by Liz Carlyle
“Not I,” demurred de Macey.
“And no one else means to get up, I daresay,” said Nancy, covering a yawn. “So just us four.”
Her mother lifted a faintly teasing gaze to Kate’s. “Actually, mon chou,” she said, “Mr. Quartermaine has already risen, dined, and gone down to Anstruther’s office.”
Reggie gave a sharp laugh. “Oh, that one won’t darken a church door,” he said. “Depend upon it.”
Aurélie snapped over the page of her paper. “Actually, I believe he means to,” she said. “Katherine, I trust you’ve no objection?”
“Why, nothing would please me more,” she said, smiling at Reggie as she slid past.
As it happened, her mother was right. Edward strode up St. Michael’s north aisle just behind Anstruther, not two minutes before the church doors were closed. To Kate’s delight, he hesitated by the empty spot Nancy had vacated moments earlier in order to join Richard’s mother, whose sister was visiting from Staplegrove. Having laid her prayer book there, Kate was rewarded by Edward’s muted smile when she snatched it up again.
He sat down, his wide shoulders filling the space in a way Nancy’s had not. And though he looked straight ahead without so much as brushing her arm with his, his warmth and his presence comforted Kate.
He was attired today in the tall black boots he’d worn the day of his accident, and looked almost dangerously handsome. Throughout the service, she had to resist the impulse to sneak surreptitious looks at his striking profile, and to wallow in her recollections of the previous night. Her mother was right; there had been very little sleep involved.
Her face flushing with sudden heat, she opened her prayer book to the wrong place, scarcely aware until Edward reached over and flipped back the page. Mortified, Kate snapped it shut again, and forced her gaze toward the altar.
Richard spoke as eloquently as ever, seeming little cowed by Aurélie’s presence. After communion, everyone filed out into the churchyard, then scattered into random knots to pontificate upon that holy trinity of every little English village: the harvest, the weather, and the latest gossip.
Kate turned toward Edward, smiling genially. “Good morning, Mr. Quartermaine,” she said, catching her toe on a clump of grass. “Heavens, this ground is uneven.”
“Lady d’Allenay.” Crooking one eyebrow, he offered his arm.
“Oh, thank you!” she said, taking it. “An inspiring sermon, wasn’t it?” Then she dropped her voice to a whisper. “Just keep me away from Reggie,” she begged. “I want to quell the village gossip.”
He cut an odd glance down at her. “I rather doubt you’ll quell any gossip by hanging upon my arm,” he murmured, “but you’re welcome to try.”
Kate persuaded herself it was the lesser of two evils. Already Reggie was glowering at her, and she had no wish to encourage him. Having been espied by half her neighbors climbing out of Aurélie’s barouche with him this morning was bad enough.
She looked about the churchyard to see that Nancy was, as usual, cozying up to Richard’s mother. Along with Mrs. Burnham’s sister, they had strolled across the street and now stood before the small rectory, their three heads bent in an intense conversation.
Aurélie had been surrounded by a trio of elderly village tabbies who, though they likely disapproved of her, wished nonetheless to exchange a few words so that they might speak of it later in scandalized whispers.
“Mamma and Nancy are going to be a while,” Kate said. “Walk with me through the churchyard, won’t you?”
“If you wish.” But he didn’t look as if he thought it a good idea.
After moving away from the crowd, they spoke little to each other. Whatever his misgivings, Edward seemed content to stroll sedately together through the grass, now gone brittle with the cold.
Soon they were deep in the shadows alongside the church, winding their way around gravestones. Snippets of conversation carried on the sharp air, though they were by no means out of sight of the congregation.
Kate pulled her cloak tight against the chill, and Edward helped her around the base of a stone that tilted precariously on a tree root. “Is all of your family buried here?” he asked.
“Yes, most,” she said. “Some inside, and some out here.”
“Ah, yes. Here is a Wentworth.” He bent forward to scratch off a bit of lichen. “Harold, I believe it says.”
“Yes, Grandpapa’s ne’er-do-well younger brother.”
He straightened up. “The barony has suffered more than a few of those, I take it?”
