In Love With a Wicked Man

by Liz Carlyle

  “Surely not all your ancestors were wastrels?”

  She laughed, that throaty, unselfconscious laugh he liked so well. “No, you’re right,” she admitted. “A great many were excellent managers, and my grandfather did what he could. But the place has been lost once or twice—Cromwell, the War of the Roses—the Barons d’Allenay always managed to get on the wrong side of every little spat. That, along with a few entrenched gamblers, a couple of womanizers—the sixth baron, we’re told, was an outright bigamist—et voilà! as Aurélie would say—the roofs rot and the coffers sit empty.”

  He cast his eyes around. “Oh, it doesn’t look that bad,” he said. “Someone’s been working hard at trimming the wicks and polishing up the brass.”

  She smiled in acknowledgment. “My grandfather trained me well,” she said, “and Anstruther, our steward, is like a member of the family. But enough of that. What did Dr. Fitch say? And the whole of it, if you please.”

  “Madam, a man would cower at the thought of keeping a secret from you.”

  “Ha!” she said on a laugh. “You’ve never cowered in your life, I daresay.”

  But she had relaxed into her chair, and pushed it away from the desk. She wore riding clothes, he realized; a plain brown habit that could only be described as serviceable, with an almost mannish cut. Her shirt collar was high and starched, and only her velvet lapels softened the coat. He suspected she’d already ridden out to one of the farms this morning, for there was mud caked around one boot heel.

  Oddly, he liked that. Kate looked capable and brimming with vitality. She had not lingered in her bedchamber until noon, fretting over nothing more significant than which jewelry to wear to tea.

  Did a great many ladies do that? Yes, he somehow thought they did.

  “Well?” she demanded. “Your prognosis, sir?”

  “Fitch says time heals all wounds, even those one can’t see,” said Edward. “He thinks my stitches can come out soon. He wasn’t surprised by the problem with arithmetic. And whilst I may walk a little, he still wishes me to rest and avoid eye strain.”

  “So no reading?”

  He shook his head, and felt another pinprick of frustration.

  “Have you felt anything stir? Even a fragment?”

  He smiled thinly, hesitating before he spoke. “Well, I had some strange dreams all night,” he confessed, “most of which don’t bear repeating. But in one of them, I found myself walking through a park. And in the dream, I knew that it was Green Park. In London, yes?” He glanced at her for confirmation.

  “Yes, in London.”

  He nodded. “I could tell that I’d been there before, and often. And I felt as if …” He paused, trying to put it into words.

  “As if what?” Kate leaned across the corner of the desk, and he wanted, suddenly, to kiss her again. He let his gaze drift over her face, hoping she could not see the hunger there.

  “I felt as if I were going somewhere familiar,” he said quietly. “There was an urgency about it—I needed to get there. And then I was striding through this narrow passageway—like an alley—with gaslight at the end. Then I woke up, feeling strangely relieved.”

  Kate was tapping a finger on the desktop. “There are a couple of places where one can enter St. James directly from the park,” she said after a moment had passed. “Perhaps you live near there?”

  He lifted his eyebrows. “I didn’t realize you knew London well.”

  “Not especially,” she admitted. “But before Belgravia became all the rage, Uncle Upshaw and Aunt Louisa lived in St. James’s Square.”

  “Ah, yes! On the fashionable side, I daresay?”

  Her eyes widened. “See? You know that. You know there is an unfashionable side.”

  “I did know it, didn’t I?” he mused.

  “One might also go that way to reach, say, the Carlton Club, which is very near Spencer House,” Kate suggested, absently scrubbing the toe of her boot across a crack in the flagstone. “Or perhaps you might belong to White’s? Or one of the other fashionable gentlemen’s clubs? And there are one or two less savory places, I believe, in St. James—if some of my brother’s stories were true.”

  “Hmm,” he said. “Those do not sound like tales suitable for a lady’s ear.”

  She shrugged. “Well, in any case, if all else fails, you might go to London when you’re entirely well, and walk about the neighborhood.”

  “Ah, is my goddess eager to cast me from Mount Olympus?” he murmured.

