Secrets of Surrender (19 page)

“You are none the worse for it, no matter the why,” the earl said, his speech slurring badly. “Although I expect there are times when you wish I’d not interfered.”

“In the tally of gains and losses, I come out far ahead. Whatever your reasons, I am grateful. I will never forget you. Nor will my children, or their children in turn.”

The grasp tightened. The old man’s eyes filmed. His lids closed. His hand fell away, then rose in a sovereign’s gesture of blessing and farewell.

Kyle appeared sober when he emerged from Cottington’s chamber. Rose left him to his thoughts while they walked down the staircase and out into the cold.

He did not enter the carriage at once, but instead walked around it and gazed out over the pond. She followed and waited. He was saying good-bye to more than a man today. An entire period of his life would end with Cottington’s death.

“Have you been here often?” she asked.

“Not often. When I went away to school, however, he would send for me when I returned between terms. The first time, his messenger found half the town following him to my uncle’s cottage to see what was happening.”

“He received you regularly then.”

“Yes. Perhaps it was part of the lessons.”

“More likely he wanted to hear of your progress. You also brought him news of Durham, then Paris and London. I daresay your conversation was more interesting than most that he heard in this county.”

“Perhaps.” He let the carriage wait while he began strolling along the drive.

She fell into step. “Did you speak to him about the mine?”

He nodded. “He will do what he can, but at best it will be delayed. That may give them time to ensure it is more safe. There are ways to do that.”

He did not sound optimistic that those ways would be employed.

“You have done all that you can, I suppose.”

“Have I?”

They turned and aimed back to the carriage. “You are quiet, Kyle. Was it not a good meeting? Were you not free to speak as you wanted?”

“It was a very good meeting. He invited questions, and answered all that I could in good conscience ask of him.”

“Were there some you could not ask?”

“Only one. I had planned to ask it, because I think he may be the only person who would answer honestly. However, seeing him—the topic would only bring him sorrow, and the answer only satisfy my curiosity.”

“If only one question remains between you, it was a very good meeting. I do not think there are many people who know another with whom they have only one unanswered question.”

He looked down at her. Suddenly they were not speaking of Cottington, but of each other.

“He is a dying man, Rose. There is nothing left to lose in answering the questions. No consequences to the future and no loss of pride. Either to the person who asks the question, or the one who answers it.”

They reached the carriage. His self-absorption waned once they began their journey back to Teeslow.

“You appear thoughtful too, Rose. Do you contemplate a question of your own?”

“I have many, but that is not the cause of any frown you may see. I am wondering whether I am going to survive the meeting with Easterbrook when I give him Cottington’s scold.”

The carriage was almost out of Teeslow before Kyle noticed the silence. He had been so lost in his thoughts that the unnatural quiet did not penetrate his awareness at first.

He called for the carriage to stop. He looked out the window.

Rose did too. “What is it? All appears calm to me.”

“Too calm. The lane should be busier this time of day. Women should be about.”

He cocked his ear and listened. He eyed the roofs of buildings and cottages. Where could they all be? At the mine? It was too soon for such an action. That left the tavern or the church.

He opened the door and stepped out. Rose gathered her skirt and held out her hand.

“No, Rose. The carriage will take you back to Pru. I will return shortly.”

“Do you anticipate trouble? Danger?”

“No, but I—”

“If there is no danger, you have no reason to send me back. I am curious about this village. If you are going to visit, I am going to accompany you.”

He braced his arm against the carriage jamb, blocking her descent. “You are curious about a lot of things lately.”

“It is a woman’s nature. Nor have I found that satisfying my curiosity is unpleasant.”

She alluded to last night. Which made him hard. Memories filled his head, of her begging cries and shy but sure touch, of her back dipping and her bottom rising. Of her legs wrapping him while her tight warmth absorbed him and they rocked together in an embrace with bodies and gazes locked.

The thoughts made him want to kiss her and take her right here on the lane. They made him forget all the reasons she should go back.

With one bold look she turned him into an idiot.

“Do you think to command me to go back, Kyle? If so I should inform you that any husband has a limited number of commands per marriage, and it is foolish to waste them on insignificant matters.”

