Cat's Cradle

by Shannon Donelly

  Ash grinned. Tiny, furry clowns, the kittens amused him, lightening his mood and making him wonder if indeed he ought to reconsider keeping the house. But he knew all too well his status in the neighborhood. Lord Rustard had certainly made it clear with his hints that a man like Ash would not be welcome into the society of a small community. Indeed, the only visitor to the manor had been his pretty housebreaker.

  So he could not stay. Not unless he could somehow convince the community that he was a leopard that had shed his spots. Or unless he cared to become a hermit.

  Which meant he ought to leave, sooner rather than later. October was nearly spent, after all, and today’s rain foretold the winter to come. Better to leave with the roads still decent enough to travel. And Knowles might like going back to Italy.

  He sat there, lost in his thoughts until a frightened meowing caught his ear. Sitting up, he listened. Lady Mist still lay on his lap, but what had become of Sir Eber Troublealot? Was that damnable kitten living up to his name?

  Bea had also heard the faint cry, for she came out of the cupboard and streaked for the door.

  Following, Ash tracked the cat and the cries into the drawing room, and saw at once that Sir Eber had stranded himself.

  They had put up scaffolding to repair some of the plasterwork on the ceiling, and the kitten had clawed its way up a rope that dangled from the top-most planks. Sir Eber hung from his front claws, swaying slightly, mewing in panic, and utterly trapped. The kitten could not let go of the rope without falling more than twenty feet to the bare wood floor. And the tiny kitten lacked the reach and agility to climb off the rope and onto the scaffolding.

  With a curse, and a shout to Knowles, Ash put down the gray kitten, leaving it beside the yowling Bea. He started up the scaffolding. The boards creaked under him, and he spared a thought to wonder if they would support his weight; they had been built for and by two spry, elderly workmen from the village. He paused, and Eber lost his grip on the rope with one paw. Ash knew he had no time to lose. He ran up the ladders, ignoring the dangerous swaying of the structure, and reached out just as the kitten lost its grip.

  The black kitten fell into his outstretched hand, and Ash froze. Scaffolding swayed. Slowly, carefully, Ash started down.

  “What the bloody hell you doing up there?” Knowles said, coming into the room.

  “Amusing myself. Be a good fellow and steady that ladder,” Ash said. And the plank under his foot snapped.

  He caught himself on the rope, snagging it with his one free hand. Hemp tore into his palm, making him swear, and a sharp jolt of pain sang into his shoulder. Tears mixed with stinging sweat in his eye. Agony blazed across his shoulder. Something had torn loose.

  “I’m coming up,” Knowles shouted.

  “Don’t you dare!” Ash said between clenched teeth. “If it won’t hold my weight, it won’t hold yours or ours.”

  “Then I’ll get help.”

  “Excellent suggestion,” Ash muttered, but he had already heard the front door slam from Knowles leaving the house, his boots rapping sharp on wood.

  Knowing he could not long hang there, Ash glanced about and gently swung himself. Each move stabbed searing pain into his shoulder, but at last he managed to swing far enough to wrap his feet around one of the scaffold polls. Sweating and now almost sick from the effort, he got himself half perched on a narrow plank that sagged ominously.

  He sat there, dizzy with pain, a terrified kitten digging its tiny claws into the back of his hand. The door slammed again, and when he straightened, Ash realized he now had an audience.

  “What the devil do you two think you’re doing?” he called down.

  “We’re here to help, sir,” Thomas said, his hair and coat wet from the rain.

  “They’re light enough to come up.” Knowles shouted.

  “I’m not having...” Ash started to say, but a jab of pain cut off his words. In the next second, Will and Thomas were already scampering up the scaffolding like two monkeys. Will reached him first and Ash thrust the kitten at him. “Here. Take him down and yourself with him.”

  Taking the kitten, Will hesitated. But Thomas arrived and said, “Go on, Will. And best help Mr. Knowles pad the floor. Now, Sir Ash, can you climb?”

