“Until you came to Farr Park.”
Katy nodded. “That was several weeks later, after I had learned that opening my mouth only brought great trouble and sent me flying back onto the road.”
“And you actually thought I would send you back to that?”
So softly spoken, yet clearly he was angry. Very angry. “But you were far away,” she reminded him. “And I feared your mother could not stand against the baron and his wife. Legally, I am theirs to do with as they will.”
Slowly, he nodded, his mind already leaping ahead. “And by the time I returned, you had dug a hole so deep, there was no way out.”
“Yes,” she admitted on the whisper of a sigh.
“I think,” Damon said, his mind moving forward with military determination, “it might be awkward for Oxley and his wife to discover you at the moment. Is that not so?”
“The situation is, indeed, very strange,” Katy admitted, recognizing at last the futility of continuing any portion of her long deception. “A twelve-year-old child has no access to proof of her birth. There is no way I can say, ‘I am Lucinda Challenor, and she is not. My Challenor grandparents are gone, and my mother’s family has not set eyes on me since I was a baby. So, truly, I am nothing but Katy Snow. The waif the cat dragged in.”
“On a night much like this,” Damon mused.
“Yes.” Katy’s lips curled at the edges. “Though I doubt you were as sober, for you still appeared foxed the next day when I first saw you.”
Oh, yes. What a stupid young cub he had been. But not so uncaring he had had a homeless waif thrown back out into the cold.
“Dinner is served, colonel, Miss Katy.” Jesse Wiggs stood stiffly in the doorway. Katy, head whirling between gratitude for the interruption and a wish that these intimate moments with Damon would never end, allowed the colonel to draw her to her feet and lead her toward the dining room.
What had she done? Her life was in his hands.
And it felt good. So wonderfully right.
Katy sat, toying with her food until Lady Moretaine declared she must be sickening for something. And no wonder after her ill-conceived walk to the far side of town. Katy allowed herself to be sent from the table, fed a hot posset sent up from the kitchen, and be tucked up under heavy quilts after liberal use of the warming pan. She wound her arms around her pillow and thought of her hero. She smiled . . . and forgot to be afraid. She dreamed the secret fantasies of her innermost being.
And woke to find her love gone. Off at first light to Farr Park, saying—according to Jesse—that a mere dusting of snow would not keep him from home.
Home. Home was where the heart was, was it not? But Damon was at Farr Park, and she was in Bath. Katy sighed.
At least he had not gone straight to Oxley Hall.
But what would Damon do tomorrow? Next week? Next month?
Katy looked out on a world sparkling with fresh white snow and felt only dread in her heart.
~ * ~
Chapter Twenty-five
Marriage was the only possible solution.
After a sleepless night of examining Katy’s problem from every possible angle, Damon had his horses put to, driving out of Bath as if the four horsemen of the Apocalypse nipped at his heels. The brave soldier, fleeing the field. It wasn’t that he had not tried to pen a note of reassurance to Katy before he left . . . but each combination of words that chased through his mind seemed as inadequate as the blob of ink that dripped from his quill, leaving a mark on the pristine page as ugly as Katy’s situation.
All will be well . . . I will not reveal your secret . . . I am master of Farr Park, not my mother . . . you will always have shelter there . . . You are my Lady Silence. We will never be parted.
Foolish fantasy. They could, and they would.
So Damon had pulled on his gloves, clapped his beaver to his head, grabbed his whip from the waiting groom, and bowled out of town as swiftly as if it were a glorious spring day. And now, two weeks later, he sat in the chaos of the bookroom that had been his personal haven from a world of war and admitted that nothing was ever going to be the same again. His life was as higgledy-piggledy as his stacks and stacks of research books. It took him hours to find a needed reference. And he could not find himself at all.
Where was the daring soldier? The shining knight to defend a fair maiden? Was Katy Snow not entitled to a dragon-killer when she needed one?
But she was not threatened. Even if Oxley suspected Katy’s identity, a second Lucinda Challenor was the last thing the baron wanted. Surely.
