In Love With a Wicked Man

by Liz Carlyle

  Edward threw up both hands. “Then it seems your decisions are made, my dear,” he said. “I’m sorry I kissed you. This … thing we have, Kate—this fragile friendship—I oughtn’t have risked it for the sake of something so trifling.”

  Her smile was muted, but the warmth had left her eyes. “You’re just bored here, and thwarted—as any man of ambition and energy would be.” She pushed her chair a little away from the desk, and flicked a glance at an ancient bracket clock that stood on the mantelpiece. “As for me, I’m sorry to say I must leave you now. I’m promised to Anstruther.”

  “Ah. More sheep?”

  Kate smiled, but it no longer reached her eyes. “No, we’ve some mining operations on the other side of Dulverton,” she said, snatching a worn leather saddlebag from the floor. “We’re heading that way now.”

  “Coal?” he asked.

  “No, we have coal interests nearer to Bath,” she said, “but this is just a small silver mine.”

  “You don’t look happy about going,” he said. “Or is it me? Please, Kate. Tell me I haven’t made you unhappy. I should rather anything, I think, than that.”

  “How silly you are, Edward.” She stood and began stuffing files and ledgers into the bag. “It’s just that … well, I understand farming. Sheep. Corn. The turn of the seasons. But mining? I loathe it.”

  “Do you? Then sell it.”

  “Tempting, but unwise.” Kate latched the buckle of her bag. “Fully half Bellecombe’s revenue is derived from nonagrarian assets. Now the superintendent wishes to discuss a new business proposal, and I’ll understand about half of what he says. No, it is not you, Edward, trust me.”

  Edward hoped she spoke the truth. “It’s no easy business, being Baroness d’Allenay, is it?” he said with a smile. “Well. I mustn’t keep you from it any longer.”

  After securing her brown top hat and drawing the light veil over her face, Kate snared her crop in her empty hand, and stepped briskly toward the courtyard. “Oh, there was one other thing,” she said, turning back. “I might be late tonight. But since Fitch has given you permission to be out of bed, I hope you’ll dine with us tomorrow evening?”

  “Thank you.” Edward exhaled slowly, and with a good deal of relief. “Nothing would give me more pleasure.”

  “Excellent,” she said with a formal tilt of her head. “I shall ask Anstruther to join us. You will like him.”

  Edward watched her make her way across the courtyard, her heels clicking briskly on the cobbles and the long skirts of her habit neatly caught up along with the saddlebag, as if she did it often. Kate’s figure was trim and straight as a duchess’s as she strode beneath the first portcullis, then turn into the outer bailey, vanishing from sight.

  And suddenly, he wanted to go after her. Go after her and say … what? Good Lord, he wasn’t even sure what she’d offered him. Just another kiss?

  Whatever it had been, his rebuff, however lightly made, had almost certainly driven a stake through its heart. Just as it had been meant to do. And yet Edward had actually followed her halfway to the portcullis before he stopped himself.

  What madness it would be to follow her! He didn’t even know his own name, for pity’s sake. Nothing had changed. Suddenly he heard the clatter of horseshoes on the cobbles. Kate’s bay mare came trotting out at a brisk clip then turned smoothly onto the long bridge that led from the castle.

  She was followed out by a tall, unfamiliar man on a great beast of a horse, a gray that soon edged alongside the mare.

  Kate sat her mount elegantly, her posture as perfect as her command of the creature beneath her. Neither she nor the man on the gray so much as turned to look at him standing in the shadows of the gatehouse, frozen like some lovelorn schoolboy gazing after her.

  But he was not a schoolboy. He certainly was not lovelorn.

  And yet as he stood there watching Kate and her horse vanish from his sight, Edward was struck with the certainty that he’d just made a terrible mistake; perhaps the greatest of his life.

  But then, how could he know?

  He was nothing. His life—and his mistakes—were invisible. He could not know his future when he hardly knew his past. He did not know his own name, for God’s sake. Could not even add simple numbers—perhaps not even think straight. And for the first time since his accident, Edward wanted to rail at the heavens in anger.

  CHAPTER 7

  Beautiful Music

  Kate prepared for dinner the following evening with more care than she wished to admit, even to herself. Mrs. Peppin sat in her usual spot by the hearth in Kate’s private parlor, her feet up on a small stool, knitting as she watched Kate pull out her dinner gowns in turn, then shove them back into the wardrobe again.

