“I would rather it be a girl with red hair.” He touched her cheek. “She will be beautiful if she is only half so pretty as you.”
Deirdre turned her face away. She knew why he wanted a girl.
“Have you taken a good look at Chloe lately?” she asked.
“I try not to.”
“Why not?”
“She gives my parents grief, refusing to go to London for a Season. Does she want to be an ape leader?”
“She’s only twenty. I’m twenty-four.”
Kieran shot upright and stared at her. “When did you have a birthday?”
“When you were in Hampshire.”
“Why did you not tell me?” He looked distressed.
“You all are making enough fuss over me. Look at this room. It took four footmen to bring down and reassemble my bed in here. And you’re sleeping on the sofa, which cannot be comfortable for a man your size, and it’s all unnecessary.”
And yet the gesture moved her to remember how much she had grown to respect him on the Maid, and to like his companionship before he decisively sided with his family over her honesty. But that was a subject they tacitly decided not to discuss.
“Now, about Chloe,” she began.
Horses’ hooves drummed on the drive, slowing as they neared the house.
“Close the door,” Deirdre said. “I don’t want anyone to see me.”
“I will see who it is.” Kieran rose with languid grace and paced to the door. He stepped into the hall and closed the portal behind him.
Through the panels, Deirdre heard the knocker, then Addison answering, and Kieran saying he would see the man back to Tyne’s study. He sounded strained. She wanted to follow and discover what news had arrived. But she couldn’t move. She was tired and sad and most of all anxious about her plans for the following week.
Chloe didn’t look well. She seemed thinner, and shadows rimmed her eyes. Worst of all, she scarcely visited Deirdre.
Deirdre feared that Chloe was having second thoughts about helping with the escape.
As though her thoughts conjured her, Chloe burst through one of the open French windows and slammed it behind her. “It is the emissary from Greece.”
“Oh, that.” Deirdre shrugged and took three more stitches. “Your parents should have believed him without proof. Will you ring the bell? I’d like some lemonade.”
“Lemonade?” Chloe began pacing up and down the room. “You want lemonade when your future will be decided on what is said today?”
Deirdre set down her sewing. “Chloe, what does this man’s answer have to do with my future one way or the other?”
“Kieran never told you?” Chloe stopped and pounded on a bedpost. “That man. After Kieran helped clear things up in Hampshire so well—and a fine mess your friend created there—Papa said he would give Kieran Bishops Down outright if Kieran has been telling him the truth about Joanna.”
“And he chooses to be loyal to him over me.” Deirdre closed her eyes. She was too tired to cry over that any more. “But I would like to go to Hampshire once my men are safe. And speaking of that . . .” She fixed Chloe with a hard stare. “Have you changed your mind?”
“No.” Chloe’s whole body seemed to speak the denial. “Those men cannot stay there any longer. Wat is so ill the others may have to carry him, and Ross had to spend—” She paled.
Deirdre arched her brows. “Yes? What are all these details about which I know nothing?”
Chloe rubbed her fingers over her lips as though trying to scrub away her words.
“Chloe?”
Chloe perched on the edge of the bed. “I have gone over the wall like you showed me and been back. Twice. I wore a different disguise each time, but Ross always knew me, and we have exchanged some letters . . .” She hung her head. “I am a fool, but I think I am in love with him, and I will likely never see him again.”
“Oh, Chloe.” Deirdre struggled to her feet and waddled across the room to slip one arm around Chloe’s shoulders. “Ross won’t ever love an Englishwoman. He despises the English, probably more so now.”
“But he says . . . things.” Chloe gulped and sniffled. “The war cannot last much longer, and after . . . I’m half American.”
When she saw Ross again, Deirdre thought, she would likely scratch his eyes out.
“Chloe.” She stroked the younger woman’s lovely Ashford hair. “I’m afraid that Ross is leading you on to believe he cares for you so that you will help him escape. He has been my friend for years, but he isn’t nice now. Prison has done that to him, and the war will do worse, I’m afraid.”
