An Untitled Lady: A Novel

by Nicky Penttila

  Kitty looked at her gloves. “It’s the shock, I’ll tell you. After he saw you at the meeting, he didn’t say a word to me for two days. I don’t know what he is thinking.”

  “It may be unfortunate that you look so much alike.” Nash’s gaze passed from one to the other and back.

  “Maddie is the likeness of our Ma.” Kitty’s mouth turned down. “Might be hard for him to even look upon her. Aye, and worst is the days around the wedding date. Now.”

  Maddie, who still marked the death of the Wetherbys every year, knew how an anniversary deepened one’s sense of loss. “It sounds like they deeply loved each other.”

  “Aye.” She sighed.

  “Will you…will you like being here, Kitty? Will you be comfortable?” Maddie knew they were the wrong words, but her nerves overpowered her.

  The smile drained from Kitty’s face. “You’re ashamed of me?”

  “Of course not.” Was she? So much was expected of Maddie at the castle, and she wasn’t sure she lived up to it. How could Kitty, with no experience at all?

  Kitty frowned.

  Nash touched Maddie’s arm. “I know that look. Stubbornness runs in your family.”

  “I can enjoy myself with the nobs as well as with anyone else.”

  “Good.” The relief in Maddie’s voice surprised her, and by the look in Kitty’s face, surprised her sister as well. “I mean, I want you with us.”

  “You need ammunition?”

  “Support. I was raised with this sort of people, and I know what they must think of me now.” Just the thought set her belly churning. She set her palm against her dress as if to calm it.

  Kitty saw the movement and nodded smartly at Maddie. “I’m here now.”

  Nash turned onto the inner drive. Cottagers and gentlemen, cobblers and clergy milled about the lawns and gardens outside the walls of the great house. Ale tents and the sound of fiddles edged the woods, and games for children and their parents claimed the wide meadow. No one in the county had missed this invitation.

  “There must be whole villages here.” The castle wasn’t exactly dwarfed, but for once it had to compete with the noise and energy of humanity for pride of place. Maddie had forgotten how clear the air was here, and the rich smell of turned earth and fresh-cut grass.

  Kitty whistled. “Here I thought there won’t be room for us all.”

  “The old castle has some thirty rooms and the two additions another twenty.”

  “Just your mother and brother racket around in all that?”

  “Along with their phalanx of servants. Actually, I do believe it is close to an hundred. I’ll have to ask Deacon.”

  “One hundred twelve.” Maddie smiled at his raised eyebrow. “According to the temporary bookkeeper.”

  “Remind me to hold my accounts with you. Such a precise memory.”

  A groom took the reins, and Nash walked the ladies through the inner courtyard and up the stairs to the main entrance. Maddie was surprised to see Deacon himself in the shade of the hall. They stepped in and performed their courtesies.

  “Welcome, my dears. You’ll stay to supper? Cook is rabid that the courses won’t stretch, but I told her I would skip some if worse came to worst.” Deacon’s eyes darted from them to the lawn to the drive to them again, frantic. This day involved so much planning and organizing, and he’d done it all himself. So he would think, when Maddie knew Mr. Perkins family had it all in hand. His hand was clammy in hers as he bent to kiss it.

  “You’re doing too much, my lord. Enjoy your day. I’ll check with cook; she likes me. You and Nash might give Kitty a quick tour.”

  His shoulders dropped an inch as he let out a great breath. “You’re a saint. Talking to Cook is like speaking French to a German.” He stopped short, staring at Kitty. “This is the sister? She is very like.”

  Kitty curtseyed carefully.

  Deacon gave her a gallant bow. “How do you find Shaftsbury? Miss Moore, is it?”

  She glanced past him, at the castle. “Fine and all.” Deacon started; Kitty was shouting. She softened her voice, if not her tone. “It’s hard to favor fat priests and gentry who sit on their arses—begging your pardon—while the likes of us break our backs merely to make them rich.”

  “You’re a rebel?” He grinned at her.

  “Reformer,” she said.

  “Radical reformer,” Nash said.

  Kitty turned to Nash. “Did your Maddie tell you, I’m officer in the Women’s Reform Society?”

