“Certainly. You’ve been through a terrible ordeal. Here, let me help you.” Beth rose to her feet and assisted Katrina to hers. Katrina held on to Michael’s letter even as she divested herself of the robe and crawled under the covers.
“Rest well, Katrina. Heal. I will pray for you. A maid will come to sit with you in case you need anything.” With that, the elegant Lady Westcombe sailed from the room, shutting the door behind her silently.
Katrina fell asleep with Michael’s note under her pillow.
~*~
Michael reluctantly left London and found a group of smugglers near Folkestone willing to get him into France for a small fee. Once he made land near Boulogne, he skirted through the countryside like the cat he was known to be, staying hidden, quiet, out of sight of anyone who might be seeking him. He acquired a horse when he could, but found himself making much of the long journey on foot. Fortunately, Jared wasn’t in the South of France for this assignation. He managed to connect up with Captain Jared Allenton outside of Reims to hand off the information.
“Sir Tidley. Well met.” Captain Allendale greeted him warmly as he invited him into a lean-to he had set up.
“You appear well. I have not seen you since Marcus and Josie’s wedding.”
Jared nodded and frowned. “And now I’m an uncle and have yet to meet my niece. Tell me, is Marcus well and happy?”
Michael smiled. “Very much so.”
“Good. It’s nice to know that someone is having a normal life and that my feeble efforts here are providing some peace and security for them.”
Michael nodded. “I possess papers for you to deliver to Sir Wellesley.”
Captain Allendale perused the document and frowned. “This will be valuable to him. I will depart at nightfall to head south to deliver this. Thank you.”
Michael nodded and rose as if to leave.
“Please, Michael, stay and sit. Inform me of what’s happening back home. I receive so little news out here. How did you get this?”
Michael regaled Jared with the tale of how he and Mouse deciphered the code and the appearance of the Black Diamond.
“The Black Diamond. He was behind that initial threat to Henrietta and Josie I believe. Sir Bastion kept murmuring something about that man but we never could determine who he was.”
“Phillip’s bride had a run in with one of his minions too. A diamond was cut into her right shoulder.”
“And now you say Mouse was branded? He’s becoming either more cruel or more desperate. Poor Mouse. She always was a pesky little thing. Has she grown up any?”
“She is still petite, but yes, Jared, she has matured into a lovely young woman.”
“A young woman you perchance have an interest in?”
“I hope to marry her when I return to England.”
“About time, ol’ man. I’m happy for you, and for her. I think she always did have a decided preference for you, even after you let her break her leg.”
“Let her? Did you ever try to stop her from doing what she wanted?”
“No, as the younger brother, I was more interested in making life difficult for Marcus than for my cousin. After all, she was a girl and my sister was often at boarding school or a friend’s home. At that time, I had no interest in the fairer sex.”
Michael laughed. “Neither did I, but she was stuck to me like a burr almost every summer and holiday from university.”
“I remember. I pray you make it back safely. My family cannot know we met.”
“I understand that too well. I will be glad to leave my secret life behind when I return.”
“Good luck with that, and stay safe, Michael. If the Black Diamond is out there, none of us can rest. He is tenacious.”
Michael nodded. Together they shared a simple meal and Michael regaled him with the latest news of the ton before slipping into the evening heading north, while Jared headed south.
As he walked Michael prayed. He longed for his Bible but it had been too much to have it with him on this mission. He kept a small book of psalms and prayers in his breast pocket and he found comfort in reading that during times of rest. Often, he thought of his Mouse and things he wished he could share with her. He smiled, thinking about how life would change for him. Maybe they could purchase a small cottage somewhere to start a family. He could work as a steward, or maybe they could purchase some land he could farm. Or breed horses. He had always loved horses. He would need to talk to her about what she wanted and dreamed of. He smiled. The future was theirs. But first, he must make it home—alive.
~*~
“Katrina, I think it’s time we had a little chat.” Lady Westcome interrupted an unprofitable reverie. Katrina had been plagued by melancholy in the wake of Michael’s defection. Lady Westcombe came to sit beside her on the couch in front of the fireplace in her sitting room.
“We do?” Katrina asked. Nothing moved her. It was as if her heart were frozen.
“We do. I’m not sure where to begin.” Lady Elizabeth Westcombe leaned back and sighed. “I was saddened after they rescued you and I saw the mark on your shoulder. To be perfectly honest, I thought I was going to faint.” Lady Westcombe sat up and reached for Beth’s hand. “I have a similar mark on my right shoulder as well, only mine was carved with a knife. Thankfully, I was unconscious at the time, unlike the terror you experienced.” Tears came to her eyes. “I wondered if Phillip could bear to look at me after that. I felt tainted.” Beth now smiled. “I learned, however, that my husband had greater love for me than my outward appearance. In fact, I think he loved me more because of my wound. I came into the marriage believing I was unlovable due to my past. I was haunted.”
“Why are you telling me this?” Katrina asked.
“Because you mope about in your rooms, refusing to visit your childhood friends, and denying yourself the comfort they would offer. You cling to a letter and wonder, ‘Will he come back to me? Will he still want me?’”
