Читать книгу Regency Surrender: Forbidden Pasts: Lord Laughraine's Summer Promise / Redemption of the Rake - Elizabeth Beacon - Страница 14

Chapter Six

For a startled moment Callie watched her husband dash back towards the house as if it were on fire. She could stay out here and wait for him to come back and tell her what he was up to, she supposed, but he had a poor record for sharing secrets, so she hurried after him. It wasn’t because she couldn’t stand being parted from him now they were within touching distance of each other once again—it was curiosity, plain and simple. Her heartbeat quickened, anyway, but she was running to catch up now and that was perfectly understandable.

‘Stay here,’ he ordered when they reached the hall and he realised she was on his tail, then stopped so abruptly she cannoned into him.

‘No,’ she murmured and gave him a push towards the stairs to let him know there was no point arguing.

‘Exasperating woman,’ he mumbled under his breath. She glared when he half turned to glower at her and bade him watch his step. ‘Keep quiet then and don’t give us away,’ he told her softly and they went up the stairs while she was trying to think up something pithy enough to demolish his arrogant certainty he was in command.

Tight lipped, she did her best to tread as stealthily as he did, but that was impossible. She managed to avoid the stair that creaked after he did the same without seeming to think about it. He must have explored the house with this sort of stealthy pursuit in mind. It looked as if the dangerous adventures Lady Virginia hinted at when she visited were very real and not a cunning scheme to soften her heart as she thought at the time. She was glad she hadn’t known what he was really up to at the time and terrified he knew too much about the darker side of life to be her idealistic and loving Gideon again. Now where had that come from? She didn’t want this man to be anything of the sort to her again, did she?

Never mind that now, they were on the half-landing and heading for the attic stairs. That seemed so absurd she stopped wondering how she felt and kept as close as she could to him. Her world felt right and safe when she was near him and that should worry her. The door opened without a sound and why were the hinges so well-oiled when these rooms were full of lumber? The maids slept on the other side of the house and the stableman lived over the stables, so what had once been the male farm-servants’ quarters were now empty.

Why was Gideon creeping towards a lot of dusty rubbish as if on the track of lost state secrets? Callie noted footprints in the dust on the twisting staircase and held her breath for a moment, then shook her head in disbelief. There was nothing much up here and it was already uncomfortably hot. His tension still made her listen for the slightest noise and she recalled a few Gothic touches in her own novel then wished she hadn’t. It was absurd to let her imagination run riot, but she felt a flutter of superstitious fear before she told herself sternly this was no time for spectral visitations. They were a few steps up the twisting stairway when Gideon waved his hand to stop and she forgot imagined horrors for real life.

Frozen in her tracks, she was cross with herself for obeying orders like a soldier on parade. From the soft murmurs ahead it sounded as if there were two people in the little storeroom furthest from the stairs. Impatient at him for being a step closer to danger than he was prepared to let her go, she pushed the small of his back to urge him on. He resisted, as if he had to stand between her and hurt like a wall. He must have felt her impatience with such overprotective nonsense, because he reluctantly went up a step so she could hear, as well. First there was her aunt’s voice saying something impatient and a lighter voice in reply. Why was Kitty arguing with her aunt here when they could do it downstairs in comfort? It didn’t sound as if they were discussing using the rolls of dimity and calico stored here to make new gowns and aprons for the maids. Her aunt economised on them until threadbare, but surely that wasn’t an important enough to linger over in a stuffy attic on a day like today.

‘You are impudent,’ her aunt raised her voice to say regally, as if trying to overawe Kitty with her importance as head of a school and Kitty’s employer. ‘Nobody will believe a vagrant maid over a lady of means and standing in the neighbourhood.’

‘They won’t have to. I’ll have my money and keep my place till it suits me to leave. You won’t want me to tell the constables what I know, will you, Mrs Bartle?’

‘I changed my name to avoid being known as the widow of a depraved fool. That will earn me more sympathy than censure.’

‘You can say you’re the queen of the fairies if you want to. It’s what you did to him that’ll make them prick up their ears. I can read, you see? I wonder you never bothered to find out I was hired to keep an old woman out of mischief in my last place. She taught me to use my talents, then I learnt how stupid it was to trust anyone when she turned on me.’

‘I expect she saw you for the cunning little ferret you really are.’

‘I’d be careful what you say, Mrs Bartle. When the world knows what you did to keep your niece here and her husband’s money flowing into your pockets, nobody will believe you. Such a sweet story for the scandal sheets, I dare say I’ll make a fortune if you’re too stupid to pay up.’

Now Callie knew why Gideon warned her to stay silent. Kitty’s words seemed to echo like a clap of thunder and fell into her mind so surely she knew they were true. She managed to stifle a gasp of horror, but her senses were intent as Gideon’s as she realised everything she and her aunt had built here was a sham. With him here—the real Gideon next to her—the truth of him somehow cancelled out her aunt’s lies.

