In Love With a Wicked Man (26 page)

“I should leave you,” said Mrs. Peppin, turning from the sideboard.

Nancy threw up a hand. “No, Peppie, I need you. Come, sit, the both of you.”

Kate was beginning to sense she might need a stout glass of the cordial. “Nancy, you’re worrying me,” she said, smoothing her skirts beneath her as she sat. “What in heaven’s name is wrong?”

Nancy was hunched forward on the end of the chaise, her hands clasped. “It’s Richard’s aunt,” she said.

“The lady visiting from Staplegrove today?” said Mrs. Peppin, her brow furrowing.

“Yes. Mrs. Lowell.” Nancy lifted her gaze to Kate’s.

“What about her?” asked Kate solicitously. “I hope she’s not ill?”

“Oh, no.” Nancy caught her lip between her teeth a moment. “It has to do with Mrs. Granger, who lives across the street from the Lowells’ church.”

“Mrs. Granger?” Kate was mystified. “Do we even know a Mrs. Granger?”

“A little,” said Nancy. “Mrs. Lowell introduced us at the Midsummer Fair in Taunton.”

Kate shook her head. She remembered the fair, for it had been a beautiful June day. She and Nancy had been invited to drive out with Richard and Mrs. Burnham, and to take tea afterward with the Lowells at the vicarage in Staplegrove.

“We met so many people that afternoon,” she said vaguely. “What about this Mrs. Granger is so distressing?”

“You may recall Mrs. Lowell was actually gossiping about her that day,” Nancy reminded Kate. “She whispered that Mrs. Granger had moved with little explanation to Staplegrove some years ago with a granddaughter in tow.”

“Oh, yes,” said Kate, a snippet of memory returning. “This Mrs. Granger had a child—her daughter’s child—a pretty girl, but the name escapes me.”

“Annabelle Granger,” said Nancy. “Annie, she’s called.”

“That’s right,” said Kate. “The mother had been seduced by the girl’s father, then died in childbed. It was a sad story.”

“Yes, but a rich London gentleman owns the cottage Mrs. Granger lives in, and even the stables behind it.” Nancy spoke swiftly, as if to force the words out. “It’s been put about that he’s the girl’s godfather, or an uncle of some sort. Yet he rarely visits, and scarcely spares the child a word, according to Mrs. Lowell.”

“Ah, the father,” said Mrs. Peppin sagely. “ ’Tis ever the way with rich gentlemen. They hide their troubles away in some little village.”

“Yes, that’s what Mrs. Lowell said,” said Kate. “She was outraged. But we don’t know the truth, Peppie. Perhaps the gentleman really is an uncle?”

Mrs. Peppin shot Kate a doubtful look. “With a story so vague as that?”

“I know, I know,” said Kate, throwing up her hands. “You’re likely right. Human nature is ever a disappointment. But Nancy, what has this tragedy to do with us?”

Nancy looked at her sorrowfully. “Oh, Kate,” she whispered. “Mrs. Lowell says—well, she says that man is Edward.”

“Edward?” Kate went suddenly still inside. “She says that Edward . . . keeps up this child?”

It was as if she could feel her own heart beating. As if time had caught, suspended on a silken string, as she struggled to make sense of Nancy’s words.

“Not
Mr
.
Edward
—?” Peppie’s fingers flew to her lips, as if she might take back her words.

“Mrs. Lowell recognized him at church,” said Nancy sorrowfully, “and that great black horse of his, too.”

The horse.
Kate had forgotten it.

With Edward’s identity discovered, she’d dropped all enquiries into its origin. But one rarely rode a horse all the way from London nowadays; the train was too fast.

“So you’re saying that . . . that this Mrs. Lowell claims Edward is Annie Granger’s father?” Kate managed to say. “That he owns the cottage they live in? That his money—his gaming hell money—keeps up the Granger family?”