  “The claret-colored satin,” the housekeeper finally said, her needles busily clicking. “ ’Tis simple, miss, but it does become you.”

  “All my gowns are simple,” Kate muttered, yanking out the claret to study it.

  Peppie set her basket aside. “Aye, and by whose choice?”

  Kate shot her a chagrinned look, and hung the gown on the door hook. “Mine,” she acknowledged, fluffing out the skirt. “I was never meant to be a peacock, Peppie.”

  “Nor a wallflower, miss,” Peppie advised, rising and going to the bellpull. “And Hetty needs to press out that skirt. Even a peacock looks poor when wrinkled, and you’ve a handsome man to dinner tonight.”

  Kate felt her eyes widen. “Peppie, for pity’s sake,” she chided. “It is just Edward.”

  “Aye, just Edward,” Peppie agreed. “Still, ’tis one thing to observe a man when he’s laid up an invalid, and another thing altogether when he’s up and around, striding about like some Roman statue come to life.”

  Kate shot her a chiding glance, and came fully into the parlor. “He’s limping, not striding,” she corrected. “Besides, Peppie, we don’t know anything about him.”

  She could have been talking to herself, Kate realized. Indeed, she should have been. Good heavens, she had tried to flirt with him yesterday! And if Edward’s response to her veiled suggestion had not brought her crashing back to earth like Icarus on wings of wax, perhaps Peppie’s blunt tongue could get the job done.

  The truth was, like John Anstruther, Mrs. Peppin had been more of a parent to Kate and Nancy than their own had been. Peppie had a right to speak—and no one could dash cold water on foolishness with more aplomb than she.

  And yet she didn’t quite do that. Instead her wrinkled face fell a little. “Aye, you’re right,” she said. “Still, it has been a pleasure to have a gentleman stirring about again—and a handsome one, at that.”

  “Yes,” said Kate a little darkly. “I just keep wishing he’d wear his spectacles round the house. Maybe it would be a little off-putting?”

  Peppie chortled. “Oh, miss, ’twill take more than a pair of spectacles to tarnish the brass on that man,” she said. “I thought Miss Nan might have her head turned, but not a bit of it.”

  “I fear it isn’t Nancy we need to worry about,” said Kate grimly. “I find him entirely too diverting. At least he’s starting to remember bits and pieces.”

  “Aye, and one day—or so Fitch claims—his memory will come flooding back, and we’ll be shut of him,” said the housekeeper on a sigh. “But for my part, I’ll be a little sorry.”

  Kate would not, she told herself. She would be glad. Glad to return to her ordinary life, and to be rid of the fantasies that had begun to torment her. She kept telling herself that, too, even as Hetty pressed her gown, and Peppie persuaded her to braid her hair up into a high coronet on the back of her head.

  “There!” said Peppie, securing it with a comb of intricate gilt filigree that had been her grandmother’s. “The spit and image of the late Lady d’Allenay, you are. ’Tis no wonder, miss, you were His Lordship’s favorite.”

  The arrangement did become her, Kate admitted, turning to look at it sidelong in her mirror. The fan-shaped comb was set with a spray of garnets that c
aught the light, and somehow gave the arrangement not just elegance, but a sort of queenly grace.

  “Was I Grandpapa’s favorite, Peppie?” she asked a little wistfully.

  “Lawks, yes, miss!” Peppie bent to fluff her skirt around her crinoline. “Oh, he loved Mr. Stephen dear. But Lord d’Allenay knew all along that you’d be best for Bellecombe. He died a good death knowing it would be yours.”

  “I’d like to prove him right,” Kate muttered, “but it is hard. I declare I did not understand half of what was said about that mine yesterday.”

  “What mine?” said a dry voice from the door. “Heavens, Kate! Aren’t you togged out to the nines!”

  Kate turned to see Nancy standing on the threshold that separated her bedchamber from the parlor.

  “I’m wearing a five-year-old gown you’ve seen a hundred times,” said Kate evenly. “If that’s the nines, then I’ve a Parisian revue shoved in my wardrobe.”

  Nancy had crossed her arms over her chest in a gesture Kate knew well. “But you’re wearing Grandmamma’s garnet comb,” she said accusingly, “and now you’re putting on her matching earbobs that dangle halfway to your collarbones.”