How had she believed every word Aunt Seraphina said against him until yesterday? Was he right; did part of her want to believe him guilty? Maybe it had been easier to blame their ills on her husband, but didn’t that make her a coward as well as a fool? She had hardened her heart against him and believed her aunt must love her because she was there after everyone else fell away. Every artlessly accidental comment about her appearance, Aunt Seraphina’s clever slights and well-placed reminders of all Callie had lost at the hands of a careless husband kept her locked down and hurting, but she hadn’t seen the truth because it was easier not to.

‘No one will believe you,’ Aunt Seraphina was sneering and how hadn’t Callie seen through her until today?

‘The stableman is coming to take this lumber down so the boxes are empty for my niece’s luggage and he certainly can’t read, so it will all be ashes in a few minutes.’

‘No, they stay here and I keep the keys.’

‘You couldn’t stop a fly doing what it wanted, let alone me, now could you? A fall down those awkward stairs will remind you who is mistress here and who is the servant.’

If Kitty didn’t have the sense to shiver at the casual malice behind that question Callie did it for her. ‘If aught happens to me, the landlord of the Crown in Manydown has a letter saying who to look for. Do you want him and half the county on to you for attempted murder?’ the girl said boldly and she was evidently a more subtle opponent than Aunt Seraphina thought.

‘So that’s where you’ve been sneaking off to. I should never have let my niece persuade me to give a trollop like you a chance when your last employer turned you off for chasing her sons. She never mentioned blackmail, though, curse her for a soft fool when you should clearly be in the local bridewell.’

‘We’re both bad, but you could’ve been better if you wanted. As for that milksop I worked for, I knew far too much about her spindle-shanked sons for her to risk it and they weren’t worth it, anyway. Miss Sommers is a better woman than either of us and took me in despite that woman’s spiteful tales, but you betrayed her long before I got here, didn’t you? So who will the world judge the worst rogue of us two, Madam Bartle?’

‘You spied on her for me, despite owing her a roof over your head, and blackmail is a serious crime. If you survive the little accident you’re about to have, you will regret relying on that weak sot from the Crown for aught but a roll in the hay, you know that, don’t you?’

‘He has me to put steel in him, Mrs Bartle, and I have this,’ the little maid said triumphantly and Callie heard her aunt gasp. ‘An account written by your husband of times he was ill after he ate with you and accidents he had on his way out to get drunk and not coming back as you claimed. He even knew a man you paid to murder him. They had a fine spree with the money, then you decided to do the job yourself and he went in fear of his life. He should have run instead of staying, but what a fool you were to keep his evidence.’

‘How did you get your grubby hands on such drunken nonsense?’ Aunt Seraphina whispered as if she dared not admit it existed out loud. Through the heavy stillness of the hot attic Callie could hear fear in her voice and knew this was true, as well.

‘I found the secret panel in your desk drawer I bet you wish was big enough for all the letters you stole over the years. Being bedridden herself, the old lady I was meant to keep quiet in my last position thought it a fine joke to teach me the tricks of such places and find things her son-in-law hid from his wife so she could make him do as she said.’

‘That’s where you learnt your disgraceful trade?’

‘Of course, and a cunning old besom she is, too,’ Kitty said admiringly. ‘Why else would he pay a maid to keep her happy when he hates her like poison?’

‘He still managed to dismiss you.’

‘That’s when I learnt never to trust sly witches like you and make sure I know more than they do. The old woman moved her treasures, then told her daughter I was warming her precious sons’ beds.’

‘You were lucky not to be whipped at the cart-tail,’ Aunt Seraphina scorned.

‘I knew too much, but then the old lady gossiped and I couldn’t get work. Don’t you look down your long nose at me, Mrs Bartle, I was born with nothing and make my way as best I can. You were born a lady and only took me on because I’m cheap and you thought I’d be so grateful I’d do whatever you bade me.’

‘And you would be on the parish now if not for me.’

‘Not I,’ Kitty said confidently and somehow Callie believed her. ‘I wouldn’t be set up for life neither, though, so I’m happy to tell your niece what you did if you don’t pay up. If this paper gets to the magistrates, stealing from your family and keeping a man and his wife apart all these years will be small beer next to wilful murder.’

It went so quiet in the chamber under the roof Callie could hear the crackle of paper as the girl held that damning account out of the Aunt Seraphina’s way as she did her best to grab it from her.

‘Enough,’ she whispered to Gideon, convinced the two people in that room were so absorbed in their struggle they wouldn’t notice if a town crier was standing on the stairs.

‘Indeed,’ he agreed, and somehow managed to launch himself up the last few stairs and past the partition wall as swiftly and silently as a hunting wolf.