Yet Katy—if her story were true, and every instinct shouted that it was—could be a decided inconvenience to whatever rig Oxley was running.
Money—it had to be about money. Damon itched to investigate, but feared that questions could stir the dragon into action, precipitating Katy into exactly the danger she must avoid. So here he sat, staring at four walls, when he longed to engage the enemy, piercing the dragon’s heart with one great swing of his cavalry saber.
Marriage would do that rather effectively. No muss, no fuss, no blood or nasty magistrates. But without the consent of her guardian it would have to be Gretna Green. And he could not have that stigma hanging over his Katy, not with all the doubts about her parentage. She would be an outcast from the ton for life. His gallant rescue all for naught.
But . . . could anything that placed Katy by his side for the rest of his life be so bad?
Devil take it! He not only lusted after her, he loved her. He was rattling around Farr Park like a lost sheep in a deep pit. Utterly miserable in the privacy of his own carefully crafted Hell. He not only had to have her in his bed, he had to have her in his life. Each and every day. He wanted to watch her bloom into motherhood. He wanted to watch their children grow. Whoever Katy was—however suitable, or unsuitable, a bride she might be—she was his.
And at the moment she needed protection. He must go to Bath at once—
“Colonel,” Mapes announced, “there is a Mr. Trembley to see you. The solicitor,” he added in response to his employer’s blank expression.
Damon’s skin prickled, his military instincts springing to the fore, wiping away the bittersweet vagaries of a lover’s confusion. “Show him in, Mapes.” The colonel stood to greet his unexpected guest. Somehow he knew this would be no ordinary conversation.
Katy stared at the letter Serena Moretaine was holding out to her, nearly snatching her hand back, for she recognized that atrocious scrawl. How could she not? Now, after three whole weeks of agony, of living on tenterhooks each and every day, the abominable beast had at last written to her. She could kill him, absolutely kill him!
Miss Snow,
I wish to inform you that steps are being taken to resolve the matter we discussed when last I saw you. Do not be anxious. I will elaborate on my next visit to Brock Street.
Respectfully,
Farr
Respectfully, Farr! The man was mad. Not that he knew she loved him to distraction, but to send such a letter to someone he knew so well. Odious! He could go straight to the devil for all she cared. That was the problem, of course. She cared most dreadfully. So instead of ripping the missive to shreds, Katy carefully folded it and tucked it next to her heart.
March was rapidly approaching April, and even the not-so-young residents of Bath were moving about with greater alacrity. The walled garden behind their house was coming back to life. White primula, golden narcissus, anemones, violets, even the exquisite bloom of a pink camellia, while a forsythia lit one whole corner with a waterfall of yellow sprays. Nearly every morning Katy rode Mehitabel on the downs above the city, always properly attended by the groom sent from Farr Park, whose presence she did not protest. She still took long walks—sometimes as far as the Marine Parade along the river; more frequently, slipping out the garden’s rear door to explore the vast green below the Royal Crescent and Brock Street. But she had not returned to Sydney Gardens, which would forever be associated in her mind with Damon.
Even shopping on Milsom Street with the countess by her side took on an air of sad nostalgia for dark clouds and drifting snowflakes.
In mid-March, at the end of six months of mourning, Lady Serena Moretaine had allowed herself the pleasures of tea and an occasional round of whist or loo at the Upper Assembly Rooms. While the dowager countess was occupied with friends her own age, Katy frequently climbed the stairs to the musicians’ gallery, where, hidden at the back behind the cello, she listened to the lively music and watched the dancers swing down the lines or swirl about the room to the one-two-three of the waltz, the ladies’ skirts flying as if in a brisk wind. It was glorious.
Oh, to be able to do just that. To dance . . . dance with Damon.
Dance with the devil, more like!.
She could not have him. Even as Lucinda Challenor, she could not have him, particularly if Drucilla should be delivered of a girl. Katy was ever conscious she should be brave and do as the countess wished—make a serious search for a husband . . . or a new employer . . .
