Trial by Desire

by Courtney Milan

  But no, that cantering was only the wild beat of her own heart. There was nothing.

  No sound, except the last gurgle of Jeremy’s outburst. They were safe.

  “You see?” she breathed with a shaky a smile. “Nothing to worry about. I’ll just pop up and check—”

  She drew up into a crouch, and then pulled herself up to the window.

  Not two hundred yards away, Harcroft and Ned were racing across the fields. They were traversing the meadow parallel to the cottage. Headed away, but that would change if they saw a woman standing at the window. Kate froze with fear.

  A sudden movement would attract more attention. Slowly she stepped back into the shadows. She watched them, her heart pounding, as they spurred their horses onward. They passed by, and then took the hill behind the cottage at a trot.

  Halfway up, Ned turned in the saddle. She could not see his face, but from his stance, he could have been looking straight at her. It was unlikely he could see into the room, dimly lit as it was. It was impossible that he could make out her features through the poorly made glass. It was inconceivable that he would somehow comprehend what was happening. Kate repeated these things to herself, in fervent supplication.

  Perhaps those desperate prayers were heard, because he turned away. She watched his form, wavy and distorted by the glass, until the rise of the hill swallowed him.

  Only then did Kate draw breath into her aching lungs. “They’re gone,” she croaked, her tone as cheerful as she could manage. “You were right under Harcroft’s nose, dear, and he didn’t suspect a thing. You see, there’s nothing to worry about.”

  “Yes,” Louisa said, sounding equally unconvinced. She looked down into Jeremy’s face. “You see?” she told him. “We’re perfectly safe.”

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  KATE DIDN’T DARE RETURN to Berkswift by way of the well-used road that led straight there. Visiting Louisa had been risk enough. But if she met Harcroft along that dusty track, his suspicions, never quiet, would leap up.

  Instead, she took a route that cut circuitously along fence boundaries, dipping through a small scrub forest. It lengthened her journey from two hours to three. Shadows stretched as she walked. The path led over a small stream, its waters crossable only by means of a few slippery rocks, dotting the trail. She started across, balancing her empty basket on her arm. The stream was shielded on both sides from the sun by a small copse of trees, which dropped yellowing leaves into the mulch underfoot. The walk had calmed her fears. The fields had been quiet, and this little stream presented the perfect picture of solitude: quiet, but for the burble of the water, and hidden from view. She stepped on the last rock, green with moss, almost at the far bank.

  At that moment, her husband stepped out from behind a tree.

  Kate let out a shriek and stumbled backward. For a second, she teetered on the slippery stone, desperately flinging her arms behind her for balance. The basket went flying. Then he stepped close. His arms came about her, and he hauled her against his frame.

  He was solid and strong. Her heart thumped against his solid chest; his breaths pushed against her breast. Even after her feet were planted on solid ground, he did not let her go.

  “Ned. You surprised me. You were so quiet.”

  He looked down at her, his hands on her arms. “How terrible of me. Maybe I should wear a bell, like a cow.”

  She pulled away from him—just far enough to look back into his eyes. In the overshadowing trees, they seemed dark, impenetrable pools. There was nothing bovine about him; the shadows rendered him rather more wolfish. Her heart pounded. “Or like a goat,” she said. “You may recall I have aspirations in that direction.”

  But he was not distracted. “Where were you just now?”

  No. Definitely nothing of the cow about him. That question bordered on dangerous, desolate territory.

  “Walking.” Kate twisted the tie of her cloak. “And delivering food to the tenants, actually. We’ve had a good run of eggs of late.” She did not dare drop her eyes from his, did not dare let him see how much his question discomfited her. “Besides, walking is healthful, my physician says, and I haven’t the opportunity to do much of it in London. London is a dirty, smoky place, and the parks are overrun by other people. I don’t much get the chance to be alone.” She was talking too much.

  He let go of her waist. “Were you alone?”

  “Of course. With whom could I possibly have been walking?”

  “I don’t know. I ask only because you jumped from me like a guilty thing.”