  Her breath hitched a little oddly. “No, certainly not,” she said. “Please, Edward, do not tease me. Not … not in that way.”

  “I beg your pardon.” He reached across the desk again, and took her hand. “It is an excellent idea, and I will go.”

  “When you feel up to it,” she said.

  Edward sighed. “I feel, Kate, such an imposition to you here.”

  Her eyes flared with something like dismay. “You must not,” she said firmly. “Were it not for me, you wouldn’t even be in this predicament. Besides, we will eventually discover where you’ve come from, Edward. We will. And when we do, you can return to—to your family, or to whatever it is you’ve left behind. And that will almost certainly reawaken your memories.”

  But there was an increasing tension inside his chest. The last of her words came at him as if from a distance. And then the strangest thing happened. Suddenly the tension became a rush of emotion—no, dread—so strong he had never known the like. As if the whole of his body had gone numb. For an instant, his breath stopped.

  He did not want to go back.

  He was sure of it.

  He exhaled sharply. Good God, what kind of life had he led? What was it that lay there like a chunk of hard, black tar in the bottom of his heart? Had he been unhappy? Or, God forbid, unhappily married? He had been so sure he was not. He was still sure. But there was a darkness in his past he truly did not wish to revisit.

  Could he be quashing those memories in some hidden recess of his soul? Allowing himself to stay here, where he felt so … so strangely at ease? So very much at home? Bellecombe seemed to him a place of warmth and security.

  But what a mad notion that was! Good Lord, he was a man grown.

  “Edward?” Kate’s voice was gentle, but probing. “What is it?”

  He lifted his gaze to hers, and knew that it was bleak. “What if I don’t want to remember?” he said, forcing his mind to be calm. “I … Kate, God help me, but I sometimes think I don’t. And how can that be?”

  “It cannot be,” she said firmly. “You’re still a little unwell, that is all. I beg you will not fixate upon it. And I confess, I’m glad to have you here.”

  “Glad?” he said, lifting his gaze to hers. “Are you, Kate?”

  It was her turn to look away. “More, perhaps, than I ought to be,” she murmured, hesitating a long moment. Then she picked up the thread of her thoughts, speaking, perhaps, a little too swiftly. “But I’m glad to know you’re not uncomfortable here. Why do you not just rest, and think of this as … a sort of holiday? What is the harm in that? What can be accomplished by worry? No one, Edward, wishes to lose their past.”

  Edward stared past her, at a glass-fronted bookcase stuffed with agricultural tomes. “I sometimes have the feeling the past isn’t far from my grasp,” he admitted. “At times, I can almost glimpse it—it’s a little like following someone you think you know down the street. Then, at the last instant, just as you get near enough to see their face, they vanish round a corner.”

  He didn’t realize he had laid his hand upon her desk, his fingers fisted so tight his knuckles had gone white, until Kate covered it with her own.

  She gave it a hard squeeze. “Edward, just stop following. Stop looking. Virtually everything we seek in life comes to us only when we stop seeking it.”

  He gave a harsh laugh. “You’re right, Kate,” he said. “I know you are—though I don’t know how I know it. Hell, I don’t know how I know anything. Oh, but you must pardon
my language! I’m not at all sure, Kate, that in my past life I was the gentleman you think me.”

  “You are a gentleman bred if not born,” she said with both asperity and certainty, “and likely both.”

  Edward shrugged, and glanced at the letter she’d been writing. It was crossed and recrossed in a few places, with scribbles written up and down the margins.

  “Ah, well, enough of my pathetic mewling,” he said, extracting his hand. “What are you doing?”

  Her cheeks seemed to turn a little pink. “I’m writing to Aunt Louisa and Uncle Upshaw,” she said. “I’m inviting them for a visit.”

  Edward was surprised. “Are you?”

  “Yes.” She dropped her gaze to her lap, and began to twist at the unusual gold ring she wore upon her second finger, a habit he’d noticed before. It was a man’s ring, and he wondered, not for the first time, if her fiancé had given it to her. “Yes, I wish them to come down for the house party. For two reasons.”

