Trial by Desire

by Courtney Milan

  He was as good as his word—which was to say, when he met her coming down the stairs, he handed her a thick clay mug filled with tea, and then gestured for her to follow him out of the front doors, which had been thrown wide. His hand fit warmly into the small of her back.

  Outside, mist clung to the trees that lined the road, sifting hanks of white wool out over the world. It stifled all sound. Kate inhaled; her lungs filled with cool air.

  “There. You see?”

  “It’s a misty morning.”

  “Sensible Kate.” He tucked her hand into the crook of his elbow. “It’s far more than that.”

  He set off at a slow pace, and she followed. “There.” He pointed with his free arm up into a tree as they walked under it. She looked up into a mess of leaves and branches. In the quiet, windless morning, the limbs of the tree stood still; she could see clear through them into the blue of the sky.

  “There. In the crook formed by those top branches. It’s a nest. At this point, the fledglings have all grown up and flown away. The parents, perhaps, might still be around, although it’s rather late in the year for that.”

  She blinked up at the little structure of twigs. “How did you ever see that through all this fog?”

  “Oh, I’ve walked this way before. I spotted it several days before.” He shrugged and they kept walking.

  A little while later, he paused and pointed out a red-breasted bird on a faraway oak. It pecked the tree trunk smartly once, twice and then flew away. A little bit farther, and he flipped a rock over and showed her the creepy things underneath.

  Kate shuddered and looked away. “Centipedes? Ned, did you wake me up to show me centipedes?”

  “It’s all part of an autumn morning. This early, humanity—we people with our speech and the noise of our industry—we’re holding our breath and giving nature a chance. Flip over any rock,” he said with a smile, “and no matter how lovely the bird that was perched on top, you’ll find a bug underneath. During summer, the world is warm. But that warmth is just a moment at apogee. The rest of the time, we’re all just hurtling toward winter. It’s not pretty, but it’s real. And in some ways, it’s a bit more fun.”

  “Is this supposed to be some sort of oblique commentary on last night?”

  He cast her a sidelong glance. “Maybe.”

  Kate’s feet were beginning to ache in her half boots. They had been walking for close to an hour, and they were approaching the small village in the valley near Berkswift. “What a depressing way of looking at the world.”

  Ned shrugged, but she felt his arm stiffen under hers. “It’s not depressing. That’s the way things work. Seasons come and go. There’s a certain beauty to that, too. During summer, you see, we humans are not so different from the birds or the squirrels. We store up foodstuffs so that we’ll make it through the cold. The birds eat up every last crawling thing they can find, in preparation for a great flight south. We all find our ways to prepare for winter.” He didn’t look at her as he spoke.

  Kate shook her head in confusion. “And this is what you wanted me to see?” She had the feeling that something was passing her by, something great and momentous. She didn’t understand, and she could no longer blame her muzzy head on a lack of coffee.

  “I know. This explanation has been a bit elliptical. I’m a bit too fanciful this morning.”

  “Dragons are never killed, only tamed to do your bidding. You tend toward the fantastical in your speech no matter the time of day.”

  He shrugged again and lapsed into silence. It was in silence they walked through the main thoroughfare of the village. It was not a wealthy place, but neither was it beaten down by poverty. The little touches—the marigolds growing in a riotous mass in a box, the woodwork on the outside beams of the carpenter’s shop—suggested that this was a place that was well-loved. Ned, likely, had taken in those details instantly. But it seemed as if this were the first time Kate was noticing them. “It is a beautiful morning,” she said as they passed the inn. The door was open several inches; inside, she could hear the rumbling voice of the innkeeper, ordering his lackeys to wrangle someone’s luggage and ready some room for the coming day. Aside from those gruff orders, the silence held. Perhaps, later this morning, the taproom would come alive with noise. Now, maybe one or two people breakfasted inside. They might glance outside and see Kate and Ned pass through, arm in arm, in companionable silence.

  She wondered what they would make of the sight. Would they see a happily married couple, strolling arm in arm?