  “Like a frightened thing, you beast.” She tapped his chest in a pretense of playfulness, but he did not respond. “And what were you doing, lurking behind that tree?”

  “I wasn’t lurking,” he said. “I was waiting for you. I caught a glimpse of you when you crossed the upper field. And yes, Mrs. Evans told me you’d gone to deliver some goods to the tenants. But who lives out west?”

  A cold awareness seeped into Kate’s hands. It trickled down the back of her neck, trailed along her spine until it lodged in an icy indigestible mass in her belly. Her father had always taken her statements as truth, never questioning them. She’d never imagined Ned would think about what she said.

  “Oh,” she said. “Only Mrs. Alcot. She’s getting on in years. I did take a rather roundabout route home.”

  He glanced at her. Maybe it was her imagination, but she caught a hint of suspicion in the set of his lips.

  “If you must know, I wanted some time alone to think. Much has changed in the last few days.”

  “But the Alcots live in the village,” Ned said.

  “Not anymore, they don’t.” Kate spoke with some asperity, but it was either that, or let a hint of fear invade her voice. These days, it seemed that all conversations led back to Louisa.

  He raised one eyebrow at this. His gaze fixed upon her; she imagined clockwork in his head working as he followed the evidence to the inexorable conclusion. Had he seen her in the cottage? He couldn’t have.

  “Is there something you’d like to tell me?” His words seemed so kind, so solicitous; Kate shivered. Tell him? She would have to trust him, first. And that lay a long way off. Even the story of Mrs. Alcot proved dangerous.

  Once he had heard it, he might begin to put together all the strange, unexplained events. After all, Kate was the reason Mrs. Alcot was no longer living with her husband in the village.

  “Is there something I should know?” Ned repeated.

  “Yes,” she said, and stood up on tiptoes. It wasn’t lust that drove her to place her lips against his, but splintering dismay. She needed time. He reacted with a scalded hiss. His hands came around her waist. And yet when she touched his chest, his mouth opened to her. His tongue met hers. She could feel his body, the outline of his shoulders, the swell of his thigh brushing hers. And then he gathered her up in his arms and pulled her against him. He was hot to the touch, and his heat did nothing to dispel her growing sense of panic. The hard expanse of his chest pushed into her breasts; her legs fell against his thighs. She reached up to touch his face, and a half-day’s worth of stubble prickled the palms of her hand.

  It had started as a kiss given out of panic—the easiest way to put off his questions; the best way to garner time to think. But thinking was the last thing she could do with his mouth on hers. What had started as panic became more. Her lips traced the sum of her fears against his; her tongue met his in sheer desperation. He tasted bittersweet. She could not kiss him, not without remembering the secret, sad certainty of his abandonment. She could not feel the warm promise of his arms around her without knowing that she had to push him away from her secrets.

  Her kiss spoke of years of loneliness, and his body had no answer.

  She could have poured all her shattered marital hopes into that one kiss, if he had let her continue. But he did not. Those strong arms about her held her in place. He lifted his head and looked into her eyes. She doubted he could make out any truth in the shadowed
light dancing through the leaves overhead.

  “That was very nice,” he said, his voice low, “but it was not an answer.”

  Drat.

  “Mrs. Alcot’s husband lives in the village,” Kate said quietly. “Mrs. Alcot herself lives in the old Leary place. She has, these last two years.”

  “Why the devil would she do that?”

  “Because her husband was beating her black and blue,” Kate snapped, “and now that she’s coming up in years, he might have broken bones.”

  “He agreed to the separation?”

  He would find the truth of the matter; all he had to do was poke about the village. Kate lowered her eyes reluctantly. “He did after I decreed it.” Mrs. Alcot had been one of the few women she’d been able to help openly. Kate had been the lady of the manor; in her husband’s absence, her word had not precisely been law, but it had been very, very persuasive.

  “You decreed it,” Ned repeated. “Why did you decree it?”

  “Because you were not here.”

  He was silent, rubbing his chin. He shook his head, as if clearing it of preconceptions. “I hadn’t realized I left you with so much responsibility. It seems a serious matter to have been placed upon your shoulders.” She wanted him to underestimate her. She wanted him to overlook her, for Louisa’s sake.