  “Yes, and you’re wearing her emerald and diamond choker,” Kate pointed out, speaking over her shoulder as she fastened the last earbob. “Would you care to trade? I can have these off in a trice, I do assure you.”

  “Emeralds for garnets?” said Nancy dismissively. “I think not. But you are getting dressed up for Edward. We both know it.”

  “I certainly am not,” Kate lied.

  “You are,” Nancy challenged, “and why it is acceptable for you to flirt with a man who, for all we know, is a highwayman, whilst I cannot marry one whom we know to be a saint, I’m sure I don’t know.”

  “Miss Nan!” Peppie put her hands on her hips. “Let’s have none of that, now.”

  “None of what?” said Nancy innocently.

  “If your sister finally feels like dressing up a bit and entertaining a guest, we should all be happy for her,” said Peppie. “Mr. Edward is a gentleman. And your sister has little enough pleasure as is.”

  But Kate had turned from the mirror, seizing her red and gold shawl as she went. “Edward may well be an outright rogue, I’ll grant you,” she said airily, “but I’m not remotely interested in him. Moreover, I’m ten years your senior, Nancy, and have seen a little of the world.”

  “A precious little,” her sister grumbled. “I should write to Uncle Upshaw to tell him you’re harboring a mysterious man beneath our roof and that something must be done about it.”

  Kate turned and smiled brightly. “Do you know, Nan, you’re too late,” she said. “I’ve already done precisely that. Now come along, do. We are keeping Anstruther and Edward waiting.”

  EDWARD FOUND JOHN Anstruther drifting about the drawing room with a glass of whisky in hand, and recognized him at once as the man on the gray horse. The burly, bewhiskered Scotsman stood on no ceremony, introducing himself at once, and pulling the stopper on the decanter to pour Edward a drink as if he were very much at home.

  “Devil of a shame, sir, aboot your tumble,” the steward remarked, passing the glass. “You must be champing at the bit to get on wi’ your business.”

  “That’s the thing,” Edward mused. “I don’t know. I don’t feel a great sense of urgency. But I do feel an inconvenience here.”

  “Not a bit of it! The ladies don’t think it a moment,” said Anstruther giving him a hearty thump on the shoulder. He then began to regale Edward with a tale of a schoolmate who’d suffered a similar fate at university.

  “Fell drunk oot an east windae at Old College,” said Anstruther, “ontae a gaggle o’ first years. Lucky thing, for the lads broke the fall. But his head hit the pavement anyway. Poor devil didn’t ken his own name for a bloody fortnight.”

  “And then what happened?”

  Anstruther’s wide brow furrowed. “I dinna recall how,” he said, cutting a glance at the open door, “but it came back all of a rush. But there—we must na’ speak of it before the ladies. ’Twas too much like poor Mr. Stephen.”

  For an instant, Edward didn’t follow. “Ah, yes,” he said. “Miss Wentworth mentioned her brother died after a fall, but not how it happened.”

  “Och, he went off on one of those continental larks with his boon companion, Lord Reginald,” said Anstruther, “the drunken lout.”

  “Lord Reginald?”

  “Aye, the lout.” Anstruther jerked his head in the general direction of northwest. “Ah, but I’m talking out o’ turn. The ladies have a soft spot for him still, I daresay.”

  “But you don’t, I collect.” Edward grinned.

  A look of misgiving sketched across the steward’s face. “He was youngest son o’ the Marquess of Yelton, and fair full of himself,” he complained. “Lady Yelton’s mither was raised just t’other side of the hill, and the lad was his granny’s wee princeling. And no guid did that auld woman do us when she died.”

  “Oh? In what way?”

  Anstruther’s ample muttonchops trembled as he shook his head. “Left that dunderheid the hoose and three tenant farms to piss away,” he muttered, one eye on the door. “Not my place to say, mind, but I niver thought him a good influence on Mr. Stephen.”

  “Young men, it seems to me, are eternally in search of a bad influence,” said Edward dryly.

  “Aye, weel, Mr. Stephen was’na wicked, just spoilt. So he went off to Tuscany on a lark wi’ Lord Reginald, climbed up some bell tower aff his head wi’ drink, and somehow fell oot it. Lost worse than his memory, too.”