“Besides my father and my brother?” said Kate. “Yes, more than our share.”
He laid his hand over hers on his coat sleeve for an instant, patted it, then moved on to a weathered marble obelisk some seven feet high.
“Infantry,” he said admiringly. “Gad, the Fiftieth Foot! This must be someone more worthy than the wastrel Harold.”
“It is a memorial to Grandpapa’s cousin James, for whom Papa was named,” said Kate. “He fell at Vimerio, trying to hold the hill against the French. You were in Ceylon, did you say?”
“Yes, mostly.” Edward circled the obelisk, reading its many inscriptions. “So, a lieutenant colonel, your cousin, and much decorated. The Fiftieth fought bravely at Vimerio. They killed two thousand of the French that day, you know.”
“With only a handful of British lost,” said Kate. “Cousin James was too brave for his own good, it was said.”
“Do you Wentworths always go to one extreme or the other? Either saint or sinner?”
Kate smiled. “Yes, Nothing by half measures is practically our motto.”
“Are you quite sure?” Edward winked at her as he circled the monument. “Because I’ve begun to suspect some of the outwardly angelic ones might harbor a secret streak of wickedness.”
“Hmm,” she said, lifting one eyebrow.
Then his face sobered, and he made an expansive gesture. “Do you know, Kate, I rather envy you all this.”
“What?” she said. “A churchyard full of dead ancestors?”
He laid his bare, long-fingered hand along the top of the nearest gravestone and leaned into it, his gaze trailing pensively over row upon row of stones. “Yes, actually,” he finally answered. “I envy you the history of it. The fact that you’re rooted to this place with all its lore and legends. To know your people—to know with a certainty to whom you belong—it is a gift, Kate.”
“It is, and that’s why I’m working so hard to preserve Bellecombe.” Kate cut a sidelong look at the winnowing crowd. “What of your family?” she said on impulse. “Do you know where they are buried?”
He hesitated. “The Earl of Oakley’s line hails from the north,” he said. “I’ve never been there, nor met any of them save Aunt Isabel. And my father died in Brighton last year.”
“What was his name?”
“Hedge,” he finally answered. “Alfred Hedge, a bully and a thug and an outright criminal who, so far as I know, sprung fully formed from Satan’s breast. If the man had family, they disowned him.”
“Good Lord,” she murmured. “So I gather you had no siblings.” And nothing even vaguely akin, she silently added, to an ordinary family life.
“Until I was ten I had my half brother Frederick, who is now Duke of Dunthorpe,” he said. “He is two years my senior.”
“Ah.” Kate kicked herself for not thinking her question through. “Have you any contact with him?”
Edward shook his head. “Not since we were parted,” he said. “He was twelve. It was … difficult. We had been inseparable.”
Kate’s face fell. “He must have been crushed.”
“He cried,” Edward quietly confessed, “whilst the servants packed my things. And Father—Dunthorpe—stropped him for it.”
“He sounds like a bastard,” muttered Kate.
“No,” said Edward wryly “That would be me. That was, after all, the very point of Dunthorpe’s exercise.”
“Edward, don’t,” said Kate, he
r gloved hands fisting. “I dislike hearing you disparage yourself.”
“I believe I’m merely stating facts,” he said blandly.
Kate turned to face him, her hands set on her hips beneath her cloak. “Please don’t take this the wrong way,” she said quietly, “but you do not know the facts, Edward. You know only what your mother told Dunthorpe—and told him in anger, mind.”
“You sound like Aunt Isabel,” he said. “Always wishing to believe the best.”
“I do not wish to believe anything,” said Kate. “It matters not one whit to me if you’re the butcher’s boy. In fact, I might prefer it. Because one thing is certain: The three parents you did have all put their pride before their duty, and that is despicable.”
“I know you mean well, but let it go, Kate.” Edward’s jaw had gone a little rigid. “As to disparagement, Lord Reginald over there looks willing to do the job for me. If that black gaze of his were a scythe, he’d have sliced off my head by now.
“Never mind Reggie,” said Kate impatiently. “Tell me about Aunt Isabel.”