So much for his sweet, pliable wife. Last night had changed more than the heat and intensity of their passion. The subtle formality that had imbued this marriage was eroding fast.

Her eyes held an explicit challenge.

“You may come, Rose, but only if you leave at once if I say so. I do not expect trouble, but I could be wrong. It would be better if you just returned—”

Her lids lowered.

Hell.

He told the coachman where to wait. He handed Rose down.

The village had gathered in the church. He could hear the voices as he and Rose approached the old stone structure with its single tower over the front portal. It had been part of a priory centuries ago, on land given over to a long-ago ancestor of Cottington. Before coal was found nearby, Teeslow had been a simple farming village.

“Shouldn’t the men be in the mine now?” Rose asked.

“The men, and the older children, and even some of the women.” He opened the ancient wooden door and the roar of an argument poured over them both.

They slipped in and stood along the back wall of the nave. Few noticed their arrival. All attention centered on the men standing in front of the altar. Jon was there, his blond curls wild, trying to force his will on the gathering.

That proved impossible. Voices crossed and interrupted. Emotions ran high and tones rang sharply. Cheers and jeers competed.

“I cannot even understand what is being discussed,” Rose whispered.

“They were ordered to start clearing away that rock from the cave-in today. The men walked out instead. Now they must decide what to do tomorrow.”

“I thought that you said that it caved even more when that was tried the last time.”

“The owners sent in an engineer who says that will not happen this time.”

Jon was making some headway gathering voices to his call to stay out. Not enough, though, which meant it would solve nothing.

Kyle let the voices pour over him. He recognized most of them. He knew these men and had played in the lanes with some of them as a boy.

His gaze swept the families and lit on a pale, pretty woman with red hair, holding two children by their hands. He had shared his first kiss with her when he was fourteen.

A far prettier woman stood by his side. No one had noticed her yet, but they would soon. The carriage ensemble that had impressed Conway looked all the richer here, with its fur and expensive needlework. Her bonnet contrasted with the kerchiefs worn by the other women. All of the light in the old, dim building seemed to seek her, making her blond beauty radiant.

“We should go,” he said.

“If I were not here, would you go?”

He did not know. It was not his world anymore. Not his battle.

“If my presence will compromise your voice, if I only symbolize to them how far you have journeyed from this village, I will leave,” she said. “However, if I only remind you of what you might lose if you speak, then one more question has been answered, and not in a way I had hoped.” She turned to face him. “You are not a stranger to them yet, even if they increasingly become strangers to you.”

Her understanding moved him. That she even tried to comprehend touched him profoundly.

He left her side and walked toward Jon. Since his head rose above the others in the nave, his voice carried. “You are not ready for this action, Jon, and you know it. Shoulder to shoulder, you said. It sounds like there are shoulders here that will not be with you.”

The roar dimmed. Jon spotted him. “We’ve a gentleman here to advise us. Brought his fine wife too. How lucky we are for his counsel.”

Kyle did not look back but he could tell from the buzz of mutters and exclamations that Rose had been sought and located. “I brought my wife to meet my old friends, Jon. Imagine my surprise to find a political meeting in this church. What do you think to gain by staying out except a lot of hungry women and children?”

“Fewer bodies to bury.”

“I spoke with Cottington today. He will write to his partners. The tunnel will not open while he lives.”

“You have bought us a few days, maybe a few weeks, that is all.”

“It is long enough to make sure that when it opens it is safe.”

Jon hooted. “Safe! We were told today to move that rock. They found an engineer who says it is already safe.”

“Then you must find one who can prove it is not. One who does not owe his living to the owners. One who has the education to back up his findings.” Kyle reached the front of the nave. “One like me.”

Jon consulted with the four other men arrayed around him. The church held a tense silence while they debated.

“You’ll go down there?” The eldest of them spoke with a subtle sneer. His name was Peter MacLaran and he was the radical of yesterday, now passing the crown to Jon. “It will get your fine coats all dirty, m’lord. It might take a few days too. You’ll be missing some of those dinner parties in London.”

Peter got a few snickers for his sarcasm.

