My Enemy, My Heart (The Ashford Chronicles)
Page 26
Addison opened the door with the announcement that all the ladies were in the kitchens. “They are making the jellies and things for the fete tomorrow.”
Kieran muttered a rude word about the fete, shed his greatcoat, and headed for the back of the hall.
“My lord,” Addison called.
Kieran paused. “Yes?”
“You may wish to tidy your hair.”
Kieran grinned. “Thank you.” He smoothed the waves back from his face and retied the black velvet ribbon. He knew his cravat was a bit crumpled and that he probably smelled a bit of horse from being in such a hurry at Barnstable that he helped the hostler back the team into the traces so the coachman could get himself some refreshment. Nonetheless, he did not care.
He missed his wife.
He shoved open the swinging door into the back passage and took the steps down to the kitchen two at a time. Light, fragrant steam and female chatter drew him forward. Deirdre must be drowning in such a feminine enclave. Poor girl. He would rescue her.
He leaped the last two steps and entered the kitchen.
Talk and motion came to a halt, presenting him with a tableau of maids and ladies alike rolling out pastry on the broad deal table in the center of the room, other maids and ladies stirring huge kettles at the new cooking stove, and the cook pulling bread from the hearth oven. Like a miniature general, Mama stood in the midst directing it all.
She reacted to his arrival first. With a wordless cry, she glided forward and clasped both his hands in hers. “My dear, you are home early. And your father?”
Kieran heard footfalls on the steps behind him. “On his way.” He stepped aside so she could greet Tyne, and scanned the room for Deirdre.
One glance was enough to tell him she was not there. Amelia Trilling was. She started in his direction, but Juliet pushed her out of the way and flew into his arms.
“My dear, dear brother, you were away far too long. Did you bring me something nice from London? Fashion plates perhaps? Did you clear your name? Why—”
“Give over, Jule.” Kieran set her from him. “Where are Chloe and Deirdre?”
“Chloe is off with the Barnes children, who have the grippe, and Deirdre is resting.”
Kieran tensed. “Is she all right?”
Juliet leaned close to him. “She is actually avoiding Amelia, the vicious cat.”
“Thank you.” Giving the room a general nod, he turned sideways to move past his parents, who were gazing at one another like young lovers, and then raced up the steps—
To find Deirdre’s bedchamber empty.
The bed was rumpled with a discarded nightgown tossed upon it, as though someone had recently slept there, but the fire had died to mere coals. A chill hung over the chamber, and the candles had burned long enough to gutter out.
No one had been there for some time.
For a full minute, he stood motionless scarcely able to breathe, his heart stuttering. All he could think was that she had left him, escaped, taking his unborn child.
“Deirdre, no.”
He sped down the stairs again and burst into the kitchen. “Sir.” He grasped his father’s shoulder, turning him to face him. “Deirdre’s gone.”
Alarm flashed across Tyne’s face. “Steady, lad.” His voice remained calm.
Tyne led Kieran up into the hall, Phoebe following.
“She couldn’t go far,” Phoebe said. “She was so worn to a thread yesterday that she nearly fainted in front of everyone.”
Despite his concern, Kieran smiled. “That will provide grist for the gossip mills.”
“When was the last time you saw her?” Tyne asked.
“This morning.” Phoebe wrung her hands. “I’ve been so preoccupied—oh, I am sorry.”
“Never you mind that,” Kieran said. “You should have been able to trust her.”
He should have warned his mother not to trust Deirdre out of her sight.
“But where could she go?” Phoebe asked.
“And how do we find her without making this public knowledge?” Tyne added.
Kieran pictured Deirdre in male attire seeking passage on the nearest vessel. But could she still get away with wearing male attire without looking ridiculous? More than likely. She was not that far along. But if a day preparing for a fete fatigued her to the point of fainting, she could not walk far, not far enough to find more than a fishing boat, and the fishermen would not be at their boats in harbor in the middle of the day. She needed assistance for anything else.
“Where is Chloe?” he asked again.
“Helping Mrs. Barnes,” Phoebe said. “Why?”
“From their letters, I presume she and Deirdre have gotten friendly.”
“Yes, but—” Phoebe’s hand flew to her lips. “Chloe would never help Deirdre leave us.”
“Let us go find her and learn for certain.” Tyne spoke through stiff lips. He kissed Phoebe on her brow, then led Kieran from the house.
In grim silence, they rode to the Barnes holding. Smoke rose from the chimney and children and chickens played in the yard. They scattered at Kieran and Tyne’s arrival, and a plump woman with a round, cheerful face opened the cottage door.
“My lord, sirs, what is it?”
“We have come to fetch Chloe home,” Tyne said.
Mrs. Barnes’s eyes widened. “Um, she-she’s gone a’ready.”
“How long ago?” Kieran asked.
She shrugged.
He exchanged a glance with his father.
Tyne nodded. “Thank you, ma’am.” When they were out of earshot, he turned to Kieran. “We will head for the cove, but let us take the back road around the estate so that Phoebe’s guests do not see us.”
“Yes.” Kieran kept his back straight and his face stiff.
Please, let us find her before it is too late.