  Would they be wrong?

  “I hope I haven’t given offense. I intended no insult. In truth…” She looked up at him. “In truth, I think you’re good for me in that way. You’re fanciful without ever crossing the line into foolishness. I can be…practical.” She swallowed and stared straight ahead.

  This was the want she’d held deep inside her, suspended all those years. This rush of vulnerability. She wanted to be swept away. She wanted to be safe.

  She wanted to shut her eyes and let her hopes carry her, like the rising floodwaters coming from some torrential downpour. She wanted to believe that if she ever did falter, he would be there to catch her. She wanted to tell him about Louisa.

  And she didn’t know if it was her own hopes she trusted in, or the real strength of her husband.

  “I can be as practical as I must about our marriage,” Kate finished. “But Ned…I don’t want to be.”

  He stopped and looked down at her. “And here I was thinking I couldn’t be any luckier. I was strolling about on a fine morning, with the loveliest woman in all of England on my arm. I was positive everyone about me would be overcome with jealousy at my good fortune.” He fitted his hand to her cheek. His touch was cool, for an instant, before her skin heated his palm.

  “Ned. We’re in full view of the taproom. We can’t see through the darkened windows doesn’t mean they can’t see us—”

  “Hang the taproom,” he said, “and indulge my fancy.” And then he leaned down and kissed her. It was a very public kiss—discreet enough to only be one shade darker than was proper. His lips touched hers for a bare instant. Still, he laid claim to her in public. Her toes curled in her half boots; her feet stopped aching.

  And when he pulled away, he looked at her without smiling. “Hang practicality,” he told her.

  “Ned,” Kate said carefully, as they resumed their walk, “would you dare throw me out of your room two nights in a row?”

  They passed the inn before he answered. “No,” he finally said, his voice low. “No. I don’t believe I would.”

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  THE MUCH-ANTICIPATED EVENING approached with all the weight of a coach-and-four. Still, to Kate’s mind, it moved forward at the speed of an incoming snail.

  After they returned from their walk, Ned retired to the library to review some papers that had been sent up from London; Kate took the time to talk with the housekeeper and the bailiff about some of the tenant farms. In the afternoon, Ned left to spend time with Champion.

  What Ned hadn’t done was search for Louisa, as he’d promised Harcroft. Kate pondered this conundrum through the hours that passed.

  Did Ned know more than he’d admitted? Had he gathered from Kate’s reticence that she wished Harcroft’s venture ill? And would he truly choose her over his friend? She almost believed he would—and yet she couldn’t quite banish that last flutter of fear from her belly. Maybe after this evening, she would trust him enough to speak. After she’d cunsulted with Louisa on the morrow.

  Time crawled, and Kate struggled to fill it, with the awareness that evening was hours and hours away. She found herself walking the halls, pacing between the parlor and the entry. On her fifth pass back, her wandering was interrupted.

  “Ah. Lady Kathleen. There you are.” The voice was deep and masculine—but it wasn’t Ned’s. Kate whirled around and gasped in surprise.

  Harcroft was standing in front of her. He blocked the hallway, his arms fol
ded cavalierly. He seemed like some sort of sinister angel, with all that blond hair and those bright blue eyes. He tapped his lips and watched her, as keenly as a cat watching a moth flutter against the wall.

  “You know where she is.” It was a flat pronouncement, not a question.

  Kate tamped down the fear that trickled into her belly. He couldn’t know what she knew. If he did, he wouldn’t be here. He’d be five miles from here, out threatening his own wife. But he had to know something, or he’d be halfway to Chelsea by now.

  “Harcroft. What are you doing here? Did you forget something? Has something happened to your carriage? Can I be of service?”

  His lips pressed together, and he looked into Kate’s eyes. A cold shiver of fear ran down her spine. He didn’t look at her with sexual desire; however unclean that might have made her feel, it was an emotion she could have understood. No, she grew cold because he looked at her as if she were not anything at all. For all the clarity in his piercing eyes, for all the sparkling and malevolent intelligence directed toward her, he didn’t see any worth in her. Not an object to be desired, not a person to be reasoned with. Perhaps he saw her as a piece of furniture he might make use of—or break, if she failed to suit his needs.