“Isabel?” He looked surprised.
“Is she living? Do you like her? She clearly likes you.”
His smile was muted. “She likes me well enough, yes.”
“What balderdash,” said Kate. “The lady gave you a watch worth a small fortune.”
At last the smile deepened. “And I like her,” he said, “very much. Though I rarely see her.”
“Where does she live?”
“In Belgrave Square.”
“Indeed?” said Kate. “Then why do you see her rarely?”
He hesitated. “It’s complicated.”
“It cannot be that complicated,” said Kate tartly. “She is fond of you. You’re fond of her. And she lives all of, what?—a mile from St. James?”
They had resumed their sedate stroll and had nearly reached the rear boundary of the churchyard. Even Kate, independent though she was, knew better than to disappear from sight of the crowd on the infamous Ned Quartermaine’s arm.
She turned around and noticed Nancy and Richard by the tower door, speaking to each other intently. His expression was dark. Nancy’s hands were both fisted at her sides, arms rigid.
Aurélie, thought Kate grimly, what now?
She wanted to sigh; her mother was nearly unmanageable. At least this visit had been relatively sedate and—until today, perhaps—without drama. Kate forced herself to smile. “You were going to tell me about your aunt?”
Edward shrugged. “I see her privately when I can, but it is awkward,” he said. “The Quartermaine Club is hardly the sort of place one can invite someone like Isabel, Lady Keltonbrooke.”
“Ah, so you live there.” Kate considered it. “But you might buy a house.”
“I might,” he said.
“Or you might simply ask your aunt what she wishes.”
He hesitated for an instant. “She wishes to see more of me,” he admitted. “She is getting on, and she’s childless. Frederick and I are all she has.”
Kate paused to consider it. “Are you afraid of seeing your brother?”
Again, the faint pause before answering. “It would be awkward,” he said. “Beyond that, I should prefer not to ruminate upon the past. Forgive me, Kate, but Anstruther has brought our horses round. I had better return you to your mother.”
Anstruther was indeed looking impatient. “Yes, of course,” she murmured. “I forgot. The two of you are off to Heatherfields.”
By the time they reached the sunny front lawn, the last of the villagers were trailing through the lych-gate. She watched Edward stride down the path after them with his confident, long-legged gait and felt her heart oddly lurch. She really was quite hopelessly in love with him; it seemed not to matter who he was, or what he had done.
He was a good man, and whatever she might think of the way he earned his living, it was something that had been thrust upon him by circumstance—or so she told herself. In all other ways, Edward was everything that a gentleman should be.
In the street beyond, Fendershot was handing Mrs. Peppin up into his dogcart for the drive back to Bellecombe. For a moment, Kate debated wedging herself onto the seat beside Mrs. Peppin so that she might avoid the drive with Reggie. But that was just foolish.
On a sigh, she turned to see that the churchyard was empty save for Aurélie, who stood just inside the porch, picturesquely framed in the ancient stone arch. She was waving good-bye to Anstruther, a waterfall of lace hanging from her sleeve, as Edward flung himself into the big black’s saddle.
“Aurélie, your coachman is waiting,” said Kate as the two men rode away.
Aurélie turned to look at her as if bestirred to the present. “Ah, yes,” she said. “But a moment, if you please, mon chou. I must go back inside and speak to Mr. Burnham.”
Kate arched a disapproving eyebrow. “Whatever for?”
Aurélie flashed her usual coy smile, and yet some inscrutable emotion lay just beneath it. “I was not jesting, mon chou, at breakfast,” she murmured. “I mean to ask our good priest to hear my confession.”
“How can you poke fun at Richard?” Kate chided. “Unlike you and de Macey, his duties are not a joke to him. He’s very devout. Besides, you’re not even Catholic.”
Lightly, she shrugged. “Oui, but I am, perhaps, half a Catholic, on my mother’s side? Besides, cannot a very sinful person confess to their rector and ask forgiveness?”
“No. Well, not as a matter of ecclesiastic obedience.”
“But as a matter of personal absolution?”
