by Martha Keyes
She had little patience for his style of care, though, and lost her will to endure any more of it, cutting short his grave ministrations. At his insistence on bleeding her, she drew the line in no uncertain terms.
Offended in the extreme, he seemed to realize that she was impervious to his counsel and ignorant of his fine training. He finally informed her very reluctantly that her ankle was swollen and bruised but not broken, and that it should mend with time and rest.
This sensible diagnosis almost put her back in charity with him. The good was undone, though, as he stalked out of the room, issuing an apocalyptic warning to those who would disregard medical wisdom and experience.
Kate laid her head back on the pillow and sighed, realizing that Lord Ashworth had spoken knowingly when he worried that she would be “crushed with concern.”
12
Once they had parted ways with the rest of the group on the ride home, Henry and Clara slowed their horses to a leisurely walk, directing the servants to proceed ahead of them. Henry watched warily as Clara’s social smile turned into something of a pout. His remarks about the expedition met with only short answers and unmistakable taciturnity.
Henry knew better than to ask Clara the reason behind her mood. His sense of self-preservation was far too great to pursue such an unselfish course, particularly after she had chastised him earlier for his lapse in chivalry toward Kate. He had no desire to be further rebuked and determined that, if Clara wished to speak on the subject again, he would not make it easier by bringing it up himself.
He maintained a steady monologue on any subject he could think of. If he could but occupy the time, Clara would have no chance to bring up the subject she was dwelling on.
But his hopes were futile. Clara broke in unapologetically on one of his stories, complaining again of his disobliging behavior that day.
He was well aware that Clara and his mother expected him to do everything in his power to encourage Lord Ashworth after her. They also expected him to do as much to secure his own interests with Kate.
Secure his family’s interests, more like. Easy to bark such orders when it required nothing of them.
Henry’s friendship with Ashworth was of long standing. That didn’t mean, though, that it wasn’t devilish awkward to suddenly express such an interest in his friend’s affairs, to say nothing of asking Ash to dangle after his sister.
And this whole business with Miss Matcham was the deuce of a situation. Everyone who knew Henry Crofte knew he wasn’t hanging out for a wife. He had a reputation to maintain. If he told any of his friends he was looking to get riveted, they’d have laughed til they cried, just as Fitz had done.
He was humble enough to admit that the part Clara had given him to play was largely his own fault. He had a duty to carry out where his debts were concerned. But that didn’t mean he had to like it. Nor did it mean he couldn’t look for options elsewhere. Options that weren’t so dashed unpleasant.
He had received his mother’s letter summoning him home late one morning as he nursed a nasty headache, the result of a long night of dipping rather too deep with his friends. It wasn’t until he arrived back at Wyndcross that he learned what had prompted the summons: the visitor who had arrived the day prior. In her most stern voice, his mother had told him that he would do well to get in Miss Matcham’s good graces if their family was to come about from their troubles.
He had considered telling his mother of his own plan. She wasn’t prudish, after all. She had made it clear in the past, though, that she had no confidence in Henry’s abilities to come about financially on his own. But if his own plan got the job done, well, no one could complain.
He had agreed to his mother’s plan, knowing that he would never have to follow through with it, if only he could succeed in his own new strategy.
But the tide of blame Clara had been heaping upon him on their way back home from the expedition became too much for him. When he blurted out that he had an alternative plan that would require neither of them to sacrifice themselves upon the altar of marriage, she had looked at him with a mistrusting but hopeful expression and pestered him for more details. He had immediately regretted his words and done his best to make light of it, but Clara had persisted.
“If this plan of yours is successful,” Clara said slowly, “would it truly solve our financial troubles?”
“Devil a bit!” Henry said. “It might solve most of our current troubles, but unless we can spend the blunt less freely—" he raced to continue when he saw Clara begin to expostulate “—myself included—then we’ll be back right where we are.”
He watched his sister and chewed his lip. She looked to be contemplating the merits of his plan. He doubted she would like it if she knew what it entailed. But she clearly had some reason for hoping for his plan to succeed.
“Not so keen on Mama’s plans for you, are you?” he said.
Clara sighed. “I didn’t mind. Truly!” She paused. “Until I met someone in London. I’ve tried to give up thinking of him. But I simply can’t. Mama insists that I will be far more content as the Countess of Purbeck. Perhaps she is right.” She tilted her head. “But perhaps she wouldn’t mind me marrying Mr. Bradbury if we weren’t in such dire need of money? What does this plan of yours entail, anyway?”
Henry chewed his lip. When he responded, he told her as little as possible, but Clara must have been smarter than he gave her credit for. She put two and two together quite easily.
“Smuggling?” Clara’s voice held as much disgust as her face. “You can’t be serious, Henry!”
“Well I am,” he said defensively. “And don’t play the pattern card of propriety to me. I know that your silks and laces ain’t English.”
Clara’s curiosity seemed to overcome her for a moment. “Do you help smuggle fabrics?”
“Fabrics, tea, wine, all of it.” Henry’s half-smile appeared. “Not so opposed to it now, are you?” He well knew his sister’s love of finery and la mode.