“I’ll go right now. It won’t be the first time I’ve been in that pit. The coats can stay here. Find a man to loan me his boots, find five of your best to join me, and we will begin it today. I will not leave Teeslow until I know what I need to know. If it is unsafe, I will explain why in a report. If it can be made safe, I will describe how. If they proceed anyway, and another cave-in happens, that report will hang them.”

“They won’t let you in to do it.”

“Cottington’s name will get me in. He isn’t dead yet.”

He did not wait for Jon and Peter to agree. The shouts sounding around him said that he had won.

He walked back to Rose. “You should go back to Pru now. I will walk you to the carriage.”

“I will manage on my own. Do what you must do.”

He unbuttoned his coats, shrugged them off, and handed them to her. A boy came over with some boots. Kyle sat down and pulled them on. Five of the most experienced miners waited at the church door with lamps.

Rose hugged the coats and watched the preparations. She might have been observing some ritual in an exotic land, she appeared so interested.

“Tell Pru I’ll be needing a lot of hot water when I get back to the house,” he said.

She stretched up to speak in his ear. “I expect that you will need a whole bath. Perhaps you will be so tired that I will have to help.”

He hardened at once. Images of last night, of future nights, of that bath, made it worse.

He gritted his teeth, stared at the stone floor and forced the urges under control.

“Rose. Darling. I am facing hours in a black pit. That was very naughty of you.”

She did not even pretend chagrin. She looked very pleased with herself as he left her.

CHAPTER
SIXTEEN

T
he men followed Kyle out of the church. The colliers had decided that their engineer would definitely get into that pit today, and God help the manager who tried to stop him.

The children ran off, but many of the women dallied in the church. A lot of attention came Rose’s way while she folded Kyle’s coats. Finally a woman of middle years, wearing a full-skirted simple dress and a white cotton kerchief, approached her.

“They’ll be gone until night, most likely. We’ll send one of the little ’uns for that carriage of yours.”

“I think that I will leave the carriage for Kyle and walk back. It would be good if someone would tell the coachman that, so he can deal with the horses properly.”

The woman called over a little boy of about six years and sent him off with the message. Then she gave Rose’s ensemble a good look. “You should be warm enough in that, so he won’t be scolding us for letting you walk. All fur inside there, is it?”

Rose lifted the edge of the mantlet and showed the fur lining. “I took it off an older one and had it put here.”

A few other women ventured closer to listen and watch. One of them reached out to stroke the fur. “I didn’t think ladies did that. Turned skirts and such.”

“There are lots of ladies who do it. They just don’t tell anyone.”

The women laughed at that. The ensemble received attention from more of them.

Rose stayed and chatted for a while. The women of Teeslow were much like the women of London, or women anywhere. They wanted to know about the latest fashions even if they could not buy them, and the gossip about society too.

When she began her walk back to Harold’s house, the first woman, whose name was Ellie, fell into step to accompany her. “I’ll walk with you, if you don’t mind. I’ve a mind to see Prudence. Been some days now since she came to the village. We are old friends. Our homes were side by side when we were girls.”

Rose was glad for the company. As they passed the outskirts of Teeslow, Ellie spoke again.

“She was surprised by Kyle’s marriage, Prudence was. Concerned too. She told me, but no one else.”

“I hope that she is not so concerned now that she has met me.”

“T’weren’t you that concerned her.” Ellie’s white kerchief bobbed along with her heavy gait. “She wants the best for him, of course. She understood why marrying you would be good for his future.”

“Then what concerned her?”

Ellie frowned, as if making a decision whether to answer. “I did not know at first. Then the rumor started in the village. About you and Norbury.”

Rose’s heart sank. The whole village knew. They might be interested in her as Kyle’s lady wife, but they were also curious about Norbury’s whore.

Would something be said to him, even while he tried to help? Would some man who disliked compromise make a comment that alluded to her past?

Rose had never regretted her foolishness with Norbury more than at this moment, while she walked beside solid, honest Ellie on this lane so often traversed by the people Kyle had known since birth.

“I did not think that story would find its way to Teeslow,” she said. “I did not think that my presence by his side today would embarrass him. I wish now that I had heeded his request that I return to Prudence at once.”

