“Blakely’s keeping him company? Harcroft must be calling in all his old favors. I gather he trotted Blakely out to frighten you into divulging my secret plans. That is a complication.”
“It’s even more complicated,” Kate confessed. “You see, my husband is back.”
“Carhart? When did he return?”
“Yesterday. Can you believe it? Of course his vessel could not have been blown off course by two weeks. And now he’s here, and instead of having Harcroft ignore me, Ned will be following me around, bothering me. Last night—”
She shut her mouth ruthlessly. It didn’t seem right to disclose what her husband had told her. His promise had seemed so real in the moonlight, as sacred as a wedding vow. It seemed almost a violation to share it.
Be practical, she reminded herself.
But before she could answer, Louisa took her hand. “I know it’s been a great while since…your last time. Did he hurt you?”
If there was one thing worse than spilling marital secrets, it was Louisa offering Kate comfort because Kate’s husband—the man who fed peppermints to ill-tempered horses—might have hurt her.
“There, there,” Louisa soothed. “I promise, if he shows his nose around here, I’ll shoot him for you.”
Kate choked back a laugh. “That won’t be necessary. He was never that bad. In fact, he is…” Different. Dangerous. “Gentle,” she finished awkwardly. “He always has been. You’ve met him. Do you suppose you might…well. Tell him?”
Kate felt a sudden sense of vulnerability at the thought. She had no idea how he would respond, if he knew. Her own father had flared up at the slightest intimation that Kate intended to take on an interesting project—as if it somehow reflected poorly on his capabilities as a father if she did. His had been a prickly, cloying sort of love—the kind that did everything difficult for her, so that she might sit in peace.
And boredom.
She loved her father, but hiding her work had been a necessity.
“No.” Louisa stood and turned away abruptly, patting the swaddling firmly. “He’s friends with Harcroft, for goodness’ sake.”
“We’ll need someone to help obtain a divorce. You might have options, besides fleeing to America. And it would be better than this.” Kate spread her hands to encompass the tiny room and all it implied—a life spent hiding from a man who had the legal right to compel her presence; her son, growing up without the natural advantages that were his birthright. “It’s a radical process, but surely you could obtain a petition on grounds of extreme cruelty.”
Louisa’s hands fluttered uncertainly. “Would he help? Do you know? How much influence do you have over him?”
Not even enough to get him in bed.
If she’d had any influence over her husband, he would never have left. And he’d come back more frightening, more mysterious than ever.
Louisa slumped into her chair again, and Jeremy, in her arms, gave a small, sleepy hiccough. “Even that’s no solution. Even assuming your husband was willing to defy mine, it would end with Harcroft having Jeremy. I won’t abandon him.” A fierce note entered her voice. “Not to him. Not to that. I would rather die.”
An extreme pronouncement, although by the fierce light shining in Louisa’s eyes, the sentiment was heartfelt. A thread of uneasiness curled around Kate’s spine. She’d given Louisa a gun.
But it was rather too late to rip the pistol from her hands, and it would have made no difference in any event.
“The weapon.” Kate licked her lips. “It is to be used only as a threat, understand?”
“Oh,” said Louisa bitterly. “I understand. This is as much my fault as anyone’s. I let this happen to me. I didn’t say anything for years. No complaints. No protests. I accepted it. I dare say I deserved it.”
“Nobody deserves to be hit in the stomach with a fire poker.”
“But I didn’t stop it.” Louisa’s gaze abstracted. “Until he threatened Jeremy, I didn’t stop it.”
Kate had discovered the truth of her friend’s mysterious illnesses a year before. In that time, she’d urged her to leave, to do something. It had taken Louisa thirteen months to act. It was impossible not to feel sorry for her, after what she had survived. She understood that her friend had been damaged in more ways than by just her husband’s physical betrayal. Still, it was impossible not to feel a hint of frustration.