Nancy nodded, biting her lip again. “Yes, and the Lowells deeply disapprove of him,” she replied. “Mrs. Lowell says he comes round once or twice a year and strides about like he owns the place.”

“Which he does, it sounds,” interjected Mrs. Peppin.

“Yes,” said Nancy. “That’s where the horse came from. Edward pastures it there.”

But the entire, ugly scenario was playing out in Kate’s mind. Edward had recognized the church in Staplegrove the day they drove past it; he had not even pretended otherwise.

This, then, was the tragedy Edward had spoken of. The story of Maria, whose parents had refused his suit.

She died whilst I was in the army
, Edward had said.

But how could that be? Could he have been so spiteful—or so distraught—as to go away and leave her carrying his child? Or had it all been one great misunderstanding?

It almost didn’t matter; he had hidden away a child, and more or less ignored her. It was not abandonment, no—but it was close. And Kate had truly thought better of Edward than that.

“Miss Kate?” Peppie put an arm around her shoulders. “Oh, miss, sit up straight, lovey, do.”

“But Edward . . . Edward has said nothing of this to me.” Kate realized she had slumped forward on the sofa. Nancy and Peppie exchanged speaking glances.

“Oh, Kate!” Nancy slid to the very end of the chaise, and caught Kate’s hands in her own. “Should I not have told you? Richard is so angry! Strange as it is, he’d taken quite a liking to Edward. And he said . . . he said I really
must
tell you. Perhaps I oughtn’t have?”

“There, there, Miss Nan,” said Peppie, but she was patting Kate’s back. “Of course you did rightly. And as Miss Kate says, there’s no knowing how this gurt scandal come about. Mayhap there’s more to it than that newsy Mrs. Lowell knows.”

Kate gathered her wits and stood. She needed to be alone. “Thank you, Nancy,” she said. “You did just the right thing. I’m . . . disappointed, to say the least.”

Left with little alternative, Nancy rose. “And are you going to confront him, Kate?” she asked. “Are you going to demand the truth? For my part, I should like to strike that handsome face of his a cracking good blow. I feel as if he has deceived us.”

“But it’s really none of our business.” Kate forced a smile, though it cost her dear. “He’s chosen to keep it a secret for reasons of his own. I shall not pry. After all, he isn’t starving or beating Annie Granger, but merely depriving her of a father’s love and companionship.”

“But what a cruel, cruel cut for a child to bear!” cried Nancy. “How can you, of all people, excuse it?”

“I do not,” she replied. “Children should live with their fathers regardless of how they came into being. They should not be hidden away as if they are something to be ashamed of.”

But Nancy’s outrage didn’t relent. “Kate, you and I know too well what it’s like to be dumped in the country and treated as an afterthought,” she said harshly. “Aurélie, for all her faults, would have stayed if Papa had let her. You know, Kate, she would have.”

“I’m not excusing Papa,” said Kate. “But this is about Edward’s failings, not his. And we must console ourselves that Edward is doing better than many rich men in his place would do. Yes, Nan, I’m crushed. The child is likely his. But what can it matter to us? He’ll be gone soon.”

“Not if Mrs. Wentworth has any say in it,” Mrs. Peppin warned, “since she’s taken it into her head to keep the fellow here.”

“Then I shall tell Mamma the truth,” Nancy hotly declared. “I . . . I shall insist she send him away.”

“Nan, leave it be,” Kate cautioned, rising as gracefully as she could. “He’ll go soon enough. Certainly I shall not further detain him. Now, if the two of you will excuse me, I have some letters to write.”

She watched them trail from the room, the withering smile still planted upon her face. But at the last instant, Mrs. Peppin cast a pitying look back over her shoulder. Then Nancy, too, turned around.

“Kate,” she said, “shall I cancel my trip to Exeter tomorrow with Mamma? I should be pleased to stay at home with you and keep you company. I do not need to go shopping, truly.”

“Heavens, no,” said Kate. “Aurélie will have a fit.”