“He married you, didn’t he? He can’t be too embarrassed by you. As for that story coming here, well, it began being told after the earl’s son visited a few weeks ago. No one missed the coincidence of that. We aren’t stupid, and we know there’s bad blood between those two and some of us know why.”

“You mean that thrashing he gave Norbury when they were young. Yes, I can see how that would leave things bad between them.” It sounded like Norbury was still a boy, spreading stories to get back at the one who had beat him.

Ellie looked at her with a peculiar expression. “It wasn’t the thrashing itself. Even if Kyle had lost that fight, he’d’a won. He’d’a proven that there’s things no one should do, no matter what their birth. That there is right and wrong for all of us, and it doesn’t change if you are from the manor. Humiliating to have your inferior remind you of that, I expect. Twice now, from the sounds of it.”

“Was the first time about a woman too?”

They were at the point where the lane to Harold’s house branched off. Ellie squinted in that direction, as if she could see the people who lived there.

“He didn’t tell you why he took on an earl’s son and those other boys? I guess I’m not surprised. It was so long ago.” Her chin rose in the direction of the house. “Pru never speaks of it, as if silence makes it go away. She did once, though, to me and a few others. So we know what we’ll have nearby when the earl dies and his son gets Kirtonlow Hall. Let’s just say the son ain’t the father, and has a bad way with women. Always has.”

They walked up the lane together. Prudence was delighted to see her old friend. Rose left them together in the kitchen and went above to hang Kyle’s coats.

Ellie had not been very clear in her condemnation of Norbury, but she had said enough that it troubled Rose. It seemed that Kyle had a history of challenging Norbury’s sense of rights and prerogatives. In a way he was doing it again today in investigating that tunnel.

That was the least of it, however. According to Ellie, only a few people knew the real reason Kyle had thrashed Norbury all those years ago. And Prudence had been the one to tell them.

Which meant it was all about Prudence to begin with.

Kyle dragged himself out of the carriage and into the dark. He reached for the sky and stretched his whole body.

He had forgotten how low that tunnel was. Even men shorter than he had to bend over to make their way. He had just spent the last five hours twisting his body into unnatural positions in order to examine that stone.

He was grateful that Rose had left the carriage, but he dared not move inside it. Dirt covered his shirt, his hair, his…everything. Dirt and black dust. Even in the moonlight he could see the large smudges on his arms.

The house appeared dark. Everyone had gone to sleep. Just as well. He did not want Rose seeing him like this. Sending him off to do a good deed was one thing. Having him return looking like the collier he was born to be was another.

Light leaked from the kitchen, etching a few shapes in the front rooms. A dwindling fire cast a faint glow in the sitting room. A figure curled itself in Harold’s chair, but it was not his uncle. Rose slept there in her nightdress and a big shawl, her legs drawn up on the cushion and her bare feet rosy from the fire’s heat.

She had taken down her hair and brushed it until it flowed like a golden, glossy river. Her lips and eyelashes appeared very dark in the faint illumination.

He needed food and hot water and was so tired that he could barely stand, but she dazzled him into dumb astonishment. Like she always had. Like she always would.
Not for you, boy.

Her effect on him was even stronger now. She was no longer a stunning face viewed across a theater or seen in the moonlight. She was not even just the passionate woman he had possessed in soul-shattering fulfillment. He was coming to know her so well, so thoroughly, that his knowing of her changed his knowing of himself.

The shawl had fallen off the shoulder turned toward the fire. He carefully lifted it back in place so she would not be cold. He left her sleeping and went to the kitchen.

The bath that Rose had promised waited, with the tin tub half filled with water. Buckets of more water warmed by the hearth. A crockery bowl inverted over a plate stood on the table.

He lifted the bowl to find cold fowl and cheese and bread. He took a cup into the storeroom and helped himself from the small keg of ale that Harold had tapped there. He carried it back and sat down to eat.

The food helped, but sitting only reminded him of his sore body. He got up and poured one of the buckets into the tub. As he reached for another, a white sleeve and feminine hand took the third.

Rose poured her bucket, then faced him. He did not miss how her gaze took in all the dirt and dust. She was too good to show distaste, but not so practiced as to totally hide her surprise.