  “Ah,” he said quietly. “And may I know what they are?”

  She made a feeble, airy gesture. “I just want them to meet Richard Burnham,” she confessed. “I quarreled with Nancy again last night. And I’ve come to realize that it is not my place to oppose this marriage, or to give her any advice whatsoever.”

  “If it’s any consolation to you,” he said quietly, “I don’t think your sister is anything near a fool.”

  At first Kate made no reply to this, and instead just twisted the ring around again. “No,” she finally answered. “No, she’s not. Nancy is so charming and pretty, one sometimes expects her to be flighty. Or to have her head turned by all the flattery. But she is not, and she has not. She says she wants to marry Richard, and that only he will do.”

  “And you’ve come to believe it?”

  Kate nodded. “I think so,” she said. “For whatever my opinion counts—which technically is very little, for I’m not her trustee. Though I may own Bellecombe and administer what is, by most definitions, a vast fortune in real estate, I cannot legally be my sister’s keeper. Is that not silly?”

  “It is,” he said.

  “I granted Richard the living of St. Michael’s, so I think my opinion of his character is plain,” she went on. “I would not entrust this parish to any man whom I did admire and respect. And perhaps if Uncle spent some time with Richard—and Richard’s mother, too—he might come to see that Richard could make Nancy happy.”

  Edward regarded her for a long moment, wondering what it was he saw lurking in her eyes; a furtive sort of doubt, he thought.

  Her hand now lay flat on the desk beside the letter. He picked it up in his own, marveling at the thin elegance of her fingers and the short tidy nails. Kate made no effort to draw away, but he watched the unease fade from her gaze.

  After a long moment had passed, Edward gave her fingers a reassuring squeeze. “My dear,” he said quietly, “have you considered simply insisting Lord Upshaw permit the marriage? You could tell him you’re confident they are suited.”

  For a moment, he thought Kate didn’t mean to answer him.

  When at last she spoke, it was hesitantly, as if the words were being dragged from her. “But what if my judgment is no better than hers?” Kate finally said. “What do I know, really, about life? About marriage? I chose wrongly, and made … well, a mess of my life, really.”

  “It strikes me that you made no sort of mess at all,” said Edward calmly. “You betrothed yourself, decided after a time that you didn’t suit, and extricated yourself from a potentially lifelong mistake.”

  But Kate was biting her lip almost brutally, and Edward realized there was something she was not telling him. It was not, however, his place to press.

  Indeed, he had already pressed his attentions upon the lady. He would not press his opinions. Lightly, he lifted her hand and brushed his lips across her knuckles, then released her.

  It was not a sensual gesture, but instead—he hoped—one of reassurance. Of solace, perhaps. This house—and Kate—comforted him in a way he could not explain. Whatever sort of man he turned out to be, in this time and place, could he not do the same for her?

  “And what was your second reason?” he said quietly.

  “I beg your pardon?” Kate looked confused.

  He smiled. “You said there were two reasons for inviting your aunt and uncle.”

  “Oh, that.” Kate blushed prettily. “Well, it is just that Aurélie—Mamma—is coming, you know, and Aunt Louisa sometimes provides a … well, let us call it a calming influence on her.”

  “Interesting,” he remarked. “And Lady Upshaw is your mother’s sister?”

  “Half sister, though you’d hardly know it.” Kate smiled. “Louisa’s mother died when Louisa was small. A year later, her father shocked the entire family by marrying their pretty French governess, and promptly having Aurélie.”

  Edward could not suppress a grin. “Oh, my.”

  “Oh, my, indeed,” said Kate. “But to Louisa’s credit, she has never held it against Aurélie. Her elder siblings, however, harbored some resentment, I think. After their father’s death, Aurélie spent much of her time in France whilst the others did not. They look to Louisa to … well, to hold the whip hand over Aurélie occasionally. But whether Louisa will come for the house party, I don’t know.”

  “Why wouldn’t she?”

  “She has quite a large family,” said Kate. “The eldest three are settled, but Louisa still has daughters in the schoolroom. It is not fair to bother her with my troubles.”

