by Merry Farmer
Chapter 15
Katya could only keep to her room for a few days before her absence from the activities of the house looked more like sulking than recovery. Barely speaking to anyone and sleeping twice as much as she usually did managed to bring actual improvement to her lungs, but her heart remained broken and her spirits shattered.
Her period of seclusion gave her the time to pick apart everything Malcolm said to her—not just during their brief battle in her bedroom, but over the course of their lives. He was angry that she hadn’t told him about Natalia. He still believed she was a faithless harlot who kept a stable of lovers. Her refusal to marry him wounded him. None of that was a revelation. But a new complaint had entered his list during their fight, one she’d never heard before. He’d implied that the grand love story she’d always believed he’d had with Tessa hadn’t been as perfect after all.
Days later, she was still mulling the revelation over as she sat in the window seat of her room, looking out at the yard as her children and Cece played badminton on a hastily-constructed court. Malcolm was nowhere in sight, but just because Katya didn’t see him didn’t mean he wasn’t there. She could hear the whiny voice of Gerald Campbell coming from somewhere nearby, and chances were, he wasn’t talking to himself or a servant.
“They’re both tasty little morsels,” Gerry was saying. “Surely someone has taken a bite out of those apples.”
Katya’s gut clenched. She had half a mind to throw something out the window. The only thing that stopped her was the faintest hint of a growl. Malcolm was definitely down there somewhere.
“All right, all right,” Gerry said. Katya could imagine his puffy face flapping in surprise that Malcolm had been offended by the comment. “My only point was that they’ve had a scandalous upbringing, or so my chum down in London tells me. Outspoken little chits they are.” Gerry broke into a laugh. “You should have heard what old Boffo Lewis-Phipps said about the way the older one behaved at the theater last month. And she’s not even out yet.”
Katya pushed herself to stand, her hands shaking with rage. Insults against her were one thing, but anyone cowardly enough to insult her daughters for having the strength to display personality in public was beyond the pale. It was also the final sign that she’d spent too long licking her own wounds. There were more important things to do than mope about, counting her losses.
She dressed as quickly as she could without a maid’s help, though she left her hair in a thick braid down her back instead of pinning it up. Once she was presentable enough, she marched down through the house and out onto the lawn where the badminton game was progressing.
“…and with the long-standing association between you and her mother, it wouldn’t be unheard of for me to have a go.” Gerry was still talking as Katya stormed toward him.
Gerry and Malcolm sat in folding chairs near the wall of the house, enjoying the scant warmth of a patch of sun. Malcolm had his arms crossed and an odd look that was a mixture of misery and resignation. His eyes were fixed on the badminton match, and by all outward appearances, he wasn’t listening to Gerry at all. Gerry, on the other hand, had somehow managed to rest one ankle on his massive thigh. He leaned back in his chair with an oblivious smile. How the chair didn’t splinter into matchsticks under his weight was a mystery.
The moment Katya stormed into view, however, both men sat up. Malcolm was so startled that he failed to hide a flash of hope in his eyes. Color splashed his cheeks, and for a heartbeat Katya thought he was going to smile.
The moment passed, and Malcolm hunched back into his chair.
“The Gorgon emerges at last,” he muttered, focusing on the badminton game once more.
Katya tried her best not to be hurt by his words, but the usual sense of teasing and banter that had always existed between them was gone.
“I have been sitting up there in my window,” she said, glaring at Gerry and ignoring Malcolm, “listening to everything you’ve been saying.”
“Oh.” Gerry’s face took on a mottled blotch of color. “What did you hear?”
“How dare you insult my daughters with your disgusting innuendo,” she charged on, in no mood for niceties. “Do you know how old they are? How dare you make such lascivious comments about mere girls.”
“I…I wasn’t saying anything…I didn’t….” Gerry gulped like a fish on dry land in his feeble attempt to defend himself.
“And you should have defended them.” Katya turned her frustration on Malcolm. He was the root of the anger and hopelessness writhing inside of her anyhow.
