She gave way for an intoxicating moment, then slipped, quick as an eel, from his grasp. “Ooh, no, sir!” she exclaimed, safe on the far side of the bed. “Whatever would my ma say?”
Chapter Seven
The nights were growing darker as the moon waned. Soon, Kate thought gloomily, as she slipped a buckskin-clad leg over the window sill of her downstairs bedroom, she would have to give up the nightly rides she had so far managed to keep secret from her mother. And then, if the weather broke, she might well find herself tied by her own governess’s apron strings until spring. Once the lanes were deep with winter mud, she and Boney would bring back all too obvious evidence of their truancy. As it was, James, who looked after Boney, had remarked once or twice that he was worried about the horse.
No. Whispering a greeting to Boney as she tightened the girths of one of Lord Hawth’s old saddles, she told herself that she had better face it. Tomorrow, she and her mother were dining with George Warren. By next night the moon would be almost gone. This was almost certainly her last night ride till spring. It was a daunting prospect. She loved her mother. She loved the children. And yet she felt herself slowly stifling between the Dower. House and the hall. Whatever she had imagined, when she made that rash proposition to Lord Hawth, it had not been this dim, domestic round. Had she expected orgies, she asked herself sardonically? Had she perhaps a little enjoyed the idea of them?
No. She made herself face it. It was worse than that. Her mother had been right. She had let herself dream her way into a schoolgirl’s idiotic passion for her saturnine employer. It had been so pleasant, that first encounter, friendly, easy. Mad to have let herself dream that Kate might carry on the relationship Kit had started. And, after all, she had been warned. Hawth himself had said he was intending to marry. Lunatic to have let herself imagine, hearing no more about it, that his intended bride, like his mistress, had thought better of involvement with his bad tempered lordship.
Though it had seemed understandable enough. Hawth was most certainly no lady’s man. Abrupt courtesy was the limit of their rare encounters, and she and her mother had not so much as been invited to drink a glass of wine with him. It had been absurd, of course, to assume that because he had been friendly to Kit he would take some notice of Kate. It was all misery, and all very hard on the children. She would have liked to talk to him about them, and about Nurse Simmonds, whose influence, most particularly on Sue, she liked less and less. Only this morning she had found Nurse Simmonds in the main hall, where she had no business to be, flirting outrageously with Tom Bowles, up from the Tidemills on some errand or other.
It was no wonder if Sue was difficult and the others too quiet. Their father never sent for them, never asked how they were or how their lessons were going, never even spoke of them. He must—she collected Boney for the jump over the hurdles—he must have been very badly hurt by their mother. It was a pity this was a subject she could only raise in her alias as Kit Warrender, one she did not propose to risk with Hawth again. As Kate, she knew nothing about the children’s mother, except that they showed no signs of pining for her. Which, she supposed, was exactly what Hawth was doing. How tedious of him. She turned Boney down the road to Glinde. A woman who would leave him for the tutor was so obviously not worth a second thought
She had reached the priory ruins, the place where, she usually turned back. Boney hesitated, and she gave him an encouraging kick in the side. When had she decided to treat herself to a pint of best ale at the Bell in Glinde? It meant a long ride, and she had not gone there since the move to the hall, but tonight she longed for the friendly anonymity of the Bell. She did not sleep anyway, these hot autumn nights; she might just as well be awake, cheerful and in company, as lonely in her lavender scented cage at the Dower House.
It was late when she rode into the quiet streets of Glinde, and for a moment she regretted the impulse that had brought her. But the lights of the Bell burned bright enough down beyond the park gate. Her throat filled at a sudden memory of the first time she had gone there, the mad night when she had dressed up in an old suit of Christopher’s and he had bet her that she could never pass herself off as one of their grandfather’s bastards.
She had won the bet, of course. There had been a great deal of friendly chaff in the Bell, where Chris was obviously well known and liked. There had been more bets, inevitably, about the likeness between them. Change coats, and who could tell Chris from Kit? She caught, back a half sob, remembering the first time she had been back to the Bell after her brother’s death, and the strange moment when the landlord’s’ jaw had dropped. For a minute, Brown had taken her for Chris.