  “She has a young child,” he said. “She needs me. She needs her husband, her family. What she doesn’t need is to be off, gallivanting on some stupid adventure. She needs protection and direction.” He scowled into the distance.

  “Harcroft,” Kate said, “you must know I love your wife as I would a sister. I would never want anything that was bad for her. If she needs you, why would I keep her from you?”

  It was a dangerous tack to sail into, that line of questioning. He let out a breath, and then—she was watching his eyes—his pupils contracted, slowly but surely, until all that malevolent attention focused on Kate. If his lack of attention had made her shiver, that focus froze her to the bone.

  “Yes,” he said quietly. “Why would you keep her from me?”

  He took a step toward her, and Kate flattened herself against the wall.

  “Why would you keep her from her lawful husband?” Harcroft asked. “Why would you think she needed to stay away from me? Do you imagine she has anything to fear from me?”

  He took another step. Kate made to sidle away from him, but he rammed his hand into her shoulder, slamming her into the wall. The force of the blow pushed her against one of the carved cornices that decorated the doorway. The wood embellishment bit into her back. Kate stifled a cry of pain.

  “Because surely, any obedient wife would know she need feel no fear of me right now. That’s what you feel, isn’t it? Fear?” His hand clenched on her shoulder. “Louisa would want for nothing at all, so long as she followed the commands of her husband. Any God-fearing woman would never set a foot outside the path dictated to her by the man she’d made a sacred vow to honor.”

  “Get your hands off me.” Kate set her hands on Harcroft’s chest and pushed, but the man didn’t move. “I don’t know what you’re speaking about.”

  “But then, what would you understand of God-fearing women?” Harcroft pushed close into her. She choked on the angry smell of smoke on his clothing. Taproom smoke. “A God-fearing woman wouldn’t lead her husband astray. When I left Ned this morning, he had promised to start canvassing immediately. Yet not a few hours later, he was traipsing about the village, gazing into your eyes. Why would you distract him from his duty, if you weren’t afraid of what he might uncover?”

  “You’ve lost your senses.” She pitched her voice to carry. Any second now, a footman would hear them. He would intervene, and then Harcroft would have to let her go.

  “Have I? God-fearing women don’t steal other men’s wives away. Do they, Kathleen?”

  Maybe the servants wouldn’t come. But Kate wasn’t the sort to cower and wait. She was tired of feeling scared, of cowering and waiting for help. She grasped the ends of his cravat and twisted, hard. The cloth scraped against her hands. He choked, and pulled his hands away from her involuntarily. He scrabbled at his neck, grabbed the ends of the cloth she’d ripped loose and pulled it off.

  Kate skittered sideways.

  He glared at her. “You goddamned bitch.”

  “I told you to get your hands off me.” Kate’s heart was pounding.

  He raised his arm in threat.

  What she said next wouldn’t matter—not to him, she didn’t think, because a man who would hit a woman didn’t need an excuse. But it mattered to her that she not placate him, that she not give him even that much power over her. She balled her hands. “Get out of my house.”

  His fist flew. She just had time to turn away, to keep from getting the brunt of the blow against her mouth. His hand smashed against her neck as she turned. For one second, she was so numb, so surprised that he’d actually done it, that she didn’t even feel anything. Then she felt the stinging ache of it.

  He grabbed her elbow and tried to pull her around. Kate ground the heel of her shoe into his boot. He yelped—a decidedly unmasculine sound—but wrenched her arm. A shooting pain traveled up her shoulder, and she bit her lip.

  “Where is my wife, Kathleen?”

  His breath felt clammy against her ear, and she shook her head.

  He only yanked her arm again, harder. “I said, where is my wife, Kathleen?”