Tall hedgerows lined the road, keeping the sheep in their pastures, so he could not see the source of the sound he heard, only acknowledge that it was the jingle of harness on a road where no one but his father and he traveled.
And Chloe.
The pony cart rounded the curve, and Kieran came face to face with his wife wearing a caped greatcoat, top boots, and trousers.
Chapter 20
Kieran stared at Deirdre with cold eyes—flat and cold and hard. He had been angry with her in the past, but not like this spine-chilling too-calm rage.
She wrapped her arms across her chest and clutched the sleeves of the greatcoat as he and Tyne dismounted and stalked to either side of the pony cart. Tyne looked as full of controlled fury as his son. Deirdre shivered. Beside her, Chloe had gone tense and still.
“An odd way to dress to make calls on the tenants.” Tyne spoke first.
“And you have been on a rather peculiar rest, m’dear.” Despite the endearment, Kieran’s voice held no affection.
Deirdre caught his gaze and remained silent.
“Where have you been?” The words cracked out of Tyne like whiplashes.
“Dartmoor,” Chloe and Deirdre answered together.
Kieran closed his eyes. His hand dropped to the side of the cart, looking as though his fingers gripped it hard enough to wrench off the board. “I should have known. But to drag my sister into this-this . . . treason—” The cart panel creaked under his grip.
“It was my idea.” Chloe made the declaration with her chin high, her own golden eyes bright. “While they are locked in that hellhole dying, we are warm and clean and free—”
“Not now you are not.” Tyne took the reins from Chloe’s fingers. “Go get on Kieran’s horse.”
“But my clothes—”
“Now.”
Head bowed, Chloe scrambled from the cart and trudged over to one of the horses.
Without a word, Kieran climbed into the cart and took the reins from his father. “The side gate, sir?”
Tyne nodded, then returned to his own mount.
Deirdre laid her hand on Kieran’s arm. “Kieran, I—”
Deirdre considered playing Juliet and talking nonstop all the way back to the house. Yet this side of Kieran disturbed her, frightened her. She had never realized that he could be so much like his father—autocratic, wintry, inflexible. She feared what he might do to her. Not physical harm. He would never be cruel that way. But he could curtail even the semblance of freedom she enjoyed now. In fact, from Tyne’s words, she suspected that he would.
She huddled in the greatcoat, trying not to touch Kieran where he perched on the narrow seat of the cart, and prayed that she would be wrong.
In too short a time, they reached the wall that surrounded the house and parklands of Bishops Cove. An even narrower track than the one they had been on led to a postern gate just wide enough for the cart, carefully maneuvered, to pass through. Tyne carried the key. After they all entered the grounds of the estate, where towering trees formed their own barrier on either side of the lane, and he locked the gate behind them, he remained dismounted and indicated that Chloe should do the same.
“Kieran, help Deirdre down. We walk from here to draw as little attention to us as possible. The stock can graze until I send a reliable man back to fetch them.”
Deirdre didn’t wait for Kieran to help her down. She scrambled off the cart and moved to Chloe’s side.
Chloe caught hold of her hand and squeezed. “They love us,” she whispered. “They will not hurt us. And Bishops Cove does not have any dungeons or towers to lock us in.”
“Just our bedchambers.”
Of course, she could descend from the balcony without too much difficulty until she got too big.
“Christmas is coming,” Chloe said.
Then the men flanked them on either side, and she fell silent.
“My study,” Tyne said. “It is on the far side of the house from the kitchen and any guests who might still be there.”
“Mama will want to know that they are safe,” Kieran said.
The walk from gate to house took no more than ten minutes. Deirdre felt as though an hour passed. Her feet hurt. Her head and legs ached. Her breeches felt like a corset cutting off her breath. The cold wind off the sea made her eyes water. The ache, the fear, in her heart turned that water to tears, which ran down her face. Maybe this feminine reaction to distress would soften Kieran.
He merely handed her a handkerchief. “I have two sisters. Crocodile tears do not move me.”
“Not to mention all your experience with ladies.” Chloe’s taunt sent a charge of anger into Deirdre, setting her resolve.
God bless Chloe.
In silence, they reached Tyne’s study by a circuitous route. Tyne indicated the ladies should sit in uncomfortable chairs in front of his desk. He settled behind it. Kieran stood by the hearth, one hand, glove removed, gripping the mantel hard enough to whiten his knuckles.
“Our journey to London was not for our pleasure.” Tyne leaned back in his soft leather chair as though intending to lecture. “We had a little matter to clear up for Kieran, some business transactions to see to—”
“Taking my money away from me,” Deirdre interrupted.
Chloe gasped. Kieran rubbed one temple as though his head ached.
Tyne snapped his teeth together, then he sighed. “That money is Kieran’s by law.”
“The law should be—”
“Deirdre,” Kieran interjected with an air of weary resignation, “shut up and listen. We can all get baths and hot food sooner if you do.”
That was so sensible, Deirdre complied.
“Kieran,” Tyne said, “will you go find your mother?”
Kieran didn’t move. “I would rather stay with my wife, sir.”
Deirdre’s heart gave an odd flutter at a possessiveness in his tone.