  His palm burned like blazes, his shoulder felt as if it had been wrenched out of his socket, but Ash managed a crooked grin. “I am only almost as helpless as poor Eber. Come and lend me your shoulder, and let us hope we do not need that padding.”

  Will and Knowles had been dragging in every pillow and blanket in the house, but in the end Ash made it down without falling. With his good hand freed from having to hold the kitten, and Thomas testing the boards for him in advance, the progress was painfully slow. When they reached the floor, Ash slumped onto the pillows and found it to be even more uncomfortable.

  He started to sit up, and swore at what it cost him to do so. A blast of cold air told him he had yet another visitor.

  “Oh, damnation,” he muttered, and glanced up to see Emaline Pearson in the doorway.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  “I thought you said this would be a respectable house while the kittens were here,” she said, coming forward and undoing the ties to her rain-darkened cloak. A teasing tone softened her words but did not hide the worry in her eyes.

  Ash managed a grin, winced and held his shoulder. “A man ought to be able to mutter a much needed curse in his own house.”

  She came to kneel beside him, her hair slicked back against her damp, pale face and her eyes dark and wide.

  “You are wet,” he said.

  “And you are injured. Thank you, Knowles, for leaving word with Mrs. Cranley that you were bringing the boys here.” She glanced up at the scaffolding and took Ash’s injured hand, turning it to expose his rope-burned palm. “What foolish nonsense were you thinking to climb up that after a kitten?”

  “Well, I am a knight, after all. It seemed a good day to rescue fair kittens in distress.”

  She frowned at him, and reached up to touch his shoulder. When he flinched and tried to pull away, her worry clouded to fear. “Oh, you have done yourself a harm. It’s not just your hand, is it? No, you are to stay still. Knowles, please fetch Dr. Pritchard. Thomas, go with him and show him the way. Will, go and ask Mrs. Cranley for her cucumber salve and the friar’s balsam tincture that she uses for her joints.”

  “Yes, ma’am,” three voice echoed at once.

  Ash lay back on the pillows, letting out a sharp breath as his shoulder warned him to take care. “I see I am in formidable hands.”

  “Well, it seems to be my day to rescue knights in distress, Sir Ashten. Now tell me where it hurts.”

  He grimaced as she touched his shoulder again, and she immediately pulled away. “I do not wish to alarm you, but I think you have dislocated your shoulder.”

  “I don’t wish to alarm you, but I know I have. I’ve done so once before, and I was warned it could happen again. It’s got to be put back. The sooner the better. Have you ever done such a thing?”

  “Should we not wait for the doctor?”

  “If you are squeamish, dear lady, we shall wait. But I can tell you from experience that it’ll feel far better when it’s back in place, and the longer it’s out, the more it stretches parts that should not be stretched. Oh, damn.”

  Emaline winced, and not at his curse. Every time he moved, even a fraction, he seemed to be in pain. She could not stand to see him so. Taking hold of her courage, she drew in a breath, then said, “What must I do?”

  He gave instructions on how she must pull his arm out to pop the joint into place, and offered up a crooked grin. “It will hurt me far more than you, so you’d best give me something else to think about while you do it.”

  “Give you what? Brandy?”

  “A kiss. Just for distraction.” He reached up with his good hand to caress her cheek, brushing at her damp skin. “Come now, no one is watching, and instead of slapping me afterwards, you can pull my arm un
til it aches.”

  She started to protest, but he slipped his around the back of her neck and pulled her close. Her lips parted with unvoiced reasons why she should not kiss him, but she let him draw her to him anyway, her chest tight and her skin tingling. His eyes seemed black pools that would drown her, and his hand urged her to what she had ached for in her dreams.

  And then his lips brushed hers and she forgot she was kneeling on a pillow strewn floor and kissing a gamester.

  Warm and soft, his lips touched hers like a summer sun. She lifted her hand to his face, traced the curve of his jaw with her fingertips, and tangled her touch into the silk of his hair. She let out a sigh…and something furry pounced her hand.