  “Women need reforming?” Deacon laughed. “I had no idea.”

  “You know they don’t,” Kitty rolled her eyes at the earl.

  “Right. It’s men that do.” Deacon nodded like an Old King Cole, making them all laugh. Maddie breathed easier. This afternoon would go well.

  “Make fun all you like, Sir Earl,” Kitty put her hands on her hips, grinning. “I helped design the flag we’ll carry to our meeting next week. It’s to be the biggest yet.”

  “So I heard. And you’ll be dreaming big—wanting the franchise, too?”

  She frowned, really more a scowl. “Your women ain’t even got that. The men can have the vote. They’ll do by us.”

  “Just so.” Deacon waved at the entrance to the main house. “How about a tour?”

  Kitty dipped another curtsy. “Begging your pardon, sirs, but I’d not say no to a pint of something first.”

  “A woman after my own heart,” Nash said, taking Kitty by the arm. “We’ll meet you down at the tents.”

  Maddie watched as they sauntered down the stairs and across the lawn.

  “They make a handsome couple, do they not, sister-in-law?”

  Kitty was a head shorter than Nash, but they did seem to proportion up right, somehow. “They do.”

  “That’s how you look, too. A right couple, shaping up nicely. Are you?”

  Maddie had not yet grown used to her brother-in-law’s style of interrogation. She puzzled on her words a moment. “I believe so.”

  “Nash seems as settled as a Navy man can be. He even stepped into the castle without growling. A miracle.” They turned into the cool of the castle. Deacon took her hand. “One has only to glance at Nash to see your influence. The man went through an entire conversation, short as it was, without scowling once.” He put his arm around her shoulder. “I need someone like you, reliable, temperate, and smarter than I. Blasted if my old man hadn’t had the right of it after all.”

  At first sight of them, Deacon’s beefy cook threw both her bread-loaf arms in the air, crying, “I give up.” Deacon matched her expression, and Maddie sent him outside for good. Ten minutes of wailing and whining on one side and gentle persuasion on the other, and cook was back happily stirring the soup-pot where she belonged.

  Maddie felt that, perhaps, she just might belong here, too.

  * * * *

  Nash felt an odd combination of comfortable and awkward with his sister-in-law by his side. Especially as she was in Maddie’s frock. He caught himself leaning too close to tell her something about the castle, then pulled himself back suddenly. He hoped she didn’t take affront.

  “Already used to having a wife around, aren’t you?”

  So, she had noticed.

  “I’m an easy touch.” Surprisingly easy, where Maddie was concerned. When she screwed up her courage to spill the news about meeting her father, he could have hugged her for her bravery. She should never be afraid of her husband. As mad as Nash could get, he would never go back on a promise.

  “Are you such an easy touch for the pints? I don’t have much coin.”

  “This is no festival, this is a party.” He saw she didn’t understand. “The beer is free. Ale. Even lemonade.”

  “Lead me on.”

  Kitty took two mugs of ale, and handed one to Nash. She drank her own with gusto, but then seemed to remember where she was. She looked around furtively, as if to gauge reaction to her behavior, but no one was watching.

  “Enjoy, Miss Moore. That’s
what the drink is for.”

  “Which is why the true ladies don’t drink it. Kitty is all you need say.” She finished the pint in smaller sips as they left the line at the sideboards and headed for the trees.

  Nash wondered how many times Maddie had stopped herself from pleasure in the same way. He’d seen her hesitate, during a savory course at table, and once during the harpist’s performance at Heywood’s. She certainly held herself back in bed.

  “Kitty, you’re a woman.”

  “What of it?” She flicked a speck of foam off the top of her lip. If Maddie had done that, he would have bedded her right there, damn the sun and the crowd. Kitty might look the same, except for those blue eyes, of course, but she did not move him at all.

  Could he make Maddie happy? How did he make her love him, the way he had started to love her? “How do I persuade Maddie that she might show pleasure?”

  “She sure don’t laugh enough now. I thought that’s how ladies was.”