“Me?” Malcolm glanced incredulously at her. “You want me to defend them? When all you’ve ever done is gone on and on about how independent you are and how independent you want them to be? Are you certain you don’t want them to defend themselves?”
The only thing that stopped Katya from stomping her foot—or smacking Malcolm into next week—was Gerry clumsily blurting, “He did defend them. I’ll have those scorch marks for weeks.”
Malcolm tightened his crossed arms and stared straight forward, blushing even harder—though whether from modesty or fury, it was hard to tell.
Katya pinched her mouth shut, balling her hands into fists at her sides. There were so many things she wanted to say to Malcolm, so many ways she wanted to yell at him and shake sense into him. He was behaving like a petulant child, and nothing she did could shake him out of it. If he would just talk to her, she was certain they could untangle the knot that had become of their hearts. At the same time, she was utterly unwilling to bow down to him and be the first to speak.
“Lady Stanhope, you look distressed,” Gerry said, pushing himself to stand. The chair cracked ominously. “Allow me to escort you around the property so that I can make my apologies.”
“I don’t know if that will be necessary,” Katya said, her narrowed eyes fixed on Malcolm.
“I insist,” Gerry went on, crossing in front of Malcolm and stopping exactly at the point where he blocked Malcolm’s view of the game. “I never meant to imply anything untoward about your lovely daughters,” Gerry went on. “In fact, if truth be told, my tastes are more, shall we say, vintage.” He wiggled his eyebrows at her.
Katya let out an impatient breath. “No thank you, Gerry. I’m not interested. At all.”
She crossed in back of Malcolm, intent on determining if the chair Gerry had vacated was structurally sound enough for her to sit.
“Why not?” Malcolm asked, glowering as he leaned to one side to peer around Gerry at the game. “It must be days since you’ve had a man between your thighs. Aren’t you afraid you’ll get the delirium tremens from going without?”
If Katya had been close enough, she would have picked up Gerry’s chair and smashed it over Malcolm’s head. Instead, she used her recovered voice to shout, “Enough. I have had enough of your adolescent jealousy and your insults.”
Malcolm flinched in surprise hard enough to nearly fall out of his chair. He blinked up at her, but Katya wasn’t about to engage him in any more verbal jousts.
She marched away from him toward the badminton game—which had slowed down to a rate that hinted the children were aware of her presence and of her interaction with Malcolm.
“Mama, how nice of you to join us at last,” Bianca said with a bright smile, immediately abandoning the game to approach her.
Katya was through with games and niceties. “Put those racquets away and go to your rooms to pack your things,” she demanded. “We’re going home. All of us,” she finished, staring at Rupert in particular.
Immediately, the four young people burst into a flurry of protest.
“But Mama, we can’t,” Bianca insisted, on the edge of whining.
“I’ve only just gotten to know more of where I come from,” Natalia argued.
“I’m concerned for your health, Mama,” Rupert said, his argument more rational on the surface, but equally as pleading as his sisters’.
“Surely whatever has been made wrong can
be corrected,” Cece said, perhaps the most distressed of all. “Isn’t that true, Papa?”
Katya whirled around to find Malcolm marching toward her, his face like a thundercloud.
“No,” he shouted. But before Katya could get her hopes up, he charged on with, “I won’t have you children meddling in the affairs of grown-ups anymore. If Lady Stanhope wants to leave, then let her.”
Instead of feeling justified by Malcolm’s statement, Katya’s heart ached as though he’d stabbed it. “I am finished with insults,” she said, more for Malcolm than her children. “I didn’t want to come here in the first place, and I certainly don’t deserve to be called a gorgon and a harlot by you of all people.”
“Papa, did you call Lady Stanhope those things?” Cece asked in shock.
“He did,” Gerry said from the edges of the confrontation, a foolish grin on his face. “I heard him. Bloody impolite, if you ask me.”