  “I notice both you and your sister are more apt to call your mother by her Christian name.”

  The blush deepened. “Aurélie says it makes her feel old to be called Mamma,” said Kate. “She did marry almost scandalously young. And indeed, it is no great trouble to indulge her.”

  It seemed rather more than an indulgence to Edward, but he held his tongue.

  “Kate,” he said instead, “I didn’t come all the way down here just to quiz you about things that are really none of my business.”

  “I haven’t found your questions the least intrusive,” she returned. “But why, pray, did you come?”

  “I think you know why,” he said.

  “No,” she replied. “I do not.”

  He lifted his gaze to hers again, one eyebrow crooked. “I came to apologize,” he said, “for my bad behavior last night.”

  “What, for being irritable when I tried to get you to rest?” She cut him a sidelong, almost coy look. “Or for saying to Jasper—within my hearing, no less—that he might go to the devil when he insisted on helping you out of your coat?”

  “Kate,” he said chidingly.

  Her eyes lit up with specious recognition. “Ah, you meant for that kiss!” she said. “Do you regret it?”

  “Of course. How could I not?”

  “Heavens, how mortifying for me!” she murmured. “I daresay you don’t mean to do it again, then. I own to some disappointment.”

  For a moment, it was as if his heart stilled. “Ah, Kate,” he said softly. “I think we can both be sure I’m not the sort of man who ought to be kissing you.”

  Her eyes flashed. “Oh? What sort should I chose instead? A fortune hunter, perhaps? I have no fortune save Bellecombe, and now I’m tasked with preserving it. My options, Edward, are limited.”

  Edward tried to understand. “You expected to marry,” he said. “To leave Bellecombe to your brother’s care, and have a family and home of your own. To have children.”

  She glanced away.

  “Kate, you can still do those things,” he pressed. “Perhaps you should go back to London instead of sending your sister? Couldn’t Lady Upshaw introduce you to some eligible gentlemen?”

  Her lips thinned, and she shook her head. “I haven’t time,” she said. “Things are too precarious here. It’s taken us five years just to push the estate books back into the black.”

  “Kate, can’t your steward—”

  “I cannot
,” she interjected. “What’s more, I don’t wish to. Look at me. I’m not beautiful, and I know it.”

  “That is not true,” he countered. “And it strikes me you have many virtues that—”

  “You don’t understand.” She shook her head again. “I’m no longer Miss Katherine Wentworth with a modest but serviceable dowry. Do I wish to marry? Yes, of course. But even if I had the time to meet eligible gentlemen, how could I be certain that a man wanted me, and not the revenue this estate might someday—someday, if I work my fingers to the bone—begin to throw off?”

  She had been somehow spooked, he guessed, by her former fiancé. “Kate, not everyone is like that.”

  “Men who are seeking wives, Edward, must be practical,” she said. “They must consider what that wife will bring them. No one will look at me and see a plain woman with a good heart. They will see only the heiress of Bellecombe. But my father and my brother nearly bled this place dry, and I’ll be damned before I’ll let another man do it.”

  He had upset her, he realized. How tragic Kate could not see her own worth. And yet she was right; her value was now inseparably entwined with that of the barony’s, and if he understood the law, whoever married her would likely control both.

  “And yet you can be very persuasive, my dear,” he said, attempting to lighten the mood. “I have no doubt you could keep that sort of man in his place.”

  “I cannot be bothered with that sort of man,” she snapped. “I have real problems here. I haven’t the time to take on a battle that needn’t be fought. I can’t run that risk—not to Bellecombe, and not to my family.”

  “And so you will trade … what?” he asked. “Your future children for the future of this estate?”

  Something like pain flashed in her expressive gray eyes. “Yes, if one wishes to look at it that way,” she said quietly. “I think it a worthy sacrifice.”

  “And what will become of all this when you’re gone?” he pressed. “Who do you build it for—sacrifice for—if not your children?”

  “Nancy is heir to Bellecombe, as it now stands,” Kate answered. “The estate would be well served if it descended through the Burnham line.”