“I’m tired.”
“You’re always tired. And part of that is the healing your body and your heart need to do. But what about your soul, Katrina? Have you considered that you carry some deep wounds there that God longs to heal?”
“I don’t know what you are talking about, Lady Westcombe.”
“Come now, I’m Elizabeth, Lizzy, or Beth. Whichever suits you to call me. We are part of the same ‘family’ so we might as well be comfortable with one another.”
“Thank you, Beth. I think that one suits you best.”
Lady Westcombe smiled. “I’m glad you think so. For years, I was called Lizzy and it didn’t always hold good memories. When Phillip began to call me Beth instead, I was given new life, a fresh beginning. I ended up taking a new last name when I married him, but I got a new first name as well. In the Old Testament God did that often with people he called to himself. Abram became Abraham and Sarai became Sarah, Jacob became Israel, and in the new testament, Saul became Paul.”
“That’s nice, what has that to do with me?”
Beth smiled warmly. “Why do these men all call you Mouse?”
Katrina shrugged. “I have always been so small.” She grinned suddenly. “I did seem to like to take their cheese and other things from them when they weren’t looking. And they said I squeaked when I was excited.”
“Boys. That might have been fine for a little girl, but you are a woman grown. You need to fulfill the destiny of your name, Katrina. Did you know it’s Greek and means ‘pure’?”
“Katrina was my Russian grandmother’s name. I have been Mouse for so long I don’t really even see myself as a Katrina, much less pure.”
“Why?”
“No one ever noticed me. I am a little gray mouse. I can fade into the crowd and no one can see me. Even Michael overlooked me when I left off my spectacles. I’m quiet and can be sneaky. I am Mouse.”
“But what if God wanted to change your name to Katrina.”
Katrina laughed. “God wouldn’t want anything to do with
me.”
“Why? He died for you. I dare say that if Michael had been given the opportunity, he would have endured that brand for you. Jesus died to take the weight and pain of our sin, on his pure and blameless shoulders. He was branded for your sin with whips and nails.”
Katrina shuddered.
“You are tired and have been through a lot. You need to realize that you are not stuck being who you were. That mark on your back does not prevent you from accepting the love and joy that awaits you in the future if you accept it.”
“The only thing waiting for me, Beth, is possibly a position as a companion to Lady Orion or some other woman. To read books to her, sew, live what is left of my days in obscurity.”
Beth’s smile faded. “Is that what you want? In your heart, is that the future you desire?”
“We don’t always get what we long for. My father didn’t. My mother died when I was young. He was devastated. What about Michael? He’s accepted for some unknown act of valor that resulted in him being knighted, but no young lady of the ton will marry a man born on the wrong side of the blanket.”
“Except you.”
“I’m not marrying him.”
“You would if you could.”
“I told him no.”
“Why?”
Katrina sighed. “I don’t want a man to marry me out of a sense of obligation. I long to be wanted. He doesn’t love me. He didn’t all these years that I waited and wished…”
“Men are not always aware of what they need or what they are missing. I think Michael had his own issues obscuring him from seeing you. He needed the glasses of your adventure together to realize what he missed and what he really needed.”
“If that were so, why did he leave? He didn’t even say good-bye.”
“He sent you a letter.”
“It’s not the same as a, a…oh, never mind.” Katrina blushed.
“It’s not the same as a kiss perhaps?”
Katrina pursed her lips.
Beth smiled. “Don’t worry, if you miss his kisses that much, I expect he is missing them even more.” With that, she got up and left her guest alone to think about many things.
~*~
A few days later, Katrina found herself in a carriage once again heading west of London to Lord Remington’s Rose Hill estate. Her father’s name had been exonerated. She silently thanked Lord Hughes for that.
As she watched the scenery pass by, she recalled her moments with Michael and the tenderness and care he’d repeatedly showed her. Even as they’d worked on the code, he’d never belittled her ability to assist in spite of his initial reluctance for her to be involved. His premonition about the dangers was more real than she’d anticipated. She was now permanently marked by the experience and the very thought of that wound being with her always sent shivers of fear up her spine. She’d been so naïve.
Now she felt old. Cast aside and unneeded by anyone. Even Lady Orion didn’t really need her. Lord Hughes initially resisted her quest to help. Michael was gone and she was being shipped off to Rose Hill to heal in obscurity and endure the weight of how alone she really was in the world.
Josie would welcome her warmly, but being there and seeing their child, her second cousin, would only remind her of all she’d never have. A family. A home of her own. But what made her so special that she deserved that? Did many of the servants even have that? Did an accident of birth give her rights others didn’t have?
Her shoulder throbbed and she closed her eyes to rest.
~*~
A letter came two weeks later and found her at Rose Hill. She went to her favorite spot in the garden to be alone to read it.
Dearest Mouse,
Have you recovered from our adventures? I pray you have but worry that you would think that I view you as less beautiful for your injuries. I want to assure you that is not the case. I long to be with you. To see the sparkle in your eyes when you smile at me. I long to touch you and assure myself that you really are whole and well. My task is almost accomplished. I pray I can be home by your side soon. I think about you often and pray for you. I am as well as can be expected.