The Bell was crowded tonight, and, her heart suddenly failing her, she wished herself back in the quiet of the priory ruins. Madness to have come. Well, she was mad … possessed … wretched. Enough of that. She looked in at the busy public bar as she passed its door and was surprised to see Knowles, Lord Hawth’s bailiff, talking to another man whose face was somehow familiar. Of course, she had it: Coombe, the man George Warren had brought down with him and dismissed so summarily. How very odd. But she was in the snug now, glad to see that Brown himself was serving there.
“Master Kit!” He raised a friendly hand in greeting, “It’s been a long time. Your usual?” He pulled an over flowing pint and handed it across the counter. “I’m right down glad to see you, sir, and that’s the truth.”
“Oh?” There was something slightly disconcerting about this warm welcome.
“I surely am. It’s about him.” A jerk of his chin directed Kate’s attention to a comer booth where she was amazed to see George Warren sitting alone. “Kin of yours, I reckon.” It was not a question. “Been here most nights for a week or more. Something on his mind.” Brown laughed quietly. “Someone. That little bitch Lucy Penfold, and him a Yankee without the sense to come in from the rain. Nor any idea of how talk runs in these parts. Word is she’s holding put for marriage, the smart piece. Well,” tolerantly, “he’s only a Yankee, after all, and her mother was a parson’s daughter. But it don’t seem right, surely, not Lucy Penfold in Madam Warrender’s place. Besides—” he leaned forward, elbows on the counter, to speak low—“I did hear Tom Bowles was a mite peeved over the whole affair. There’s some of his men in the public tonight,”
“His men?”
“You know.” He completed the inadequate sentence with an expressive glance and a deep pull at his own beer. “I just wish there mightn’t be trouble for Mr. Warren on his way home.”
“You think there might be?”
“Well, Tom Bowles is a pretty powerful man in these parts, what with one thing and another, as you and I well know.”
“Yes.” Kate wished she did.
“And it’s near dark tonight. A storm coming up, I reckon. And a lonely road back to Warren House. I suppose—” he leaned further forward and Kate knew he was coming to the nub of the matter—“if I was to make you known to him. As kin, see? You’d not feel like riding home with him, friendly like?”
“I?”
“Well, now, Master Kit, we both know they’d never touch you, surely. You ride with him, tip him the word to keep away from dark places, all’s right. I don’t want murder done anywhere near my house, or I’d not have spoken.”
“Murder!”
“Well, what do you think? Tom Bowles don’t play pretty. Ah, they’re going now. He and his friends. Going to choose their ground, surely. The priory ruins, of course. And smugglers blamed when he’s found, or wreckers, and trouble for everyone. But most particular for your cousin.” He left her with it, and moved through to the other bar to call a cheerful goodnight. Two rough voices answered him, and Kate, unable to see or identify the men, racked her brain as to what she should do. She wished she did not believe Brown, but she did. George Warren, was in deadly danger. If only she were equally sure that her company would carry automatic protection.
“I’m about ready to close up.” Brown rejoined her. “Will I make you known to him?” His sharp glance was
suddenly critical. “Or not?” And then: “Here he comes. One for the road, Mr. Warren?”
“Half, thanks. Your ale’s stronger than we make at home. Good evening.” He came out of his gloom to speak with natural friendliness to Kate, now the only other occupant of the snug. And then, puzzled: “We’ve not met, have we?”
For some reason, the half recognition settled it. Kate smiled, raised her mug in greeting and said, “No. It’s the family likeness, I’m afraid. There are more Warrenders in the county of Glinde than ever show up in the Parish registers.” She put down her mug and held out a hand. “Kit Warrender, cousin, at your service.”
“Good to meet you.” Her hand was warmly clasped. “I could just do with a cousin tonight. Thanks.” He took his mug from Brown. “Pity it’s so near closing time, but you’ll join me till then?”.
“Gladly.” It was a relief to abandon the masculine pose against the bar and settle in the comparative darkness of George Warren’s comer. But what, in heaven’s name, was she going to do now? All this time, her mind had been scurrying round, snatching at expedients and letting them go again as useless. There was no help to be had in Glinde, and she could think of no pretext on which she could persuade George Warren into the safety of Hawth Park. Pretend to be ill? Ask him to escort her home? But what to do then? Besides, so far as he was concerned, the hall was not her home.