“I was correct. You will need this bath.” She reached for another bucket.

He took it from her. “I will do it.”

“I have prepared many in my time, Kyle.”

“Now that you are married to me you are not supposed to have to perform such tasks anymore.”

“I do not remember that part of the settlement. If Prudence allowed a servant in her home I would gladly hand the duty over, but you would better spend your time getting out of those clothes and having a good soak.”

She did not wait for agreement, but set to lifting and pouring the rest of the buckets. He stripped off his clothes, stepped into the tub, and sank low in the steaming water.

She picked up his shirt and breeches. “Can they be cleaned?”

“Not pristine clean, if that is what you mean. Put them outside the back door. Pru will know what to do.”

She did as he said, then knelt behind him and started scrubbing his back. Her matter-of-fact service charmed him with its calm domesticity. She had probably done this when she was younger, before her brothers became bankers. There had been some bad years then. She probably had a lot of experience in keeping men clean.

There was no insinuation of seduction in the way this bath progressed. She no doubt had taken one look at him covered in coal dust, his eyes red from bad light and bad air, and lost interest in that. Or realized that he certainly had.

“Did you accomplish much today? Do you think you can help them?” she asked.

“Not much was done today, but enough to know what I need to do tomorrow. And the next day. I need some tools. I told the manager that if he did not loan them to me that I would go to the earl and come back with written permission.”

He had dropped the earl’s name so often today that the man would turn in his grave if he were not still alive. He was pushing that relationship to its limit even as it entered its final days. He hoped and trusted that Cottington would understand if he ever learned of it.

Rose rinsed her rag, soaped it again, and handed it to him to use. She scooted to the tub’s side and sat cross-legged on the floor. “I met some of the village women today after you left. We spoke for a while.”

“What did you talk about?”

She shrugged. “Women things.”

She dipped her finger into a little pool of water on the worn floor planks near her foot. She drew a water sketch with it.

“They all know. About me. He made sure everyone knew that you had married his whore. Norbury did.”

“Who told you this?”

“A woman named Ellie. She is one of Pru’s friends from girlhood. She walked me back and they visited for an hour or so.”

“It was unkind of her to tell you that. However, you are not the first woman to make a mistake about a man, Rose. If I remember correctly, Ellie had her first child a mere seven months after she wed. A big, strapping babe it was too.”

She smiled while she elaborated her water drawing. “You are very sweet to try to make me feel less awkward about it. Ellie said something else that was interesting. She told me that when you were a boy and you thrashed Norbury, it was about how he treated a woman. I think it was your aunt, from what Ellie said.”

“That is true. He and some of his friends were interfering with her, making sport of her the way bad boys do sometimes.” He continued washing. “What else did Ellie say?”

“A lot of nice things about you. She was a little mysterious about that thrashing. She said a few of them knew the truth of it because Prudence had told them. Something about Pru saying it should be known what they had in Norbury and would have in the future when he inherited.”

Kyle kept his attention on the rag and the soap. He listened for sounds from above, from the chamber where Pru and Harold slept. He guessed Pru had kept her silence about that day for a long time. Years maybe. He thought he knew what she had finally confided in Ellie and a few others, and why.

He felt less tired now. Food and washing the day off had given him back some energy. The bath’s heat had served like a long sleep.

Anger revitalized him too. Anger at his own ignorance all these years. A convenient ignorance. If he had known the truth he doubted he could have seen the earl’s gifts as anything other than bribery for silence.

Rose got up. “It is very late. You will have another hard day tomorrow. You should get some sleep now.”

She padded over to the hearth. The flames sent hot light through her nightdress, revealing the shape of her body in an alluring silhouette. He watched the swells of her bottom and breasts move while she picked up a large towel warming on the hearthstone.

She carried the towel back to him. He stood and dried himself. She watched, much as she had watched last night while she sat in that bed so determined to have a conversation that could have been avoided for a lifetime.

Her gaze drifted lower. “It appears that you are recovered from the day’s exertions. Rather decidedly.” She reached out and lightly stroked the prominent evidence of that. “It is amazing what some ale and food will do. I trust that you can walk up the stairs?”