He easily topped Kitty and Aunt Seraphina and snatched the letter from Kitty before she even took in the fact he was behind her, throwing it back to Callie. Catching by instinct, she laid it on the stair and got ready to join in if he was too gentlemanly to ward off two biting, spitting furies.

Gideon must have learnt the folly of being a gentleman with she-cats since they parted. He grabbed Kitty by the waist and lifted her off her feet so he could aim her at Aunt Seraphina like a weapon. Her wildly kicking feet landed a good few blows on Aunt Seraphina’s substantial person as the girl tried to turn in his arms to scratch and bite him. Luckily both women were soon winded and Gideon stepped back.

‘How enlightening,’ he said casually. ‘See if Biddy’s friend the groom has returned with the magistrate yet, will you, love?’ he asked Callie without turning round.

‘Of course,’ she said, carrying Bonhomie Bartle’s statement at arm’s length as if it were as noxious as the man who wrote it.

She ran downstairs, unsure Gideon’s gentlemanly instincts would let him hold those two at bay much longer. The memory of the deadly pistols he pulled out of his pocket as if he used them to hold felons up every day reassured her. For all she knew he ran such risks on a daily basis. She could see him doing exactly that when she turned her back on him. Occupied with her own thoughts, she watched Squire Evans ride up to the house as fast as his fat old cob would carry him and remembered the evidence in her hand. She darted into her term-time office and locked it in the box where she kept the girls’ pocket money. If Gideon chose to show it to the authorities she would hand him the key, but somehow she didn’t want her aunt’s downfall to be caused by a man she had despised and feared herself.

‘I still can’t take it in,’ the magistrate said after a spitting and furious Kitty was escorted off the premises with her bundle of belongings and Mrs Bartle locked in her room. ‘Mrs Grisham seems such an upstanding woman.’

‘I suspected nothing, Mr Evans,’ Callie said with a rueful shrug.

‘So why were you suspicious, Sir Gideon?’ the squire asked.

‘I just knew something was amiss,’ he said with that closed expression Callie hated. ‘I would rather our gullibility went no further, if you take my meaning, sir?’

‘Ah, yes, well I don’t see how that can be, Sir Gideon. If we prosecute the woman, we’ll need a good case and yours is by far the strongest.’

‘I intend to keep all the evidence pertinent to it in a safe place and if you return the letters Mrs Bartle used to blackmail her neighbours anonymously she will have nothing left to live on but her wits.’

‘No doubt she’d thrive, since “the wicked flourish like the green bay tree” as it says in our prayer books. Inconvenient to have all that linen washed in public, is it?’ The squire tapped his red nose with a beefy forefinger and reached for the glass of excellent brandy Aunt Seraphina kept for wealthier visitors.

‘Lady Laughraine and I will be living not fifteen miles away and I don’t want the whole world to know what fools we’ve been,’ Gideon agreed confidentially.

Apparently her husband had become a fine actor over the years they were apart. Callie suspected he didn’t care a straw what their neighbours thought, given the gossip it had been enjoying at his expense since before he was born. He was doing it for her. She shook her head to show him she could weather being thought a fool to tell the world her aunt was a thief and a liar. He pretended not to see, so she gave up and made an excuse about needing to steady the household and left the room. They would have to stay here another night at least now and, although Cataret House had been her home for nine years and she’d thought herself content here, she couldn’t wait to be quit of the place.

* * *

‘My aunt will spread all sorts of wicked gossip about us if you let her go, Gideon,’ Callie warned as they went upstairs later to assess what to take with them and what she was happy to leave behind.

‘If she tries it, I’ll find her and stop her,’ he said so coolly she shivered and believed him. ‘Never mind her, how many of your belongings do you want to take with us, Callie? I’d prefer to travel as light as we can.’

‘Exactly when did I agree to go to Raigne, Gideon?’ she challenged half-heartedly. Somehow the thought of going home was very tempting, even if she would be going to the ‘Big House’ rather than comfortable King’s Raigne Vicarage.

‘Would you rather we went to London, or somewhere else altogether then? I don’t much care where we go as long as you come with me.’

‘Raigne is your home.’

‘One you have a great deal more right to call so than I have.’

Callie shook her head, because that huge old barn of a house would never seem like home to her, but nine years of loneliness and longing told her pride would make a very poor bedfellow if she insisted on staying apart and aloof from her husband and refused to admit they might manage to remake their marriage if they both tried hard enough.

‘If I come with you, it can only be a maybe to resuming our marriage, not a fait accompli, Gideon,’ she warned, but both of them knew it was a huge concession. Callie wondered if he felt as if he hardly dared even breathe deeply lest this hope for the future shattered in their faces all over again, as well.