“I am, too.” Chloe wiped her eyes. “But it does not matter what he thinks of me. I still want to help him and the others.”
“Don’t let yourself care, Chloe. Do not trust the enemy, for you are his enemy, too.”
“My parents love one another, and you and Kieran seem to be getting on well.”
“Your parents are special. Kieran and I . . .”
She didn’t know how to explain that the walls of Dartmoor still rose between them, every tidbit of war news, whether good for America or for England, laid another stone on the barricade and left her heart feeling as bleak as the cacheau the guards used as punishment. Sometimes, she caught shadows in Kieran’s eyes suggesting he felt the same bleakness.
None of that showed now, as he strolled back into the sitting room. His eyes glowed with golden light and his smile was broad.
“Good news?” Chloe leaped to her feet.
He smiled. “The first of September,” Kieran said. “I did not meet her until the first of March. And no one considered that this child could be two months early.”
“Why, that lying slut,” Chloe cried.
Kieran arched his brows. “Language, dear sister. Do not let Mama hear you talk like that.”
“But it is true. She is no better than Haymarket wares.”
Was that what the Ashfords called her behind her back?
Deirdre pressed her hands to her hot cheeks, feeling like weeping for the first time in months. “At least,” she murmured with a twist of her upper lip, “this child can’t be two months early either.”
Smiles slipped from Chloe and Kieran’s faces. From the doorway, Tyne and Phoebe halted, faces turning grim.
Deirdre set her gaze on Kieran, held his eyes. “I always believed you were telling the truth.”
“I know.” He swallowed and broke their eye contact. “Thank you.”
Deirdre didn’t know what response she expected, but a thanks and acknowledgment of her belief in his sincerity was not what she wanted. In that moment, she admitted she wanted something more from him than this politeness, yet if he became her friend, if he cared about her, she might feel guilty about what she was planning to do.
“I am so glad it was not you.” Chloe filled the silence with chatter worthy of Juliet. “Of course, that all led to you bringing us Deirdre, who is ten times better than Joanna. Will you notify Rutledge, Papa?”
Tyne left the doorway, Phoebe beside him. “I already have sent a message to my solicitor in London. He will notify Rutledge of the consequences of continuing his accusations against Kieran. How are you faring, Deirdre?”
So they were to pretend nothing untoward had happened between her and Kieran. She knew how to play that game after seven months in a nobleman’s household.
“Well, sir.” Deirdre trundled over to the sofa and sank onto the cushions. “Phoebe, see my stitching? It is improving, is it not?”
Phoebe settled beside her. “It is coming along fine indeed. Are you feeling more comfortable with a needle?”
“Yes, except I can’t seem to focus for long.”
Phoebe patted her arm. “That will pass. You are well? No pain? No other discomforts?”
“No, ma’am.” Deidre tried stitching some more. “I don’t even feel worn to a thread all the time anymore.”
She seemed to have more and more energy. Maybe that was due to Kieran looking
happier. The whole family seemed in lighter spirits. No social cloud hung over the son and heir—except for his American wife, but she was mostly out of sight of anyone and thus seemed to be out of mind, which worked well for her.
So did the family’s embrace of approaching summer, finer weather, and numerous fetes and parties on the horizon. Juliet, especially, wearing her hair up, reveled in an invitation to her first grown-up party to celebrate the king’s birthday despite the fact that the man was completely mad. Chloe received an invitation, too, but told Juliet she should go on her own to this first event as a young lady stepping onto the marriage mart.
Deirdre herself felt lighter in her spirit. Maybe she felt happier because she was about to end months of guilt and remove one barrier between her and Kieran. He would suspect that she helped in the escape, but she would do her best to ensure that he knew nothing. Once her crew was gone, he would have no more reason to be her jailer, and when her baby was born at the end of nine months since they married, he, like Tyne over doubting Kieran, could feel like a worm and lavish her with husbandly devotion—or at the least, build some sort of camaraderie between them as they had shared aboard the Maid. Until then, she needed him to be gone on June 4.