His mocking words seemed to remind her of the issue at hand, though.
“Well, yes,” she said, “it is one thing to avail oneself of what is available—it is not my place to interrogate the linen-draper about how her fabrics are had, surely. But it is quite another affair to carry out the smuggling yourself. What will happen if you are discovered? Father couldn’t bear the scandal on top of all the embarrassment we already face. It is very selfish of you.”
His jaw clenched and unclenched. “Well it’s a dashed sight better than this havey-cavey plan of yours and mother’s. You can’t really be serious about bamboozling two perfectly decent people into marrying us and then paying our debts. Even I know that ain’t right, and I ain’t precisely strait-laced!”
Clara’s cheeks flushed. “Bamboozling? What a horrid thing to say! It is no such thing.”
Henry cocked an eyebrow at her. “Are you telling me that Ash knows our family is under the hatches?”
The shade of red on Clara’s cheeks deepened.
“Precisely,” he said. “So, you mean to tell me that it’s a love-match?” he pressed.
She held her head high. “I’m sure it would be no wonder if I were quite in love with him. Any number of ladies are.”
Henry let out a bark of laughter. “In love with his title, I’d say. Admit it, Clara. It is no love-match at all but a simple marriage of convenience—the convenience being entirely on your end.”
“It is quite rich to be receiving a lecture from you of all people,” Clara said waspishly. “The reason both of us are reduced to such a necessity—and a necessity it is—is thanks to you and your horrid gaming.”
Henry’s cravat suddenly felt overly tight as he thought uncomfortably on the new debts he had recently acquired.
Clara looked him, continuing in a more understanding tone, “Never mind, Henry. We shall come about. But there is no need for you to take to smuggling. The law is never kind to such people. Did you not just hear Lord Ashworth telling Lady Anne about
the Clarksons? They are Ashworth tenants, you know. Mr. Clarkson was found to be harboring smuggled goods and is supposed to be hanged. Marriage to Kate is far preferable to such an outcome.”
Henry snorted. “Even if I were to get caught—which I would never—I wouldn’t be hanged, sapskull! In any case, it’s not that I dislike Miss Matcham. She’s a fine sort of girl, but I have no desire to become riveted, Clara. By jove, I’m in my prime!”
“Did Mama tell you what she will inherit?”
Henry shook his head, and Clara’s expression lit up as it did when she was full of news.
“Twenty thousand pounds,” she said, pausing between each word for dramatic effect.
Henry dropped the reins, and his horse lunged forward. After regaining control, he said, “It’s all well and good to have twenty thousand pounds, and I wouldn’t be so reluctant if she didn’t seem like such a devilish decent person.”
“What ever do you mean?” Clara said amid giggles.
Henry cocked his head to the side and squinted his eyes. “Well, I wouldn’t feel half bad duping her if she was one of them arrogant chits, so full of herself and her fortune that she looks like she’s always got some nasty scent plaguing her nose. But Miss Matcham doesn’t seem to plume herself on her inheritance or let it affect how she treats anyone. And that’s not the type of person to hoodwink into paying the family’s debts, is it?”
Clara looked thoughtful. “I quite see what you mean.”
Silence fell between them until Clara blurted out, “But don’t you think you could come to love her? Then it wouldn’t be so wrong, would it? Mightn’t you try, Henry?” Seeing him open his mouth to expostulate, she hurried on, “You can keep on with your smuggling, though I can’t like the idea, but please don’t give up on Kate yet.”
His agreement lacked enthusiasm, but Henry consented to keep the peace.
They continued on their way home, Henry still determined that his plan should win out.
13
“Shh!”
It was impossible to know who was shushing whom in the complete darkness of the stables. William reached backward, and the man behind him placed another barrel in his hands. William grunted as he hoisted it onto the growing pile inside the tack room. His arms hung limp at his sides as he awaited the next barrel, taking in a large breath, full of the scent of hay and sweat. In the darkness, his senses seemed to be heightened.
“What in the blazes is in these?” he wheezed as he took another barrel. “A ton of lead?”
The man behind him in the line chuckled breathlessly. He was short and stout and had a belly with that unmistakable shape unique to a frequent drinker. “The men are sayin’ it’s gold! Headed to Boney’s army.”
William’s brows shot up. “How many more barrels are there?”
“Just a few, I reckon,” the man panted.
William pushed his tricorne hat more snugly onto his head. “Won’t the stable servants find it all when they come in the morning?”
The man shook his head as he reached for another barrel. He grunted as he handed it to William. “The servants ‘ave been given orders that only the groom is to go in the tack room. On pain of dismissal, I ‘eard. Til the shipment’s gone, o’ course.”
William set the barrel down and rerolled one of his sleeves. The exertion of handling the barrels accentuated the veins in his forearms, and he could feel his shirt sticking to the sweat on his chest and back.