  Pulling back, she found Sir Eber attacking her hand and Sir Ashten’s hair. She untangled the kitten from Ash’s sun-lightened hair as he glared at the wiggling black body.

  He smiled at her and said, “Best do it now, for after a kiss such as that, I could die a happy man.”

  Putting the kitten to one side, she pulled in a breath. She took his injured arm and pulled. But, when she saw the pain twist his face, it was she who wanted to cry out.

  Afterwards, with his shoulder in place, he lay still, white lines bracketing his mouth, and she needed to do something to ease his suffering. She leaned close to him, her chest against his, as she caressed wisps of warm brown hair from his face. This time she brushed her lips across his without his urging. Shifting, she pressed her mouth to his damp temple, and smoothed his face, and wished she could do far more than this.

  Oh, but the man tempted her to folly.

  He stared up at her, his eyes unfocused and heavy with pain, but he smiled anyway and said, his voice a rough whisper, “You make me long to be something I’m not, my pretty housebreaker.”

  Through his waistcoat and shirt—for he wore no coat—she could feel the race of his heart beating a rhythm to match hers. She started to ask what it was that he wanted to be for her, but the front door slammed open and she sat up. The doctor hurried in with Thomas and Knowles.

  She had to rise, her heart still thudding and her head still spinning, and let the doctor take over. And she was left still wondering what it was that Ash wished he could be for her.

  * * *

  “Six weeks in a bloody sling! I’ll give it two at the most,” Ash said. He sat in his bedroom, his shirt stripped off and with Knowles rubbing something on him that smelled of turpentine and beeswax. Dr. Prichard had left it for his shoulder, and Knowles insisted on its use.

  “It’ll be three, and six more with you not using it for much. That’s what it were last time,” Knowles said.

  Grumbling, Ash eased into his shirt. “I smell like a painter.”

  “The missus and her boys will be over this afternoon. Said she’d stop by with some of Mrs. Cranley’s concoction what’s supposed to be good for aching joints.”

  Ash thought that over for a moment, and then decided that perhaps some good could come of looking romantic with his arm in a black silk sling.

  Perhaps he could coax another kiss from her.

  But was that wise?

  That kiss had set flame to smoldering desires, which in turn could lead to dangerous places. His pretty housebreaker was no worldly widow who would dally with him. No, she’d need a ring on her finger and a vow before God before she gave herself. And how could he give her any promises?

  Ah, such a pity she was so innocent.

  And how he ached to bury himself in that innocence.

  He let out a sigh, and Knowles cocked a knowing eyebrow.

  “Oh, don’t look at me like that,” Ash said, slipping into a plain buff waistcoat. “I don’t mean to seduce her.”

  “It’s not her being seduced that I see,” Knowles said.

  Ash glowered at his servant, but the truth pulled down his shoulders like a field pack. He was being seduced. By her. By her lively boys. By the image of himself with a home and the illusion of domestic bliss.

  But how long would he stay content with such simple pleasures? How long until ties to her and to this place became unbearable restrictions?

  He toyed for a moment with thoughts of sweeping her off her feet, taking her away with him. He could seduce her. He knew it. He could ride off with her and her boys. They could roam together, and he would lay the world at her feet.

  He went downstairs, arranging his sling, and thinking of such things.

  But in the library he saw Bea nursing her kittens. Sitting down in the leather chair, he watched.

  The mother cat lay contented in her cupboard, the door swung wide open to show a view of her and her kittens. When Eber tried to push Mist away, Bea reached in with a raspy tongue, to wash a face and put order back into her offsprings’ meal.

  And Ash knew that his dreams of taking his sweet widow away with him were all but impossible.

  In truth, his pretty housebreaker had too much in common with her cat. They were both creatures of place. Of home and habit. Pulling Emaline from this village would be as foolish as had been trying to pull Bea from her library. His lovely widow needed to know that she and her boys were rooted here. Oh, he might be able to coax them away, but would they thrive?

  With reluctance, he thought back to his own boyhood.

  He had hated being uprooted.