  Edward looked at his borrowed stick. “I gather Mr. Wentworth couldn’t get around very well after his accident.”

  Anstruther shook his head again. “Niver walked again, really,” he said, “though he was helped to hobble about a wee bit. But a man lies quiet like that too long, and he’s done for. Pneumonia will seize hold of his lungs every time. You may have come a cropper, sir, but you’re up and about, praise God.”

  Just then, Edward caught the sound of ladies’ footsteps coming swiftly down the stairs. Anstruther shot him a warning look, tipped his whisky, then drained it.

  “Anstruther!” said Miss Wentworth, sweeping gracefully into the room to kiss his cheek, “how handsome you look out of your boots and surtout.”

  The Scotsman colored a little, and worked a finger under his cravat. “I’m trussed up like a Christmas goose, Miss Nan,” he said. “Och, ye’ve got your granny’s necklace on! How I do miss that crabbit auld lady.”

  They fell then into a discussion of the previous Lady d’Allenay’s virtues, which—her crabbiness notwithstanding—were apparently myriad.

  “It means crotchety,” Kate murmured, eyeing him over the sherry she was pouring. “And she wasn’t, really. Just pragmatic.”

  With a muted smile, Edward lifted his whisky. “Well, then,” he said, tipping his glass to hers, “here’s to pragmatic women. I find them charming.”

  To Edward’s delight, Anstruther allowed himself to be engaged in conversation by Miss Wentworth on the opposite side of the room for some minutes, the two of them chattering like a pair of jays, and leaving Edward alone with Kate.

  She looked remarkably beautiful tonight, he realized, in a full-skirted gown of deep red velvet, split and cut away to reveal an underskirt of ecru-colored satin. The snug bodice was pleated to either side, and cut so low across her shoulders it just skimmed her breasts before plunging. But the neckline was more suggestive than titillating, for a chemisette of ecru lace lent it discretion.

  She wore no necklace to break the creamy expanse of bare shoulders and had removed the ring she usually wore, he noticed. Her only jewelry was a pair of elaborate gold earrings shaped like long, thin leaves set with graduated red gems and a filigree comb, set like a little crown atop an arrangement of braids. Edward had no strong grasp of female fashions, but he recognized elegance and simplicity when he saw it.

  She returned from pressi
ng a glass of sherry into her sister’s hand. “I see Anstruther’s let you at his whisky,” she remarked.

  “Ah, his whisky, is it?”

  Kate wrinkled her nose. “I can rarely drink it,” she said. “But I keep it for him, so that we can occasionally entice him into the house.”

  “You make him sound like a stray dog.” Edward shot her a grin.

  “Hardly,” said Kate. “He has the whole of South Farm to himself. That has a large manor house, so he’s quite snug.”

  “Has he been with you long?”

  “Oh, nearly since I was born,” said Kate. “He was Grandmamma’s godson, you know, and they were very close. Grandpapa hired him.”

  “And you trust him?” asked Edward lightly. “He is a good business manager?”

  “Anstruther is like family,” said Kate. “Heavens, when Papa was alive, Anstruther was the only person who could talk sense to him. Grandpapa, for all his wisdom, doted on his only child too well. Yes, I trust him—as do all our tenants. Even Mamma adores him, though she teases him unmercifully for his dour ways.”

  “His duties must be vast.”

  “Frightfully,” said Kate. “He stewards the estate, helps with our mining interests, and goes to London at least once a month to deal with all our business and banking there. He knows how much I dislike Town.”

  Her words agreed precisely with what Edward’s instincts told him about the man’s character.

  “Speaking of mining,” he said, “how did the two of you find your meeting yesterday? Was it as dreadful as you feared?”

  She managed a thin smile. “No, but I left our superintendent disappointed,” she confessed. “He wishes to sink a new shaft in the spring.”

  “What did you tell him?”

  “That we could afford it, perhaps,” she said pensively. “But what we cannot afford is to expand into Cornwall, where he has his eye on a potential tin mine.”

  “Tin is a steady business,” Edward remarked.

  “Tin is subject to undercutting by competition in the Far East, or used to be.” She shook her head. “No. I think it too risky a venture. Perhaps, if I understood it better … but I do not. And I haven’t the time to learn, sadly.”