But it was her sister’s simple kindness that was Kate’s undoing. As soon as the door shut, she flung herself across the divan, and began to sob.

She wasn’t even sure why she sobbed—which made it all the worse. What had she imagined? That Edward would turn over a new leaf and fling himself at her feet? That there would be some sweet happy-ever-after amidst the wreckage of her life?

There would not be.

There would not be, and even Reggie, cad that he was, had sense enough to see what Kate’s life was coming to. In fact, Reggie had likely given Kate the best offer she was apt ever to have—and that had been an offer of blackmail, more or less.

Certainly she’d get nothing better from wicked Ned Quartermaine, and on that score, Edward had not deceived her. He had made it plain that Kate could expect nothing of him beyond this; a strange bond born of a strange circumstance, and a passionate fling between the sheets.

And now she had to face the fact that Edward was not at all the sort of man she’d imagined—this, on top of the fact that she’d somehow convinced herself that owning a gaming hell might be forgivable. But to neglect one’s daughter? That struck too near the heart for even Kate to contrive to excuse.

Oh, such men inevitably had a dozen pretty reasons. Certainly her father had; by the time Nancy had come along, with his marriage already strained, James Wentworth had ceased to spare his daughters a passing glance, and packed them off permanently to Somerset. And that abandonment, she fully realized, was precisely why Nancy was so angry with Edward.

But if challenged, Edward would doubtless say that his occupation made him unsuitable to rear a child. That men were temperamentally incapable of understanding daughters. Or, like Kate’s father, that children needed fresh, country air.

But children—especially daughters—needed fathers. Someone to teach them how to ride a pony and wield a cricket bat. Someone to tell them that they were pretty, even if they were not.

Even if they were plain as a pikestaff, and gangly as a beanpole.

A child needed a father’s love. And to deny it was selfish beyond reason.

On another wave of self-pity, Kate curled into a ball on the divan, and let her head sink into the pillow. Just then her door creaked open a crack, and then a little wider. Filou came waddling and snuffling across the carpet, his rheumy eyes solemn.

He simply stood at the edge of the divan, gazing up at her in what seemed to Kate like sincere sympathy.

“Oh, very well.” Kate sighed, and patted a spot beside her.

Filou leapt up, his hind legs kicking and flailing for purchase. She reached out and hefted up his rump, and the pug flopped against her on a wheezy exhalation. She wrapped an arm about him, and snuggled him close.

He sighed again, gave a tremulous doggy shudder, and then began to snore.

Well, this is it
, thought Kate.
This is as good as it gets for me.

A flatulent, asthmatic dog. Or Lord Reginald Hoke, extortionist extraordinaire.

Kate chose the dog.

She put her arm around Filou, and drifted off into something like sleep.

CHAPTER 13

Miss Wentworth’s Dilemma

K
ate managed to avoid Edward for the remainder of the day, and with very little effort on her own behalf. In fact, she saw almost no one.

According to Mrs. Peppin, Nancy was closeted with Aurélie for two hours, planning their grand shopping excursion. Declaring the trip to Exeter too taxing to even contemplate, Lady Julia curled up in the library with a novel. Sir Francis and the Comte de Macey decided to take a long walk along the moor, while Reggie spent the whole of the afternoon in the billiards room with a bottle of Bellecombe’s best brandy.

As to Edward, Kate heard no more of him, and supposed he spent the remainder of the day with Anstruther. So, after sending down her excuses at dinner—a headache, entirely real—Kate went straight to bed, only to be roused from a long, dream-fraught night somewhere near dawn by Mrs. Peppin, who was gently jostling her shoulder.

“My lady, wake up, do!” she was saying as Kate surfaced.

“
Umm?
” Kate levered up onto one elbow, dislodging poor Filou, who had, for once, forsaken Aurélie. She pushed the hair from her face to see the housekeeper standing over her bed in a pool of yellow light, her lamp raised high.