Katya ignored him. She ignored everyone but Malcolm. “You’ve built this image of me in your mind that is not only false, it’s despicable. And then you cry in your pillow because I don’t return your love the way you want me to, by lying at your feet and allowing you to walk all over me. I won’t have it anymore.”
She waited for Malcolm to say something, to contradict the picture she’d just painted of him, but he was silent. At least, he didn’t speak. The bright red flush that painted his cheeks and the wounded fury in his eyes said far more than words could. He clenched his hands into fists at his sides, not out of anger, Katya guessed, but to stop himself from visibly shaking with pent-up emotion. Whatever sympathy she was inclined to feel for his emotional struggle was squashed by his failure to do the very least he could do and tell her that she was wrong.
When she’d waited long enough, she turned back to Rupert and said, “Pack your things. I’m sure we can take a train from Glasgow tonight.”
“But the dance,” Natalia protested.
“The tenants are having a dance,” Bianca echoed. “We can’t miss that.”
“Surely you can work this out,” Cece said, near tears.
“We can’t travel now,” Rupert added.
The four of them spoke over top of each other as they brought up every excuse they could think of.
“Fine,” Katya barked at last, holding up her hands. “You lot can stay, but I am returning to London. Shayles’s trial is at the end of the month anyhow, and I’m certain there’s a mountain of work to prepare for that, with or without you,” she added, glaring at Malcolm.
A prickling silence hung over the lawn as she finished. All eyes turned to Malcolm, waiting.
After what felt like an eternity, Malcolm finally whispered, “Fine. Do as you wish.”
Fists still clenched, he turned and stormed off.
Tears stung at the back of Katya’s eyes. How had things become so broken between them? As little as a fortnight ago, she had been happy with the assumption that they would be an intimate part of each other’s lives until they both died. How had it all gone so horribly wrong in such a short time?
Blinking to fight back her tears, Katya turned to her children. “Come with me or not as you see fit,” she said, praying they would take the hoarseness in her voice as a lingering symptom of her problems after the fire. “I can’t stay here.”
Her heart seemed to swell to the point of bursting with her final words. She couldn’t face her children anymore, couldn’t face their sorrow or their innocence. She turned and walked away, unsure where she would go…in every way.
“Lady Stanhope, let me walk with you,” Gerry said, jogging after her. “I promise I won’t try anything. But you shouldn’t be alone right now.”
Katya didn’t reply. She let Gerry walk beside her, but she didn’t take his arm. She needed him there to stop her from bursting into tears. If she had nothing else, at least she still had her pride.
Rupert watched his mother walk away with a churning sensation in his stomach and a weight around his heart like nothing he’d ever experienced before. His mother was a goddess in his eyes and it was damnably upsetting to see her in so much pain. Part of him rebelled at the idea that she was human after all, but the truth of her humanity was staring him in the face. He’d never felt his age as keenly as he did at seeing his mother in obvious distress.
“We can’t just stand here and do nothing,” Cece said, putting words to all of the confusing emotion running through him.
“It’s just so sad.” Natalia burst into tears. “They love each other so much and they’re being so horrible to each other.”
“They do love each other,” Bianca insisted. “Why can’t they see it?”
“I don’t think it’s a matter of them not seeing it,” Rupert said, speaking slowly at first as his inexperienced mind tried to grapple with reality. “But something happened between them. Something that’s left both of them hurt.”
“What is it?” Natalia sobbed, sniffing and wiping her nose on her sleeve. “Make it stop.”
Rupert rubbed his chin, wracking his brain. “I’m not sure we can make it stop,” he said. “Whatever it is, they need to be the ones to stop it.”
“I agree,” Cece said, turning her large, blue eyes on him. “But what can we do?”
“We can’t know what to do unless we know what’s wrong,” Rupert said, frowning and twirling his badminton racquet in his hands. “I know for a fact that Mama and Lord Malcolm were on the very best of terms the night before Cece’s presentation.”