In the end, that seemed all too easy. She simply told him that he should accompany Juliet to the party in Plymouth.
“I know that Tyne and Phoebe are going, too, but she may like a handsome male escort, even her brother.”
“But what about you?” He looked dubious. “If your time—”
Deirdre balled her hands into fists and made herself speak slowly. “Is not until the end of June or possibly the beginning of July. If you don’t believe me, then-then—” Something inside her snapped. “Go find another reason to kiss Liza Cantrell.”
“Deirdre—” Shock paled his skin.
She turned away from him. “If the child comes too early, you can accuse me of something, I am sure, and have Parliament dissolve the marriage sooner than later. What does it matter if I am socially ruined in this blighted country?”
“Let us not act in haste. Once the war is over, things could be different.” He rubbed the small of her back, making her nearly purr in spite of herself. “Perhaps?”
His tone held a longing she understood, a desire for peace if nothing else.
“Go to the party with Juliet,” she managed. “Chloe is capable of sending for the midwife if something occurs, and she’ll send for you, too.”
“All right.” Reluctantly, he moved away from her. “I dislike being that far away.”
She would be farther.
“You won’t be allowed in here if my time does come that night anyway.”
Phoebe was adamant about that. She didn’t want Chloe or Juliet around either, but Deirdre expected that Chloe would ignore that edict. She had helped deliver babies before, after all.
Now she only needed to pray for fine weather.
She did, and the day dawned bright and clear. She woke with the birds and felt so restless she rose and began to pace about the chamber. Bored with that, she went onto the terrace to smell the roses just beginning to bloom. By that time a week from now, her crew would be smelling roses in France. She hoped they didn’t care much about the days they would have to hide in the caves, but they dared not move them into boats the same night they vanished.
She plucked a pink rosebud from the nearest bush and carried it back into the house. With Juliet excited about going to her first party with her hair up and allowed to dance with any gentleman to whom she was presented instead of only a select few, the household would focus on her. They would leave at noon and stay the night in Plymouth.
Chloe and Deirdre would leave at thirty minutes after twelve of the clock, hidden in the back of the home farm delivery wagon, and, unless disaster struck, be home by midnight.
Disaster would not strike. Deirdre felt too well to have anything go wrong.
With her eyes sparkling like sunlight on water, Chloe looked excited, too, though fatigued. Deirdre wondered if she had slept. They ate breakfast and carried on normal conversation, an easy feat with Juliet chattering nonstop.
Deirdre thought nothing of the twinge of pain that rippled through her belly. She had had them before. Phoebe assured her that they were normal and were nothing to concern her. Even the second and third ones that struck moments after the family left the house meant nothing to her. She wasn’t due to go into her confinement yet. At least three more weeks, possibly more.
She said nothing to Chloe, who arrived promptly at thirty minutes after twelve of the clock dressed in an afternoon gown of pink sprig muslin and wearing a fetching hat trimmed in roses.
“Ready for a walk?” Chloe asked for the benefit of the servants. “It is warm today. Let us walk beneath the trees.”
“Just for a moment,” Deirdre said. “I need a great deal of rest.” She smiled at Addison in the doorway. “Please make certain no one disturbs me.”
He bowed. “Yes, my lady.”
Chloe and Deirdre left the house by way of the French windows. Instead of leaving them open, they closed the curtains and the windows, then headed through the trees.
“One chore behind us,” Chloe said. “Am I walking too quickly?”
“No.” But she was panting.
She dared not tell Chloe that she had just experienced a cramping pain that robbed her of breath.
“We can go faster.”