“Peppie? What’s wrong? Is it Mamma?”

“No, no, lovey,” she said, putting the lamp down on Kate’s night table. “Young Tom Shearn’s in the bailey. He says Jenks has a heifer breeching down in the byre, and another calf behind it.”

“Blast.” Kate dragged a hand through her hair. “One of the Devons?”

“No, one of the new Herefords, lovey,” she said, “and too expensive to let die, Jenks says.”

“Jenks is right.” Kate flung back the covers. “Blasted overbred racehorses. What does Anstruther say? The Herefords were his notion. Did anyone send to Taunton for the veterinary surgeon?”

“Aye, but Jenks thinks there’s no time,” Mrs. Peppin reported. “And Anstruther’s dressing to take Mrs. Wentworth to Exeter, says Tom, and dares not disappoint her. He said Tom was to come for you, and ask what might be done.”

“
Exeter?
” Caught in the midst of filling her basin with cold water, Kate turned, incredulous, the pitcher held aloft. “And shopping takes precedence over a forty-guinea Hereford? My God, has Mamma run the whole world mad?”

“Just dress, miss,” Mrs. Peppin encouraged. “He would not have sent for you a’thout he believed you needed.”

“Very well, blast it,” she said. “Put Filou back in Mamma’s room, and have Athena saddled. Oh, and Peppie? Tell Fendershot to load my pistol, and put it in my bag.”

Mrs. Peppin winced. But Kate was not about to let a cow suffer needlessly, be it forty guineas or four hundred, if there was truly nothing to be done. And some of the things that
could
be done to save the poor cow were horrid in and of themselves . . .

Well, just like the rest of her troubles at present, those alternatives didn’t bear thinking of.

Still, some days, Kate wondered how her life had come to this. She had grown up expecting an ordinary life; happiness, marriage, and children. Even until yesterday, truth be told, she had not entirely given up on that dream.

And now she had suffered what was the most miserable night of her life since Stephen lay dying. Even the dog had apparently felt sorry for her. She was so angry. So deeply angry with herself, and yes, with Edward—and for what? For refusing to tell her about his daughter?

Did she really imagine herself such a significant part of Edward’s life? Was she so naive that she believed being bedded by a man obligated him to share his life’s story? His every sin and secret?—both of which were numerous, she did not doubt.

Oh, Edward enjoyed her companionship, she realized. But at the end of the day, perhaps she was no more important to him than poor little Annie Granger. No, she was just ordinary Katherine Wentworth, called to tend a laboring cow!

“As if I know bugger-all about that, either,” she muttered to herself, and rather vulgarly, too.

It was just the sort of language one picked up around a farm. Language, really, that a lady had no business knowing, and should never have been exposed to. But she did know it; this was far from her first birthing. Sheep, cattle, and once even a draft horse; Anstruther and her grandfather had begun to drag her along to every crisis before Stephen’s body had gone cold in the grave.

After all, what had been the alternative for Bellecombe?

For her to marry Reggie?

“Ha!” she said aloud. “As if
he’d
know what to do, the little nancy-pants. Better I should marry Tom Shearn.”

With that sentiment in mind, Kate washed her face, dressed, and twisted up her hair into a ruthless knot. Having forgone her corset in favor of speed, she simply dragged on her boots, seized her crop from its hook, and went downstairs to find Tom.

A
FTER OVERSLEEPING, A
rare event indeed, Edward was required to rush down to breakfast. He’d spent the previous afternoon in the saddle, touring every corner of his new property. Now, as he dressed, he felt a faint sense of hope stirring—at least on one emotional front.

Yes, Heatherfields was so neglected it would take five or six thousand pounds, Anstruther had calculated, to set it to rights again. But oh, what a house it would be when finished! He had practically stolen the estate from Reggie, the damned, desperate fool.

Far from being a mere shooting box, Heatherfields was instead a tidy Elizabethan manor house of perfect proportions and once-elegant gardens, the whole of which was essentially unaltered by time.

