Katy summoned every ounce of courage, the spirit that had sustained her through the years.
But no sound escaped her mouth.
The major shifted his attention to her voluminous skirts, his hands frantically searching for a way beneath the layers of heavy twill and lacy petticoats.
Katy took a hard, heaving breath, tried again. Her scream rose and echoed through the copse, silencing the birds, penetrating all the way to the meadow. Where Colonel Damon Farr had almost given up the search.
It was worse than he’d feared. When Damon charged up to the knot of horses on the path through the woods, Fox had Katy on the ground with her skirts up over her head, although, thanks to Thayne’s determined hold on one arm, the major had not progressed any farther. Damon thought he’d put the heated surge of battle behind him, but the satisfaction of clubbing Fox off Katy was as fine as any moment he could recall. A second blow sent the major crashing into the brush at the edge of the path, where he had the good sense to lie still.
Thayne was babbling, attempting to explain, making excuses. Damon paid him no heed. He picked Katy up, swung her into her saddle with not so much as a query about whether she was fit to ride. He took up her mare’s reins, then turned to look down at the major, who was now sitting, a trifle lop-sidedly, at the foot of an elderberry bush.
“I am aware of my guilt in this,” Damon told him grimly. “Nevertheless, I will see you both in the library after breakfast.” Colonel Farr addressing his junior officers.
The new Earl of Moretaine, leading Katy’s mare, turned his horse away from the castle, leaving two ashen-faced officers who had never before doubted that they were gentlemen.
There was a clearing close by, a treasured memory of Damon’s childhood. He’d even visited it more than a time or two while at Eton. A good place for a young man to contemplate the world—his fellow students, friends and those who were not; the harshness of his teachers . . . and, later, the delights of wine and women. Oh, yes, he remembered the spot well. His great-grandfather had planned with care. There was even a curved marble bench, stuck incongruously in the middle of the wilderness. Was it still there? He hoped so.
Damon found the narrow sidepath, and there was the glen, perhaps even lovelier than he remembered. The last time he had been here, he had not yet learned how privileged he was, how so much of the world was ugly and harsh, bathed in sweat and blood . . .
He swung Katy from her sidesaddle and plopped her onto the hard marble with the carelessness he might have used with a sack of grain. The breath whooshed out of her. Clasping her hands in front of her face, she stared blindly at the stream, rocking ever-so-faintly back and forth.
Damon tethered the horses, then stood over her, hands on his hips. “And now,” he declared, “you will tell me about your long masquerade. Why you are a liar. Why you have deceived my mother, myself, and my staff for all this time. Why you have betrayed our trust. Well, speak up, girl! Your audacity overwhelms me. It is unfortunate you were too young to go as a spy. You would have been superb. I daresay you could give Mrs. Siddons lessons.”
Katy’s slight shoulders slumped, her head drooped forward.
“Answer me, dammit. I must know! I gave you shelter, food, allowed you to live a life of gentility. Open your mouth and speak to me, girl! I know you can, so stop your games. This instant.”
Her whole body shuddered. She dropped her hands from in front of her mouth. “Sometimes,” Katy breathed into the waiting silence, “late at night in my room or when I was out riding, I would say or word or two out loud. Just a whisper, to see if I still could.”
Damon stared at the changeling on the bench. A lady, by God! Not a trace of the streets in a single word.
She was clever, adept. She could have learned proper speech from his mama.
No, every word was perfect. Katy Snow was a lady, born and bred.
“Why?” The word burst from him, raw and hoarse-voiced, for here was the ultimate betrayal. The residents of Farr Park had taken her in, offered protection, even love. And all along the miserable chit was playing a part. Hoodwinking them. Bamboozling the lot, numbskulls that they were. They’d trusted her, by God. Treated her like a princess. And this was the thanks they got.
He should have let Fox have her.