  But for her own sake, she could have happily shoved him into the mud of the stream bank for the solicitous tone in his voice. “You may notice that I failed to shatter under the strain.”

  “Of course, I didn’t mean to imply you were unequal to the task,” he said, practically tripping over himself to reassure her. “No doubt you dealt with the matter magnificently. I merely meant that you shouldn’t have needed to do so.”

  Heaven forfend that she take time from her schedule of frivolity to think of matters of substance.

  “Indeed,” she responded. “The matter took valuable days from my last trip to Bond Street. Why, that season, I had to go to the opera with ready-made gloves on opening night. You can imagine my shame.”

  What she wanted to say was I’ve been doing more than that since I was sixteen.

  “Are you angry about something?” he asked in bewilderment.

  “Of course I’m angry. There was a shortage of peacock feathers that year, and because I was late to town, I had to settle for diamond pins instead.”

  He frowned at her. “Did I say something wrong?”

  It was a form of kindness he practiced. She’d felt one like it most of her life. No doubt her father had intended to keep her as every woman ought to be kept, safe and out of harm’s way. Women were supposed to plan parties, after all, not escapes. Ned wouldn’t understand that she wanted more than that. She imagined herself trying to tell him anyway.

  I wanted more responsibility, and so I started stealing wives. Did you know Louisa is number seven?

  No. That clearly wouldn’t work.

  “I did say something,” he said, staring at her. “You are angry.”

  “I’m furious just thinking about those diamonds,” Kate said with a sigh. “Remember, if you love a woman—buy her sapphires.”

  Ned simply stared at her, as if she’d announced her intention to give birth to kittens.

  “I will never,” he finally said slowly, “never, in my entire life, ever understand women.”

  No, he wouldn’t. And Kate wasn’t sure whether she should thank the Lord for that, or burst into tears.

  NED HAD NO MORE OPPORTUNITY to talk to his wife that evening, and in any event, he very much doubted she would say anything he comprehended.

  After the evening meal, Kate had cheerfully asked if anyone wanted to play at hide-and-seek. She’d spoken with a bright smile, her hair glinting in the lamplight. If it had been a real house party, her suggestion might not have been taken amiss.

  As it was, Harcroft had stared at her for a very long time before shaking his head and leaving the brightly lit dining room without a word. Jenny had made polite excuses for herself and her husband. And when they’d all left, Ned had caught that look on her face again—that curious combination of self-satisfaction and hurt, all mixed into one.

  He couldn’t shake the feeling that she was already hiding. He wasn’t sure what role she’d assigned him in the game, but he felt uneasy. Nobody else seemed to notice, and Ned was left to his own devices.

  There was more to all of this than appeared on the surface.

  He had gone in search of Jenny, who had a keen eye for seeing hidden things. He’d stopped at the downstairs study. A little sullen light shone from beneath the door, which stood ajar.

  Ned eased it open.

  Harcroft turned as he entered. “Ah, Ned. Your wife told me I could sit in this room. I hope you’re not accustomed to making use of it.”

  “No, no. I have a desk in an alcove in my upstairs chambers.”

  Harcroft had laid a heavy sheet of paper on the wooden table. As Ned drew nearer, he realized it was a rough hand-drawn map of the area, roads and villages sketched in by the wavering marks of pencil. Wood shavings—and the aforementioned pencil—decorated the edge of the table.

  A single spot of red ink in the center marked the point where gossip had placed the woman who looked like Louisa. Two straight-pins pierced the villages Ned had conducted Harcroft to earlier in the day.

  “You’re being quite thorough,” Ned said. For some reason, those two pins, bristling out of the map like the spines of a hedgehog, made him feel uneasy.

  “I dare not let anything slip by. Not so much as a single cottager, who might otherwise have useful knowledge.”

  The man’s hair shone almost copper in the orange lamplight; he frowned and shifted, staring at those pins until Ned thought they might reduce to slag in the heat of his gaze.