The thought of either made her ill.
Katy sank down on an extra musicians’ chair, with its classic simplicity of red velvet upholstery and softly curved gilded wood. She could no longer ignore the niggling bit of hope that kept her from doing as her beloved countess wished. If Drucilla’s child were a boy . . . if Damon were not the next Earl of Moretaine . . .
Nonsense! No amount of fantasizing would put Damon Farr within her reach.
Nonetheless, she would wait. The countess would be forced to ask Jesse Wiggs to thrust Katy Snow out the door, bag and baggage. And that, Katy thought grimly, she would believe when she saw it.
And then one morning in early April, when it seemed as if the sun had never shone so brightly nor the birds sung so sweetly, when pedestrians seemed to float over the cobbles, and even the chairmen seemed to have a new lease on life, Colonel Damon Farr returned to Brock Street. Katy, who was reading to the countess, heard his voice in the hall. She faltered, swallowed, bit her lip, and began again.
“No, no, child, it is quite all right,” Serena Moretaine said. “It has been far too long since he paid us a visit. You may tell my son I wish to see him immediately, even in all his dirt.”
In the flurry of the colonel greeting his mother, Katy simply stood back and stared. Damon looked . . . good. Much better. As if the cares of the world had lifted from his shoulders since she had last seen him. She should be pleased . . . but indications that he thrived without her were not . . . were not . . . Oh, devil take it! She was everything she should not be. Selfish, self-centered, arrogant. Hopelessly in love.
“I am here for a longer visit than usual,” Damon was saying as he bent over his mother’s hand in old-fashioned courtesy. “I am in need of an infusion of city life to stir me out of my country ways.”
In stodgy old Bath? But Katy’s heart soared.
Then plunged to her toes. The Hardcastles would come. Of course they would.
And she would be afraid, every moment of every day.
To no one’s surprise, it took only three days for Baron and Lady Oxley, Miss Eleanore Hardcastle, and Miss Lucinda Challenor to descend on Bath. Katy, happy as a grig, was circling the Pump Room, her arm tucked through the colonel’s, when the Hardcastle family came sailing in, four pairs of eyes on the qui vive for the object of their interest. The baroness’s gaze alighted on Lady Moretaine, and she charged across the room toward her, even though Eleanore, who had spotted the colonel and Katy not fifteen paces away, tugged at her sleeve, attempting to hold her mother back.
“Serena, my dear!” Lady Oxley gushed. “So delightful to see you here. The waters have surely been a blessing, for you are looking splendid, quite splendid.”
“Ah . . . thank you, Cornelia,” Serena Moretaine murmured, looking up from the Bath ladies with whom she had been enjoying a comfortable coze. After introducing the newcomers to her friends, she added, “Are you passing through on your way to London?”
“Indeed, we are fixed here for some time,” Lady Oxley replied. “Always wise to give young ladies a taste of society before taking them to London, do you not agree?”
Since Miss Hardcastle had already had one Season and Miss Challenor gave the appearance of being able to teach the ton a thing or two, Season or no, the countess clamped her teeth over the obvious reply. “A wise idea,” she murmured, while frantically wondering what had happened to her son and her ever-resilient right arm, Katy Snow.
At that moment Damon was rushing Katy down a corridor, his goal a possible side or rear door out of the building housing the Pump Room. “Ah, hah!” Baron Oxley’s boom of triumph echoed hollowly around them. “Escaping, colonel? Can’t say as I blame you. Frightening thing, women. Particularly when all three have set their caps at the same man.”
Damon tried for humor. Raising an eyebrow and proffering a thin smile, he said, “Surely not Lady Oxley?”
“Hah! Worse than the gals, that woman. A better pointer than my best bitch. She’ll snabble you for one of ’em before you can say Jack Robinson. You there,” the baron barked at Katy, “what’s your name, girl?”
Keeping her eyes on the polished wood floor, Katy bobbed a curtsey. “Katy Snow, my lord.”
“Ain’t you the one couldn’t talk?”
