The Countess's Groom (7 page)

A clock struck six somewhere in the house, a ponderous sound.

“I should inform you, Mr. Kane, that we dine plainly at Creed Hall,” Strickland announced as the last echo died away. “And for the sake of our digestion, we preserve the strictest silence.”

…

Mattie studied Mr. Kane surreptitiously as she ate. Goliath, Toby had called him, and she understood how he’d come by that name. He was an uncommonly large gentleman, taller than she by a good half foot, and solidly built. He looked like he could carry the weight of a coach-and-four on those broad shoulders.

Mr. Kane had dark hair and a tanned face crossed with pink scars. She knew his age to be thirty. The same age Toby would be if he were alive.

Mattie’s eyes traced the scars scoring across his brow, bisecting an eyebrow, curving down his cheek, and she stopped at his right ear. Most of it was missing. Her gaze dropped to his hands. They bore scars similar to those on his face. Three fingers were missing on his right hand and one on his left.

Had his sword been cut from his hand? Did that account for the missing fingers?

She imagined him weaponless, trying to ward off an attack...

Her rib cage tightened. Mattie looked away from Mr. Kane’s battered hands and forced herself to think of something else. Outside, rain drummed down. A cold wind leaked through the cracks in the window casement. The
clink
of cutlery was loud in the silence, the scrape of a knife across a plate, the tiny clatter of fork tines as her uncle speared a piece of boiled mutton.

What did Mr. Kane think of so silent a meal? Perhaps he was grateful. He didn’t look like a man skilled at small talk, a man who could turn a pretty phrase as easily as he could tie his own shoelaces. He looked like a fighter.

A fighter who’d lost a battle and had almost died.

Her gaze crept back to him. Mr. Kane seemed undismayed by the food.
I’ll have no sauces in my house
, her uncle was fond of announcing.
No spices. Food boiled in plain water is all that one requires
.

Pig swill
, Toby had called it the last time he’d been home, and he’d gone down to the village inn to eat his dinner. And he had smuggled back a roasted chicken and a plum pie for her afterward.

Grief tightened Mattie’s throat. She looked down at her plate and blinked back tears.
I miss you, Toby
.

…

After dinner, the ladies retired to the drawing room. Arthur Strickland poured two small measures of port. Edward sat back and braced himself for more questions about Waterloo.

“When did you return to England?” Strickland asked, sipping his port.

“Last month.”

Strickland glanced at Edward’s ear, his hands. “I hadn’t realized that you were so seriously injured.”

“I wasn’t,” Edward said, not mentioning the broken leg that had kept him immobilized for months. “A friend of mine lost an arm. He contracted fever and almost died. I stayed with him until he was well enough to travel.”

“Gareth Locke,” Strickland said.

Edward nodded and tasted the port. Too sweet.

“Tobias’s friend.”

“Yes.”

The three of them, Gareth and Toby and he, had been inseparable since their first day at school. They’d gone through Harrow and Oxford together, had caroused together, soldiered together, almost died together.

And now we are two.

Edward looked down at his port. The color reminded him of blood
—
and with that thought came another rush of memory. The blood-and-smoke smell of the battlefield, the din of cannons, the soft sobbing of a dying soldier.

Toby hadn’t wept. He’d died instantly. And lain alongside Edward for all of that terrible day...

Edward’s stomach clenched. For a moment he thought he was going to bring his dinner back up. He shook his head, breaking the memory.

“I hear that Locke inherited a baronetcy from his uncle,” Strickland said.

Edward’s stomach settled back into place. “Yes.”

“Lucky man.”

Edward remembered the expression that had been on Gareth’s face when he’d bidden him farewell yesterday. He shook his head again.

“I think he’d have preferred to keep his arm.”
And his sweetheart
.

Not even a baronetcy had been enough to reconcile Miss Swinthorp to marriage with a one-armed man. A brief statement had appeared in the newspapers two days after Gareth’s return to London, announcing the termination of their engagement.

Edward clenched his right hand. Even after five months, a dull twinge of pain accompanied the movement.
Stupid bitch
.