“How do you know that?” Natalia asked, batting her wet lashes innocently.
Heat rose up Rupert’s neck. “Let’s just say I’m certain and leave it at that.”
A mysterious grin spread across Cece’s face. “I have that same certainty,” she admitted. “From about a week earlier.”
Bianca suddenly caught on, her cheeks turning pink. “I see.”
“What? What do you see?” Natalia asked, visibly impatient at being left out.
Rupert ignored her to ask, “What happened between then and now that has the two of them ready to either mount opposing armies or sail away and never see each other again.”
“It’s obvious, isn’t it?” Cece asked. “Your mother failed to tell my father that Natalia was his daughter.”
“Don’t blame Mama for this.” Bianca flashed to the defensive, glaring at Cece in a way that looked frighteningly like Katya.
“I’m not,” Cece insisted. “I think I understand her reasons. What I don’t understand is everything else. It’s rather as though Natalia’s paternity was the spark that set off a pile of kindling.”
“I agree,” Rupert said, feeling fonder of Cece than ever.
“Mama and Lord Malcolm have known each other since before Natalia was born,” Bianca said, crossing her arms and frowning in thought. “They’ve had a long, long time to build up grievances against each other.”
“But if they hate each other so much, why are they in love?” Natalia asked.
Rupert couldn’t help but grin at the way she phrased it.
“Why has your mother refused my father’s proposal of marriage?” Cece asked. “I know he’s asked her several times.”
A thought hit Rupert that sent a shiver through him. “Can you imagine what might have happened—or not happened—between us if Mama had accepted him years ago?” he asked Cece.
Cece gasped, touching her fingers to her open mouth. “Do you suppose she knew we would…like each other as soon as we met and that she has refused Papa all these years to make things easier for us?”
“Perhaps,” Rupert said, though he and Cece had only met a year and a half ago at Starcross Castle. He’d been drawn to her in an instant, though. Had his mother been surprised or had she predicted there would be a spark? “There’s more going on than we know about,” he concluded with a sigh.
“We need to know,” Bianca said definitively.
“I’m not sure we need to know,” Cece said. “But they certainly need to talk things through.”
“But how are they going to talk when Mama is intent on going home and Lord Malcolm is being such a stick-in-the-mud?” Bianca asked, growing angry herself.
“We have to force them to talk,” Natalia said, tilting her chin up. “Even if we have to kidnap them and tie them to chairs facing each other.”
Rupert started to laugh at the image his sister painted, but stopped. He drew in a breath as an idea began to form. “You may be right,” he said, running his free hand through his hair.
“What, about kidnapping and tying people to chairs?” Bianca snorted incredulously.
“About forcing them to talk somehow,” Rupert said. “Which they would have to do if they were stuck somewhere for a length of time.”
“Are you proposing we trap them alone together somehow?” Cece asked, her eyes flashing with excitement.
“That’s exactly what I’m proposing,” Rupert said. “I’m not sure how we would do it, though.”
“We have to act fast,” Bianca said. “Mama will try to leave tonight.”
“Do you think the two of you can find a way to get her to delay until tomorrow morning?” Rupert asked his sisters.
Bianca and Natalia exchanged a look before answering in unison, “Yes.”
“And I think I might have an idea of how we can not only get them alone, but trap them away from here so that they’re without distractions,” Cece added.
“Really?” Rupert glanced to her with a burst of pride. His mother was dead set against him marrying Cece while they were both so young, but he would have dropped to one knee right then and there if he hadn’t had so many other things to deal with first.
Cece’s whole face continued to shine with inspiration. “I think I know a way that we can lure both Papa and your mother away from Strathaven Glen and to a neutral location. I think we can get them to leave here with urgency and work together on something. And I might be able to call in a favor with my nanny, Mrs. Elkins, which will enable us to trap them in such a way that they’ll be forced to talk.”
“Your nanny?” Natalia shook her head in confusion. “What does she have to do with anything?”