“Which way do you ride?” Warren asked the inevitable question as he settled back in his corner.
“Your road till you turn off to Warren House.” There had been something horribly convincing about the casual remark of Brown’s, The ambush would inevitably be at the priory rains and George Warren’s disaster attributed to an unlucky encounter with smugglers, or with the wreckers who also haunted this coast.
“That’s dandy.” George Warren’s smile lit up his drawn face. He had aged and lost weight, Kate thought, since she last saw him. “I suppose,” he went on now, hesitantly, “you wouldn’t care to stop the night with me? One doesn’t often meet a brand new cousin.”
Now, here was a problem. “Good of you.” Kate wished she had invented a home for herself. “But I’m expected.” Where was she expected? Somewhere on the London road, the far side of Hawth Park. It was time she gave up this masquerading. Well, she thought as she finished her ale, if Brown was wrong, there might be two corpses found in the priory ruins tomorrow morning, and her masquerade over for good. A cold little shiver ran down her spine. Poor mother. How could she do it? And yet—how could she not?
“Shall we be going?” Warren rose. “Brown looks as if he’d be glad to see the back of us.”
Confirming this, Brown bustled forward from behind the bar to bid them goodnight, and then look from one to the other and ask casually, “You’re not armed? It’s coming up to the dark of the moon. And a storm brewing.”
“And what’s that to the purpose?” George Warren picked up his high-crowned beaver hat.
“Mr. Warrender will explain as you go. He’s born and bred in these parts, and you’d do well to listen to him, sir, even if he hasn’t the sense himself to ride armed in the dark nights. But then, he’s well known in the district. You’re not. Not yet.” He moved a step back to look round the partition, presumably to make sure that the public bar was now as empty as the snug, then returned to say, “I’d be glad to lend you gentlemen my spare pair of pistols, just in case.” He reached behind the bar and brought out two deadly looking little weapons. “I keep them ready loaded, in case of trouble; it’s but to load the other pair when you’ve gone.” And, as George Warren hesitated and Kate’s heart sank still further: “I’d be glad if you’d take them, gentlemen. And bring them back at your leisure. In the daytime. And stay home, Mr. Warren, through the dark nights. I’m surprised that Futherby’s not warned you.”
“He did say something.” George Warren reached out to take one of the pistols and weigh it in his hand. “I thought it a lot of nonsense. Besides, the moon’s only waning, it’s not really dark yet.”
“Dark enough tonight.” Brown handed the other pistol to Kate.
Thanks to Christopher’s training, she knew how to handle it, and it did give an odd feeling of comfort to tuck it in the capacious pocket of his greatcoat. She had fired at a target often enough, but in anger?
“You won’t need them, of course.” There was a touch of scorn in Brown’s voice, as if he had recognised her reaction. “Better safe than sorry, I always did say. Goodnight, gentlemen. The boy has your horses ready.”
The town of Glinde was asleep now, with only a light here and there in an upstairs window, and by mutual consent they rode silently down the narrow street until they passed the park gates and emerged into open country, with the wall on their right.
“Dark enough.” George Warren looked up as the moon vanished behind scudding clouds. “What is all this talk about the dark nights?”
“Smuggling,” said Kate. “It’s the district’s second livelihood. First one for many, in the winter when they’re out of work. It goes on all along this coast. Well—no distance to France, and with the excise duties what they are, it’s inevitable.”
“And winked at?”
“I’m afraid so.” It was a blessed distraction to be talking, rather than wondering what lay ahead in the priory ruins. “I doubt if much of the wine in your cellars at Warren House, or the tea in your caddies, ever saw a customs house.” She remembered, suddenly, that puzzling extra consignment of the wrong tea. “Most of it goes to London, of course, for sale there, but we all get our shares.”
“Shares? For what?”
“For turning our backs. Staying home in the dark nights, when they are running the goods. Saying nothing if one of our horses or waggons is ‘borrowed.’ Of course some people give regular orders, but we’ve never done that. We get it just the same.”