“Don’t speak that way,” Kate said. “You did stop it, eventually. You’re here. You’re safe. Nobody will ever find you.”
Kate looked out the window. Before them, dying grass covered the hill, stretching down into the autumn-brown of the valley below. A spiral of smoke rose from a village miles distant. Kate counted to ten, pulling her own confused emotions in line, until that plume of smoke had disappeared and reformed again, before she answered.
“I think you underestimate your own strength.”
“And you always assumed too much of me,” Louisa said simply. “I’m not strong, not the way you are.”
Kate kept her gaze on the waving field of grass. Through the uneven glass, she could not make out individual blades. Instead, they passed back and forth, rippling like a sea. If Louisa could see into Kate’s heart right now, Louisa would not call her strong. She feared Harcroft. The terror of discovery filled her almost to panic. Her own husband might betray her at any moment, and still she wished he had taken her last night.
She wasn’t strong.
No; Kate was afraid. But she had become an expert at hiding her emotion behind a veneer of practicality. And now her husband was threatening even that.
She waited for practicality to win out before speaking. “There’s nothing to fear.” She raised her chin and caught a glimpse of motion cresting the hill. Her blood ran cold; practicality disappeared in a flap of brown fabric. In the space of time it took Kate to gulp breath into her seizing lungs, she saw men on horseback. She knew these horses. It was Harcroft and her husband. While they’d broken their fast this morning, they had talked of visiting a few nearby hamlets, of making a few inquiries. Kate just hadn’t expected them to take this tiny path to the west.
“Get down,” she hissed.
Louisa dropped to a crouch—quickly enough that Jeremy opened his eyes, blinking in confusion. They huddled on the floor.
So long as they were very still…
Jeremy began to cry. He didn’t start with little sobs, either; instead, he screwed up his nose and screamed. Kate hadn’t realized that a bundle of cloth scarcely larger than a large cabbage could generate so much noise. She stared at Louisa in appalled horror. There was nothing to do about it. Louisa patted him ineffectually on the back, and cast a worried glance at Kate.
There was still no reason the men would come up to this cabin. The track they were on passed a quarter mile from here, leading over the ridge to a village eight miles away. Even if they came near, unless they passed close enough to peer in the window, they would see nothing but a shepherd’s cottage, abandoned in the autumn. And loud as Jeremy was, they would still have to come very close to hear his wails.
Wouldn’t they?
Kate’s hands were cold. She wasn’t sure if she trembled, or if it was Louisa; their shoulders were pressed together so that their shivers merged into one. Kate could not let herself be overtaken by fear. If the men came close—if they came by—she would need to act quickly, to forestall their inevitable questions. The pistol, after all, would be of no use.
Jeremy’s wails paused, as he gulped breath. For a brief instant she could hear the wind in the weeds, the entirely inappropriate happy trill of a blackbird outside. He started again, but his startled screams were dying down, trickling into a few minute sobs. Still, she imagined she could feel the vibration of horses’ hooves drawing closer and closer, across the field. She waited, her fingers clenching.
But no, that cantering was only the wild beat of her own heart. There was nothing.
No sound, except the last gurgle of Jeremy’s outburst. They were s
afe.
“You see?” she breathed with a shaky a smile. “Nothing to worry about. I’ll just pop up and check—”
She drew up into a crouch, and then pulled herself up to the window.
Not two hundred yards away, Harcroft and Ned were racing across the fields. They were traversing the meadow parallel to the cottage. Headed away, but that would change if they saw a woman standing at the window. Kate froze with fear.
A sudden movement would attract more attention. Slowly she stepped back into the shadows. She watched them, her heart pounding, as they spurred their horses onward. They passed by, and then took the hill behind the cottage at a trot.
Halfway up, Ned turned in the saddle. She could not see his face, but from his stance, he could have been looking straight at her. It was unlikely he could see into the room, dimly lit as it was. It was impossible that he could make out her features through the poorly made glass. It was inconceivable that he would somehow comprehend what was happening. Kate repeated these things to herself, in fervent supplication.