‘It’s far more than I dared hope when I came here, so that will do me for now. In the meantime, how much of this do you really want to take now, and what can be sent on later, my not-quite wife?’ he said with a smile that invited her to find their not-quite anything status almost comfortable.

‘I don’t have many possessions that really matter,’ she said, gazing round the shabby room as if through a stranger’s eyes. ‘One or two books are from Grandfather Sommers’s library and then there’s my grandmother’s pearl necklet and a miniature of them when they were young. Apart from my writing box, I can leave the rest without a qualm.’

‘Then pack those and any essentials and we’ll leave as soon as you’re awake in the morning. I’d like to get to Raigne before my honorary uncle is out on the estate and it will be cooler and less trying to travel early in the day.’

‘How can I stay at Raigne, Gideon? I hardly ever set foot in the place when I lived at King’s Raigne Vicarage,’ she protested, the thought of bowling up to the Tudor mansion as if she had a right suddenly felt impossible again.

‘It’s your home and heaven knows you’ve more right to call it so than I have.’

‘No, you love the place and belong there as I never will.’

‘That’s nonsense and I know Lord Laughraine wants you home nearly as much as I do. You’re his only grandchild, Callie, and he’s a good man who truly only wants the best for you. He might have seemed remote and uncaring when you were a child, but apparently your other grandfather begged him to let you grow up without the stigma of your birth shadowing your childhood. No, don’t grimace like that, love, Reverend Sommers was quite right. I might have been born within wedlock by the skin of my teeth, but it’s bad enough for a boy to be mocked and derided for what the gossips say his parents did. I would never wish it on a girl who might end up being tarred with her mother’s supposed sins before she was old enough to know what they even meant.’

‘We can’t know now, can we?’ she managed to say past the torn feelings that were threatening to clog up her throat and make her weep, not for herself but for him and all the slights and sly whispers he’d been left to cope with as best he could since he was old enough to take notice.

‘I can, but it’s quite safe to love him, Callie. Don’t turn him into a conniving monster because your aunt was one and you don’t trust your family now. It was wrong of me to drag you to London when we got back from Scotland. I should have left you at Raigne to learn to know Lord Laughraine. You were carrying our child. He and his household could have fussed over you while I was in town learning my trade. I was selfish to insist on having you near all the time. I can’t tell you how much I wish you’d known him as the fine man he is before you went through hell, Callie. You might have turned to him for love and support when I failed you then, instead of your stony-hearted aunt.’

‘If wishes were horse, beggars would ride,’ she replied tightly as she began opening drawers and pulling out books so she wouldn’t have to look him in the eye. ‘And I wouldn’t have stayed behind, anyway. I loved you far too much to be parted from you while we waited for our child to be born,’ she finally admitted gruffly.

‘You would have put up with it for her sake,’ he said and bent to pull a little trunk out of the cupboard she was staring into without seeing the old clothes and winter boots that just wouldn’t do for Sir Gideon Laughraine’s lady.

‘We don’t know that it would have made any difference if I was anywhere else. Don’t second-guess fate, Gideon. It does no good and will drive you insane if you let it,’ she said, her own struggles with that particular demon haunting her.

‘No dear,’ he said with mock humility she knew was meant to lighten her thoughts. He went out to retrieve some of the boxes the stableman had emptied ready for her departure, those that really were full of worn-out clothes and ancient account books. ‘Do you need anything else?’ he asked, seeming to accept it was best to deal with details right now.

‘I think not. Where do you intend to sleep tonight, Gideon?’

‘I could insist on sharing this room, but I’m not a fool,’ he said with a sceptical glance at the narrow bed and ancient furniture, as if he wasn’t sure it was up to the weight of a fully adult male if he stayed.

‘No, and it’s best if I do this alone,’ she said mildly, refusing to hint at her feelings about sharing a bed with him again, mainly because she wasn’t sure what they were herself.

‘Don’t forget I’m here now,’ he told her mildly, even if there was an intensity in his complex grey eyes that made her long for things she wasn’t even ready to admit to herself she wanted yet.

‘I learnt to walk my own paths while you were away,’ she warned.

‘Part of being married is learning to walk together without stamping too hard on one another’s toes, isn’t it? I’ve been without you for a very long time, Wife,’ he reminded her so softly it felt more significant than if he were to shout his frustration from the rooftops.

‘I still lived a very different life from you and it will take a while to accustom myself to yours if we find a way past the pitfalls. My aunt isn’t the sole reason we were apart these last nine years,’ she reminded him with a severe look to remind him that war wasn’t won.

And I need to work out if I can endure living with a husband who only wants to share my bed because he has no alternative without making our marriage vows a lie, she added an unspoken aside. He sighed and seemed to resign himself to her mistrust for a little longer. Then he smiled wryly to say he was tame again and there was no need to worry he was going to beg.