He unclenched his hand and looked at it, at the stumps of three of his fingers, and felt the familiar sense of disbelief, the familiar pang of loss. Would it ever fade? Or would he always mourn his missing fingers?

At least he’d not had a sweetheart to be repulsed by his injuries.

Strickland grunted and then struggled to his feet, leaning on the cane. “Please join us in the drawing room.”

Edward stood. “It would be my pleasure, sir.”

Strickland made his way slowly to the door. Edward followed. They traversed the corridor at a snail’s pace.

“My niece reads to us in the evenings,” Strickland said, stopping outside a paneled door.

“How delightful,” Edward said, remembering her contralto voice. “Poetry?”

“Sermons,” the old man said, opening the door.

Sermons? Edward almost balked.
If you can face Napoleon’s army on a battlefield, you can face an evening of sermons.
He squared his shoulders and followed his host into the drawing room.

Like every other room he’d seen in this house, it was a bleak chamber, paneled in dark wood. The furniture was stiff, the fire too small for the grate. All three ladies had shawls draped around their shoulders. He thought he saw Mrs. Dunn shiver as she bent over her embroidery frame.

Edward chose a mahogany armchair. Despite its apparent sturdiness, the chair creaked beneath his weight. He shifted slightly, trying to make himself more comfortable. The chair creaked more loudly. He took that as a warning and stilled.

Miss Chapple presided over the teapot. “Tea, Mr. Kane?”

“Please.”

The
clink
of china was loud as she placed teacups on saucers and poured for him and her uncle, not because she was clumsy—the movement of her fingers was deft and unhesitating—but because the room was so silent.

“Milk?” she asked. “Sugar?”

Edward shook his head. Milk and sugar were things he’d learned to do without on campaign.

He accepted his cup and sipped. The tea was weak and tepid—but it rid the sweet taste of port from his mouth.

Her duties as hostess done, Miss Chapple stood and took a place to one side of the fireplace, where she didn’t block the meager heat. Edward drained his teacup and cast a longing glance at the door. Could he claim tiredness as an escape?

Not when it was barely half past seven.

He sighed and placed the teacup back in its saucer.

Miss Chapple opened a leather-bound book.

She looked at Edward. “I shall be reading from
Sermons to Young Women
by the Reverend James Fordyce. Are you familiar with the work, Mr. Kane?”

“Er...no.” He sat back in the armchair, making it creak again, and composed his face into an expression of interest.

“Sermon Two,” Miss Chapple said. “On Modesty of Apparel.”

She glanced at Mrs. Dunn briefly, as if some silent message passed between them, and then began to read aloud.

“Let me recall the attention of my female friends to a subject that concerns them highly...”

Edward stopped paying attention. He gazed at the fire and allowed Miss Chapple’s voice to flow over him. She had a surprisingly attractive voice, low and melodic, lulling him toward sleep...

He jerked back to full attention. The clock on the mantelpiece had advanced twenty minutes.

Miss Chapple still read from the book of sermons. “Is not a constant pursuit of trivial ornament an indubitable proof of a trivial mind?”

Edward glanced swiftly around. Had anyone noticed that he’d fallen into a doze?

No.

Lady Marchbank listened with fierce attention, her lips pursed in approval. Arthur Strickland watched his niece, nodding as she read, agreeing with Fordyce.

“Will she that is always looking into her glass be much disposed to look into her character?”

Mrs. Dunn, blond and pretty, was also listening intently, her eyes fixed on Miss Chapple’s face but...

Edward narrowed his eyes. Mrs. Dunn’s lips moved silently, as if she was counting under her breath. He glanced at her hands. Her fingers tapped against her knee as she listened, tiny, almost indiscernible movements.

Was she counting something?

Edward turned his gaze back to Miss Chapple. He scanned her from head to toe. She was extremely plain, her brown hair pulled back severely from her face and her mannishly tall figure garbed in an unflattering gray gown.

Edward eyes lingered on her breasts for a fleeting moment before he wrenched them away.
She’s reading a sermon,
he admonished himself. And she was Toby’s cousin. His favorite cousin.

Edward observed Miss Chapple more thoughtfully. Toby had spoken highly of her. There must be something more to her than was visible at first glance.