Anstruther had been especially cast down by the nearly uninhabitable interiors, but Edward, strangely, had not. He had known Lord Reginald Hoke for the wastrel he was, and expected the worst. Far better the rooms were unaltered and unkempt, if it meant they had not been ruined by two centuries of bad taste and indiscriminate plastering.

Restored to its sixteenth-century glory, Heatherfields would be the ideal place for Annie to begin young adulthood. The sort of home to which prospective suitors might be brought; a house meant for landed English aristocracy, the very thing rich young merchants and sensible bankers’ sons would aspire to become.

And they were just the sort of young men who could not afford to turn up their noses too thoroughly at Annie’s uncertain parentage, and who, once wed, would not trouble themselves to quell the speculation that their new bride might—just
might
—be the granddaughter of a duke, however unlikely that scenario was.

But Edward was getting ahead of himself when the house might require years to be brought up to snuff—particularly if they uncovered the woodworm Anstruther predicted. By then, Annie would be ready for those rich young suitors. And however awkward and infrequent Mrs. Granger might make his visits, Edward did want to help the child.

Engaged in tying his cravat, he caught his own reflection in the mirror and considered, not for the first time, his inadequacy for such a task. He wished suddenly he could ask Kate’s counsel; not about just the renovations and the land, but about Annie. What did he know, after all, about a young girl’s needs? Or how to launch her into society? Or—more daunting still—how to convince Mrs. Granger to even permit it?

The damned woman still resented him; resented both his help and his interference, even though circumstance compelled her to take both. She was still hell-bent on sheltering the girl, but could she not see that hiding Annie away merely made the gossip worse?

Oh, Edward had no quarrel with gossip if it could be turned to his purpose. The ambiguity about Annie’s origin was likely better than the truth. But Annie was growing up. The world would have to be told . . .
something
.

He would have liked to tell Kate the truth—insofar as he knew it. But to what end? There was nothing for him at Bellecombe. There could never be. Kate wouldn’t have him, and he wouldn’t want her to. So why throw Annie on the pyre of his flamingly bad choices?

Suddenly, his cravat knotted to the wrong side. Edward’s fingers clawed at the too-tight knot, then tore the damned thing off and flung it across his bed.

Was that what he wanted? To bare his soul to Kate? To promise his undying love, and swear to be a better man? Well, it would not work. His blood might be uncertain, but his past was all too clear.

Moreover, old Pettibone the headmaster had been right; there was a vicious streak in Edward that would not yield. Indeed, he had embraced it. It had enabled him to survive a harsh life, even as it marked him ever after. A double-edged sword always cut two ways.

No, better to simply savor Kate’s companionship through the coming days, and forge something like an abiding friendship, if he could. He had no wish to involve Kate in some tawdry, ongoing
affaire
—and she wasn’t fool enough, thank God, to permit it.

And yet, how was he to visit Heatherfields over the coming months and years without yielding to the temptation to see her? In his heart and in his memories, Kate and Bellecombe and even the staff were knotted as tightly together as this damned cravat he could not get untied.

He ripped the second off, hurled it aside, and buckled on a black stock instead. Whatever hard choice wanted making, it needn’t be made today. Perhaps, if Kate’s headache had waned, she might agree to ride over Heatherfields with him as he inspected the fences. What was the harm in asking? In fact, there was a great deal of wisdom in it, since she owned the adjoining property.

His spirits lifting at the notion of spending time with her, Edward shrugged into his coat and hastened downstairs to the breakfast parlor. Unfortunately, he found no one there save Aurélie and Nancy Wentworth. An overstuffed carpetbag sat just inside the door, the pug curled on the rug beside it, snoring.

“
Bonjour
, Mr. Quartermaine,” sang Mrs. Wentworth from beneath a lacy, broad-brimmed hat of pink silk. “Is it not a lovely morning to be off on an adventure?”

