeen’s jaw worked agitatedly. “She’s better off bein’ where she rightfully belongs. With ’er husband. With me.”
“I had no idea what condition you’d be in, or how you intended to take care of her.”
“The same as I always have. B’sides, she’s no concern o’ yers.”
“She became my concern when I nearly ran her down with my coach on New Year’s Eve. She was drunk, sick, chilled to the bone, hugely pregnant, and covered with bruises. Is that what you call ’taking care’ of someone?”
McKeen had the grace—the conscience, apparently—to look shamefaced. Zach noticed how his hand shook as he lifted it to pull work-roughened fingers through his thick black hair. He was already half drunk, though not near the deplorable state he’d be in by nightfall. “She run away, the little fool! ’Tis no fault o’ mine she put herself in
the way o’ yer bloody ’orses! I dinna know why she took the notion t’ run off, neither.”
Zach remained implacably calm. “You know very well why she left you, McKeen.”
McKeen’s eyes darted, and his already florid complexion deepened in color. “I dinna know what ye’re talkin’ ’bout.”
“Yes, you do.” Zach did not point-blank accuse McKeen of beating Kate. McKeen knew he had. Zach knew he had. It was an unspoken fact that riddled McKeen with guilt and filled Zach with unintentional but unavoidable disgust, creating a wall of silence between them. Zach tried to separate the man, McKeen, from the sordid act of wife-battering, as Kate did. But it was hard.
It was also damned hard to hold back his pressing anxiety about Gabby’s whereabouts, hard not to take McKeen by the neck and choke the information out of him. But he had to remain cool and in control. Things could get violent very easily, and Zach had learned to abhor violence, especially at his own hands.
“How were you going to get Kate back to your place in town, McKeen?” He gestured toward the piebald horse. “On that? She’s pregnant, you know, and the ride would be damned uncomfortable, if not dangerous. If you hadn’t thought of that, it makes me wonder even more how you can profess to care about her when you don’t consider her delicate condition and think only of your own selfish wishes.”
McKeen pressed his lips tightly together.
Zach continued. “I left her in the kitchen at the shelter, happily pounding a mound of bread dough to pieces. She was clean and sober. Remember, McKeen, how she used to be when you were first married, before you foisted your drinking habit on her? She’s healthy now for the first time in years, and she’s round as an apple, full of your children.”
McKeen’s eyes glinted. “Children?”
“Yes, you’re going to be the father of twins.”
While McKeen, stunned, digested this news, Zach went on. “She talked about you. She told me how much she wished you back the way you used to be, before the drinking.”