He closed his eyes for a brief moment. When he opened them again, the clock hands had advanced another fifteen minutes.

Edward sat up straight, blinking. He uncrossed his legs and crossed them the other way. The armchair uttered a creaking groan.

“The less vanity you betray,” Miss Chapple read, “the more merit we shall always be disposed to allow you.”

He focused his attention on her, trying to guess her age. She was well past girlhood. Somewhere in her twenties, but precisely where was hard to determine. Her skin was as smooth as a girl in her teens.

Edward studied her, trying to see a resemblance to Toby and finding none. Miss Chapple’s hair was an indifferent mid-brown, her nose unremarkable and quite unlike Toby’s jutting beak. An ordinary face, although he thought she might have dimples when she smiled. The only feature of note was her mouth, which was too large for beauty. But a lush mouth could never be a fault in a woman.

Miss Chapple’s figure was as generous as her mouth. She had none of Toby’s leanness. The gray gown was overlarge, as if attempting to hide her abundant curves, and it only succeeded in making her look heavier than she was. Edward found himself glancing at her breasts again and looked abruptly away, fastening his gaze on Mrs. Dunn. Her lips still moved infinitesimally as her fingers tapped against her knee. What was she counting?

He watched Mrs. Dunn’s fingers and listened to Miss Chapple. “...has been thought the most common...”

Mrs. Dunn’s forefinger tapped on her knee.

“...the rankest...”

Another tap.

“...and the most noxious...”

Another tap.

“...weed that grows in the heart of a female...”

Another tap.

Edward suppressed a grin. She was counting the
the
s. He settled back more comfortably in the armchair, ignoring the creak, and turned his attention to Miss Chapple. How much longer could the wretched sermon be? Miss Chapple’s voice was as soporific as a lullaby...

His head dropping forward woke him. The clock told him that
he’d lost another five minutes. Edward glanced around. No one had noticed. He swallowed a yawn and managed not to rub his eyes.

“...that leads the world,” Miss Chapple read, a note of finality in her voice.

She closed the book and glanced at Mrs. Dunn. Her eyebrows quirked a silent question, her lips twitched fractionally, a dimple showed briefly in her right cheek, and then all expression smoothed from her face and she was dull and drab and nondescript once again.

“Excellent,” Strickland said, in his dry, cracked voice. “Excellent. Don’t you agree, Mr. Kane?”

“Yes,” Edward said, his tone heartfelt.

It was indeed excellent that the sermon was over.

…

Mattie wrote by the light of one sputtering tallow candle, huddled in her blanket.
He removed my garters and my stockings swiftly, and then his hands skimmed higher
.

And then what?

She laid down the quill and flicked through the pages of the Countess’s diary, searching for a description of a similar moment. Ah, here was one that would work.
Heat flushed beneath my skin, and a wild eagerness began
to rise in me
.

Mattie dipped the quill in ink and copied the sentence. The hour was approaching midnight, everyone long asleep, but the house was far from silent. Hail battered against the windowpanes, the shutters rattled and banged, and wind whistled down the chimney, stirring the ashes in the grate and making the candle flame flicker.

She closed the diary and continued with her story.
His hands roamed across
my body, and there was
such strength in his touch, such gentleness, that I couldn’t help trusting him. That I, a courtesan, should trust a man, seemed incredible, and that it should be this man, with his fierce pockmarked face and his brutal reputation, seemed even more incredible. But trust him,
I did, and I yielded eagerly to his passion.

Mattie wrote for another hour, until the candle was in danger of guttering, before finally laying down the quill. She looked at the pile of pages with satisfaction. One final chapter, and the manuscript would be ready to send to her publisher.

And then, she’d be paid.

And then, she could leave Creed Hall.

Mattie hugged the blanket tightly around her, shivering, building the dream again. A boardinghouse beside the sea. There would be no dark paneling, no fires that were too small for their grates. The boardinghouse would be bright and cheerful and
warm
.

She yawned and stretched, catching the blanket as it slithered from her shoulders.

“Freedom,” she said aloud, to the rattling, banging, whistling accompaniment of the storm.