  Ned had known Harcroft for years. The ferocity of his expression was nothing new. Harcroft looked like a ruffled angel, with his gold hair and his tired slouch. He had always seemed perfect—so damned perfect. But for his confession on that long-ago night, Ned would have believed him to be truly without fault.

  Harcroft had poured himself a finger’s breadth of sherry, but as usual, the liquid sat untouched in a tumbler by his map. He leaned back and sighed, scrubbing his hands through his hair.

  “I can help with your sojourns,” Ned said. “I spent enough time hereabouts in my youth that I know the environs quite well.” He reached for the pencil and sketched a little X between two hills. “There are five farmers’ cottages in this valley. Not truly a village, but the houses are built within shouting range of each other, the lands radiating out from that point. And here…”

  Harcroft nodded as Ned talked. It was good to feel useful, to know that someone was willing to speak with him. Ned discussed the area within a day’s ride from Berkswift slowly, starting from the north and then filling in details in a clockwise sweep. It was only until they got to the southeast quadrant of the map that Ned paused to sharpen the pencil with a penknife.

  “There’s very little out west,” he said. “It’s all sheep pasture now.” He tapped the map at the old Leary place, remembering Kate’s words that afternoon. “Mrs. Alcot, apparently, lives alone here.” He sketched in an obligatory squiggle. “The house she is staying in is rather out of the way.”

  Now that he was looking at the rough map, he was reminded of precisely how out of the way the house was—a good thirty minutes on horseback. On foot? Kate’s trek must have taken considerably longer. Over an hour. Another two or three to come back, by the roundabout route she’d taken. She could have made it back to the point where he’d met her in the time allotted. If she’d walked very quickly, and spent no time visiting with Mrs. Alcot.

  “Something doesn’t add up,” he said aloud.

  “I know that feeling.” Harcroft rubbed his eyes. “I feel as if I’m missing something right in front of my nose, and if I could only draw back, I would see it.”

  “There’s another cottage.” Ned moved his pencil a few inches north. “It sho
uld be abandoned—the shepherds use it in spring and summer. It’s right here, along the ridge. We passed it this morning. But it’s empty this time of year.”

  “Perhaps I’ll go knock these two dots off, tomorrow morning,” Harcroft said, watching as Ned inscribed a second squiggle to represent the shepherd’s cottage.

  Ned had scared Kate this afternoon. By the tempo of her breath and the pallor of her skin, she’d seemed terrified to see him at first. And it hadn’t just been his abrupt appearance. His questions had discomfited her enough that she’d thrown herself at him in that frightened parody of a kiss. And he hadn’t even done anything—just asked after Mrs. Alcot.

  “Kate spoke with Mrs. Alcot this afternoon,” Ned said slowly. “She would have spoken up if the woman had seen anything.” He reached for a straight-pin, to puncture that dot on the map.

  Harcroft reached forward and blocked his hand. “No. I think not.”

  “Kate is friends with Lady Harcroft. I know she wants to help.”

  “She’s a woman. She’ll be rather too kind in her questioning. I’ve seen your wife with mine for three years, Ned. If there’s a thought in her head beyond the latest fashions in head gear, I’ve yet to see evidence of it.”

  That seemed too much an echo of Kate’s own words this afternoon. Ned felt another prickle of unease travel through him. He was definitely missing something.

  “Well,” he said, “then I’ll do it myself tomorrow. I know Mrs. Alcot, and if what Kate said is true, she’ll be more likely to talk to me than a stranger. You go here.” Ned tapped east on the map. “Concentrate on the towns with significant populations—it’s the best use of your time, in any event. I’ll handle these two.”

  That sense that something was eluding him intensified.

  Harcroft shook his head. “Well. That decides that. I suppose I should turn in if I’m to have an early start tomorrow.” He stood and stretched.

  Ned stared at the map a while longer. “I was just wondering one thing, Harcroft. Jenny and Gareth spent all their time today searching out news of any ruffians who might have absconded with your wife. But this afternoon, you asked after gossip about a woman and child alone. Do you think she left of her own free will?”