  He had put it from his mind, from his memories, but now the uncertainty of it, the fear, the loneliness crowded him. He liked those lads of hers far too much to put them through such an upbringing. It had left deep marks on him—in his inclination toward solitude, in his distrust of others, in his restless ways.

  But if he could not stay, and she could not go, where did that leave room for anything between them?

  * * *

  Emaline stared at the barren trees. Winter was coming all too fast. Gray branches of the sleeping trees stretched to an even darker sky. Guy Fawkes Day had come and gone, with Knowles setting out a huge bonfire at the back of the manor. They’d had plenty to burn, and more than a few villagers came, for Sir Ashten had had the gardens cleared by them, and had hired yet others to paint and to act as servants. Now the land around the house lay bare and waiting spring’s renewal.

  And she had not found the courage to ask him about some sort of more binding lease. At first there had been his injured arm to think of. Then she had not wanted him to think she had become friendly only to benefit herself. But she was running out of time and out of excuses to keep the inevitable at bay. She really must try to be more practical about this all.

  She turned her gaze to the manor, to its lovely square form, now able to be seen. It looked like a home again, with smoke spiraling from the chimneys and lights glinting in clean windows and a new raked-gravel drive leading to the front steps.

  He would be able to sell it soon for a good price.

  She dreaded the thought.

  In the past few weeks the kittens had grown so they looked more like sleek, young cats, with their bodies filling out and their fur growing from its spiky kitten-fluff into longer fur. Squire Wilberforce had asked if he might take Lady Sheba Salah as a pet for his youngest daughter, and so the days were darkening in every way possible.

  Soon the kittens would be gone, and so would Sir Ashten Ravenhill.

  What shall I do when he goes?

  She could not think about that. She did not want to. She tried to fool herself and tell herself that she only worried for the boys. They had become too attached to Sir Ash, as they called him. They adored that he had needed their help, and they spent time every day—and most evenings—up at the manor. In Ash’s company, Thomas had become more outgoing and assured. And Will followed Sir Ash about, copying his manners and his speech with an alarming likeness.

  In her heart, however, she knew she would be the one who missed him the most.

  She was not fooled into thinking he might stay. She had spoken just yesterday with Lord Rustard and he had mentioned again his interest in the house. The determined light in his eyes had sent a tremor of un
easiness through Emaline. Lord Rustard meant to have the manor—and he would eventually end up naming a price that Sir Ashten would accept. And then Lord Rustard would want his gate house back from her. Lease or no lease.

  She really must face the inevitable.

  But the shameful secret she held inside her was that she cherished a ridiculous hope that something more than flirtation had lain behind Ash’s kisses.

  When he had kissed her, had he longed to be a man who could settle with her and marry? And if he wanted that, could he not become so? Was not the desire the start of all things?

  Ah, but it was folly to think that way. Why would he want anything more than a kiss from a vicar’s widow—a woman without beauty or money or fascinating skills? No, he had kissed her because he probably kissed any woman who would allow it. And if she tried to dream more into it than that, she would only break her own heart.

  With her head up and her armor tightened, she strode up the steps to Adair Manor.

  The Findleys’ eldest boy had assumed the role of footman and let her in, with a word that Knowles was in the drawing room, supervising the disassembly of the scaffolding, and Sir Ashten was in the library with the boys.

  Hearing voices, she headed for the library, a smile in place.

  She stopped in the open doorway, the sight before her freezing her step and her heart.

  Sir Ashten sat in the giant leather chair, leaning forward, his injured arm pulled out from its sling as he bent over a small table. Next to the table, Thomas sat on a footstool, and Will knelt on the floor. Both boys had cards in their hands.

  Her throat dried and the bitterness surged into her like poison.

  Dear Lord, he is teaching them to gamble.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  Fury flamed in her, burning on her face and boiling in her stomach. Her hand tightened on the doorknob, and she fought for enough control not to scream like a fishwife. My God, after all he had promised about keeping this a respectable house. Oh, she should never have trusted him! She stepped forward with the intent of carving him alive with scathing words. But a second look stopped her.