  “That’s how they are trained up to be, but I don’t believe she is like that at all. I see hints, suggestions, that she is enjoying herself, but only a small smile, or a light laugh.”

  “You want her to guffaw.”

  “Actually, I want her to scream.”

  Kitty coughed, covering a laugh and nearly spilling her half-empty pint. “Might be your method has something wanting about it.”

  The hairs on the back of Nash’s neck rose. “My technique is fine.”

  “Judge by the results, my lord.”

  “Nash is enough.”

  “Does she trust you, now? Did she tell you she how she wanted to meet her Da?”

  “I told her no.”

  “Judgment falls. What will she take from that?”

  “That I care about her and don’t wish her hurt.”

  “Could be, or could be that she’d better darn sure do as you say or you’ll toss her out.”

  “My love is not contingent.”

  “You sound so sure. What if she really did disobey you?”

  “I don’t force her to obey,” Nash sputtered. He hadn’t considered it, and now that he did, he was not sure what he would do.

  “You look to me like a fair-weather friend, Master Nash. I might not put my trust in you, neither. Hiding her away in a cottage when all the others like her sit high on the hill.”

  “She thinks I’m unreliable?” Nash’s shoulder blades stiffened. She shouldn’t be judging him that way. He never would judge her. Wait, wasn’t he doing just that here and now? Demanding that she expose her feelings to him, as well as her body? Who was he to demand anything?

  Her husband. Nash disliked the philosophy that woman was owned by man, be he father, brother, or husband, but apparently he still subscribed to it. It was bred into his bones, but wasn’t it bred into hers, as well? They might fight their training, and succeed, but first they had to realize that it was training, and not nature.

  “You look as if you have an itch, and you need our girl Maddie to scratch it. Where is that one?”

  “Let’s go find her.”

  “Nay, I’m after another pint. Or the sack races down the hill. Looks to be some fine man-flesh on display.”

  Nash nodded. He did need to see Maddie. Could she truly think of him as Kitty told it? He had to change her mind, and now.

  He watched her saunter back to the line for ale. There were plenty of other village women around for comfort—and to keep their men safe.

  He headed back to the house. He had philosophies to expound. And Maddie had better listen.

  { 28 }

  Maddie saw Nash coming toward the kitchens and hurried out to meet him. There was a grim set to his mouth that hadn’t been there before. Had something happened?

  “Maddie, I need to talk to you.”

  “Where’s Kitty?” The rivulet of worry in her voice seemed to stop him. He frowned, and then turned to look back down the hill, holding up his hand to block the sun from his eyes.

  “She said she was going to watch the races. This way.” He dropped his sun-kissed hand and held it out to her. She took it, warm and welcome and a treasure, indeed. When she had first met him, she’d never have dreamed he would be so affectionate, and in public. They started tracing a leisurely path down the grass toward the crowd framing the contestants.

  “Listen, Maddie. Do you think I’m unreliable?”

  Where had that come from? Maddie stopped, but the pull on her hand was steady and she came to herself enough to keep moving. “I think you are very reliable.”

  “Not like that.” He swung his free hand wide. “I mean, do you think our marriage is a trial? No, that’s not what I mean, either.”

  She tried to guess what he wanted to hear. “You’re a good man, Nash Quinn, and I do my best to live up to your expectations,” she said.

  “That’s what I mean,” he said, stopping a ways away from the crowd. Nearly everyone was watching or running in the races. Contestants for the three-legged race were lining up: She thought she saw a pair of young lovers, another team of siblings, the sister nearly half again as tall as her little brother, and some strong-looking farm hands. “My expectations. What about your expectations?”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “Which are we, Maddie,” he said, looking at the racers. “An evenly matched team or an ungainly one?”

  “The lovers, there, by your brother.”

  She waved toward the far end. Shaftsbury himself was officiating; nearest him were the young couple, the woman laughing so hard her partner had to hold her up. Shaftsbury raised his arm to set and dropped it for go. The lovers were the first to stumble, the farm hands the first to fight. The ungainly siblings loped in for the win.

  “Or perhaps not,” Maddie amended.

  Nash smiled despite himself as the crowd roared its approval. “You mean the world to me,” he said. Taking her hand again, he swung their arms a little as they joined the crowd.