Perhaps those desperate prayers were heard, because he turned away. She watched his form, wavy and distorted by the glass, until the rise of the hill swallowed him.
Only then did Kate draw breath into her aching lungs. “They’re gone,” she croaked, her tone as cheerful as she could manage. “You were right under Harcroft’s nose, dear, and he didn’t suspect a thing. You see, there’s nothing to worry about.”
“Yes,” Louisa said, sounding equally unconvinced. She looked down into Jeremy’s face. “You see?” she told him. “We’re perfectly safe.”
Chapter Eight
KATE DIDN’T DARE RETURN to Berkswift by way of the well-used road that led straight there. Visiting Louisa had been risk enough. But if she met Harcroft along that dusty track, his suspicions, never quiet, would leap up.
Instead, she took a route that cut circuitously along fence boundaries, dipping through a small scrub forest. It lengthened her journey from two hours to three. Shadows stretched as she walked. The path led over a small stream, its waters crossable only by means of a few slippery rocks, dotting the trail. She started across, balancing her empty basket on her arm. The stream was shielded on both sides from the sun by a small copse of trees, which dropped yellowing leaves into the mulch underfoot. The walk had calmed her fears. The fields had been quiet, and this little stream presented the perfect picture of solitude: quiet, but for the burble of the water, and hidden from view. She stepped on the last rock, green with moss, almost at the far bank.
At that moment, her husband stepped out from behind a tree.
Kate let out a shriek and stumbled backward. For a second, she teetered on the slippery stone, desperately flinging her arms behind her for balance. The basket went flying. Then he stepped close. His arms came about her, and he hauled her against his frame.
He was solid and strong. Her heart thumped against his solid chest; his breaths pushed against her breast. Even after her feet were planted on solid ground, he did not let her go.
“Ned. You surprised me. You were so quiet.”
He looked down at her, his hands on her arms. “How terrible of me. Maybe I should wear a bell, like a cow.”
She pulled away from him—just far enough to look back into his eyes. In the overshadowing trees, they seemed dark, impenetrable pools. There was nothing bovine about him; the shadows rendered him rather more wolfish. Her heart pounded. “Or like a goat,” she said. “You may recall I have aspirations in that direction.”
But he was not distracted. “Where were you just now?”
No. Definitely nothing of the cow about him. That question bordered on dangerous, desolate territory.
“Walking.” Kate twisted the tie of her cloak. “And delivering food to the tenants, actually. We’ve had a good run of eggs of late.” She did not dare drop her eyes from his, did not dare let him see how much his question discomfited her. “Besides, walking is healthful, my physician says, and I haven’t the opportunity to do much of it in London. London is a dirty, smoky place, and the parks are overrun by other people. I don’t much get the chance to be alone.” She was talking too much.
He let go of her waist. “Were you alone?”
“Of course. With whom could I possibly have been walking?”
“I don’t know. I ask only because you jumped from me like a guilty thing.”
“Like a frightened thing, you beast.” She tapped his chest in a pretense of playfulness, but he did not respond. “And what were you doing, lurking behind that tree?”
“I wasn’t lurking,” he said. “I was waiting for you. I caught a glimpse of you when you crossed the upper field. And yes, Mrs. Evans told me you’d gone to deliver some goods to the tenants. But who lives out west?”
A cold awareness seeped into Kate’s hands. It trickled down the back of her neck, trailed along her spine until it lodged in an icy indigestible mass in her belly. Her father had always taken her statements as truth, never questioning them. She’d never imagined Ned would think about what she said.
“Oh,” she said. “Only Mrs. Alcot. She’s getting on in years. I did take a rather roundabout route home.”
He glanced at her. Maybe it was her imagination, but she caught a hint of suspicion in the set of his lips.
“If you must know, I wanted some time alone to think. Much has changed in the last few days.”