Kate had never imagined debating church doctrine with her mother. “Well, it is permitted, yes. One can ask for absolution if one has sinned.”
Aurélie smiled as if her point had been made. “And perhaps I may have sinned once or twice? And now I feel the need to tell the Reverend Mr. Burnham of it—and I wish to do so within the protection of the confessional.”
“There is no actual confessional, Mamma. Honestly, sometimes I think you quite mad.”
Aurélie gave a dismissive toss of her hand. “Ma foi, you are hardly the first to say so,” she returned. “But if the wind will not serve, as they say, one must take to the oars. And if your sister is not at least halfway to the altar before I leave this dull, miserable wilderness, then I am a lesser mother than even rumor would have me.”
“Oh, Aurélie.” Kate just shook her head. “I hope you know what you’re doing.”
“I always know what I am doing.” Aurélie looked at the tiny bejeweled watch that swung from a chain on her reticule. “So, you will meet me here in half an hour, s’il te plaît. And what has become of Nancy and Reggie? Mon Dieu, Katherine, go and find them.”
She was already making a shooing motion with the back of her hand when the massive oaken door swung inward on shrieking hinges and Reggie strode out, his tall beaver hat clasped rigidly in his hands. Dark, hard eyes locked to Kate’s as Aurélie brushed past him, almost unheeded, into the church.
“Mamma requires a moment with Mr. Burnham,” Kate explained, turning to step back into the sun of the churchyard. “I trust you don’t mind waiting?”
When he said nothing, Kate turned to fully face him.
“Actually, Kate,” he said snidely, “I begin to mind waiting a great deal.”
“I beg your pardon?”
“When it comes to you, all I do is wait,” he snapped. “I have been waiting eight years now for you to accept my apology. I have been waiting for days here, in hope you might spare me so much as one heartfelt word. I have made my interests plain, and I have waited—holding my tongue, mind you—and in response you choose to insult me—”
“Heavens, Reggie, have you taken leave of—”
“—to insult me,” he repeated, speaking over her, “by strolling about like some strumpet on that man’s arm. And by God, Kate, I will not have it. It is beneath me to play second fiddle to the likes of Ned Quartermaine. And you’d do well, my dear, to remember it.”
But caution had left him. “I find it beyond the pale, Kate,” he gritted, “that you’d dare be seen on his arm in front of the village. To invite him to Sunday services and parade him about when I have bowed down to you and groveled to you. When the whole bloody parish is holding its collective breath, expecting any day now to hear that—”
“What, to hear the truth about Heatherfields?” Kate coldly interjected. “For that’s the only village gossip with any legitimacy to it, Reggie.”
“How dare you throw a run of bad luck in my face,” he said.
“With very little effort, to be honest,” Kate answered, “for it isn’t a run of bad luck, Reggie, that has ruined you. It is folly, plain and simple. And I trust that no one—yourself included—would ever be fool enough to suggest publicly that you and I might reconcile.”
Reggie’s clenched fists had gone white, his handsome face black with rage. “How dare you,” he said again. “Why, if Stephen were alive, he would put you over his knee for this.”
“Oh, he might try—if he were alive.” Kate’s emotions were rubbing raw. “Which he might be, Reggie, had the two of you not got yourselves rip-roaring drunk and climbed up that bell tower in the dead of night. And if you had not wagered him fifty pounds he could not balance on that bloody ledge.”
Reggie thrust his face into hers. “I didn’t push your damned brother, Kate.”
“You didn’t have to! Your presence—your constant challenging and teasing and taunting—it was always sufficient!” Suddenly, Kate burst into tears. “Reggie, you were older. Stephen looked up to you. How could you not be more careful?”
Reggie seemed unmoved by her crying. “Oh, yes, as usual, it’s all my fault!” he snarled. “Damn it, Kate, I tried to make it right.”
“To make it right?” she cried. “My brother died, Reggie. My whole life changed. This—Bellecombe—all of it—was meant for Stephen. Not for me. There is no making that right.”
“Well, didn’t I offer to marry you? To take those future burdens from your shoulders?”