  Shaftsbury soon spotted them and sauntered over. “A good contest, that one. Next up is sack-racing. May everyone retain their teeth.” He smiled at them, and then looked down at their hands, entwined. He looked up at Maddie and grinned. She couldn’t help matching his smile.

  A cloud passed over his countenance. “Word of warning. Wetherby’s here.”

  A chill started at the base of Maddie’s spine and sped toward her neck. Nash squeezed her hand, and the cold seemed to recede.

  “My god, man.” Nash’s voice was rough. “You invited him?”

  “Had to, didn’t I? Couldn’t very well invite the men and not their master.” Shaftsbury shrugged apologetically. “At least I didn’t have to invite the army.”

  “What army?”

  “He’s bunking a regiment, or some such, on his lands. Better him than me. Worse than rats in the kitchen, the army. They just sit and eat.”

  “They shoot, too,” Nash said. “Those must be the men Malbanks was on about. So close to town?”

  “They’re not at Shaftsbury. I told Wetherby to give you wide berth, too. He’s easily enough avoided. The only one here in bloody orange. More princely than Prinny.”

  Maddie stood on tip-toes, scanning the crowd. Nothing orange. Still, her heart would not calm. “Seen Kitty?”

  Nash understood immediately. “He’d have to be a blockhead to go after her.”

  There she was, at the race’s finish line, a parade ground’s distance. The blue of her dress, Maddie’s dress, nicely set her off against the stand of trees behind her. It was so strange to look at her, like looking at a moving mirror. Maddie loved Kitty’s smile. She hoped hers was as fine. Then she saw who her sister was smiling at.

  Maddie’s shout came out a strangled sob, but Nash heard it. He pulled her closer, bumping shoulders as he reached around her waist. “What is it? Take a breath, Maddie.”

  Wetherby was offering Kitty a mug of ale, holding it out and then lifting it up, out of her reach, and taking a step back, making her follow. Maddie had played that g
ame with him, too. It never ended well.

  Did Kitty not see that he was driving her into the woods? Away from the people? Maddie stumbled out of Nash’s arms and ran a little up the hill. Kitty might see her better that way.

  She did, thank the Lord. Nash joined Maddie on the hill. “By the trees.” She could barely get the words out, her throat was so clenched. “Wave to Kitty to come over here.”

  He followed her gaze and stiffened. He shouted and waved, Maddie waved, come here, come here. Kitty lifted her hand in greeting, looked at that man, and then back to Maddie.

  Kitty grinned, and turned back to the man.

  She wasn’t coming. She was following the man in orange into the woods.

  Maddie started to run. They couldn’t be alone. She had to stop him. It was wrong. It would not be well.

  Nash didn’t catch up to her until they were nearing the edge of the woods. Together they crashed through the underbrush but didn’t see anyone at first. She knew the man usually took his victims deep.

  She heard a dull thud, there, over to her right. Kitty, hair wet, dropping to her knees, a whoosh like clothes falling from a hamper. He had hit her with the tankard.

  Closing in, they could hear his voice. “Back where you belong, little mouse.” One of his hands held Kitty by the back of her neck, the other was undoing the front of his trousers.

  Maddie felt Nash’s hand pull her back, behind him, as they reached the couple. She tripped, and hit the ground hard on hands and knees. The tankard lay on its side in front of her.

  Nash grabbed Wetherby by the collar and yanked him back, away from Kitty. “Give me one reason I shouldn’t knock your teeth out here and now.”

  Kitty lifted her hand to the side of her head. Her gaze was off, but she wasn’t bleeding. Maddie picked up the tankard.

  Maddie’s lungs were bursting as she pushed herself to get up even as her fears fought to slow her down. The bright dots in her vision flashed into a tapestry of memories.

  His hands on her skin, on her belly. Inside her. His face, too close. His slicing sneer. “Good girls don’t cry.”

  Good girls don’t lick their uncle’s cocks, either.

  Maddie blinked hard, trying to come back from the shadows of her mind. She saw him true now, a stoop-shouldered, balding viper.