“Indeed, ma’am,” he said, looking about the room in hopes of conjuring up Kate. “In fact, I think I shall ride round Heatherfields again. Has Lady d’Allenay come down?”

“Not a hair has been seen,” said her mother with a toss of her bejeweled hand. “Katherine has gone out already, I daresay.”

Nancy Wentworth didn’t so much as look at him. Indeed, her hands lay fisted upon the table, white-knuckled. “There was a sick cow, Peppie said,” she answered into the tablecloth. “She’s gone to tend it.”

“Oh,” said Edward, disappointed. “How long does that sort of thing take?”

“All day, sometimes,” said the girl.

“Ah. Too bad.”

He went to the sideboard to pour a cup of coffee, musing upon whether to chase after Kate, or to simply await her return. He glanced again at the sleeping dog, and the carpetbag.

“Is someone leaving us today?” he asked.

“
Non, non
, merely shopping!” said Aurélie Wentworth a little loudly. “I have some gowns there which require lace and shoes and, oh, la!—all manner of trifles!—but the trifles must match,
n’est-ce pas
? So I take them. For matching.”

“Of course.” Edward took some kippers and eggs then returned to the table, but just then Anstruther appeared in the doorway.

“Well,” said the estate agent a little gruffly. “I am come, Nan. If you’re ready? Morning, Quartermaine.”

Nancy Wentworth rose, but her face was bloodless. “Yes . . . yes, I’m ready.”

Anstruther gave the girl his arm almost formally, and Mrs. Wentworth followed them out, waggling her fingers to Edward as a sort of afterthought.

“
Bonjour
, Mr. Quartermaine!” she said lightly. “We shall have all manner of things to talk about when we return!”

Edward could not imagine what, since he had no interest in female fashions, or their accouterment. He had never troubled himself to keep up the sort of mistress who required such attentions. He preferred Kate’s manner of dress, now that he thought on it; simple, functional, and suited only to its purpose. Well, except for that green and gold confection . . .

As to Nancy, the poor girl looked a little sullen. And yet there had been a hopefulness in her eyes when she had looked at Anstruther. Clearly the girl was suffering mixed emotions over something, thought Edward. And why was Anstruther escorting them anyway? Something to do with buying a plow?

Edward shook his head. Anstruther, for all his recalcitrance, looked to be as under the cat’s paw as the rest of Bellecombe when it came to Aurélie Wentworth. But there was no helping the poor devil, so Edward sipped at his coffee, and returned to his musings about Kate in the green and gold gown.

K
ATE RETURNED HOME
in the late afternoon with Tom Shearn riding alongside her. On one or two occasions, the poor man was nearly required to poke her upright, so physically exhausted did she find herself.

“A good day’s work, m’lady,” said the young man as they rode beneath the inner portcullis.

“Thank you for staying, Tom,” she said as he leapt down. “It was more than poor Jenks and I could manage. Two calves, and most of the day. Who could imagine it?”

“Happy to serve, ma’am,” he said, helping her dismount. “I’ll just take Athena round to Motte, shall I?”

“Mercy ’pon us,” declared Mrs. Peppin, meeting her at the door. “You look a fright, miss.”

“Congratulate me, Peppie.” Kate’s smile was wan. “I’m a new mother twice over, and we’re about . . . oh, twenty pounds richer?”

“So you may hope,” said Peppie. “But Mrs. Wentworth will have spent that in ribbons today. Well, miss, let’s get you a bath drawn. Stop staring, Jasper, you gurt gawkamouth, and set to it. Happen you’ve not seen blood and muck afore?”

With a tug of his forelock, the young man darted off.

“Bless you, Peppie,” said Kate. “What time is dinner?”

“No one’s said, miss,” reported Mrs. Peppin. “Half-seven, I daresay?”

Kate turned, already starting up the stairs. “What, has Mamma not returned?”

“Not a sight of her, miss, since eight o’clock when they set out for the village.”