Katy coughed, cleared her throat. “Nearly every place I tried to find work . . . after no more than three words, I was suspected as a runaway from a noble house and they wanted no part of me.” For a moment she seemed surprised by her spate of words, relapsing into silence. Her bosom heaved as she took another deep breath and tried again. “The few times I was taken on as a scullery maid, I was soon shunned for my fine speech and what they said were my lofty ways.” Katy paused, eyes fixed on the tall water grasses swaying with the pull of the current. “Each time I was chased away or turned off. No one wanted me.”
“I believe I’ve heard tales of your lack of domestic skills,” Damon commented drily.
“That, too,” Katy conceded softly. “I was hungry, exhausted . . . freezing. It had begun to snow. I had to find shelter or die. I’d lost the main road, you see, and ended up on the hill above Farr Park. When I looked down and saw the lights in the windows, the torches along the drive, I knew it was a miracle. This place was meant to be my new home . . . and I vowed I would do whatever was necessary to stay there.”
“And if you didn’t speak, no one would guess you were a lady.”
Katy, falling back into old habits, nodded.
“Except my staff soon found you out . . . and then my mother, so that you were once again a lady by the time I returned.”
Cream rises, Katy thought, beginning to recapture a bit of her spirit.
“But no one could be certain,” Damon continued, “because, for some quite incredible reason, you maintained your masquerade long after becoming the family darling, making fools of us all. Betraying my mama’s trust, the devotion of my staff—”
“Never!” Katy cried. “I love them. They are wonderful. But I could not—I simply could not—risk being sent back where I came from.”
“And where was that?” Damon inquired silkily.
“I was nearly . . . ravished just now,” Katy declared after only the slightest pause for thought. “Though I appreciate your gallant rescue, my lord, surely you cannot expect the entire story of my life at this moment.”
“Why, you arrogant, devious, self-serving little baggage, I ought to take you over my knee!”
“It is surprising what six and a half years of silence will do, my lord. Such ample opportunity for contemplation and self-reflection. I believe most people could benefit from being forced to keep their mouths shut and their minds open. You may do what you will with me, but I am not yet ready to tell you who I am or where I came from.”
He had to give the chit credit for courage. And swiftness of mind and remarkable agility with words. “If I do not know where you came from, I am not obliged to return you, is that it?”
“Exactly.”
“And if I should ask the Baron Hardcastle to identify you?”
Katy jumped up, took two steps toward him, her hands held out in supplication. She faltered, knees buckling. Damon caught her before she hit the ground. They rested there, on their knees, Katy quivering in his arms, her face buried against his shoulder.
“Do not think I am not still angry,” Damon said at last, “but only a beast would press you now, and I am determined not to fall to Foxbourne’s level. Come, we’ll go home.” He stood, drawing Katy up with him. “And, once there, I must tell my two best friends to leave the castle.” Though the fault is mine. “And you must tell my mother how shockingly you have betrayed her trust.”
He felt a quiver pass through her. Grim-faced, he tossed her into the saddle. After loosening the mare’s reins from a tree branch, Damon looked up at her, examining Farr Park’s lovely, but deceitful, foundling as if he had never seen her before. “Tell me, Snow,” he asked, “did you enjoy making mock of us all?”
~ * ~
Chapter Sixteen
Katy sat, hands resting in her lap, regarding the remains of her breakfast. If she had any sensibility at all, she would not have eaten every last bite. The meal, delivered to her bedchamber by Rankin himself, had been more than ample, and she’d downed it all. Seeking strength to face the earl and his mama? Courage to run away?
Again.
Obviously, she had the constitution of her more vulgar ancestors, the good merchant stock on her mother’s side of the family. Any proper young lady of the ton would be prostrated by the double disasters of unrequited love and discovered deceit, unable to eat or drink. Lost in an attack of the vapors, falling into a decline . . . fading away, doctors hovering, family gathered about, telling her they were so very sorry not to have given her a second chance.