“I understand,” Tyne said. “But I promise not to harm her while you are gone.”
Kieran smiled, then departed.
Deirdre felt cold, bereft, alone in a court where Tyne was judge and jury.
“Those men are dying up there, Papa,” Chloe said. “And we had to do what we could to help.”
“We only took them some—” Deirdre caught herself before mentioning money. “Luxuries like soap and sweets and the like. They’re my family. I can’t just abandon them.”
“We are not just abandoning them,” Tyne said, more gently than she thought he could be under the circumstances. “I have spent much of the past weeks using what influence I still have in the Admiralty in an attempt to get them paroled.”
Deirdre stared at him. “You . . . care?”
“Deirdre, you are my daughter now, too. I could do nothing less.” He sighed. “I am afraid that I failed.”
“Oh, Papa.” Chloe jumped up and ran around the desk to hug him. “You are so kind.”
He scowled at her with such ferocity that he could mean nothing serious by it. “I am too kind. If I were stricter, you would not be engaged in outright dangerous behavior.”
“But we were never in any danger,” Chloe protested.
“You were. We all are. When your mother—ah, Phoebe.”
She glided into the room with Kieran behind her, and went straight to Tyne. “I told Alicia that Deirdre needs me, so she will see that the cooking is finished. That is not untrue, is it?”
Tyne took her hand. “Not at all. We all need you.”
Kieran positioned himself behind Deirdre’s chair. He laid his hand on her shoulder, and she knew that she needed him there. Can’t you understand that I owe my allegiance to them?
She couldn’t say it because he couldn’t understand. He had given her his name much for her benefit. He had a right to expect her allegiance. She simply could not give it to him.
“Phoebe,” Tyne was saying, “I have told our little story to Kieran, as we discussed before I left. May I tell our younger ladies also? They need to understand the gravity of what they did today.” He looked at them. “And others?”
“Just once,” Deirdre admitted.
“Twice too often.” Phoebe pressed her fingers to her lips. “I can’t believe you two took the risk. Yes, Garrett, we need to tell them about how I nearly got hanged doing what I thought was right.”
Kieran moved his things into the bedchamber adjoining Deirdre’s. He should have done so the first night and not gone haring off to London. Yet if he had not, he would not have cleared his name at least in part and begun to gain an understanding of his father, an understanding that left him feeling less worthy to be his only heir than he had previously experienced. Two things might help him gain Tyne’s full respect and acceptance as a responsible successor—the right answer from Greece and keeping Deirdre out of trouble. He felt confident that the former would prove him innocent of debauching Joanna. As for the latter, he did not know what he would do with Deirdre short of locking her up. That was the easy way. That was tempting.
It would make her despise him.
He did not want to face a life with Deirdre despising him.
With that in mind, not knowing how to go about it in the least, he slipped through the dressing room and into her bedchamber. She sat at the dressing table, brushing out her glorious hair. She looked magnificent. Scrubbed clean, her face glowed with rosy health. Her cheeks looked fuller, her whole demeanor softer. Wordlessly, he reached out to her, took the brush from her hand, and began to perform the task for her.
“I still can’t believe that Phoebe was a spy,” Deirdre said.
“I found it difficult to accept myself. She is so gentle. For twenty-five years I have believed Mama was always the perfect wife. But no wonder she loves my father so much.”
“And he her.” She blinked several times fast and hard, and he realized she was fighting back tears.
He set the brush aside and began to rub her shoulders through the green velvet of her dressing gown. “I probably woul
d not have gone out as a privateer if I had known, though my father said the only reason he did not disinherit me for doing it was because it has helped show the Crown that the family is loyal to England.”
“Except for the American wife you brought home.” She hunched her shoulders, shaking off his hands, and turned on the stool to face him. “Do you wish to be rid of me, Kieran? Would that suit the family more?”
“No!” The word emerged with the fear he had experienced in those moments when he thought she had left him.
He dropped to his knees before her and clasped her hands between his. “Deirdre, I—” He swallowed. “I care about what happens to you.” He tried a smile. “I rather missed you.”
She drew her hands free. “Is that why I received messages from you that were impersonal enough to be from Addison? Is that why you spent your entire visit to London taking my money out of my control and going to dinner parties with other women? Is that why I am now nothing more than a prisoner in a far finer prison than my crew—because you missed me and care what happens to me?” She rose so abruptly the belt to her dressing gown smacked him in the face.
He barely felt the soft fabric blow, but it acted like a whip driving him to his feet. “I did not spend my entire time in London going to dinner parties or anywhere else with other women.” He dropped his hands onto her shoulders to keep her from turning away from him. “You know I was trying to clear my name for the sake of my family, and that includes you.”
She arched her brows. “In the past two months, I have learned that you have kissed every eligible female in the neighborhood, including Amelia Trilling in a hayloft. Such lovely things to hear about my husband.”
Her sarcasm stung.
He gazed at her looking more beautiful than he remembered, and wanted her with an ache clear through him. At least in passion they were of one accord, not locked in an endless battle of conflicted loyalties.
“You know why you can’t go to Dartmoor. My family—”
“And what about my family?” She flung up her hands.