“Roberts'll be standing guard,” the man continued. “‘E’s one of the Preventives who’s in Emmerson’s pocket. Reckon you knew that. But no one’ll come or go without ‘e knows it. Mr. Crofte o’ the manor —” he indicated the house with a jerk of his head “—reckons we’ll ‘ave no trouble at all, though. ‘E’s not ‘elping tonight on account of not wanting to raise any suspicions. But if ye ask me, ‘e’s just lazy like all the other high and mighty lords.”
William looked toward the manor. With not a single light in the stable, the windows of Wyndcross glowed particularly bright.
“Last one,” called out one of the men down the line.
William put his arms out to receive the barrel and placed it on the ground. He rubbed his hands together to free them of loose dirt. One of the men handed him a canvas, and William threw it over the tall stack of barrels, rearranging the corners to better cover the edges.
He leaned against the wall and brushed the sweat off his brow with his forearm.
“Yates, is it?” the short, stocky man asked.
“That’s right,” said William.
“My name’s Briggs.” He stuck out his hand, and Lord Ashworth shook it. “Roberts reckons you’ll be plenty useful to us. Says you know the lay of the land hereabouts better than anyone.”
William nodded. “I’ve made it my business to know every bit of the coastline from Osmington to Swanage.”
“Glad to have ye, then,” Briggs said. “Lord knows we’ll need all the luck we can get.”
He doffed his hat to William and then walked off.
Fifteen minutes later, William did a quick unsaddling and brushing of Lancelot before entering Ashworth Place through a side door. He hopped deftly up the staircase to his bedroom where his valet waited. Spires said nothing as he exchanged the wet cloth he held for the tricorne hat and muddied boots his master had been wearing.
William looked in the mirror as he wiped the dry sweat off his face. He caught eyes with Spires. “Don’t look at me like that, Spires,” he said, shaking his head. “It won’t be like this forever. But I must do what’s necessary for the estate.” He seemed to seek reassurance for himself just as much as for his valet.
“I wouldn’t presume to instruct you on your affairs, your lordship.”
William chuckled as he pulled on his shoes and stood. “Not verbally, you wouldn’t. But your face says it all.”
“It’s only that I worry for you, my lord.”
William pulled at the ends of his sleeves, chewing his lip. “So do I, Spires. So do I.”
14
Kate attempted to stand on her injured ankle and was scolded by Lindley for her pains. It was unstable and tender enough to prevent her from attempting it a second time. Lindley applied a poultice to the ankle, wrapping it gently and telling Kate in her sternest voice not to disturb the wrap for two hours.
Kate hid a smile, remembering all the times Lindley had tended to her injuries over the years. She was more like an aunt than a maid, in many ways.
Kate wanted anything but to be cooped up inside all day again, but she resigned herself to another day of reading indoors. She could almost smell the fresh air and feel the breeze on her face as she stared wistfully out the window. Feeling herself to be a burden, though, she didn’t wish to add to the weight her current needs placed on her hosts. So, she sighed and settled into the settee.
It was just after noon, and she sat in the library with a book in hand and a look of disgust on her face. Lindley had given her three books that morning, each of which she had attempted to begin but had not been able to abide more than twenty pages of. Lindley was indispensable to her, but she could not help feeling that her maid’s taste in books was lacking, tending far too heavily toward silly romances.
Closing the third book with a smack, she set it down on top of the others in frustration. She looked at the window but, knowing it was fruitless to wish herself outdoors, moved her eyes to the bookshelves that surrounded her. Surely there must be a book somewhere in the library that wouldn’t bore or disgust her.
She spotted a title that intrigued her and mentally planned how she could arrive at the shelf in question using the available furniture as support. Carefully raising herself from the seat, she began hopping toward her destination, steadying herself on each piece of furniture she passed. She made it to the shelf without incident.
The book, however, was located on a shelf just out of her reach. Dismayed but not defeated, she hopped as high as she could and grabbed for the book. The book dislodged from its pla
ce, but another hop would be necessary to pull it from the shelf.
She gave one more hop, grabbing the book binding, and pulling it off the shelf. The few surrounding books came toppling off as well, smacking the arms she used to cover her head.
At that odd moment, the butler opened the door to announce Lady Anne and Lord Ashworth. Lowering her arms and looking at the door in consternation, she saw the siblings standing in the doorway, eyes wide at the scene before them. Once Lord Ashworth had taken stock of the situation, he rushed over to Kate and gave her his arm for support, helping her back to the settee.
“Did you manage to get the book you had hoped for?” he asked politely, his voice trembling with suppressed laughter as he guided her into her seat.
“William,” scolded Lady Anne, wearing a scandalized expression. “You should be asking her whether she is hurt, not teasing her.” She glared at her brother and then smiled at Kate. “Are you all right, Miss Matcham?”
Kate laughed. “Thank you, Lady Anne. The only thing injured is my pride.”
Lord Ashworth’s eyes twinkled.
Kate was conscious of a sense of relief as she glanced at him. He had come to check on her as he had said he would, and he seemed to be acting no differently than before their unexpected conversation in the wagon the day before. She felt annoyed as she noticed warmth steal into her cheeks at the memory.
“How is your ankle?” inquired Lady Anne.