Katy replaced the silver cover atop her empty plate with a decided thump, then stalked to the fireplace where she plunked herself down on a footstool and stared into the fire, chin propped in one hand. She was in trouble. Severe trouble. Damon had told her to stay in her room until he sent for her. A summons could come at any moment.
She had put on the least becoming of the four new gowns created solely for the journey to Castle Moretaine, a dark apology in gray kerseymere, relieved only by a quarter-inch strip of white piping on the high neck and edge of the cuffs. She had confined her blond curls into a tight bun at her nape and fashioned a makeshift headcovering from a lace-edged handkerchief. She could only hope she gave the appearance of a chastened, humble servant. Self-preservation—was that not her credo? Physically, she was prepared, but her mind whirled in chaos, like a child’s round-about caught in an evil spell of circles without end. They would cast her out . . . or, worse yet, question the Hardcastles . . . and send her back to the hell she had escaped.
No! Before that terrible fate, she would run away.
To what? To the life the major and the captain had touted as they recounted what they considered the grand enticements of a career as a demimondaine?
Or . . . was it possible the Hardcastles would deny her? Yes, of course! They had their Lucinda Challenor. What did they need with Katy Snow?
But why did they have a Lucinda Challenor? In the grief following the earl’s death Katy had had little time to contemplate the puzzle. Her dear grandpapa, the bishop, had not been a wealthy man; at least, she did not think so. He must have left her something, however, for she seemed to be his sole heir. Was it enough to tempt the baron to—
Her skittering thoughts were brought to an end by a scratching at the door.
“The earl will see you now, miss,” Rankin announced. “In Lady Serena Moretaine’s chambers.”
Next door! They were both there. Waiting. What had Damon told his mother? Enough to make her beloved countess hate her forever?
Whatever he had said, he was right. Katy Snow was a horrid, conniving liar—there was no way around it. She had deceived them. It could even be said she had played on their sympathies to make a home for herself . . .
She had given good service, truly she had..
Head high, stomach-churning, Katy followed Rankin the few feet down the hall to Lady Moretaine’s suite.
They stood there like a portrait, mother and son, the elder Dowager Countess of Moretaine seated on the chaise, the new earl standing behind her. Katy managed a curtsy, though her stomach seemed to have fallen to her toes while her heart was stuffed into her throat.
“I believe you have something to say to my mother,” Damon intoned. “Please do so.”
Did the countess know? An anguished glance revealed little. Her dear countess did not look shocked or angry. Perhaps he had not told her.
“Now, Snow,” said the earl. “Tell her!”
“My dear,” said Lady Moretaine, “Damon has told me of your accident while out riding this morning. Though why he should be so cryptic about it I cannot imagine. Nor why he has insisted on bringing you to me when you should be laid upon your bed. Dear child, do sit down before you fall. You look quite dreadful. Damon, help her to a chair!”
The earl remained fixed behind his mother, even as Katy swayed.
It was cruel not to have told his mama. The countess deserved to have the news broken gently. And cruel to herself as well. Could he not have spared her this bare-faced revelation to the only mother she had ever known?
But it seemed military men were rigid, even more inflexible about rules and ways of conduct than the starched-up, unforgiving ton . . .
Katy clasped her hands under her chin, planted her feet more widely apart, willing her legs to support her. She longed to throw herself at the countess’s feet, as she had done with Mrs. Tyner so long ago . . . but she was grown now and full of pride. The colonel would call it arrogance, when she’d never felt less arrogant in her life. She was, in fact, shriveling inside, even as anger flared against Damon for putting her in this position. All Katy had to do was open her mouth, say one word, and the enormity of her betrayal would be evident.
“Snow!” This time, a sharper bite to Damon’s bark.
A shiver shook her from toes to head, but Katy faced the dowager squarely. “I am so very, very sorry,” she whispered. “I was alone and terrified. If I had not found a way to stay here, I feared I would die.”
“Oh, my dear child!” the countess gasped. Tears rushed to her eyes. Katy was close enough to see them quite clearly. And the deep, abiding anger that followed. “How could you?” Serena Moretaine breathed. “All those years . . . the love we gave you . . . the advantages . . .”