“’Twas a miracle, my lord.”
Damon squeezed her arm. Hard.
The baron harrumphed. “Look at me when you speak, girl!”
“Miss Snow is my mother’s companion, Oxley,” Damon intervened. “She expressed an interest in the Abbey’s fan-vaulted ceiling, and I agreed to escort her there. A mission we must complete, so we can escort the countess home in time for nuncheon. If you are fixed in Bath for more than the day, I am sure we will have opportunity to converse at another time.” The colonel bowed and started to turn away.
Lord Oxley’s hand shot out, pulling up Katy’s chin. His fingers bit into her flesh. “Enough!” Damon’s tone was as quietly deadly as a bolt from a cross-bow. Defiantly, Katy’s green eyes stared up into the baron’s ruddy scowling face. It was far too late for dissimulation. And then, oddly, his burly body seemed to deflate, like a balloon on a sudden descent from the sky. With a small sigh and a slight shake of his head, he turned back toward the Pump Room.
Dear God! Katy shivered.
“He knows,” Damon acknowledged. “No doubt about it, he recognized you.” He gripped Katy by both arms, scrutinizing her as intently as the baron had done. “He has lost, Katy. He knows it. We have only to put all our pieces in play, and we have him.”
“He is a bully and a cheat,” Katy replied tonelessly. “That does not mean he is stupid.”
“His only way out is murder. Can you actually think he would stoop that far?”
Katy gave an infinitesimal shrug. People were murdered for sixty shillings . . . sixty pence. Why not for sixty thousand pounds?
Right there in a rear corridor of the Pump Room, with maids and footmen scurrying to and fro to the kitchens, Colonel Damon Farr took his secretary into his arms, holding her tight. “I told you this matter was being investigated,” he murmured into her hair. “I promise on every oath an officer and a gentleman can give, that Oxley shall not have you back. Until I can get all the pieces of this chess match lined up, however, you will not leave the house without my escort. Is that clearly understood? And no equivocations, mind? Well . . . answer me! Do you understand your life may depend on doing as I say?”
Understand? She was positively basking in his protection. Removing her from her legal guardian was quite impossible, of course, but somehow she had never felt so protected since the moment her Grandfather Challenor died. It was quite, quite wonderful.
Even if Damon had not a legal leg to stand on.
If only he would continue to hold her like this . . . and never, ever let her go.
~ * ~
Chapter Twenty-Six
While Katy waited for the axe to fall, life in Brock Street ran at an agonizingly sedate pace. Mornings in the Pu
mp Room, walks in the park, shopping, visits to the lending library, an evening in the Lower Rooms with a string quartet so somnolent that Katy was unable to keep her beasts at bay. While the music droned on, her head whirled with every misguided decision she had ever made, every disaster she had surely brought down upon herself, and visions of the appalling events that might could occur if she were to reveal herself as the true Lucinda Challenor.
The warmth of Damon’s embrace was not renewed, though Katy clung to the memory, hoping against every reality that it was an augury of things to come. The colonel did, however, accompany her on her morning rides. Though he said little beyond punctilious inquiries about her health, her plans for the day, or the vast improvement in the weather, somehow they recaptured much of the camaraderie that had frequently marked their days at Farr Park. Yet beneath this smooth façade Katy felt the tension. It was as if they were suspended in time, waiting . . . waiting for something momentous to happen. The birth at Castle Moretaine, expected within the month?
Or was the colonel waiting on Baron Oxley? Waiting and watching . . . daring him to attempt to take Katy back.
Yet how could he? Lord Oxley already had a Lucinda Challenor.
If only he would say something . . . tell her what was going on.
The colonel bowed and nodded to his mama’s friends . . . he tolerated the predatory thrusts of the Hardcastle ladies with commendable graciousness. Or so twittered Lady Moretaine’s friends. The colonel did not, however, sample the waters. The countess’s friends took a good long look at his erect carriage, broad shoulders, and decisive manner, and decreed that it was quite obvious Colonel Farr did not need the waters.
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