“We?”
“The Warrenders.” She coloured angrily in the darkness at her mistake. “The family.” Time to change the subject. “I hope you find yourself happy here, Mr. Warren. It must all seem quite strange to you.”
“It does. Happy? No. I reckon I’ll be going back soon. Back where I belong. Back where I’ve friends.”
“But the Warren! You’d never leave that!”
“Why not? I’ve got a house in Philadelphia. And friends. And a life. Sometimes, now, I wish I’d never left there. But what could I do? When your cousin, that poor young Chris Warrender, wrote and asked for my help in breaking the entail, it seemed my duty.”
“What?” She could not believe her ears. “Break the entail? I don’t believe it!”
“True, just the same.” She could sense his shrug in the darkness. “The three of us—Charles Warrender, his son Chris and I—could have done it, Mr. Futherby tells me, all right and tight, according to your law, and I’d have been glad to. No hope now. I’ll have to marry, get sons and grandsons, before it can be done. And there’s a pickle.”
“Oh?”
“I’m glad I met you. Blood’s blood, after all. We’re not close, but we’re kin. I feel it, don’t you? You’re—easy to talk to. Not like that schoolmarm Miss Warrender. Do you know—” He was talking more and more freely, what with the strong beer, and the darkness, and the comfort of an easy listener—“I had thought, when I heard about her father and my inheriting, and all, maybe I ought to offer for her. Make things tidy. Good God! I’d rather marry one of those marble ladies on the frieze Lord Elgin brought back from Greece. Cold as ice, dull as ditch-water, haughty as Lord Hawth. That’s my Cousin Kate. Oh—” It came to him suddenly. “Sorry. Your cousin, too.”
“Yes,” said Kate. “I—like her.”
“Sorry I spoke. No doubt she’s different with you. Treats me like something that shouldn’t have happened. Well,” fairly, “I reckon from her point of view, that’s true enough. But where does that leave me? What am I supposed to do? Nobody comes near me. Nothing to do. Oh, they’re coming to dine with me tomorrow night. She and her mother. Imagine that. The condenscension
of it. My first guests. Shall I give it them in their teeth? I’d like to see their faces. Specially that beanpole of a prudish governess.”
“Give them what?” Kate was controlling her temper with some difficulty.
“News of my forthcoming marriage.”
“Good God!” Kate remembered something Brown had said. “You can’t be serious!”
“Know about it, do you? One thing I have learned, the weeks I’ve been here, everyone knows everything. Yes. Lucy Penfold. Pretty as a picture. Mother a parson’s daughter. What’s wrong with that? And virtuous. By God! There she is, in my house. I thought there was—what do they call it?—droit de seigneur still, here in England. Nothing of the kind! Or,” ruefully, “maybe I’m not the kind of seigneur for whom it works. I’m going mad for her. She’s always there. Whisking in and out of my room. Cans of hot water. Messages. ‘Yes, sir.’ ‘No, sir.’ Mainly, ‘No, sir.’ And that mother of hers watching me like a dragon.” He was silent for a moment, then: “What do you think, boy? Sorry. Not really a subject for you, but you’re all the worthwhile kin I’ve got this side of the Atlantic. I’m mad for her,” he said again.
“You’re crazy,” said Kate. “Have you tried to talk to the girl?”
“Well, not to say talk. There’s no chance, not in that house full of servants, God help me! And her mother, always on the listen. That’s it, don’t you see, that’s just it! Engage myself to her, and I’d have a chance to get to know her. Surely, then, I’d get her to myself.”
“Not this side of matrimony, if I know Mrs. Penfold,” said Kate. “As for the girl, you’re about in the head, cousin. Think again, I beg you. She hasn’t two thoughts to rub together. Or only what her mother puts there. She’s nothing but a tease, that one, a witless tease. And, I wouldn’t wonder, cold with it or how’d she manage?” Now, what in the world had put that idea into her head?
“Tried her yourself, have you!” George Warren’s voice was angry. “I might have known. A young spark like you. But didn’t get anywhere, did you?”
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