“You may wait for me in the library, Snow,” the earl said.
“But I must explain—”
“Out! Have the grace to allow my mother to recover from the shock you have given her.”
If you had prepared her, the poor dear lady would not be suffering so!
“The library, Snow.”
Without a last look at the countess, whose anguish she could not bear to see, Katy left.
The library was not empty. The beast! He had sent her here quite deliberately, casting her into the den of iniquity. For Major Foxbourne and Captain Thayne had bounded to their feet the moment she entered, standing parade-ground stiff, faces frozen in masks of red, as if they were being strangled by their cravats.
“Miss Snow,” Foxbourne croaked, “I offer my most sincere and humble apologies. Even too many years of war are no excuse for my behavior.”
“I offer my apologies as well,” said Captain Thayne. “It was a moment of insanity. I pray you will be able to put it from your mind.”
There they were, the swine—two officers and gentlemen who had not hesitated to attempt to entice her into the life of a high-paid whore. But why? Although she had just met them, Katy suspected their behavior was out of character, for bounders would never be numbered among close friends of Colonel Damon Farr.
I am aware of my guilt in this. Damon’s words echoed in her head. If he admitted guilt in so serious a crime as molesting her, how could he possibly blame her for a much lesser offense?
The officers still stood, red-faced, stiff as pokers. “Tell, me gentlemen”—could she help it if the word came out a bit askew?—“did the earl use you to test me? To see if I were susceptible to such a heinous offer?”
“Oh, no!” the two men protested, nearly in unison. The colonel’s officers were nothing, if not loyal.
“The sad result of a drunken evening, miss,” said Captain Thayne. “Thought you was such a beauty, don’t you know—shame to see you hidden here in the country.”
“Just a bit of flirtation, a hint in your ear,” said Major Foxbourne. “That’s all we intended. No sense why a female with your–ah–qualities shouldn’t try to better herself.”
“Better myself? A strange way of putting it, is it not, major?”
“Strange indeed,” said the earl, who had entered the library in time to hear Katy’s remark. “Let us declare an end to this,” he continued briskly. “Our guests will leave us now, and when we me
et again, the matter will be forgotten.”
With brief, frozen-faced nods to their colonel and to Katy, the two military gentlemen marched out of the room.
“The matter was rape,” Katy pronounced through gritted teeth.
“Not quite.”
“Close enough.”
“Attempting to distract me from your own guilt?” Damon inquired, soft and insinuating.
“Stating a fact.”
“They are my friends,” declared the earl, his stance as uncompromising as Katy’s own. “Comrades through horrors you cannot even imagine. What happened was the result of the drunken ravings of three old soldiers who have not yet shut the war out of their lives. As angry as Foxbourne was when you hit him, he tells me he would not have gone through with it.”
“Ha! The captain kept him from it . . . until you rescued me.” Which he most certainly had. She had to give him credit for that.
“Then Fox must live with his guilt. As must you, for now you know what an anomalous situation you have created by avoiding your proper place in the world. Whatever that place may be. By being Miss Nobody from Nowhere you invited amorous attention, importunate suggestions—”
“It is not my fault! Never say it is my fault!” She had promised herself she would be accommodating, swallow her hurt, her outrage. As always—anything to secure her position. And now, look at her, fighting tooth and nail against her own best interests, when she should keep her tongue between her teeth, as she had for so long.
“You are a deceiver, Katy Snow. You betrayed our trust. I will not sacrifice years of friendship with my officers for an arrogant adventuress.”
“I was twelve years old!”
“And could have revealed your secret any time these past many years.”
Katy collapsed into the nearest chair, her legs less steady than her courage. “I dared not chance it. As long as everyone assumed I was a poor wounded creature ejected from the nest, I was safe. No one would force me to reveal myself. But if it were discovered I was . . . normal, I might have been sent back.”
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