All my love, now and forever,
Michael
Would he really love her as she wanted? Or when reality hit and they met again would it be like before? With him acting as a big brother and treating her like a little girl instead of a woman? Maybe if she wore the blonde wig when she saw him again? She giggled at the thought and shook her head as she remembered things a maiden shouldn’t even know, much less have experienced. She missed him even more.
~*~
Pure. What would it be like to be pure? Katrina looked out on the beautiful landscape of Rose Hill. Flowers blooming, the sun shining, and the light reflecting off the pond, where Marcus and his friends used to fish. She was sitting beneath that same tree she had broken her leg in. She stared up into the branches to see the dappled sunlight peeking through the new leaves. She listened to the songs of the birds and watched as Fidget wrapped himself in and around her feet over and over again. Memories of her childhood made her cringe. She had followed Michael around pathetically, seeking any crumb of attention he would dole out to her. She liked Marcus, Phillip, and Theo just fine, but for some reason, it was always Michael who occupied her thoughts and who played the hero in her dreams.
In the end, even he couldn’t spare her from the consequences of her choices. Not from her willfulness in climbing this tree or from coming along to his club that night. She shivered at the thought of what might have happened had he gone alone. She might have been spared, but would he have lived? Was the Black Diamond somehow proud of his illegitimate son in some way to have not killed him outright? Had he wanted Michael to escape?
Katrina pulled at the grass and let the pieces fall over her lap. She was healing well. Josie had been gracious about not going back to London until Katrina was ready. Would she ever be ready? She removed her spectacles and rubbed them on her shawl to clean some dirt off of them.
Pure. What would it be like to be emptied of all the darkness? Would Jesus really be a friend to her? Josie encouraged her to read the book of John. Jesus was Light. A good Shepherd. Jesus was so many things. She was lonely. She wanted to die in that warehouse, but hell didn’t seem like a place she would fit into. She didn’t qualify for heaven either.
Kind of like her real life. She didn’t fit in anywhere. Not really here at Rose Hill and not in London amongst the ton. She didn’t even fit in with the servants when she’d served as a companion. She was alone in the world. She only ever felt “home” when she was with Michael—and he had abandoned her.
She was not without some support, but inside, she was alone. Jesus was a compelling person. He had compassion on lonely, broken people. Josie and Beth called her Katrina instead of Mouse and she was getting used to the sound. Was God changing her name? If He changed her name could He change her heart too? Would He welcome her into His home? Even now, would He walk with her through her loneliness and the uncertainty of her future? She leaned her head back and closed her eyes. Prayer. That’s what people called talking to God. So, she would pray, and ask Him all her questions.
14
Michael traveled primarily at night. His feet hurt from blisters and his boots were worn. It was late spring and warmer than it had been a few weeks past in England. His only comforts through the treacherous journey were the words he daily read in the small book, and his conversations with God as he traveled and prayed. He found comfort in thinking about the woman waiting for him.
Home. The closest thing he could think of was Rose Hill. His townhouse was a building and he stored few personal belongings there, but it wasn’t home. He never had the opportunity to stay in one place very long over the past few years. This kept his expenses low, however, and his investments had prospered. He wasn’t as wealthy as his friends, but he possessed a comfortable income to live on, sufficient to support a wife and family in comfort. He grinned at the thought of Mouse as his wif
e. Of waking with her by his side. He imagined her holding a child of theirs in her arms. He’d never thought of becoming a father. But now, he longed to do that—with her. She would keep life lively and far from dull and he would be deeply content moving into the future with her by his side.
He noted the change in the air as he neared the coast and the vessel he hoped would transport him back to his homeland. He never longed to be back on English soil as much as he did now. He ventured toward a farmhouse where he’d sought shelter in years past. He found the old farmer still there but with little to offer due to the deprivations of war. What little food he had to share he more than made up with in his conversation.
“Cat is hunted,” the grizzled man said. His clothes were dirty and torn and his fingernails broken with dirt underneath as he cut up some bread and cheese to share with his guest.
The farmer’s wife came forward with a bowl of soup. No meat due to the lean times but the broth was still enough to make Michael’s mouth water and stomach growl in appreciation.
“Ah, you like?” she asked with a smile that showed missing teeth. Her hair was gray, pulled back in a bun, and covered with a cap.
Michael nodded as he sipped some of the salty warm broth, wiping his chin with his sleeve.
“A trap, huh? Someone’s out hunting cat?” Michael asked softly. “Interesting. One trapper or more?”
“Only one. A foxy one.”
Michael’s eyebrows rose as he continued to sip his soup and yet made eye contact with the farmer. Tristan? Had Tristan somehow survived and followed him to France? Michael chafed at how this might delay him, but he would rather get home late and alive than in a wooden box. Just when he thought he could retire…
“Thank you, Marcel. Your hospitality is always appreciated.” Michael swiped the last of the broth from his mouth and swallowed the mug of water. He came to the kitchen and found a small metal container for coriander, popped it open, and dropped some French coin in there. More than enough to help this couple get through the next month or more if necessary.
Sir Michael's Mayhem Page 14