  Kate pressed her lips together in defiance. There was nothing Harcroft could do to make her divulge that information. Every violent impulse he indulged now he would visit on Louisa a thousandfold if he found her. Harcroft would eventually have to leave her house. But if Kate spoke now, Louisa would be stuck with her husband for the rest of her life, however long—or short—that might be. Kate would not speak. Harcroft pulled harder, and the shooting pain burst into stars.

  “You think you understand,” Harcroft ground out into her ear. “You don’t know anything. I love my wife. You’re completely wrong. I just want to keep her safe.”

  “You should be careful,” Kate said as distinctly as she could manage with her cheek planted against the wall. “I’m a woman. I’m quite delicate, and I think I might faint if you continue.”

  “Some women,” he spat, “have delicate sensibilities. Then there are women like you—false serpents in human form, who tempt real women to go astray. Where in God’s name is my wife?”

  His fingers gripped her arm; Kate could feel his nails press into her skin, cutting through the fabric at her wrist. She took a deep breath and shoved ineffectually at him with her free elbow, but he didn’t move.

  “If I pull back your arm,” he said cruelly, “eventually, it will pop out of its socket. In the process, it will cause you excruciating pain. I should hate to cause pain to anyone.”

  “Even if ‘anyone’ happens to be a serpent in human form?”

  “I am,” he said, “essentially a gentle, unassuming creature.”

  He sounded as if he really meant it. She held her breath and stared at the wall he’d pressed her cheek into. And then she laughed. She laughed even though she knew it would enrage him. She laughed, even though she knew he would follow through on his threat and wrench her arm from its socket.

  She laughed so that Harcroft would know that no matter how hard he hit, or how badly he hurt her, he could not win. That she would not be the weak, sniveling creature who waited on help to arrive, who dithered before obstacles until it was too late.

  And he needed to know that now, because if she scraped and begged before him, sniveling for mercy, he would just visit his wrath upon her all the harder.

  “You aren’t stronger than me,” she said. “Not with all your muscles. No matter how hard you strike me, you aren’t stronger than me. And that must make you furious.”

  His eyes glittered with all the fury she’d anticipated. His hand tightened on her wrist; she rose on her toes as he turned her arm. She kept that smile on her face, flattened against the wall, her eyes clenched tightly shut. She didn’t dare let him see how much he hurt her. />
  And then Harcroft gave a pained cry of his own, and that wrenching pressure on her arm vanished. Kate turned in time to see Ned lift him by the lapels of his coat and slam him against the wall.

  “I told you,” Ned said, his voice gravelly, “I told you to leave my wife alone. But no. You didn’t listen.”

  Harcroft waved his legs furiously in the air, but he was as ineffective as a beetle overturned on the pavement, struggling to right itself. “No, I told you,” he squeaked. The whine of his voice seemed impotent against Ned’s dark anger. “I told you I would find my wife by any means necessary.”

  “Oh, I see how it is,” Ned said in a dark voice. “You’ve driven away the woman you believe you deserve, and so, in the absence of having your own wife to do violence to, you’ve chosen mine.”

  “I—”

  “To think,” Ned continued, “there was a time when I actually respected you. When I first came back to England, I took pity on you. When you told me Louisa was missing, I felt sorrow. I have no idea when or how your wife disappeared. I was out of England, as you know. But as matters stand, if my wife helped Louisa escape you, she has my full, unmitigated support. If I had been here, I would have stolen her away myself.”

  Oh.

  Even with her arm tingling, Kate felt a sudden rush of warmth and safety at those words. He meant them. He did.

  “You can’t mean that. You can’t mean to foster such suborning. It will lead to chaos, if women make decisions—”

  “I should hardly think so,” Ned said. He didn’t seem to be getting tired, holding Harcroft against the wall with one hand, but he gave the man a shake for good measure. “I don’t see the fabric of my life eroding, just because my wife happens to have a brain in her head. In fact, it’s actually one of her most attractive qualities. If you’d allowed your wife to make a few decisions of her own, instead of trying to control her with blows, perhaps you wouldn’t be here.”