Nothing was wrong. This was unaccustomed exercise was all. They only had a few more yards to go. But they felt like miles. No more pain struck her, yet the burden of her middle weighed her down beneath the lavender sacque gown of half mourning that was all she could wear. Gasping, she stepped from the trees and onto the delivery lane, where the wagon waited out of sight of the house and rear gate. The lads helped them to climb into the bed, then covered them with blankets and a dusting of straw, then set baskets between them and the back. The wagon set off down the road. Chloe clutched Deirdre’s hand. A pain seized at her belly, and her body jerked.
“What is it?” Chloe grabbed Deirdre’s arm. “Are you in pain?”
Deirdre shook her head. She felt all right now. “False. Your mother told me to be careful.”
“You are certain?”
Deirdre nodded to save breath. “Whatever you all choose to believe, it is too soon. Let’s hurry this along.”
The wagon stopped on the far side of a sheep meadow, where the cart and mule awaited their needs. Feeling quite all right now, Deirdre left the wagon with alacrity and stepped into the cart.
“Hurry,” she repeated her earlier command.
Chloe hurried the mule along as fast as he would go. She had cast off her gown to reveal boy’s attire. Deirdre wore a veiled hat, though doubted she would fool anyone for long. But they saw no one on a summer Sunday afternoon. Up, up, up onto the moor the cart climbed. Deirdre sat motionless, bracing herself against any more pains. She had to hide them from Chloe. She would turn back if she knew. Besides, they might stop on their own.
When the next pain doubled her over at the mouth of the gorge, then the next left her sick and perspiring mere yards from the prison gate, she could no longer deny the truth.
Kieran wished that he had chosen to ride into Plymouth. He felt too restless to sit still in the carriage with his parents and sister, listening to Juliet chatter with the excitement over the upcoming party. He did not want to go to that gathering either, but Deirdre did not seem to want him around much anymore, and he thought perhaps a day without him as a constant reminder that he was her jailer as well as her husband would make her miss him.
He missed her. He knew it was more than his physical need for her, unfulfilled for months now. It was the belief that she had begun to care for him. Somewhere, that had died.
Somewhere? He knew exactly where.
He closed his eyes and leaned into the corner of the squabs, telling himself that the pain of his own making would recede. Somehow, he would find a way to win her regard, perha
ps even her heart, convince her that he adored her regardless of the past.
But whose past? His or hers? His seemed to mean nothing to her. Until today, she never made mean quips about the ladies who seemed to think Deirdre was a temporary inconvenience, not the wife he had married for life.
Except he had not married her for life. He never expected that sort of future with her. She was a convenience, a means to an end he had achieved months ago. Yet her coolness toward him, the way she tolerated rather than welcomed his company, sliced right through him.
He wanted more between them than polite strangers who once shared passion.
He had been such a fool to doubt the truth of her baby’s parentage. She did not reject him over Amelia’s announcement that he had kissed Liza, and she had always believed him about Joanna. Yet he let his mother’s concerns cloud his belief in Deirdre. He excused his doubts over the child’s parentage because Mama knew far more about these things than he, naturally. If she thought Deirdre too large for the length of time, then she must be right. Yet could not more lie behind his doubts, a lack of belief that Deirdre would so quickly agree to wed him and share his bed? Joanna had encouraged him to propose to her two weeks after they met. Deirdre agreed within a week. He had believed her innocent then despite her lack of discomfort on their wedding night. Because she lived such an active life, that could be explained. He knew Mama warned the girls, especially Chloe, not to ride astride or climb trees, or participate in other such strenuous activities. So he thought nothing of that with Deirdre—
Until she started sneaking about behind his back. Every time he left her alone even for a few hours—
He shot upright with a groan.
“What is it?” Mama and Juliet both cried.
“We should not have left them alone.” Kieran looked at his father. “I know we have guards all over and Deirdre is near her confinement, but Chloe is with her. Why would Chloe not want to come with us?”
“She does not like parties much,” Juliet said. “She is so pretty, but she thinks young men are sycophants wanting Papa’s money and connections.”
My Enemy, My Heart (The Ashford Chronicles) Page 31