“But the Alcots live in the village,” Ned said.
“Not anymore, they don’t.” Kate spoke with some asperity, but it was either that, or let a hint of fear invade her voice. These days, it seemed that all conversations led back to Louisa.
He raised one eyebrow at this. His gaze fixed upon her; she imagined clockwork in his head working as he followed the evidence to the inexorable conclusion. Had he seen her in the cottage? He couldn’t have.
“Is there something you’d like to tell me?” His words seemed so kind, so solicitous; Kate shivered. Tell him? She would have to trust him, first. And that lay a long way off. Even the story of Mrs. Alcot proved dangerous.
Once he had heard it, he might begin to put together all the strange, unexplained events. After all, Kate was the reason Mrs. Alcot was no longer living with her husband in the village.
“Is there something I should know?” Ned repeated.
“Yes,” she said, and stood up on tiptoes. It wasn’t lust that drove her to place her lips against his, but splintering dismay. She needed time. He reacted with a scalded hiss. His hands came around her waist. And yet when she touched his chest, his mouth opened to her. His tongue met hers. She could feel his body, the outline of his shoulders, the swell of his thigh brushing hers. And then he gathered her up in his arms and pulled her against him. He was hot to the touch, and his heat did nothing to dispel her growing sense of panic. The hard expanse of his chest pushed into her breasts; her legs fell against his thighs. She reached up to touch his face, and a half-day’s worth of stubble prickled the palms of her hand.
It had started as a kiss given out of panic—the easiest way to put off his questions; the best way to garner time to think. But thinking was the last thing she could do with his mouth on hers. What had started as panic became more. Her lips traced the sum of her fears against his; her tongue met his in sheer desperation. He tasted bittersweet. She could not kiss him, not without remembering the secret, sad certainty of his abandonment. She could not feel the warm promise of his arms around her without knowing that she had to push him away from her secrets.
Her kiss spoke of years of loneliness, and his body had no answer.
She could have poured all her shattered marital hopes into that one kiss, if he had let her continue. But he did not. Those strong arms about her held her in place. He lifted his head and looked into her eyes. She doubted he could make out any truth in the shadowed light dancing through the leaves overhead.
“That was very nice,” he said, his voice low, “but it was not an answer.”
Drat.
�
�Mrs. Alcot’s husband lives in the village,” Kate said quietly. “Mrs. Alcot herself lives in the old Leary place. She has, these last two years.”
“Why the devil would she do that?”
“Because her husband was beating her black and blue,” Kate snapped, “and now that she’s coming up in years, he might have broken bones.”
“He agreed to the separation?”
He would find the truth of the matter; all he had to do was poke about the village. Kate lowered her eyes reluctantly. “He did after I decreed it.” Mrs. Alcot had been one of the few women she’d been able to help openly. Kate had been the lady of the manor; in her husband’s absence, her word had not precisely been law, but it had been very, very persuasive.
“You decreed it,” Ned repeated. “Why did you decree it?”
“Because you were not here.”
He was silent, rubbing his chin. He shook his head, as if clearing it of preconceptions. “I hadn’t realized I left you with so much responsibility. It seems a serious matter to have been placed upon your shoulders.” She wanted him to underestimate her. She wanted him to overlook her, for Louisa’s sake.
But for her own sake, she could have happily shoved him into the mud of the stream bank for the solicitous tone in his voice. “You may notice that I failed to shatter under the strain.”
“Of course, I didn’t mean to imply you were unequal to the task,” he said, practically tripping over himself to reassure her. “No doubt you dealt with the matter magnificently. I merely meant that you shouldn’t have needed to do so.”
Heaven forfend that she take time from her schedule of frivolity to think of matters of substance.
“Indeed,” she responded. “The matter took valuable days from my last trip to Bond Street. Why, that season, I had to go to the opera with ready-made gloves on opening night. You can imagine my shame.”
The Carhart Series Page 46